Non-player character

NPCs definition and purpose

A non-player character (NPC) in the Universe is a character not controlled by any player. The non-player characters have their own ships and defenses and can be attacked by players. They have a limited lifespan, see the linked-in, race-specific pages for more details. The primary goal of NPCs is to provide small and mid-level players alternative opportunities to learn how to hunt, to find targets suitable for them to attack, and for them to gain resources to allow them to grow as quickly as possible. The secondary goal is to provide all players with additional targets, thus encouraging more people to remain active in the game.

Determining NPC compositions

Once per day, the game selects a single player at 20 evenly spaced intervals throughout a given universe's RSPs leaderboard. These players roughly represent the players at the following RSPs percentile ranks (95, 90, 85, 80, 75, 70, 65, 60, 55, 50, 45, 40, 35, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5, 0).

For each of those players it then collects information about the ships the player has and stores the build ratio for those ships (20% Artemis class, 15% Hades class, 30% Hades class, etc.). It then collects information about the defenses the player has and stores the build ratio for those defenses. It then collects the player's armor, weapon, and shield levels and averages them together and stores that data.

Spawning process

NPCs spawn hourly at the Universe-wide rate of (30 * Number of Galaxies) per hour. NPCs are allocated to galaxies based on the relative number of planets in each galaxy that have been colonized by active players (players that are not inactive, in vacation mode, or suspended). When an NPC spawns in a galaxy, it will randomly select a planet that has been colonized by an active player, and it will size itself after the colonizing player. If it selects one of your planets and you are in the 99th percentile of players (by RSP), an NPC would spawn in that galaxy, between 0 and 99 systems away from the selected planet. If you are in the 50th percentile, an NPC would spawn in that galaxy, between 0 and 50 systems from the selected planet, etc.

The game uses the current-day player-based ship and defense build ratio information, with some randomizations applied, to determine the composition of each new NPC. If the spawned-off player is at the 97th RSP percentile (for example), the build ratio information for the player representing the 95 - 100 percentile bucket will be used as the base data for determining the NPC's distribution of ships and defenses, by type. The percentage of RSP assigned to defenses is templated with some variation applied at the time of spawning. In general, a larger percentage of the RSP is assigned to defenses the larger the NPC is.

De-spawning warnings

At the top of each hour, a game process runs that identifies each NPC that will de-spawn (disappear) within the next two hours. If an NPC has less than 2 hours of remaining life when it is touched by this process, the NPC will be flagged. Any subsequent Espionage reports will include a notice at the bottom of the report that indicates the NPC is getting ready to leave.

Example 1: An NPC is scheduled to de-spawn at 1258 UTC. When the de-spawn warning process runs at 1000 UTC, the NPC still has more than 2 hours of life. Probes performed before the NPC is touched by the next de-spawn warning process will not trigger a warning message in the espionage report. When the de-spawn warning process runs again at 1100 UTC, the NPC will have less than 2 hours of remaining life. As a result, the NPC will be flagged as becoming ready to leave. Probes performed after this flagging will trigger a de-spawn warning message in the Espionage report.

Example 2: An NPC is scheduled to de-spawn at 1602 UTC. When the de-spawn warning process that ran at 1400 UTC touched this NPC, the NPC still had more than 2 hours of life. As a result, no "ready to leave" flag was set. A player probes the target at 1414 UTC. Seeing no de-spawn warning message, the player erroneously believes the target still has more than 2 hours of life remaining. Accordingly, he launches an attack that is scheduled to hit the target at 1609 UTC (less than 2 hours after his probe time). However, the target de-spawns at 1602 UTC, even though the espionage report created at 1414 UTC included no de-spawning message.

How NPCs appear in the Galaxy page

NPC text in the Galaxy page's "Player" column is shown in shades of red, pink, white, light green, and green. The color that you see for a given NPC depends upon how the assigned RSPs of the NPC compare to your RSPs. The RSPs that are assigned to an NPC are a function of its ships, its defenses, and an RSP contribution from presumptive infrastructure and research. An NPC that is much larger (in terms of RSPs) than you will appear pure red, an NPC with about the same number of RSPs will appear white, and an NPC that is much smaller than you will appear pure green. Intermediate-sized NPCs will appear some shade of red (if they are larger than you) or some shade of green (if they are smaller than you), with the colors deepening from near-white to pure red and pure green as they approach extreme sizes.

NPC characteristics

• An NPC can include all ship types available in the game. So, theoretically, a large NPC could include an undeployed Hephaestus!

• NPC plunderable resources are such that Hydrogen will always account for 20% to 25% of the total resources (when converted to Ore) and Crystal will always account for 30% to 50% of the resources (when converted to Ore).

• NPCs are destroyed after 85% of their resources have been plundered. When this occurs they are removed from the galaxy. NPCs will also be removed from the galaxy if they surpass their lifespan. See the NPC race-specific pages, linked in below, for NPC lifespan information.

• NPCs cannot be attacked using Interplanetary Ballistic Missiles.

• Attacking NPCs results in a debris field, the size of which is based upon the size of the defender's and the attacker's losses.

• DSPs are awarded for attacking an NPC in all Starfleet Commander Universes except for Starfleet Commander Nova, Conquest, the Tournament, and Hired Guns. The number of DSPs is half what would have been awarded if the NPC had been a live player.

Which NPCs you can probe and attack

Any NPC can be probed and attacked by any player.

NPC types and sizes

No table of RSP or resource ranges for NPCs can be generated, because NPC sizes will be dynamically generated based on the players in the game. This means that as players continue to grow, so will the NPCs. Further, if an influx of new players appears, NPCs will skew downward in size, until the new players get larger.

NPCs will be named in game based on the percentile of RSP they would rank on the leaderboard. These ideal percentages are below, but technically an NPC can be any size.

• Krug Abandoned Cruiser: 0
  
• Urcath Abandoned Cruiser: 5
  
• Krug Abandoned Warship: 10
  
• Seekers Abandoned Cruiser: 15
  
• Urcath Abandoned Warship: 20
  
• Seekers Abandoned Warship: 25
  
• Krug Small Enemy Fleet: 30
  
• Urcath Small Enemy Fleet: 35
  
• Seekers Large Abandoned Warship: 40
  
• Krug Enemy Fleet: 45
  
• Urcath Enemy Fleet: 50
  
• Krug Large Enemy Fleet: 55
  
• Seekers Abandoned Leviathan: 60
  
• Urcath Large Enemy Fleet: 65
  
• Krug Floating Colony: 70
  
• Urcath Floating Colony: 75
  
• Seekers Large Abandoned Leviathan: 80
  
• Krug Large Floating Colony: 85
  
• Seekers Abandoned Colossus Platform: 90
  
• Urcath Large Floating Colony: 95
  

The three fictional alien races to which NPCs are assigned are described as follows. See the linked pages for information regarding NPC lifespans.

Krug	A ruthless race of hulking, barbaric warriors whose heritage and culture centers upon combat and brutality. Mercilessly pillaging and assaulting defenseless colonies and stranded fleets, the Krug always approach situations by shooting first and asking questions later. Not much is known about the Krug because those who encounter them rarely live to tell the tale.
Urcath	These vile beings cannot be approached with any form of intelligent negotiation or reason. They must be confronted head on and pushed back with brute force. While lacking any apparent verbal communication abilities, the Urcath display a surprisingly sophisticated level of strategic unity and coordination, creating a vicious and ruthless adversary; a force to be reckoned with.
Seekers	A colossal race of supremely intelligent beings that once acted as a Ruler Class over most other races in the known universe. The Seekers are now known to be extinct, and their existence and history is only hinted at by trace artifacts that float through the universe.