I have problems with the plug instance when I want to plug Rick in there. I named him "@core02" because of his lines, but the plug is asking for "@sphere" for playing the plug animations at the core. How can I do both?

I haven't used the instance but it does sound like you'll need to name it @sphere unless you edit the instance.

I edited already every logic connection from @sphere to @core02. It seems that the plug animation inputs for "npc_personality_core" refer to @sphere in code.

Could you teleport the talking rick away, spawn a fake one for animations, and have the real one speak through the fake one?

Unplugging might be an issue...