Hey guys! A few days ago I ran a test whose goal was to infect Oblivion's world with an abstract AI "logic plague," which would take over NPCs and change their AI behavior to spread the infection instead of going about their normal daily activities. In the first test, several cities were essentially taken over by the plague, some saw light infections but ultimately killed all the infected and survived, and a few were untouched, either through luck or diligence on the part of the city guard. Unfortunately, I had to cut that first test short due to time. I'd like to pick up this experiment here.
The first question is, should I start from scratch with some specific goals in mind, or continue with the previous infection? I'll post the status of the first test in a reply for those who missed the thread. Either way I have some interesting testing ideas for this one, to keep things focused and perhaps a bit more exciting. In any case - shall we begin?
>Nickies thread Hell yeah, this is going to be great. Didn't you already do a zombie plague some time ago though? How is this one different?
Camden Watson
The Viral NPC threads involved a plague that changed NPCs to a single Base NPC type that then had its own different AI behaviors and such. Because of this, an infected person kept none of their previous traits. In those threads, a few anons asked me if it was possible to do a different type of infection where NPCs actually stay as the same NPC and yet behave as though they're infected - and thus the idea for this one was born. This plague also allows for things like infected creatures.
Intended goals, if I start a new test rather than continuing the old one, would consist of the following:
1. Get a sustained infection in every major city. 2. Infect Mai'q the Lair. 3. Infect a diverse range of creatures. 4. Infect the Invader - the "absolutely invincible NPC" I cooked up a while back. I'm genuinely curious if he can be co-opted to serve the infection, with all the shit I attached to him. 5. Have the infection spread to an extent that it makes the story mode impossible to complete in some form.
what does the infection do and how does it spread?
Oliver Ross
As of right now I haven't added anything in particular for infected NPCs to do besides try to infect other NPCs (notably, including traveling to other cities). It spreads via a spell that infected NPCs get once infected. Oh, but due to something apparently hard-coded into the game, guards can't be infected and just die and freeze in place instead of they would've been infected.
What about infecting the Deadlands? Could the infected creatures travel through the oblivion gates to try and reach the cities?
Elijah Perez
In the last test we saw them infected Daedra at the Kvatch gate. In theory if we were to get an infected NPC to go in and correctly go after the Daedra therein, they could infect it all. As of rn though, I don't know why an infected NPC would go into a portal in the first place.
>I don't know why an infected NPC would go into a portal in the first place. I meant the other way around, starting the infection inside the deadlands to see if they'll reach the cities.
Adam Green
does it add a visual effect or anything? you need to attach some particles or something and how do they spread it? is it like an aura or do they have to cast it on someone specifically?
Blake Walker
Ah. In that case it may actually work. As long as there isn't some special thing preventing NPCs from going through portals.
It's a targeted spell. There's no visual effect to it currently but you can tell pretty evidently when an NPC is infected due to their behavior. I'd be open to adding some, but currently I sort of like the hidden-in-plain-sight effect that's a consequence of there being no overt visual effect.
Could you make the spell level up over time? So if an NPC has it for a certain amount of time it levels up to an AoE spell. Or maybe it can add visual identifiers the longer they're infected/more people they infect such as paler skin or red eyes or some shit?
Benjamin Rodriguez
Yea, I could do it by # of people someone infects.
Testing the Deadlands idea rn. Looks like Gates work similar to city gates; creatures can't go through but Dremora might. I'll relay results in a moment.
Ok so it seemed to work on Dremora, but once he went through the portal I didn't see him on the other side. It unselected him as a ref too, in the console. Maybe he instantly traveled to the target city?
He's infected one troll, who's accompanying him on the road now.
Side note: The Gatekeeper from the SI got infected but obviously can't come into the normal world. Should I tp him in? To act as a juggernaut of infection? He, like any creature who can cast spells, can actually spread the plague, so...
