Infestation Quests

Warning: This article is about a feature which is currently under development. While this information may be used to prepare build for future releases, the ACR must be updated for anything listed to become functional.

Infestation quests are quests which are provided as a generic framework from the ACR. The DM team of a server may specify an area or series of areas as "infested" with some sort of creature, and these creatures will expand and displace the typical group spawns of all of those areas for as long as their numbers sustain.

Infestations are limited in their spread by builder specification, and follow existing area transitions. The DM team may stop an infestation arbitrarily.

Build Specifications

If any area or waypoint should not be affected by infestation code, it should have a local int set on it, called ACR_QST_MAX_INFESTATION and set to -1. Infestations will also not pass through these areas. So, for example, if a town's surface is set as unable to be infested, an infestation outside the town won't raid the town's sewers (unless they have an area transition to the town's exterior).

If any area of waypoint should have a maximum infestation tier allowed, it should have a local int set on it, called ACR_QST_MAX_INFESTATION and set to the maximum tier. It is important to note that setting every waypoint in an area to a max tier will not alter the state of the area. For example, an area which is set to tier 4 but only contains tier 1 waypoints will only spawn tier 1 infestations, but can be bordered by tier 5 areas, leading to PCs who find the gradient of challenge ratings extremely difficult.

As a recommendation for playability, major roads should have a max infestation tier of 1, and minor roads a max infestation tier of 2.

Infestation Spread

Fecundity of infestations is the number of bosses in the infestation, and the spread of the infestation will be reduced every time a boss is killed. An infestation without a boss does not spread, and only occupies specific areas set up by the DM. It is expected that infestations will attempt to spread such that there is at most a one-tier difference in the infestation strength across any given area transition. This algorithm isn't perfect, and complex series of area transitions can result in some bigger leaps, but simpler areas shouldn't have this problem.

If, for example, we had an infestation which grew at a rate of 1/day with a maximum tier of 3...

Day 1: ~ ~ 0 ~ ~ ~ 0 1 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 2: ~ ~ 1 ~ ~ ~ 0 1 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 3: ~ ~ 2 ~ ~ ~ 0 1 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 4: ~ ~ 2 ~ ~ ~ 1 1 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 5: ~ ~ 2 ~ ~ ~ 1 1 1 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 6: ~ ~ 2 ~ ~ ~ 1 1 1 0 ~ 0 1 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 7: ~ ~ 2 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 1 0 ~ 0 1 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 8: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 1 0 ~ 0 1 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 9: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 1 1 ~ 0 1 0 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 10: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 1 1 ~ 0 1 1 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 11: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 2 1 ~ 0 1 1 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 12: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 2 2 ~ 0 1 1 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 13: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 2 3 ~ 0 1 1 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 14: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 1 2 2 3 ~ 1 1 1 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

Day 15: ~ ~ 3 ~ ~ ~ 2 2 2 3 ~ 1 1 1 ~ 0 0 0 ~ ~ 0 0 ~ ~ ~

... that is, you expect infestations to "crawl" over whatever land mass they're placed on, with things getting densest and toughest in the places farthest from the front line, which isn't necessarily where the infestation starts.

Maintenance and Cleanup

If an infestation ever becomes unmanageable or otherwise unresponsive, you can find the infestation's data on the host's disk, inside of the NWN2 user's Documents/Neverwinter Nights 2/QuestResources/ directory. Therein are XML files, each one representing one active infestation on the server and having the name picked by the DM who created it. The infestation can be removed by deleting the file and then restarting nwn2server.exe.

Infestations are saved as XML, and thus may be edited with any plain text editor. Edits made to infestations in this manner will not be read by the server until nwn2server.exe is restarted.