AH, I hadn’t realized that about the suppliers! In hindsight that makes a lot of sense, and in the clip I posted I do notice that a npc walks in behind me as I’m standing in front of the supplier.
HOWEVER…
I was able to get a clip of that Whittle Creek baker supplier in the garage:
You can see that Helen West is in the garage with us at first, but then leaves the room,
leaving 47 and the supplier alone together, and he STILL won’t stop kicking the tires. He was stuck in this animation loop the entire mission. There are no other NPCs around, and the garage door is shut. There IS a courier in the room up the stairs behind the door, but that shouldn’t have any bearing on the current situation, as we are both out of his FOV.
As far as the burner phone situation, that makes sense and is something I thought of as well, so I’ve been consciously trying to use the phones when the Suspects aren’t in meetings/busy with anything; no dice. They usually get that icon above that head when in the middle of traveling to or attending a meeting, no? In any case, in that clip I shared of Dartmoor, those NPCs were in the middle of their scripted wandering around routes when I activated the phones, and still were very selective in when they decided to respond.