Last noob question re fighters (hopefully)

[EUS]

If outfitting fighter bay, is hiring a NPC a requirement even if I want to pilot the fighter?

 

[Clumsywordsmith]

Nope, but your ship won't fight without crew -- it'll just follow you obediently around.

 

[EUS]

So outfitting turrets on mothership wouldn't help in that scenario.

 

[Clumsywordsmith]

No, wouldn't help you. Only commands you can give are 'hold position' and 'follow me'. Combat commands are greyed out. But the crew are pretty cheap and easy to get, so why not just hire one? You can always fire them right after if you want to avoid paying for the upkeep. The expert NPCs are pretty decent at keeping my Conda on target, though they do constantly steal a lot of your money...

 

[S~P]

Nope, you need a pilot to control your ship. Don't be cheap, get a pilot!

 

[EUS]

Just trying to figure out the mechanics. Keeping a lot of discovery data on hold, need to know when and if to hire/fire NPCs.

 

[Clumsywordsmith]

Fire them right before you hand the data in and you should be good to go.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Hire and fire is totally the way to go at the moment if doing anything of value (community goal payouts, exploration etc).

The only advantage of keeping crew is the connection if you find one you like and the ranking one up from harmless to Elite. There may be a huge benefit to having 3 Elite crew-members ready for when 2.3 comes if it (as some suspect) allows NPC crew-members.