For the past several days, I've been getting 1 star reviews because players are reporting that an NPC contact in my mission To Helna and Back is occasionally not spawning or dissappearing

To Helna and Back
ST-HGTEIDK7L

The NPC Contact in question should be found on the final map, "The I.K.S. Tor'Kel", and should be named Ensign Helna and be inside a Klingon Cell. I've also heard reports that the NPC known as "Brell" on the second map occasionally doesn't spawn.

I attempted to move the NPCs around to see if that helps, but its not helping. I'm pulling my hair out over these 1 star reviews over something I have no control over! Help!

I have been getting this as well. I'll play test my missions on various characters and my main Contact NPC's will disappear. Not consistently and not always on the same maps.

My Federation Mission is: Frontier Pioneer
My Klingon Mission is: Trill Death Do We Part

Both mission have the same problem.

Ugh. Well, at least I know that I'm not the only one. My second map uses the U.S.S. Warwick interior and my second contact, located in main engineering, has been giving me headaches. Strangely, I have never had a single issue with the first contact.

At first, I had issues with this engineering contact dying to mobs. I could not put her anywhere on the ground level where she would be safe from aoe weapon fire (that goes through walls, as well). This issue was spotted myself during test runs on the tribble version of my mission. So when it came time for the holodeck version, with Y axis placement now working, I placed her up on the ramp, tucked way into the corner near the door. Yet, sporadic reviews trickled in by players complaining they could not find the Chief Engineer and continue the mission.

I wondered what was happening. Was she still getting killed? Were these players just too lazy to run up the ramp? Granted it wasn't the most intuitive spot to place her but her icon appeared on the mini-map.

Finally last night a solution came to me. I made the contact only appear after the kill objective was completed - no way she could be killed now. Turns out it was a pretty good idea... the Chief looks like she beams in after the battle to take control of main engineering. I even placed a few other npcs around the room that beam in with her, performing various tasks. I tested this new set-up thoroughly, both in preview and live, patted myself on the back and headed to bed.

I login today and read the first review since the new update - can't find the Chief Engineer and couldn't complete the mission. Arrrrgggh!!

The Omega Directive
ST-HJWZTY9FP

Now that you mention it, I'm seeing this too. At first I thought the contacts were getting killed, but after getting some more detailed information, it appears that they weren't spawning at all (though in a few cases it is death). It can't possibly have been death in at least two cases, because I set the NPCs in question to only spawn after the enemies are defeated. Now I've got a conundrum because if I leave them out in the open, they'll die, and if I tell them to spawn later, they might not appear at all. Since I've got 5 characters to interact with over the course of the mission, the odds that one of them breaks right now are pretty high.
Mission details if some dev wants to bug check:
Resting Raptors
ST-HA89GN3CF

i was getting a lot of trouble on 'crouching ty'gokor hidden demon' where my final romulan was not spawning.

some suggested that basically they get killed during combat. i cant confirm this but it may be one issue. it only affects a handful of people it seems though.

It wouldn't be so bad if those handfuls of people were a bit more ... understanding on how to handle it. Which is log out, wait 10 minutes, log in and try again...

but instead, I'm getting a ton of 1 stars out of it. It's... nerve racking.

I had this bug once on Tribble and on another occasion on Holodeck during playtest. I thought it's an extremely rare glitch that only occurs when playtesting. Hitting Reset Map resolved this issue both times.

Yesterday I got a review reporting that my NPC Contacts never spawned, so the reviewer had to drop the mission. I am sure they couldn't be killed during combat. My contacts should be spawned inside holding cells.

ST-HCX9L98WS

Had a similar issue here. Found out that a Romulan Encounter group with a Cmdr in the group was the cause. Apparently NPC Contacts are vunerable to thaleron bombs.

Also, Force field Dome has, once, knocked one of my contacts off a map. I fixed that problem by moving the contact and swapping encounter groups to lower level groups.

So far, seems to have solved my problem.

Mission: Quiet Alliance - Alpha One

Every time this is reported to me it's an issue of the contact being killed.

Until there is tech to make your contact unkillable, you need to keep them away from enemy groups.