First, I want to praise our Foundry gods for finally giving us the ability to make NPCs disappear.

However, like all new features, it is not perfect, so I wanted to leave some detailed feedback.

1. In the simplest of scenarios, when we want to make a NPC disappear, he or she or it usually beams out. On tribble, they fade to nothing. This means that when our NPCs beam up, they fade into nothingness. That is very strange. I'm not saying that they should always beam out instead of fade away. The fade away function could be greatly used if...

2. On a more complex level, there is a great opportunity here to add complexity, but the mechanics of the animations hinder the functionality.

For example, let's say that I want to create a animation change for a NPC. With the ability to make a NPC disappear, I should be able to instantly replace him/her with a new version of him or herself, set with a different animation.

So, with this feature tied into triggers, I should be able to walk up to a contact, decide to punch him, and instantly replace one NPC contact with a second version of him that falls to the floor. A standing NPC is replaced by a hurt one.

There is so much potential here, but our inability to toggle on/off either the beam in animation or the fade out animation makes these types of npc changes impossible.

The new NPC that replaces the old has a beam-in animation which ruins the entire effect.

So, please, give us a way to toggle on/off both the beam in animation and the fade out animation.

Having this ability would also allow us to change a NPC from friendly to enemy and vice versa. Or, we could instantly change the various states, like setting a run away animation to a dialog prompt.

But, bottom line is, the beam in animation ruins the greater functionality of this feature. And without the beam out animation, it ruins the very basic function of making a NPC disappear. We need to be able to specify the effect that we want here.

Edit: I've been testing with different mobs and costumes to try to find one that has no beam in animation. If we can find one, then there would be an elaborate workaround based on tribal knowledge. So far I've had the most success with Attack Saur Neutral - Single, but the beam in animation returns if I change the costume. Any other authors have ideas?