NPCs Becoming Aimless?

[arras]

I have an issue of game seemingly erasing NPC AI packages making them "aimless". They basically stand unable to do anything other then fighting when under attack.

It happens sometimes when I beat them down, they recover and switch their AI to "retreat fast". Except once they reach border of the town or settlement where they reside, they simply stop, switch to aimless and do nothing. Game won't delete them on sector unload, they are still listed as residents (number of residents does not decrease), but they seems to lost their original AI package. Reloading game doesn't fix it either.

I also came across few random NPCs that were "aimless" that I was not fighting and that should have AI package active. For example nomad trader. Only the leader was aimless, squad was still under their "follow leader AI".

So far I was unable to identify what causes this behavior, it happens seemingly at random. Do you know what triggers NPCs to "retreat fast" or what causes it to delete default AI packages?

I am not using any mods.

[Hatsune_Neko]

this can happen if they lose their leader.

[arras]

Leader on the picture is still alive. It's the whole "squad". One of the "squatters" squads from Hub.

[arras]

However I have discovered that it won't happen if there is at last one other member of the squad out there with original AI package. And as I understand, when original leader is unavailable, game will replace him with another squad member. So there is some relation.

It also has something to do with player picking up downed NPCs.

This happened to me when I picked beat down NPCs up and placed to bed to heal. It seems that game will remove NPCs from the squad when you pick them up/abduct. When I do that with all members of the squad (and squad can have just one member) game may erase AI package of the squad? The squad is still there, because game will load these characters on sector reload. But it does not have original AI package anymore.

However this only happen sometimes, seemingly at random.

[eternal_traveller]

I noticed this outside Stoat last night -- ex-slaves just standing out in the desert staring off into the distance, unmoving for days, miles apart from each other too so I guessed one wouldn't be related to the other. I wasn't sure why they were doing that at the time, but reading this thread now it seems that was likely the cause. I ended up taking one of them with me anyway.

[swillo]

Yes, sadly a known issue. They tried to fix it once, but it still happens from time to time.
poor souls will stand there till they die of hunger or are killed. Also happens with slaves that you buy from the traders that don't follow you, they will often just stand outside their cells forever.