So pretty targeting modules are usless to the players, but the NPCs can crap up the players modules all they want... which has discouraged quite a lot of newer players I used to play with who have disappeared from the game.
The NPCs - possibly with the exception of the ATR police - don't subtarget, so if they hit a module it was an accident. This seriously restricts the amount of consequential module damage they can cause - and a small MRP will handle most of the rest. The exception is if they hit you with missiles, which will cause serious module damage without them needing to target.
The majority of modules that the NPCs can hit won't be that much of an inconvenience to a properly configured player ship either - plus player combat ships can have far more shields than the equivalent NPC, so are less likely to take module damage in the first place. NPCs don't fit many shield boosters, and tend to use smaller-than-average SCBs, which means they are open to module damage quite a lot.
The main advantages NPCs have over players are to do with the core modules.
1) Power Plant: NPCs don't get short-term malfunctions above 0%. Not an advantage as such, but they also tend to use lower-grade modules than players, which means that they often have a bit more flexibility on power output. Still, with proper module prioritisation, players should also be able to keep fighting (or running) through malfunctions.
2) Thrusters: NPCs are capable of individual thruster control, so a thruster malfunction above 0% doesn't really harm them. However, FA-off players are also mostly immune - it's not an NPC bonus.
3) Power Distributor / Sensors / Life Support: these are pretty meaningless to attack on either player or NPC, though if you're really patient you can kill an NPC by taking out its Life Support and then hanging around for 5-15 minutes until it explodes.
4) FSD: NPCs won't get charging interrupted by hits on an FSD, whereas players will. But they will still be unable to run when it gets down to 0%, and unlike a player won't realise that they therefore should stop trying to run. I almost always target this module as soon as their shields drop, on the bigger NPCs.
Weapons they
do get malfunctions on in the same sort of level as players, so a bunch of missiles to their hardpoints can be very useful (just don't take out
all their hardpoints if you want them to stick around to be killed) to reduce their firepower.
