Apologies for the TLDR here, but have we discussed whether or not there'll be a "tele-passenger" option? I've got several friends who would love to pop in and see what it's all about before they invest fully in the game. It would be nice if there was some sort of free client where they could simply occupy that 'spare seat' and see what I'm up to - but not be able to affect the ship.
I've seen that there's a demo, but it may not connect to anything, since a player in a demo either doesn't instance into the same game as you, or they can pewpew things up and change the universe.
Any likely demo would probably have to be Arena play. And there's a thread on how to make it better on the discussion main forum too.
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Which this update renders obsolete: You only require one person at the helm. The rest can be literally anywhere in the known galaxy and control your ship functions (or launch a fighter). Yet, NPC crew have to physically be there.
Yes. You. In the seat.
And who says that the NPC is dead? They could have decided "Fudge this" and gone to someone else to work for. At more money, now that they're ranked from working with you. And if they're above Dangerous (I think), they don't appear because they've now signed up to the Pilots Federation, like you, and get a freeewinder and 100% of the profit.
So, nope, it's still absolutely fine.
Stop looking for things to explain why it doesn't. Or start asking yourself how it could work. I've had to do all that for you, and many many MANY others.
Why is it I'm so much more imaginative than all these people???
EDIT: to be clear, the NPC might not have to be there. But they don't want to be stuck in your ship's cockpit seats. Maybe the connection to the SLF can't be daisychained, therefore there would be no way to get that crewmember out to the SLF if they weren't much nearer. And those NPCs would, in the SLF, be just as liable to have a longer ping time (esp. if it had to be rerouted) and network crashes, either of which could happen and strand you without an SLF instantly and without warning.
And then no way to ask them to come back in to your ship, because they were never there to begin with.