How to make realistic missions?

[kef1989]

Can you give a total noob some advice on how to go about creating believable, engaging missions? I've tried and my missions just seem like shooting galleries...

 

How do I go about a creating a mission that plays more like a game? And not to mention when making my own missions, I know about where everything is...

 

Thank you!

Edited yesterday at 01:32 AM by kef1989

[Ssnake]

I think the most important point is to define the goals of each party in some sort of a story script, if you will. What is it that Red wants? What does Blue want? 

Do they want to inflict losses on the other as their prime motivation, do they want to avoid own losses, or take territory, or create a diversion from something that the neighboring unit wants to do?

 

Then answer, where is it happening? Look at the terrain and ask yourself, how can they achieve their goals?

What tools does each commander have at their disposal? What can these tools do, what circumstances do they need to do their special thing?

 

Give the player something to do other than shooting things up; the shooting might just be the dressing of your "mission salad". By that I mean that each mission is a unique mix of things to do, and where it happens. Is there a unit that needs to be rescued, or to be protected? Do you want to show the activities of the loggies, and have the player run supplies to the units? Maybe it's about preventing the enemy from capturing KO'd vehicles (own or enemy)?

 

From pen & paper roleplaying I learned that characters who can do it all are boring. It's the weaknesses that make things interesting and memorable. In this sense, Mission Design is Storytelling. Setting the stage - starting conditions of your scenario - tells a story of what happened before. Mission goals tell a story about the desired future. And playing your scenario is then the journey towards that future.

 

 

Now, knowing in advance what'll happen... There's ways to make it so that you know all the options, but won't know if, when, and where exactly they will happen. Are there Spetsnats forces in none, one, or several locations? You can use routes with Jump condition to make them spwan (if at all), then appear in different places. Where's the enemy's strongpoint(s)? On that hill, behind, or adjacent to it? Do they attack through the left valley, or the right one?

In the User's Manual is a section in the Mission Design chapter about randomization. That you should try to understand well. There's chaotic random behavior that you can create, and coordinated ranomness (which is what you want, most of the time).

 

 

And maybe start small. Modify an existing scenario. Create a platoon sized mission.