Dev Diary: Operations

Today's Development Diary by Podcat

Welcome to another dev diary for La Resistance. Today we are back talking espionage, namely Operations. These are like big impact missions that may require multiple agents as well as resources and preparation time. I also have some other stuff to cover.

-

Update on the new launcher As some of you may have noticed the launcher release got a big bumpier than we had liked. While we had fixed several issues since the stellaris launcher it seemed that HOI4 had a share of unique issues also :/ I’ve looked at telemetry and it seems like mod use is mostly back to pre-launcher-release so it seems most players are back on board with mods, but there are still reports of issues. We released a 1.8.1 hotfix for some issues at the end of last week and we are working on a few things on the game side since. I have been chatting with the team working on the launcher and they will have a launcher bugfix patch out next week (the new launcher updates without us having to update the game or bump version number). While they are mainly looking at bugs at the moment, they are also working on some UI improvements for mod navigation that should be ready during next month.

-

Operations Operations all require at least one agent to perform, and some require more than one (in fact some powerful ones require more than you might have as a non-spymaster, making their access more limited). They also all need some level of network to have been built up in preparation.

Operations all need preparation before they can be launched. This is usually produced equipment, agents or a cost in industry over time. We use this last one as an abstract representation of funneling economy into bribes, making or creating counterfeit cash etc where military equipment makes no sense.

In this example we are using the local resistance to saboutage resource extraction and we need to supply the operation with 250 support equipment You can here also set the operation to just launch when ready if you do not care about timing, or if you want it to keep repeating.

Once preparation is done an operation can have multiple phases. The most common is 3 - Infiltration, performing the job and exfiltration. We have a pretty cool system for this where phases can be mixed and matched and have different costs associated with them. For example if your operatives need to paradrop into location at night it may require transport planes, but if its a neutral border perhaps only some economic bribing is needed to slip in. Operations can take quite a while to perform and will lock up your operatives during this. Operatives can also have traits that affect both chance of better outcomes as well as making them cheaper/faster. The more times you perform an operation against a target the more difficult it gets. This kind of auto balancing simulates that the enemy will plug holes in their security based on how you have previously broken through.

There are two main types of operations: Gatekeeper ones that give you infiltrated assets, which in turn allow you access to other, more powerful operations.

Infiltration These are all gatekeeper operations with added benefits.

(note that this resistance contact ones lets you specify a target state. Some operations target nations, some take states and others strategic regions)

Infiltrate Army - Gets you an asset inside the enemy armed