new Side Mission Ideas

[wok]

I couldn't find a thread to share side mission ideas so I am creating this one. Feel free to post your sm ideas here, doesn't need to be a full detailed explanation, a few words to explain the idea will do too. I will start with some of the things I'd like to see:

 

Clearing Buildings : I'd love to see some close quarter combat missions. For example spawning one (or more) of these buildings http://www.antihelios.de/EK/Arma/images/Land_i_Barracks_V1_F%20%28Side2%29.jpg fill it with enemies and send players to clear it. Maybe with the excuse of recovering intel, or destroying a weapons cache hidden in the building, or even spawning a hostage civ in the building that needs to be rescued alive. The side mission could also happen on one of the many enterable houses in agia marina choosen randomly so players will have to find out which one it is.

 

Moving Targets : It would be cool to have one or more offroad trucks (because they can carry a lot of units in the back) moving around the map. The map marker should be just approximated, like making sure the target moves every X time, and update the marker on that interval showing their last known position. This type of sm could introduce new gameplay, like players may want to predict where the target will move and plan ambushes, or place some satchel charges on the road and wait for the target to pass by.

 

Enemy Diver Team : This one is for those guys who love running around with their diver suit and also to put the SDAR to use. We could spawn a squad of enemy divers near the shore, maybe make them deploy a naval mine every X time.

 

Rescue Mission : I think someone already posted something like this, bassically a frienly chopper was shoot down, players must rescue the crew before it's too late.

 

Free Prisioners : Using something like http://www.antihelios.de/EK/Arma/images/Land_Mil_WiredFence_F.jpg to build a simple square prision, put some civs inside and enemies guarding it. Players must kill the enemies without harming civs. Maybe to finish the mission a repair spec (or any player with toolkit) is needed to break the wired fence or something like that.

 

Side Mission Failed : I think it will be nice if we could fail side missions, for example lets say there's mission that involves capturing an enemy team leader alive, or rescuing a hostage. Then if that unit dies, the mission fails and we get no reward. This may force players to plan more before attacking.

[PVT_Ben]

I definitely like the idea of being able to fail side missions. It makes them more interesting, not just an easier main mission with a reward. This would work well with a hostage style side mission where there is a timer before the hostage is executed or something.

[Rarek]

Side Missions can already be failed, there's just not a Side Mission, currently, that can be failed.

 

A basic example is the Talk to Contact Side Mission. This can be failed if the contact dies for any reason. I only removed that due to some addAction JIP issues, though the functionality for that is already there.

 

In regards to the missions, there's lots planned and I'm just trying to finish off the template-loader for them so that we can easily write them. So you're aware, what I'm working on will mean I can confidently write multiple Side Missions every single day. The loader will take some time, but the rewards following it will be vast.

 

Also, the plans we have for Side Missions are slightly different from some suggestions. Quoting from the guidelines I've written in one of our templates:

 

Side Missions are designed to be non-critical targets often protected by the same types of units as normal AOs but requiring certain skillsets / classes.

 

They are encouraged to provide players with a different approach to the normal "travel to > kill > win" gametype and instead give a challenge that must be dealt with carefully and strategically. It is for this reason that players are given rewards upon the completion of a Side Mission.

 

Side Missions should not be based on timers in any way. They should be able to be left for an indefinite amount of time and still completed.