I see a lot of references to NPC drops such as crew members, virus things and moduals, that increase ship stats and stuff...but it's mostly a lot of gibberish. Can anyone do a short list of which npc's drop what types of loot and what it does? I don't do much grinding on npc's but i'd hate to let one go by that might drop something valuable like that just because I didn't know it might drop something good.

there are a lot of items that drop off npcs. best way to show ya would be too look in the pve section of the wiki. here is the link:

http://galaxylegion.com/wiki/index.php?title=Combat#PvE

tyvm...do commons have a chance to drop anything...or should I only ever worry about uncommons or better?

personally i have yet to get anything other than xp from killing common npcs. according to the wiki there arent any drops from them. but that might change in the future.

Uncommons generally just give you bonus xp. There's a few uncommons that give you artifacts, but they're usually low level artifacts.

If you see a Tech Cruiser or a Tech Surveyor though, kill them, because they always drop research points. Dark Scrap Carriers also give you random artifacts so they an be good too. If you find a rare, go all out on destroying them. And if you find an elite, do 35% damage to it, then share it with your legion to guarantee you get a loot drop.

Got a Terraformer off a level 60 Dark Scrap Carrier.