Some of the confusion here may be from our failure to stipulate terms. Could be we’re equivocating to some degree.
NPCs are purchased when we buy accounts. Once they die a sufficient number of times they will “retire” and you’ll no longer be able to play them, but like ships they’re a purchased entity and iiuc, CIG can’t simply remove them from the game. These NPCs can be used as turret gunners, escort pilots and the like until retired and do not require players pay them.
Rental NPCs have to be paid, much like insurance; and when they die they’re gone forever. These NPCs have trainable skill levels and the higher their skills the more they will cost.
We don’t know much else beyond all this. CIG has quite deliberately refused to answer questions on the NPC issue. There is thus a lot of misinformation surrounding the issue, perhaps including this post!
My point was though, given the global “pay to win” sentiment that has created entire gaming systems, with utterly irresponsible folk paying well in excess of a million dollars US to control things like Evony accounts; you can be sure players will purchase dozens of accounts just so they can try to run the biggest ships solo.
You can also be sure player groups will punish those sorts of people by boarding and taking NPC manned ships.