On human vs. AI manned crew: Its hard to buy the idea that CIG has ' no plan' given what they have presented to date. Granted some things remain unclear. But my hunch is that: 1) CIG will eventually see ship sales/revenue begin to peter out, which will be a concern to them as a 'for profit' corporation, 2) as a result, they will be looking for a next 'player-directed' source of revenue other than ship sales and subscriptions, 3) the sale of NPC crew / AI blades for ships already sold is a next obvious funding horizon for the corporation / game that they will not be able to pass up, and 4) as a result, CIG will (eventually) go back to their earlier-advertised model that the more game packages someone owns the more NPC crew that they can obtain (Afterall, if you can sell multiple copies of the same game to each person, why not? Especially if the cost of game-packages can be escalated over time now and into the future.). Bottom line: Expect to see more package sales highlighting 'LIT NPC crew' or blades in the future.