The Man Without A Shadow

[radiosilence]

Despite of its one fantasy detail , this could make a fun and even realistic mission, implementing real searching strategies.

THE MAN WITH NO SHADOW. You are an US guard at a military top secret research complex which lies isolated in the small island of Malden. You have often had question about the project that takes place there, but neither you nor your friends have the slightest idea... which only whets your imagination. That is, until the day the alarms sound and all the squads at the base are briefed quickly. It's difficult for the Colonel to explain, but he tells you that they were experimenting with a human being. He managed to escape and he might be anywhere. All ports have been secured, but this man was a Seal -he can pilot planes, boats, anything. And he's deadly, even barehanded as he is. And he's... well... he's invisible. That was the project all about. And that's why you can't ask for help from outside the island. It could escalate into a huge crisis and many heads would roll. You must shoot dead someone you can't see, and who has gone berserk.

Each soldier/squad has got a rudimentary heartbeat sensor, but that's all. Will all the squads in the island be enough to trap this single Seal, who's running berserk and could escape anywhere in the world with the secret?

Of course, an invisible unit addon that can leave footprints must be implemented. I haven't tried Resistance yet so I'm not sure if units leave footprints now.

You'll be able to trace him with the heartbeat sensor, or by the footprints he leaves, or because you see a gun floating in the air aiming at you.

Many squads, vehicles, helos, etc., should take part in this search.

Hope someone likes this mission so much as to make it. ;D

[m21man]

I haven't tried Resistance yet so I'm not sure if units leave footprints now.

Yes, they do. Use Resistance.

[SEAL84]

I think footprints actually came with one of the patches, didn't they?

* SEAL84 waits for the copy of Resistance to show up so he can forward it to Radio

[Dubieman]

One small problem with resistance footprints. They fade after a while so you need a script to create/keep them there.
I think they fade for memory reasoons but not sure. Kegety's editor add on includes footprints so I guess you could use those.

[OrangeLeader]

Well have you thought that it would be extremely hard to follow someone based on footprints.

[radiosilence]

Actually, I think it is better that the footprints fade like they do with any other unit.

The key of this mission is the heartbeat sensor. Maybe even a modified NVGoggles that acts as an infrared vision device, but I'm not sure about that.

If you have squads and more squads at your command to hunt a single guy, and that guy is AI controlled, he will need to be extremely slippery or the mission would be stupidly simple.

The heartbeat sensor would tell you whether you are close or not to the invisible target, but it can't tell you where to aim I think knowing that this man is really close but you can't tell where can be thrilling. You can get shot at or even killed by bare hands (through a script) at any moment. The point of this story is that you outnumber the enemy by, say, 100 to 1. Still, you're in disadvantage.

The hand attack script should really be useful, since any weapon this guy picks up will be visible. And that will give you a great clue of where he is.

Imagine him springing in the middle of your squad to to mayhem, where would you shoot? Talk about crossfire, lol.

the playing strategy, I think, is to think ahead of him: where could he go, where could you ambush him? And how?

NOTE: Just to make sure, I'm throwing this mission for whomever wants to make it, I'm not working on it at the moment. I would just love to play this mission.  

[GoodspeedForever]

Although the idea honestly sounds stupid, once you think about it, it's rather interesting.  Like he said, you outnumber the guy so much, yet are still at disadvantage.

If you could engineer the guy getting in the middle of a squad, you'd have em killing each other, maybe have AI guys begin killing each other then (you know, if u kill like 2 friendlies your IFF changes to enemy), - total chaos.


 That'd be fun if you could get invisible man, heartbeat sensor, and hand to hand killing scripts.

[radiosilence]

I was thinking that a Game Logic could act as the invisible man. Since it sort of acts like units, you could have dynamic waypoints for it, and thus scripted behaviour patterns (it tends to go to escape places, it tends to attack teams and scattered units and it tends to leave tanks alone).

A simple array of units would do for hand-to hand combat. Once the Game Logic is over a certain unit, the unit begins to take damage, panic, shoot, and his team mates will also enter combat behaviour to save him. Even allowfleeing could be used here. A script that assigns these behaviours through probabilities could be implemented.

I'm pretty sure that you can make units fire at a Game Logic but that it will take no damage, though. I'll have to test that this week.

The IR goggles would spoil all the fun, now that I think about it.

All in all, I think it would be fun for a quick, little and different kind of mission of military fantasy.

Just one thought... maybe looking for a single invisible guy will mean too much dead time in the mission just running around... what about a small invisible Seal team? Can you imagine that attack, invisible killers coming out of everywhere at you, the heartbeat sensors going crazy, your own squad shooting each other in a mad attempt to kill what they cannot see?

And what if, after all, High Command were testing how effective this new weapon could be, simulating the escape of the invisible Seal team? What if you were being betrayed by your own people after all?

Mmmmh... I think I'll give it a try myself to see what I come up with. Though it might turn into a ghost story any time... stories are not safe with me, lol. OFP Ghostbusters... I love it  
(Just kidding)

[j-man]

Sounds like a really cool idea. Just one question though, what would be the enemies purpose? To escape the island? If so, then it would be far to easy for him to escape because by the way your descriding things, it's would be really difficult to find the guy.

[GoodspeedForever]

True... if they were just escaping they can just sprint at high speed to a harbor and steal a boat or an airport and steal a plane lol (The chopper that flies without a pilot lol)

You could make sure and emphasize the revenge aspect maybe; the guy(s) want revenge for all that's been done to them, so they come after the base personnel before escaping...

[j-man]

Or mabey you could have the East trying to find the guy aswell. Half the island is controled the West and the other half by the East. And you have to find the guy and bring him back to your base before the East finds him and find out how to make people invisable. And mabey the West could have spies so that if the Russians do find him, your spies could report in his location and you could ambus the convoy that is transportinh him off the island? Or a time limit, mabey the guy might die after a certain amount of time and all the technology and effert put into making him invisable would just be wasted.

I actually think this is a really great idea and i'm making my own version, except without the invisable guy

[GoodspeedForever]

uhh lol does that make sense? I guess you could do a normal fugitive...

Remake a military version of The Fugitive