If the crewleader wants them to be mademan or above, they now provide the mademan+ bonus to the crew stats.
At any rank, they also provide the member count bonus to the crew stats.

Do they count as actual members in the HQ though? If I remember correctly I was still able to invite someone directly to the HQ without a sponsor after we had went past the 25 members limit, I think we had 5 NPMs and maybe 22 or 23 real players, I don't mind that the NPMs go directly under the CL, but I do however think they should count for the HQ numbers as well if they're gonna give you some type of bonus for being part of the family.

They do count towards your crew count, but do not need sponsors when created and your crew is above 25 members.

Yeah, but what I was talking about was reversed. This was on my last char a few weeks ago, we had 4-5 NPMs, and were at 27 or 28 in total members including those NPMs, yet I was still able to invite someone as a LHM to the family without using my sponsor option, which is why I raise this question, are they similar as to when you mass mail your members, where you can have 30 members but only 20 get the mass mail, meaning 10 of the members are NPMs? If so then the count isn't really accurate as you for some reason would still be able to invite without using sponsors if majority of members were NPMs.

My point is, if you have 30 members as in the example above, and 10 of those were NPMs.. the CL, RH or LH shouldn't be able to invite new players to the HQ without using a sponsor for it as you would have exceeded the 25 limit, but getting more NPMs would be possible, which I don't really mind as they can't be "sponsored" and go directly under the CL.. but there should be consequences for doing so, if you whore up on NPMs and leave yourself with no Made+ to sponsor new members, it's all on you.

There is a limit you can get based on HQ size and member count, ruthlesspig.

Squishy, is that earnings count still accurate?? Most I've saw them earn lately is more like 4.5 million.

5.5 - 6.5 million

I must of had some really lazy in the past NPMs then. The average was normally between 4.5-5 mill

I know that too, lol. But let me try and explain it in a simpler way:

Crew Members: 28
Real Player Members: 23
NPM Members: 5

25 Limit for inviting without a sponsor had been passed if we look at the total members.

Yet, I was still able to invite someone without using a sponsor for the invite. Which is why I ask if they really count as members other than what we see on a CL's profile, Crews list and Crew page. Because according to the above, they don't really count other than giving you a +1 on your member count for each NPM.

Which means when it comes to invites, it only counts the RP Members (23) and not the total including the NPMs (28)... Which should be fixed if I'm right, because if they're going to give you some sort of bonus by being in the CL's HQ, then they should be counted as real members... as there should be some type of consequence if you decide to stack up on NPM members, they don't sleep in the streets, they occupy your HQ as any other member would.

An example would be if there happened to be a war, all your real Made+ happen to die, and you sit there with maybe 10 NPMs and 20 real members that aren't Made yet... what are you going to do if you can't invite your loyal members back into the family? You'd either have to beg someone to lend you a Made or above for you to do the invites through a sponsor or you'd have to start popping NPMs and IAs in your family, which would be the consequence in this case if you were to buy too many NPMs and didn't think things through properly as you set up shop.

Does that explanation make more sense? :P

Makes sense. Just wanted to ensure that my city didn't simply have lazy robots as I can't recall the last time one went over 5 million, if ever.

But I do know that when I worked in Chicago they made much more, so that goes along with the scenario you painted and puts my mind at ease.

Are there any downsides to having them in your family or even in the game? Just seems like a win win

There are no actual downsides to be honest. Since they were brought in though there has been a lit of people against them.

The downside is when you get in a war, you lose 10 credits for each one you have in your family. But in these times, you can buy tons of these without worrying about a war.