Yeah of course! I know game dev is hard, so I'd love to give you as much help as I can! I'm a bit more invested in game development on the creative end of things since I'm not much of a programmer, but I try to help out where I can!
In regards to the unmoving NPCs, I remembered that the bug only started when you first encounter the pirates at all, and I DID find that you can cause the bug on one specific pirate in the grappled wreck with a test I did just now. The pirate directly down from the pod that you need to approach for him to even move, if you immediately jump from the ledge to the left of him (or go around entirely which is probably safer) after getting his attention and then slip through the crack at the bottom and wait, the pirate will eventually go right back to where he initially was and he will never move or interact with the salvor again even after you approach again, probably because he cannot physically reach you in that spot as it's blocked off by a ledge and a slip-through part. Although, this seems to fix when you go out of the wreck and back in again. You could probably do that for any pirates that begin totally stationary, so maybe that's a hint as to the issue? Not 100% sure, but it seemed significant.