Pest Control

This is a safe activity in an instanced area. If you die here, you will not lose any of your items, including those stored inside an Item Retrieval Service (deathbank). However, any items you drop manually on the ground will be lost. Warning: It is still dangerous for Hardcore group iron players.

This article has a strategy guide. All information on mechanics and strategy will be on this page.

Pest Control
Released								18 April 2006 (Update)
Also called								PC
Type								Minigame
Members								Yes
Location								Void Knights' Outpost
League region								Asgarnia✓
Participants								5-25
Skills								Combat, Crafting, Woodcutting
Reward currency								Void Knight commendation points
Tutorial								No
Music								Pest Control
Map

Pest Control is a co-operative combat-based minigame, in which players defend the Void Knight from an onslaught of pests, while also destroying the portals from which the monsters spawn.

The only requirement to participate in Pest Control is a combat level of 40, 70 or 100 for Novice, Intermediate and Veteran games respectively. To play, players should board one of three landers corresponding to the desired difficulty on the Void Knights' Outpost.

Pest Control is notable for its reward of Void Knight equipment, purchased using commendation points given to players actively participating in the minigame.

The Minigame Teleport spell will take players directly to the Void Knights' Outpost (20 minute cooldown), as will Pest Control Teleports, which are obtained as a reward from Treasure Trails, and may also be bought from other players on the Grand Exchange.

Alternatively, players may travel to the island with the squire found on the Port Sarim docks, south of the ship the Lady Lumbridge.

The Outpost contains various utilities, including:

• Bank
• General store - Sells unique items
• Anvil - Nearby is a smith who can repair Barrows armour
• Void Knight Archery Store
• Void Knight Magic Store - Stocks body, air, water, earth, fire, mind, chaos, and death runes
• Three LCVP-style ships, called "landers" - Players board these to begin games of Pest Control
• Port (requires level 50 Sailing to dock your boat here)

Pest Control can be played with between 5 and 25 players, in one of three difficulties (Novice, Intermediate, Veteran) depending on the lander the player chooses to board. It is recommended to use the offical worlds to find other players, as the landers will otherwise usually be empty without a dedicated group.

Once at least 5 players have joined the lander, a 2 minute countdown begins before the game will start. If 25 players have joined, the game will begin automatically.

If there are more than 25 players waiting on the lander, any players not taken will be assigned a greater priority of being taken in the next batch of players. This priority number will increase by 1 each time the player is not taken on a consecutive lander.

Pets are allowed on the island, but not on the landers or in the minigame itself. In addition, Dwarf multicannons and Alchemy spells may not be used during the activity. Finally, leaving the activity requires right-clicking the Squire by the boat and selecting "Leave"; teleports will not work.

The following official world is assigned to Pest Control:

World	Location	Members	Activity
344	Germany	1	Pest Control

As with most minigames, it is not required to use the official world, though landers in most other worlds are usually empty if a dedicated group is not present.

This is a 'safe' activity. Players who die keep their items, respawn on the lander, and can rejoin combat immediately.

In Pest Control, the main objective is to protect the Void Knight from damage that is inflicted by pests that are spawned by four different portals. The players will succeed as long as the Void Knight stays alive. There are two ways to win:

• Defend the Void Knight for 20 minutes until time runs out.
• Destroy all four portals before the Void Knight is killed (the most common strategy, often completed in under two minutes).

At the start of any game, all four portals are protected by shields, which renders them immune to damage. These shields are visually indicated by faint, white lines which surround the portals. Players must wait for the Void Knight to disable each shield before they are able to attack the portal. While waiting, they must protect the Void Knight from any damage by the pests that are spawned from the portals.

The Void Knight, as well as the chatbox, will announce that a shield has dropped. The shields always drop in a set pattern, which goes on a specific rotation. For a detailed breakdown on the shield rotations, please see Pest Control/Strategies. The first shield will always drop 15 seconds into the game, and the remaining shields deactivate every 30 seconds thereafter. All shields will be down by 1 minute and 45 seconds into the game.

When a portal is destroyed, it stops spawning pests and restores 50 health to the Void Knight. In the Novice difficulty, portals have 200hp, while in Intermediate and Veteran they have 250hp. Each portal has high defensive bonuses against every stat, except for its weakness:

Colour	Location	Attack weakness
	W
	E
	SE
	SW

At the end of each game, Hitpoints, Prayer points, special attack, and run energy are fully restored, and any skills with boosts applied are reset to their normal levels.

For a detailed breakdown of advanced mechanics and tactics, see Pest Control/Strategies.

Pests are the monsters that spawn out of portals to kill players and the Void Knight. During the game, players must defend the Void Knight from various enemy creatures that spawn from the enemy portals. These pests have different abilities, such as dealing high damage, healing portals, or attacking the Void Knight directly. Some require specific strategies to counter effectively. For a detailed breakdown of each pest and how to handle them, see Pest Control/Strategies.

Commendation points are the main reward for playing Pest Control and can be exchanged for experience, Void Knight equipment, and other rewards. To earn them, players must maintain their activity bar throughout the game.

• The activity bar must stay above 0% to remain eligible for rewards.
• If it drops to 0% at any point, no commendation points will be awarded.
• The bar will turn red when close to depletion as a warning.

Winning players are rewarded with a number of commendation points dependent on the chosen difficulty level and whether they have completed certain tiers of Combat Achievements. The most commendation points a player can have at any time is 4,000, as the squire will not let you board a boat while in possession of 4,000 points. Commendation points can be traded in for experience, Void Knight equipment, and various resource packs. You also receive coins for each game of pest control won, equivalent to 10 times your current combat level.

	Pest Controlled
You have successfully defended the island!

	Void Knight Defeated...
Alas, the Void Knight has died.

The total cost of obtaining a full set of Void armour. Since the Void Knight mace is not required for any of the full armour sets, its cost should only be considered when calculating for the full collection log.

Players who wish to get the top, bottom, gloves, and one helmet must win the following number of games to gain the 850 points required for the set:

Note: The time estimates above are under ideal conditions (minimal to no wait time between games, no losses, etc.) and assume 2 minutes per game. A more realistic time for the novice lander is 12–14 hours. The official world for Pest Control is 344.

• Originally, players had to deal at least 50 points of damage or repair 10 barricades in the game in order to receive commendations. This is no longer the case as of an update, due to player complaints about participants simply meeting the minimum requirement and not participating afterwards. To counter this, the activity bar was added, requiring players to continually participate or risk not getting commendations. The commendations awarded by each lander were increased by 1 to compensate for this.
• The boat that drops players off in the minigame is modelled after the American Higgins Landing Boat, designed by Andrew Higgins and used by Allied troops on D-Day in World War II.

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