As it currently is NPCs are improved in experimental releases but they are still lacking some things that could make them more interesting and slightly reduce micromanagement.
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NPCs spawn should work a bit different than it does now. The most annoying thing is when one of them spawns in the basement and start stealing your stuff. This should never happen. NPCs should spawn only on tiles: field, forest, swamp, road.
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Stats and skills of NPCs are a bit strange. They tend to have low stats and high skills. I think that they should use the same random system the player can use. This should give some traits as well, which would give followers a bit more personality.
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I mentioned how much i dislike random spawns underground. Static spawns should work better. This could allow minibases underground with 1-3 NPCs that don’t have to be friendly! With suggestion 2 you could have mutants stuck in labs (prisoner containment), soldiers in bunkers. All these changes should make exploring more rewarding.
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Add exchange option: right now getting / giving items from / to NPC is really tedious. With high trust you should make it really fast and simple.
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Add ‘drop your held item’ to easily change weapon of your follower.
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Right now NPC looting is yes and no switch. You should be able to tell your people what exactly you want them to loot. This should open a table similar to debug but with some item categories: food, drink, electronics, CBMs, mutagens, guns, ammo, clothes, armor, drugs, plants (flowers, wood). This would work great with sugestion 4. NPCs could actually help you get meaningful loot.
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Add simple looting options like ‘loot ammo for weapon you have’, ‘loot food when total food nutrition is under some value’.
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Command ‘eat nearby food’ to make this way faster.
I believe these changes would make managing NPCs easier and gameplay smoother.