The first priority for the off season is now complete. Plot members and administrators now have the ability to queue up entirely arbitrary downtime activities for PCs. For example, you might spend a week exploring another shard or a few days experimenting. Because such activities only have significance in the context of a plot line, only plot members can queue them up, but you can manage them as you see fit afterward. Once they're completed, the plot member receives a notice that you've finished and the story can proceed from there.
Plot members also have the ability to lock downtime activities. Locked activities cannot be canceled or re-prioritized like other activities, and you cannot modify your downtime queue to make them any lower priority than they already are. That is to say, if you have a locked downtime activity that is at the top of your queue, you won't be able to do anything else until it's complete. This way, plot members can do fun things like put you in jail for the night or trap you in a vortex of despair for eight months (special thanks to Mark Akers for being my unwitting guinea pig for that one).
While I was programming these enhancements, I did some house cleaning on the whole downtime module. So, if you notice anything about downtime not working the way it should, please be sure to let me know. Overall, it should run a bit more smoothly than it did before, but there may be a few kinks to work out.
The simple answer is, it depends on how plot wants it to work. It's just another tool in their toolbox, allowing them to tie into downtime for story purposes. If you want to go searching for treasure, it's up to them whether or not you can even make the attempt, how long it takes, and the ultimate outcome of your endeavor.
Keep in mind that this is meant as a prelude to the scenario system. If you ask to do something during downtime, a plot member has the option to queue up the activity for a few days and create a custom scenario that you only get once the activity is complete. They can also use arbitrary downtime as a negative consequence for scenarios (i.e., you contract a disease and spend four days sick in bed).
For those of you who may have been affected, I noticed a glitch that was causing trade skills to yield zero production when completed. This has been corrected, and those who were affected have been awarded their production retroactively. The completion messages will still say zero, but the production should be in your inventories as normal.
Thanks for scaring the livin crap outta me Thad... but i am glad it works.