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Side quests

This page collects Arulco's side quests town by town: how each one starts, what to do, what you get, and what you can permanently lose. It is full of spoilers by design.

1.13 keeps the vanilla quest content intact — everything below works as it did in the original game unless a paragraph is explicitly flagged 1.13. Several INI settings change how quest-adjacent systems behave; they are summarized in Quest-related 1.13 settings at the end.

Sector references like C13 use the strategic-map grid (letter = row, number = column). For who can be recruited from these quests and where the terrorists hide, see NPCs and recruitment.

Quests pay experience in 1.13

In 1.13, completing a quest awards bonus experience to every conscious merc in the sector, scaled by quest difficulty times the AWARD_SPECIAL_EXP_POINTS_FOR_COMPLETING_QUESTS setting (default 100). Nearly every quest on this page is on the reward list, so have your squad present when you turn quests in. Note also that SPECIAL_NPCS_STRONGER (default 75) makes the special NPCs — Kingpin and his hitmen, Carmen, the terrorists, Mike, Joe and Deidranna — noticeably tougher than in vanilla.

Omerta

Deliver Enrico's letter to Miguel (main quest)

This is the game's opening quest rather than a side quest, but everything in Omerta hangs off it — skipping it locks you out of the rebel faction entirely.

  • Start: you land in sector A9 carrying a letter from Enrico Chivaldori.
  • Steps: clear A9 of Deidranna's troops, talk to the little boy (Pacos) wandering the street and follow him to his mother, Fatima. Give her the letter, and she leads you to the rebel hideout in A10, where Miguel Cordona receives it.
  • Rewards: Ira Smythe becomes recruitable, Omerta loyalty rises, and the next quest (feeding the rebels) opens up. After you liberate five settlements, Carlos Dasouza and Miguel himself can also be recruited.

See First steps for a beginner-paced version of the landing.

Rebels need food (Father Walker's supplies)

  • Start: given automatically by Miguel after you deliver the letter. The rebels are starving; a priest in Drassen, Father John Walker, can set up a supply line.
  • Steps: find Father Walker in Drassen during the day — he is either in the church in D13 or in Herve's bar in C13, and is absent at night. He won't listen to just anyone: bring Ira Smythe (Walker has a soft spot for her) or a merc with high Leadership. Once he agrees, the supplies take 24 hours to arrive; then return to Miguel in Omerta to complete the quest.
  • Rewards: Dimitri Guzzo becomes recruitable; loyalty rises in both Omerta and Drassen.

Buy the Father a drink

Father Walker likes his booze. Buy any drink at the bar and give it to him — a little pink glass appears next to his portrait when he is drunk. Talk to him friendly in that state and he shares his honest opinion of the Queen, plus a sinister hint about missing corpses. That hint foreshadows the Crepitus in Sci-Fi mode, though he says it in Realistic mode too.

Drassen

Drassen is also where the infamous counterattack happens after you take the town — see Early game for surviving it (or disabling it in the INI).

Doreen is cruel to kids

  • Start: talk to Doreen Harrows in her sweatshop, the large building on the east side of central Drassen (C13). She employs children and tries to cover it up; the quest appears in your history log after the conversation.
  • Steps: three ways to resolve it:
    1. Kill her on the spot.
    2. Convince her to shut the factory down (needs roughly 40–50 Leadership).
    3. Convince her to shut it down, then chase her down and kill her anyway.
  • Rewards: increased Drassen loyalty, with an extra 15% for the "shut it down" options. If she dies you can loot some cash and the key to her office. Her locked storeroom holds an H&K MP5K with a few magazines of 9mm AP; without her key you need very high Mechanical or explosives to get in. A spare key can sometimes be found in one of the nearby buildings.

Pablo and your Bobby Ray shipments

Pablo Greco runs shipping at Drassen airport (B13) — and he skims from your Bobby Ray's orders.

  • Pay Pablo $20 and he keeps your shipments safe.
  • If a merc opens a crate and says something is missing, Pablo stole it. One punch with bare hands makes him squeal; come back the next day and you get your item back plus some random extras, and he never steals again.
  • Not every problem is Pablo: Bobby Ray's itself sometimes misdirects or short-ships orders. If no merc comments on opening the crate, beating Pablo up only gets you yelled at.

Do not shoot or kill Pablo

Shooting him to intimidate him makes any militia in the sector kill him. Killing him drops Drassen loyalty and replaces him with Salvatore Lappus, who can lose entire shipments through sheer incompetence.

1.13: STEALING_FROM_SHIPMENTS_DISABLED in Ja2_Options.INI turns Pablo's thieving off entirely, and CHANCE_OF_SHIPMENT_LOSS (default 10) sets the percentage chance of a whole Bobby Ray shipment going missing. See Ja2_Options.INI.

Find the helicopter pilot (Skyrider)

  • Start: after taking the airport (B13), talk to Waldo Zimmer, the mechanic. The helicopter works, but you killed its pilot when you cleared the sector. Waldo remembers another pilot — a swampy-smelling draft dodger. A little Leadership is needed to get Waldo talking.
  • Steps: the pilot, Skyrider, hides in a swamp house in one of four random sectors near Drassen: D12 (southwest), E14 (southeast), C16 (east) or B15 (northeast). After taking the quest, civilians in C13 will eventually mention which direction the swamp house lies. Enter the right sector, drop into tactical view, talk to him in a friendly way (again, don't send your worst talker) and escort him back to the airport, leading him to his chopper. He joins your squad for the trip but is useless in a fight and can't carry items, so avoid combat on the way.
  • Rewards: helicopter transport. Skyrider charges $100 per sector, or $1,000 per sector inside SAM-covered airspace — knocking out the SAM sites makes flights safe and cheap. He reports enemy activity in sectors he overflies. The helicopter can only land and refuel at Drassen airport (B13), plus Estoni (I6) after the Rescue Shank quest. Flying through SAM zones can damage the helicopter; too much damage aborts the trip and grounds it until repaired.

1.13 changes to Skyrider

  • Hot LZ drops: ALLOW_SKYRIDER_HOT_LZ in Ja2_Options.INI lets Skyrider drop mercs into enemy-held sectors: 0 = vanilla (never), 1 = center of the map, 2 = at the map edge from the direction he entered (the shipped default), 3 = a location of your choosing.
  • Fuel and repair economy: the helicopter has a fuel tank and repair costs, externalized in Data-1.13\Helicopter_Settings.INI (HELICOPTER_DISTANCE_WITHOUT_REFUEL = 25 sectors, refuel time, repair costs that creep upward after every repair, SAM accuracy and more).
  • Back in Ja2_Options.INI: SERIOUSLY_DAMAGED_SKYRIDER_WONT_FLY = TRUE makes him refuse to fly a badly damaged helicopter until it is repaired, and with HELICOPTER_PAY_SKYRIDER_IN_BASE = TRUE (the shipped default) he bills you after landing safely at base rather than up front. His radio chatter can also be toned down. The refueling sites themselves (Drassen B13, Estoni I6) are externalized in HeliSites.xml.

San Mona

San Mona has no army presence — it is run by Kingpin's mob. Nobody attacks you on sight, but the mob is heavily armed and retaliates as one if you start trouble.

Getting an audience with Kingpin (extreme boxing)

Kingpin (Peter Klaus) sits in a guarded manor at the south end of D5 and has no interest in you. Forcing or picking his door gets you shot. The intended way in:

  • Talk to Darren van Haussen at the boxing club in D5 — he is only there at night. He takes a bet of $1,000–$5,000 that your merc can win a bare-knuckle match against a club fighter.
  • After the bet, the first merc to jump over the ropes becomes the fighter. No weapons allowed — knuckle dusters are the one exception (and they help a lot). Win by knockout (opponent down for two turns) and collect double your bet. Firing a weapon from outside the ring at any point turns the whole club murderously hostile.
  • Kingpin attends every match. Win three matches and he invites you to his house, which opens the Chalice of Chance quest.

Boxing tips

Use a martial-arts or high-strength brawler, give them knuckle dusters, and try throwing marbles to knock the opponent down. You can fight up to three bouts every other night — leave the sector between rounds, or the opposing fighters don't heal. If Darren keeps returning your money without starting a bout, exit the sector and come back.

Kingpin's money

Several NPCs (Angel, Joey) hint at a stash in the abandoned mine in D4. Deep inside is a room full of chests holding a massive amount of cash, next to a ladder up into Kingpin's house (the room above is full of alarms).

72 hours to pay it back

Take the money and Kingpin emails you: return it within 72 hours plus a 25% "service fee", in person, at his house. Miss the deadline and he sends heavily armed hitmen (Jim Perry, Ray Baker, Olaf Helinski, Olga Statova, Tyrone Banks and Jack Remington) disguised as ordinary civilians after you, and San Mona turns hostile — which also makes dealing with Tony harder. Darren also refuses to run boxing matches while you owe Kingpin money, so do your boxing first. If you intend to keep the money and kill Kingpin, note he carries $20,000 himself.

1.13: the hitmen's civilian disguise is the ASSASSINS_DISGUISED setting (default TRUE); set it to FALSE for recognizable, vanilla-style thugs.

Rescuing Angel's sister Maria

  • Start: talk to Angel DaSilva in his leather shop in San Mona East (C6). His sister Maria is forced to work at the Shady Lady brothel, owned by Kingpin. When you first meet him he also makes a one-time offer to sell his kevlar-treated leather jacket for $950.
  • Steps: the Shady Lady is in C5. Send a male merc to talk to Madame Layla so the bouncer lets him in. Maria is in the room at the end of the main corridor. The back doors are locked and alarmed; the alarm switch and door key are in a room marked "Do Not Enter". A patrolling bouncer roams the halls — being seen escorting Maria, breaking into the restricted room, or fiddling with the back doors triggers deadly retaliation, so use other mercs to block his line of sight. Kill the alarm, take the key, slip out the back, and walk Maria straight to Angel's shop in C6. (The back door can also be untrapped and picked from outside, and once you have seen the key you can grab it via the sector inventory.)
  • Rewards: the deed to Angel's shop, plus the kevlar leather jacket for free if you didn't buy it earlier. Kyle Lemmons, the tattoo parlor owner in C5 who has always wanted Angel's shop, gleefully buys the deed off you for just over $10,000.

Missable

Any Kingpin goon who spots you on the street with Maria opens fire on you and her, and Angel counts the mission failed even if she survives. Also make sure a merc is inside the shop when you hand Maria over, or the jacket handover can glitch.

The wiki documents the deed and the Leather & Kevlar Jacket as the rewards; if you have seen an "Angel medallion" mentioned elsewhere, it is not covered by the sources for this page.

Brenda and Tony's gun shop

Not a journal quest, but the best early shopping in the game: Hans Vanderkilt's XXX shop in C5 hides arms dealer Tony in a back room. Hans won't let you in until Brenda, a customer harassing him in his store, is taken care of — find the videotape (in a chest in the northeastern-most house of the sector, or on a side table in the Shady Lady's reception room) and give it to Hans. A merc with a modest Leadership (around 15–25) then gets waved through. Tony buys and sells weapons at fair prices, keeps a large cash balance that is topped back up every day (about $15,000 in vanilla; 1.13 externalizes dealer cash to XML), trades around the clock, and sometimes "steps out" to restock for a day or two.

1.13: Tony's inventory is substantially larger than in vanilla, and Tony and Hans only turn hostile if directly attacked. CHANCE_TONY_AVAILABLE in Ja2_Options.INI (default 80, the vanilla behavior) can be set to 100 so Tony is always home.

Chitzena and Balime

The Chalice of Chance

One quest, two rival quest-givers, and a choice at the end.

  • Start (either or both):
    • Yanni Nomigotta in Chitzena tells the story of the golden Chalice of Chance if you keep using Friendly or Direct dialogue, and asks you to return the national treasure to the people of Chitzena.
    • Kingpin in San Mona (D5) — after you win an audience via boxing, or by talking to him with a merc of at least 50 Leadership — offers $20,000 cash for it.
  • Steps: the chalice sits in a display case in the museum in Balime East (L12), protected by a siren tripwire and the friendly old guard, Eldin Fiddes. Disable the alarm from the switch in the security office in the back, or with a merc with very high Mechanical (80+) and the Electronics background. Eldin turns hostile if he sees anyone carrying the chalice — day or night, even through a window — so grab it, get out of his sight fast (passing it to a merc outside via the inventory screen helps), and you are safe once outside the museum.
  • Outcomes:
    • Give it to Kingpin: $20,000 cash.
    • Return it to Yanni: a big loyalty jump in Chitzena (+20 loyalty points, multiplied about 1.75× by Chitzena's strong rebel sentiment) plus +10 loyalty points in every town, each scaled by that town's own sentiment — for most towns that works out to somewhere between +5% and +15%.
    • Greedy option: hand it to Kingpin, take his money, then kill him — he keeps the chalice (and the reward cash) on his person, so you can loot it back and still return it to Chitzena. Expect the entire San Mona mob to object.

Missable

Killing Eldin is the "easy" way in but severely cripples Balime loyalty — already the hardest town to win over — and with it any chance of training militia there. And do not leave the chalice lying on the ground: there are repeated reports of it becoming impossible to pick up after a few minutes. Keep it in a merc's inventory until delivered.

Escort John and Mary Kulba

  • Start: John and Mary Kulba, tourists from Cleveland who booked a flight to Aruba and landed in Arulco, wander the Chitzena ruins (A2). Talking to John eventually gets them to ask for an escort to Drassen airport.
  • Steps: walk both of them into the fenced-off area of the airport (B13).
  • Rewards: $2,000 in vacation money from Mary, and John mails you his two customized Automag III pistols, which arrive at Drassen as a shipment two days later.

Missable

You only get the reward if both Kulbas survive the trip.

The Hummer (Dave's gas station)

West of Balime in L10, Dave Gerard sells a slightly used Hummer for $10,000. He takes a day to tune it up and fill the tank before handing it over, and afterwards tops up the Hummer for free whenever you visit — when he actually has fuel, which is not always. The Hummer officially "needs roads" but in practice drives across most land sectors. See Hamous and the ice cream truck below for shared vehicle notes.

Cambria

Find Joey

  • Start: Martha Graham in Cambria residential (G8). Her fifteen-year-old son Joey ran away three days ago.
  • Steps: Joey is in San Mona — either peeking behind/around the Shady Lady brothel (C5) or nosing around the abandoned mine (D4). Hans in the XXX shop can usually tell you which. Joey is a brat: threaten him to make him come along, then escort him back to Martha. If a fight starts on the way, park him somewhere safe first.
  • Rewards: a 20% loyalty jump in Cambria, the hospital starts treating your mercs, and the quest is one of the prerequisites for recruiting Dr. Vincent Beaumont.

The hospital and the doctors

Cambria's hospital (F8) heals your mercs — for full price at first, cheaper as your standing in town improves. After completing Find Joey the doctors offer one free treatment and discounted care afterwards; at 100% town loyalty treatment becomes free.

Do not steal the medical supplies

Taking the hospital's supplies raises treatment prices, permanently forfeits the free-treatment bonus, and makes it impossible to recruit Dr. Vincent Beaumont.

Dr. Vincent Beaumont — the best starting Medical stat of any recruitable character — joins for $500/day once Cambria loyalty is close to 100% and a high-Leadership merc asks him. See NPCs and recruitment.

Eliminate the Hicks

  • Start: Keith Hemps, the store owner in Cambria commercial (G9), can't stock guns because the hillbilly Hick family steals every one. He asks you to deal with them.
  • Steps: the Hicks farm in F10, east of Cambria University. There is no peaceful resolution — you have to kill the whole family. They pack shotguns and Ruger Mini-14s and hit hard up close, but wear no helmets, little armor, and have no night-vision gear, so night fighting and door-choke ambush tactics work well.
  • Rewards: Cambria loyalty, the Hicks' weapon stash, and Keith starts buying and selling weapons in his store.

Missable merc

If a female merc talks to Daryl Hick, he proposes marriage. Accept and you can empty the weapon shed without a fight — but the merc is gone permanently (she stays in the barn and can never be rehired), and the Hicks keep terrorizing Cambria anyway.

Alma

Kill the Bloodcats

  • Start: Auntie, a frightened resident in Alma's residential sector (I14). Bloodcats have killed four children and the army does nothing.
  • Steps: the lair is in I16, two sectors east of Alma. Attack during the day, when the cats' night vision doesn't give them the edge; bring automatic weapons or shotguns with hollow-point ammo (bloodcats are fast, vicious and unarmored), and keep the squad tight so nobody gets caught alone.
  • Rewards: Alma loyalty, plus loot in the lair (in need of repair). Bloodcat pelts, claws and teeth from any bloodcat kill can be sold to Micky O'Brien, the animal-parts trader who hangs around Arulco's bars (or to Gabby in Sci-Fi mode) — the only buyers in the country. Random bloodcat ambushes in wilderness sectors keep the supply coming, and the Bloodcat Arena in N5 near Meduna holds a large pack alongside elite guards late in the game.

1.13: bloodcats can optionally raid your sectors at night — RAID_BLOODCATS in Ja2_Options.INI (default FALSE), with companion settings for raid size and raids per night.

Free Dynamo from Tixa

  • Start: Matt Duncan, head miner of Alma, asks you to break his brother Greg "Dynamo" Duncan out of the secret Tixa prison.
  • Steps: fight your way into Tixa (see Late game) and reach Dynamo's cell on the west side. He is wounded — give him first aid, then talk to him again to complete the quest.
  • Rewards: Alma loyalty boost; Dynamo joins for $50/day, or free if you refuse his first offer.

Sergeant Krott and the Rocket Rifles

In the Alma military HQ (H13), Sergeant Krott mans a firing range toward the back of the base where several Rocket Rifles are kept. If you fail to prevent the blast that destroys the rifles, you may find Krott heavily injured — patch him up and he talks as normal. He has no wish to keep serving the Queen; let him go home to his family and he spreads word of your deeds, raising Alma loyalty.

Estoni and Tixa

Rescue Shank

  • Start: Jake Cameron, the junkyard owner in Estoni (I6), asks after a kid named Breeham Druz, imprisoned in Tixa. A merc with decent Leadership gets the quest out of him.
  • Steps: Shank is locked in a cell in Tixa's basement level. Free him and hear him out; he offers to join for $20/day. Then bring him to Estoni and have him talk to Jake.
  • Rewards: Jake starts selling gas (at least four cans always in stock), and Estoni becomes a landing and refueling pad for Skyrider's helicopter — provided the airspace is clear.

Known bug

Sometimes Skyrider doesn't register that Estoni is available. Move a merc out of Estoni and back in (keeping at least one merc there) to trigger his speech.

Jake is also worth knowing outside the quest: he buys junk-tier valuables (watches, silver platters, booze, porn) at better prices than anyone else, trades around the clock, and stocks jars, medical kits, canteens, break lights, and occasionally tool kits, ceramic plates and Compound 18. His son Kevin "Maddog" Cameron also lives in Estoni — see NPCs and recruitment.

1.13: vehicles brought to Estoni are repaired faster using the junkyard's facilities, making it a handy mid-game base.

Quests that roam the map

Intercept's Most Wanted (Carmen Dancer's terrorist bounties)

Carmen Dancio (often called "Carmen Dancer" by players) is a bounty hunter who moves to a new bar each morning — always one of three sectors: C5 (San Mona), C13 (Drassen) or G9 (Cambria).

  • Start: talk to him. He offers half the bounty on a list of wanted terrorists hiding in Arulco, hands you a diskette with their dossiers (copied to your laptop) and a machete — because they are wanted dead, and he needs their heads as proof.
  • Steps: the terrorists live under civilian cover in various towns. Kill one, then use any bladed weapon on the corpse's head to collect it as a unique item. Bring the head to Carmen; he tells you to meet him in a Drassen (C13) bar in 24 hours for the payout.
  • Reward: $10,000 per head (your half of each $20,000 bounty).
Target Cover identity Where
Sammy "Charlie" Elgin, "The Druggist" Bartender in Grumm Always in H2
Annie, "Matron of Mayhem" Innocuous Scottish woman Always in G8 (Cambria) in current 1.13 data
Kris Karver, "The Imposter" Friendly "Canadian" on the street Random: F9, G1, G2, G8 or L11
Tiffany "Joe" Eddie New York mobster "on vacation" Always in I14 (Alma) in current 1.13 data
Jasmin "T-Rex" Rexall Imposingly large militiaman Random: B2, F9, G1, H2 or H14
Richard "Slay" Ruttwen, "Terry" Man in a wheelchair Random: F9, G1, G2, G8 or I14

In vanilla JA2 not all of the terrorists spawn in a single campaign — Elgin plus 2–4 others, weighted by difficulty. 1.13: ENABLE_ALL_TERRORISTS (shipped default TRUE) makes all six appear in every game. Terrorists with a location set in MercProfiles.xml (currently Elgin, Annie and Tiffany) always spawn there; the rest roll a sector from the lists above at campaign start.

Missable bounties

A head destroyed by a critical headshot or explosives can't be collected — no proof, no money. Be punctual at the Drassen meeting: dawdle too long and Carmen disappears with your cash. And T-Rex will happily steal the weapon of any merc who gets close, so keep your distance.

Slay is special: instead of killing him, you can hand him the diskette and he serves in your squad for a week in exchange for safe passage. Carmen turns hostile if he sees Slay with you, and even rumors make him refuse further heads until you deliver Slay's within 24 hours — so if you want all six bounties and Slay's services, deal with Slay on his last day. 1.13: SLAY_STAYS_FOREVER = TRUE in Ja2_Options.INI lets Slay stay on your team indefinitely (with SLAY_HOURLY_CHANCE_TO_LEAVE governing how quickly he wanders off when it is FALSE).

Full terrorist details are on NPCs and recruitment.

Madlab and the robot

For using, upgrading and repairing the robot once you have it, see The Robot.

Dr. Nathaniel "MadLab" Kairns, a scientist who fled the Queen's employ, hides in a random sector in southern Arulco (sightings include H7, H16, I11 and E4). Look for a lone house and a barn that is bigger outside than in: a switch hidden in the house's cabinets opens a secret door to his workshop.

  • Start: talk to him with a merc with at least a little Leadership and hear out his (long) story, then be direct with him.
  • Steps: he needs a rifle and a video camera to finish his queen-killing robot. Any rifle works — it becomes the robot's permanent weapon — and video cameras are easiest to buy in Balime's shops. MadLab strips any non-integral attachments off the rifle and drops them on the floor for you to keep.
  • Reward: the robot, plus a control headset given to the nearest merc. Someone in the robot's squad must wear the headset (it occupies the Extended Ear slot) to command it. The robot shrugs off bullets, has no scent (Crepitus can't detect it), never tires, but is slow, can't climb or swim, can't use items, and is repaired with a toolkit rather than healed.

If the robot is destroyed

MadLab builds a replacement for another rifle and video camera — but do not remove the destroyed robot from the merc list on the map screen, or it can never rejoin your team.

1.13: the quest is progress-gated by GAME_PROGRESS_START_MADLAB_QUEST (default 35), so MadLab won't appear before roughly 35% campaign progress. With the New Inventory System active, the robot is also upgradeable (ROBOT_UPGRADEABLE = TRUE) — and be warned that 1.13's enemies field robots of their own later in the campaign (ROBOT_MINIMUM_PROGRESS, default 45).

Devin Connell, explosives dealer

Devin wanders the same northern-Arulco bars as Carmen and Micky (C5, C6, D13, H2, G9). He is the only local source of explosives — TNT, C-1/C-4, RDX/HMX, grenades, mines, detonators, an M79 — though he buys nothing. After you free four cities he can be persuaded to join your team.

Buy first, recruit second

The moment you recruit Devin, his sale stock disappears. Clean out his shop before signing him up. And keep him away from Buns — his dislike for her is strong enough to make him quit if they share a sector too long.

Hamous and the ice cream truck

Hamous drives his "borrowed" ice cream truck along a random road sector — the game moves him daily between D3, D7, D9, F12 and G6. A merc with decent Leadership can hire him for $250/day, truck included; he doesn't take the truck back if you later dismiss him. The truck needs gas (two cans fill a tank), seats a full squad, needs an awake driver, and only drives on roads.

1.13: you can store loot inside the ground vehicles — handy as a mobile stash for battlefield salvage — and vehicle seating capacity is externalized to Data-1.13\TableData\Vehicles.xml; see Recommended settings for raising the six-seat limit. Note that 1.13 also limits you to two owned vehicles at a time (which matters if you ever grab a tank in Meduna).

Hidden weapon caches

Some sectors on the map hold secret weapon caches — chests with mediocre-to-good equipment. In a normal campaign only some of these cache sectors are active.

1.13: set ENABLE_ALL_WEAPON_CACHES = TRUE in Ja2_Options.INI to activate every cache sector. The individual cache locations aren't documented here; if you want them spoiled sector-by-sector, ask at the Bear's Pit forum (see community links).

Sci-Fi mode only: the Crepitus

Everything in this section requires Sci-Fi mode at campaign start (see new game options); in Realistic mode none of these NPCs or events appear.

The Crepitus are giant insects bred by the Queen as a bio-weapon. The infestation triggers when you either conquer at least three mines, or duck into the hatch in a side-room of Tixa's lower level (which leads to a cavern full of larvae). A cutscene of the Queen ordering Elliot to stop feeding the bugs is your warning; soon after, a head miner reports one of your mines infested (usually Drassen's), and it stops producing until you clear it.

  • Ending it: fight down through the infested mine and kill the Crepitus Queen on the lowest level. Every remaining bug dies with her. Until then, the bugs raid at night — auto-resolve slaughters militia against them, so keep a merc or two in threatened sectors and fight the battles in tactical mode.
  • Gabby: Gary "Gabby" Mulnick, an ex-regime scientist found in H11 or I4 (Sci-Fi only), explains the creatures, sells glass jars and his elixir (one application masks a merc's scent, making them invisible to the blind bugs unless they attack), and buys Crepitus organs, claws, flesh and jarred blood — a decent income stream. Larva blood is just undigested human blood and worthless; don't jar it.
  • Robot synergy: MadLab's robot has no scent at all. A robot armed with a machine gun, run by an elixir-masked operator, can clear the lair nearly solo.
  • Bring gas masks (the bugs spit acid and venomous gas), lots of ammo, and prefer hollow-point for the regular bugs — but not for the Queen, who is not susceptible to it.

1.13: the trigger sector for the creature quest is externalized in Data-1.13\Creatures_Settings.INI (CREPITUS_FEEDING_SECTOR_X/Y/Z, default J9 two levels underground — the cavern beneath Tixa), so mods can relocate the Crepitus content.

All of these live in Data-1.13\Ja2_Options.INI; see the Ja2_Options.INI tour for context and Recommended settings for opinions. Defaults below are from the current GitHub release.

Setting Default Effect on quests
AWARD_SPECIAL_EXP_POINTS_FOR_COMPLETING_QUESTS 100 Bonus XP for mercs in the sector when a quest completes
SPECIAL_NPCS_STRONGER 75 Makes Kingpin, hitmen, Carmen, terrorists, Mike, Joe and Deidranna tougher
STEALING_FROM_SHIPMENTS_DISABLED FALSE TRUE stops Pablo stealing from Drassen shipments
CHANCE_OF_SHIPMENT_LOSS 10 % chance an entire Bobby Ray shipment is lost
CHANCE_TONY_AVAILABLE 80 Chance Tony is in his San Mona shop; 100 = always
ENABLE_ALL_TERRORISTS TRUE All six of Carmen's targets appear in every campaign
ENABLE_ALL_WEAPON_CACHES FALSE TRUE activates every secret weapon-cache sector
ALLOW_SKYRIDER_HOT_LZ 2 Skyrider can drop mercs into enemy-held sectors (0–3)
ASSASSINS_DISGUISED TRUE Kingpin's hitmen wear civilian disguises
SLAY_STAYS_FOREVER FALSE TRUE makes Slay a permanent recruit
SLAY_HOURLY_CHANCE_TO_LEAVE 15 Chance Slay leaves if left alone (when not permanent)
GAME_PROGRESS_START_MADLAB_QUEST 35 Minimum campaign progress before MadLab appears
RAID_BLOODCATS FALSE Bloodcats can raid your sectors at night

Sources