It would be nice if the npc loadout system was a bit more flexible.
As is, melee dps characters are in a very awkward position. You generally want pretty much everyone to be equipped with a whip (or possibly a staff), because taking prisoners is obviously incredibly helpful. However, because everyone can have precisely one melee weapon and precisely one ranged weapon, once you've equipped a whip, you can't also use a greatsword or whatever other dps melee weapon you'd like to use. Instead, "whip + powerful gun" loadouts become pretty much the only reasonable choice, and melee focused people like the black scorpion or the christian knight dude become a bit of a waste.
If everyone could have any two weapons (similar to the pc's any 4 weapon setup), that would enable whip + greatsword loadouts to compete with whip + plasma rifle or whatever. Running a melee npc might actually be a reasonable choice at that point. If you want to make melee-focused builds even more viable, give everyone 3 or 4 slots, so npcs could use a whip + greatsword + gun loadout and have a backup for the couple of fights and enemies that are basically impossible to melee (cough dudes with 160 dex).
