[SBW] NPC Squads 0.6.0

Supply points now support squad logistics, player loadouts and respawning. Squads can cross water by boat, plan longer marches and drives around terrain, hear nearby enemies, and report back to their commander. This release also improves combat positioning, vehicle movement and rendering.

Supply and reinforcement

• Supply automatically replenishes friendly and allied NPCs within 8 blocks: ammunition, grenades, medical kits, mortar shells and drones. NPCs return to Supply when ammunition is low and can withdraw there under fire when nearly empty.
• Players can take class kits with a choice of weapon, ammunition, equipment and faction armour. The machine gunner kit includes an RPG and TBG rockets that match its default ammunition type.
• Supply can be chosen as a respawn point. It must remain friendly, intact and clear above; otherwise the player returns to world spawn. A bed or respawn anchor replaces the Supply spawn.
• Every NPC carries one medical kit and uses it when wounded in cover. Mortar loaders carry 30 shells and fetch replacements from Supply; mortar crews now carry MP5s or Vectors.
• With Drone Warfare installed, player drone kits provide the addon's FPV drones, goggles and a monitor. Without it, they use stock SBW drones. Stock NPC drones no longer display an RPG rocket underneath them.
• Barracks produce at most one NPC per 10 seconds, for both initial deployment and replacements. The full planned composition is preserved while the squad is still assembling; support vehicles wait for the complete crew. Assigned Barracks keep working away from players, and single-member garrisons remain linked correctly.

Movement and vehicles

• Squads take nearby boats when sailing is preferable to walking, follow routes across water, use mounted guns during the crossing and disembark on shore. Allied players can ride along.
• Long marches and drives plan shared routes around terrain, lakes and obstacles, reusing routes for following members and reinforcements. Searches run across ticks to spread their cost.
• Improved boat steering, cornering, braking, shoreline approach and recovery from grounding.
• Ground vehicles account for hull size and turn more carefully. Drivers prefer usable detours; crews validate dismount points and walk the remaining distance instead of repeatedly boarding.
• Amphibious transports route between water and land with less backtracking.
• Infantry recover more reliably from tree collisions, ledges, snow and partial-height blocks. Distant defenders run to their objective, and formation stalls no longer stop the entire march.
• Automatic Patrol radius is now 40 blocks when no waypoint route is assigned.

Combat and awareness

• NPCs hear hostile gunfire, explosions and nearby player or NPC footsteps. Weapon loudness and suppressors affect gunshot hearing; crouched footsteps are silent. Hearing directs attention without revealing an unseen target, and defenders and patrols hold position rather than chase noise.
• Detection is separate from firing and cover checks: NPCs can spot through glass, while three blocks of grass or fern along the sightline conceal a target.
• Defend and Patrol keep a useful firing post when the enemy is within twice the class's normal combat range. Beyond that range, an NPC can approach by at most 24 blocks from its original post, then stop and fire. Useful posts are no longer repeatedly abandoned to chase preferred range.
• NPCs fire an opening burst before optional repositioning when a safe firing lane is available.
• Snipers, medics and machine gunners take rear combat positions on enemy contact. Without an enemy, they continue to the ordered objective with the rest of the squad.
• Every grenade throw checks range, trajectory, obstacles and friendly safety, including throws from dug-in positions. NPCs no longer spend a grenade on an unreachable target.
• AH-6 Attack circles the objective with an occupied gunner bench facing inward, continuing until another order or a forced withdrawal.

Commands and presentation

• Chat radio reports cover contacts with bearing and range, half-strength losses, squad destruction, ammunition shortages, resupply trips and objective arrival. Nearby squads avoid repeating the same contact; the Reports button saves your mute preference per world.
• Tool screens display the player's faction. World objective particles are shown only for that player's faction, and individual selection particles keep working after reopening a world.
• JourneyMap order menus follow the selected squad types. Map markers and selection frames use faction colours, with dimmer unselected members; the Cows faction colour is brighter.
• DEL deletes squad members and assigned vehicles across dimensions. Deletion of unloaded members is saved and completed when they load, including after a server restart. X still disbands the squad while keeping its NPCs.

Performance and loot

• NPC guns use cached static models within 64 blocks, reducing third-person rendering cost. Aircraft render up to 512 blocks away with simpler distant models.
• Reduced repeated path searches, cached path-cell evaluations, and shorter combat movement paths. Formation movement and investigations retain usable paths instead of constantly replacing them.
• Reduced repeated faction and friendly-fire lookups. NPC rounds stranded outside ticking chunks are cleaned up instead of accumulating along the loaded area's edge.
• Final NPC loot chances: weapon 3.75%, each armour piece 1.25%, ammunition 18.75%, grenade 1.25%. Ordinary ammunition drops as one box; heavy rounds and rockets retain their individual items.