A spy mission

[Dubieman]

I've started on an idea for a WWII era spy mission. It would have lots of options and ways to go with say, 4 different "win" endings.

Only problem is I don't have much in the way of ideas as to what this "spy" can do on Nazi held Sarugao. Any ideas or concepts?

And I was going to make it a whole island mission, hopefully...

But some ideas so far: help civvies, sabotage nazi vehicles, bribe german "landser" to obtain weapons/help/more sabotage, and general destruction...

[Tomasz]

Hey GRK,

here are a couple of suggestions:

- u have to find some docs on the island showing AA posts on the coast areas of Germany

- u have to locate a heavy gun battery that blocks this area from any marine activity

- assassinate someone ( an SS officer, maybe Himmler )

- link up with the resistance and give two of them false docs so that they can leave the island ( they are impt ppl )

- with false docs, enter the SS network and try to become one of them, getting all the info.

- offering them the US top secret info ( giving them almost right data  and having proof for it) so that u become an important person and ull get transfered to Berlin ( in order to continue ur under cover mission ).

hope that helps
 ;D

Tomasz

[Dubieman]

Those all sound good except for the ones involving becoming part of the SS or something. Since you really can't change clothes. Plus the loads of editing to do so.

@ the last one
Why go to Berlin when you could stay on beautiful Sarugao? ;D

[Commando]

transport stuff from different places?
Like take a mule or horse or car with some object to another agent or something  ;D

[Dubieman]

 ;D

Get the opel blitz filled with opium to the harbor before the nazi's catch you...

Cool, I'll see how I can fit that in....
Once I get started... :tomato:

[Serial Killer]

A few ideas from me..

- Player has to steal some Top Secret documents from heavily guarder German base..
- Player has to rescue some high ranked American officer captured in somewhere ( Your choice )
- Player has to kill Hitler ;D

Why don't you create a campaign from this? It would be better idea, than a single mission, I think..

[Dubieman]

-kill hitler: hmm, interesting...would be fun to do...but don't think so.
But for more killing hitler fun, check out the father of all shooting games, Wolfenstein 3D, the best game ever in the history of the world. I loved the last level, face off with the man himself and try to kill him even though he has that giant armored suit... ;D

Back on topic....

-steal docs: yeah, I'll fit that in prolly

-question is, how did the officer get there?
Just having some officer to rescue might not make sense. Though I can see a side mission coming out of it. Get docs to find harbor, find officer, protect him, get him on a boat out of there.

@Campaign: That's a lot of work... ;D
I was planning to have it resemble Thobson's Abandoned Armies mission(pretty much gave me the inspiration to do this), with a functioning world (germans checking places out and civvies doing stuff) and you're just there to be the best damn little spy you can be. ;D :tomato:

I'll take it into consideration though. But knowing my *awesome* work ethic, I'll prolly stick with a single mission. :tomato:

[djackl]

Maybe he would have to spend a day pretending to be a civvie and getting used to the island or something, that would increase the time span

[Tomasz]

Find a job, get other civvies to co-operate, if not kill them

Tomasz

[Dubieman]

Step #1 establish yourself as a civvie

step#2 wait 10 days OFP time


 ;D

[ACF]

Been mulling this one for the last few lunchtimes - OFP SOE.  It's a little away from the pure 'spy' idea, but anything too subtle is perhaps going to be too hard to make work and, dare I say it, slow to play.

The concept is an Special Operations Executive/resistance/Overlord scenario: causing trouble before, during and after the island's very own D-Day.

The allies are going to land on the 'less-well defended' end of the island with a mission to liberate it. After the landing, the Germans will, naturally, counterattack the beachhead.

The 'spy' element is that you'd be an SOE agent (or OSS if you must, not SAS or Rangers for credibility's sake). You'd be least-at-risk while acting normally in the towns and not avoiding checkpoints on the roads.
Getting seen running, skulking about in woods or anywhere after curfew, would be deemed a hostile act. So would having anything more than a holstered pistol, a satchel charge or a couple of grenades.
I'd seriously consider locking AFVs and planes.
As a warry alternative you could be a lone para - sole survivor of a misdrop - either return to your lines or start a private war. Or that SAS trooper...

You could have a radio op up in, say, I don't know, a lodge or something that you need to visit to get your orders or to pass information to the Allies; at least until he (probably she, historically) gets a call from the Gestapo. You could use something like the coded radio messages in 'The Longest Day' as a device to 'guide' the player to specific objectives if you needed to - an agent wouldn't necessarily know about the landing itself until it happened.

Getting to the real core of the mission, your tasks in support of the landing could include:
- Identify defensive positions - mark your map up and get back to your radio op (so some positions could be bombed/bombarded before the landing).
- Nobble a radar site (I know it's been done before) but maybe allow cunning alternatives like knocking out the power rather than a frontal assault. If you don't (or maybe if you do it too early), the Germans react quickly and/or send in the Luftwaffe.)
- Or an airfield
- Or fuel/ammo dumps
- Interdict German combat reinforcements and/or logistics.
- Tie-down German units away from the beachhead.
- Marking DZs/LZs for coup de main para/glider assaults.
- Knock-off the commander (a bit of Operation Daybreak / Seven Men at Daybreak - Czech out the assassination of Heydrich)
- Maybe prevent a few massacres of civilians (taking the rap for what you've done).
- Cutting phone lines.
- Stop the Germans demolishing something useful or critical to the allied advance, like a bridge.
Basically, you'd be free to raid or ambush anything you see.

'Atmospherics' might be:
- arms caches in woods.
- arms supply drops.
- hostage round-ups.
- bombing raids.
- you could have a cell (group) of other agents to despatch around the island.

I'm not thinking linear objectives, just lots of individual ones each with sensible, and sometimes significant, consequences on the progress of the 'real' battle. Apart from destroying units, completing your objectives would reduce the skill, fuel/ammo or warning time available to the Germans. How about a 'reactiontime' global variable that's the seed for a randomised delay on the release of German units; it starts small but gets increased as you take out comms, HQs or the commander?

The Germans would be either 'fixed' garrisons on the coast, in towns or at installations, waypointed anti-invasion forces or guard groups that will also counter the invasion unless you distract them. The battle itself could be balanced so the invasion fails fairly seriously without your input. To keep it manageable, the battle between the two armies can be fairly linear - you'd mainly attract the infantry guard groups who wouldn't then be available to counter the landing. Even within a linear battle, the results of all those variations are going to keep things fairly random.

Good luck whichever way you go...

[Dubieman]

:wow:


I kinda like that idea...

I'm basing it off of Macguba's and THobson's missions. And right now I'm still working out how to make the German's send convoys around to inspect places to make sure nothing is left unchecked for too long. But once I get that fully working, I'll think about which path I want to take.

Do I go with my original idea of just being the lone spy with AI help every once and a while? And no allies really land on the island in force...

Or

Yours where it builds up to something more...

Of course the first it easier, but I feel with an overall objective plus tons of sidepaths that the you could really get into it. Only problem is there is already a large amount of addons in it right now. By adding invasion forces and such it might make it even worse.

Though I can fake the paratroopers...falling from the sky isn't too hard...
And I've already included a Sherman, so then now the main problem will be a US plane (prolly another 7MB if its a P51) since I want to have ME109s flying about when you make too much of a racket and strafe you when you try to run in a vehicle. (currently working a little on making it fire those big gunpods).

I'm using the I44 demo troops. Are they still in style or have we all moved onto something a little better? I chose to stay with them since they represent the german army fairly well...

thanks for all the feedback received.

Edit: And I'm finally getting the "world" figured out. Once I can get the convoy to engage threats along its route, I'll be golden. Then I can add the other convoys to the other sectors...

Once the land units get figured out, I wanted to make the reg guard units who repsond to threats in each sector of Sarugao, then the main assualt troops who attack if you really make the German's angry. All the missions and civvies and such do come after all that...

[Dubieman]

Hello again...

I've almost made it to the actual mission components part now. I've begun placing more "generic" units on the map and have started to work out a system for the German occupiers. Its a shame I won't be able to post this for the mission beta testing party...

[Ade]

GRK,

I would suggest the 'part of something bigger' approach. I'll take ACF's idea of an allied beach assault.  The player has a number of alternate objectives and success in any one improves the chances of either (a) the success of the allied landing and/or (b) the failure of the German counter attack.

It's up to the player which objectives he attempts and also what order, and he or she should have to do a little bit of thinking to work out which are the best. Also, some objectives should be hidden and then revealed. Maybe there is a French resistance contact who would tell the player where a radar station or tank base is. To make it more quest-like, it could be that the resistance guy won't help the player until some other objective has been fulfilled, such as assassinating a German officer who killed the resistance guy's best friend.

None of that is really original or clever, but it's not so hard to do in OFP and I think it could work very well.

Ade

EDIT- There are a few more WWII units besides I44, but the I44 troops are good quality, there's plenty of vehicles and because it's packed as a mod, it is much easier to download, rather than hunting all over ofp.info for separate addons.

[Dubieman]

Yes, I've pretty much decided on ACF's idea.

I'm still in the stages of making the German's occupy Sarugao. I'm amazed by the amount of randomness and how quick things crap up on a recent "run" of the mission. I still have a long way to go with the German's. I haven't even started on the story line yet.

As for what the allies are actually going to do, I don't think a beach assualt would work. I'm hoping to use the para troops as para troops with a massive drop on the main island plus have a small beach landing of sherman's to reinforce the paras. Then maybe later, the player can get control of some forces and take the other 2 smaller islands that make up Sarugao.
The other possible ending, is once the Allies have control of the main island, (I'll have to post a pic or something, otherwise you guys won't know what I'm talking about ;D) the mission ends. And the outro shows the american assualt troops + shermans + P51s ;D beating the crap out of the remaining German troops on the other islands.

However, the player would be able to visit these other islands via getting own boat or grabbing a ride with the smuggler. These other islands would have objectives too. Like I'd be able to build a radar station there more easily than on the main island which is getting crowded already.

I was also thinking of a prison camp rescue, and I found a good place for it too.

To make it more quest-like, it could be that the resistance guy won't help the player until some other objective has been fulfilled, such as assassinating a German officer who killed the resistance guy's best friend.

I've got just the right cutscene in mind for that ressy guy to do a flashback of his friend getting shot. I was toying with this guy in the execution animation and a guy behind him. And once shot, the guy being killed would do the execution dying off the end of the dock. It looked very real and  it'd look perfect for that cutscene.

@addons:
I have created a rather large list now.  
That will be a deterrent, but they are all very high quality, fun addons. Like the Me-109 and P51, the light panzer, and the military item pack. I'm hoping people will play it if they already have I44.
But mostly, its addons that are needed. If I didn't have them, the mission would be missing something.

For instance if I only have Tiger tanks and half tracks, that won't feel right at all. Same with the planes, if I didn't have them, then it'd seem awfully empty up there. (no C47s though, just two fighters, I'll fudge the paras)
And the Sherman tank and higgens boats. I44 doesn't do much for the american side so I had to add those.

Anyways, I hope to reward ppl for getting the addons by giving them a long and imersive mission.