NPC crews are feeling a little pointless.

[Radioactive Grass]

#1 They can't man the Railjack's artillery, which means you are still going to have to stop flying your ship and having fun in order run to the artillery or slingshot to destroy the crew ships yourself.

#2 If I'm inside a ship killer platform/station and I destroy my objective, when the objective you are supposed to destroy using the Railjack appears, your crew doesn't fire at it, which means you will still have to go back and forth from the railjack to the station in order to complete the objective.

These where literally the only problems I hoped that the addition of NPC crews would solve.

[Deathspider12]

#1 better npc dont use it, since they would waste ammo on crewships with shield on
#2 yeah i hope too they would kill objectives :/ they attack some turrets miles away but dont attack some big glowing core, lol...

[Draykoss]

crew do use the guns though, you have to TELL them to do that, press L to pull up the tactical menu and tell them where to go.

[Radioactive Grass]

Originally posted by Draykoss:

crew do use the guns though, you have to TELL them to do that, press L to pull up the tactical menu and tell them where to go.

But they dont use the artillery, one of the only two ways to kill a crewship

[Just Life]

Originally posted by Grizzmoe:

Originally posted by Draykoss:

crew do use the guns though, you have to TELL them to do that, press L to pull up the tactical menu and tell them where to go.

But they dont use the artillery, one of the only two ways to kill a crewship

Honestly I think that is for the best. You have limited ammo and the AI in Warframe aren't very smart. it isn't much of an issue to stop and hop onto the main cannon yourself.

[Huillam]

It isn't much of an issue to hop into the sling shot and destroy the crewship from inside either but that's not the point.
Instead of not having crew members that do not fire the artillery because they're not here, we now have crew members that don't fire the artillery because maybe they'd be bad (instead they're useless which is bad).
By the way the AI in warframe is pretty good at aiming (and was nerfed a few months ago because it was way too good).

Crew members were needed for exactly two things: helping with crew ships and shooting down objectives while we were inside a structure. They fail at doing both.

[AEP8FlyBoy]

"Crew members were needed for exactly two things: helping with crew ships and shooting down objectives while we were inside a structure. They fail at doing both."

Yeah, if you're solo and you spent a good minute or so blowing up a crewship's shields, the crewship will more than likely fly out of your line of sight before you get a chance to get onto the artillery and down it. Would be nice if the gunnery part of the A.I. crew allowed them to also man artillery and aim / fire at a crewship that is vulnerable. But I don't believe that they can operate artillery at all.

[broken condom]

can crew repair things automatically?

[norker77]

Pilot I find useless af, even detrimental at times (trying to kill a crewship with forward artillery while you have crew pilot = nightmare)
Gunners are okay, too bad they don't prioritize ramsleds or torpedos.
Engineers are good, at least for now. Railjacks have become squishy again after this update (maybe will change once one gets better plating). They're useless at what I'd expected them to do (Forge), but are faster at repairing then oneself would be considering you'd have to constanty be making revolite.
Defense is pretty meh, at T1 and T2 they have no issue dealing with boarding parties, at T3 you have to revive them a lot.

Kuva Liches...
Yeah, as defense they're pretty OP, but that's the only thing they can do.

[Nijuu]

The thing is, if the AI crew could do everything what would the point be?.

[Flamboyant]

Main thing is they can keep ur ship alive in any circumstances ( i use 1 defender and 2 engies), even under heavy pressure i can easily just go out there board the enemy ship and dont worry about mine, and that's both thumbs up from me

[o-o-o-Tekno-Musang-o-o-o]

Current best choice for crew I fount - 2 gunners, 1 on repair.
Awesome firepower which at most (depends on the gun) taking down whole crewship HP (grineer at least) on any range between me getting from the wheel and sitting into FA's chair. Both level 5 gunnery.
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Engineer - I did Pluto with MK0 hull, just leaving railjeff behind for most of time, had around 12 major hull breaches - all repaired by level 5 repair NPC (I dont know how much repair skill actually affects it) in 20-30 seconds each, so be ready for delay BUT it will be repaired.
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So I recommend or two level 5 gunners and one level 5 engineer which also have high level in defence and vitality, if you can get 5 in each of 3 - thats best npc you ever saw.
In other words - engineer will be same defender till they running around whole ship which makes "defender" role obsolete.
About gunners - MK3 Vidar Pulsars side turrets - I just sitting in pilot's sit watching how fighters fall one by one. Gotta check every relatively powerfull cannon, but something tells me that you want HITSCAN (Pulsars/photors/new lazer hitscan machinegun which is result of love of pulsar and cancinnox while photor were recording it on camera), till shot leading most probably as written as piloting.
As alternative - 1 gunner, 1 engineer and lich. (Havent really tested how usefull NPCs during boarding so I cant say)
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And NPC pilot as it suspected totaly useless.

[o-o-o-Tekno-Musang-o-o-o]

Originally posted by norker77:

Gunners are okay, too bad they don't prioritize ramsleds or torpedos.
.

Gunners prioritize nearest to you target.

[lobstermadness]

Agree with OP that having to leave the ship then return over and over to blow up enemy crew ships gets old really fast. Really really fast.

I suppose the other option -- to board the crew ships and blow them up internally -- is what DE is intending solo players to do?

[Radioactive Grass]

Originally posted by Nijuu:

The thing is, if the AI crew could do everything what would the point be?.

It's not exactly doing everything for me, it's only taking care of one enemy type so that way I can resume flying my ship and having some fun, the whole draw to railjack.

[Radioactive Grass]

Originally posted by lobstermadness:

Agree with OP that having to leave the ship then return over and over to blow up enemy crew ships gets old really fast. Really really fast.

I suppose the other option -- to board the crew ships and blow them up internally -- is what DE is intending solo players to do?

Exactly, they claimed that the NPC crews where to help solo players, but they dont do the two primary things solo players needed help with.