NPC

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Non-player characters (NPCs) are a type of survivor controlled by the game AI. They can provide you with items, missions and support by Chatting with them. NPCs are currently by default disabled, as they used to be buggy and tend to crash the game. This seems to be mostly fixed as of version 0.C (Cooper).

If enabled, one will always spawn in the starting location with you, halfway decently armed, and provide a quest. They will happily destroy windows if anything they can kill comes into view. On the plus side, if asked they may provide useful items or join your character as a bodyguard/companion. Just remember, it makes most people sad when zombies eat people they know.

If turned on, random NPCs can also appear. They can have various different ways of reacting to you, can give quests, mug you, just chat, or even just happily steal any useful items you leave behind, even from your car, since there's no such thing as private property during the apocalypse.

Press C to chat with an NPC, or walk into them to get a larger menu of options, including talk.

NPC capabilities

Not only can your NPC companions shoot, strike, eat, and drink, but they can as well consume drugs, light molotovs, and even throw knives and other such items. For example, if you light a joint, then ask them to hold on to it, they will consume the joint. This goes for any other items in an NPC's inventory that may be consumed at their discretion. This may include taking aspirin when in sufficient pain, or more hard-core drugs when instructed to take so. What warrants an appropriate time to consume them however is unknown to some items (meth, cocaine, crack to name a few).

Interacting with NPCs

Since 0.D (Danny), NPCs have quite a few additional interaction options. Move into them to open a menu of options. Options include:

• Talk
• Swap postions (if friendly @)
• Push away (if friendly @)
• Examine wounds
• Use item on
• Sort Armor
• Attack
• Disarm
• Steal

Faction Camps

Added in 0.E (Ellison) is the ability to build faction camps for you and your NPC followers.

NPC opinions

• @: Likes you as a friend.
• @: Ambivalent about you.
• @: Will try to kill you.

Internal values

Each NPC is different; when generated (spawns), it gets a class, name, possible missions, items, and an opinion. The latter influences how the NPC reacts to your character.

Opinion has 4 elements: trust, fear, anger and value.

• Trust is always good. It shows how much the NPC trusts you.
• Fear is good, unless you overdo it and the NPC starts to flee. The bigger and more scary you are, the higher the fear opinion.
• Anger changes due to dialogue, and determines how angry the NPC is at you.
• Value determines the value NPC has for you. It is a lot more complicated than the other elements and is dependant upon them.

With low trust, no NPC will react positively on you, only reacting with fear or hostility. With low fear, aggressive NPCs will just start shooting, as you seem easy to kill; neutral ones will try to rob you, mug you, or just tell you to get out of their territory. Too high fear will make NPCs run away.

What affects fear and trust

• Carry a big stick: the bigger your wielded weapon, the more fear you generate. Guns are better than melee weapons but guns also reduce trust. There is no hidden weapon system so your Punch dagger counts.
  • This has a lesser effect if the NPC carries a gun.
• Not being armed lowers fear and increases trust.
• Being strong increases fear.
• Flying high: Being under the influence makes you less trustworthy.
• High Stim values lower trust since you look like a rabid mugger on PCP.
• Low Stim values also lower trust, but to a lesser degree.
• Being under heavy Painkillers lower trust.
• Being drunk lowers trust.
• Negative ugliness mutations(such as Pretty, Beautiful and their upgrades) lower fear and increase trust while positive ugliness(Almost every mutation really, but notable are Ugly, Deformed and their upgrades) increase fear and lower trust.
• Sapiovore and Terrifying raise fear.
• Other effects don't do anything to these values yet.
• Each body part below 50% hp makes them fear you less.
• Each their body part below 50% makes them fear you more.
• High fear levels also reduce trust.
• All of the values either apply, or not. So there is nothing like a little bit drunk.

Chatting with NPCs

If an NPC is neutral, you can try to persuade them. Muggers can be persuaded into being neutral, but that takes another round of persuasion. There are several persuasion options listed in the menu, with their percentage chances of success. If an option is red, it can cause them become hostile if you fail badly enough.

• Most voice mutations lower chance of persuasion and lying but increase intimidation chance.
• Facial Distortion mutation increases persuasion, lying and intimidation chances while Voice Remodulator lowers persuasion and lying chances but increases intimidation chances.
  • Bionic-Induced Deformity throws your persuasion chances through the floor but increases intimidation chance, since you look like a Broken cyborg.
• Complying with a demand from an NPC (like dropping a weapon), can make them friendly.
• Persuasion by intimidation causes them dislike you, even when you succeed - which can cause them to not offer certain services, like training, at least for a while. If you try intimidation, be strong, be deformed, and carry a big gun.
• Being friendly causes people to like you more.
• Some persuasion rolls will scale with Speaking, Intelligence, Perception, how pretty you are (mutations can give a bonus or malus on this), having Fey Eyes, Butterfly Wings, Fluffy Tail mutations. Friendly persuasion is hindered when you have the Deformed or Sapiovore mutations, and various negative voice mutations can also have a negative effect.

DROP YOUR WEAPON

It is possible that NPCs encountered may demand you drop your weapon or become hostile when chatted with. It seems safe to immediately pick the weapon back up as of 0.7 (Lindqvist). Hostile NPCs can have any number of reactions to a character's attempts to negotiate, ranging from mugging your character at gunpoint and stealing your cash to being charmed or threatened into joining your ranks, to realizing that they are talking to a horrifying mutant freak and fleeing.

If you kill a non-hostile NPC without having the Psychopath trait, you get a very large Morale penalty for killing one of the other humans that are left, which takes a few days to go away.

An NPC can tell you to drop your weapon even if it isn't well armed itself. It pays to look at the NPC threatening you. Do note that some NPCs shoot first, and don't ask questions.

NONE

NONE. Sometimes an NPC will have a "none" item. Most of the bugs that cause these have been removed. But some might remain. It helps if you report a bug like these.

Exploding brains

When an NPC bugs out and looks like it is acting in a loop (it performs a certain amount of actions with no turn costs in a row) it will be detected by the game and the NPC will be killed with a Buggy McBugist's brain explodes! message. This prevents the game from freezing forever.

Taking control of NPCs after character death

As of the latest experimental versions, it is possible to take control of any NPC followers after the original player character has died, this essentially gives the player an "extra life" for the world, allows the followers to continue the player's legacy, and makes gathering and stashing as much starter gear for the NPC as possible all the more worth it.

History

Historically NPCs in C:DDA have been a buggy mess. They caused crashes, broke save games, carried around activated nukes, none objects. And did a host of stupid things. For a while there was the advice to just turn NPCs off. This has been improved.

As of 0.C (Cooper), NPCs are becoming a "meaningful addition to the game": Some now form the beginnings of an economy system, with certain merchant NPCs showing up from time to time with items for sale or trade. Others hand out increasingly interesting and rewarding quest chains with actual plot arcs, and some dedicate themselves to shooting anything that moves. Which may or may not include you. And, of course, they also allow you to gather a band of human pack mules, human shields, crafting assistants, trainers, experimental test subjects, and potential sources of emotional trauma at your character's beck and call. (Well, sort of: your level of speaking skill, your character's attractiveness, quest completions, and how freaked out the NPC is by your antennae and the scars from that bad bionics installation still all factor into whether you have a loyal companion, a hapless minion held in check by fear, or someone who won't take any orders and just wants to be there when you die so they can steal your shoes.) You can even tell them not to sleep in the road or steal your stuff now!

0.D (Danny) made more improvements to NPCs, one of them being the addition of the NPC interaction menu, and more bugfixes.