Posted August 19, 2014
Covert Action is truly unique, not just in its style, but also in how a person can use their investigative skill to maximize on mission success. I didn't realize at first how deep it goes, and after watching people play, I think many players don't know. Here are a couple of concepts.
I see people arresting a suspect the second they become aware of them. If you want to go for more arrests, sometimes it's better to turn or bug suspects instead of arresting them right away. If they are arrested before their job is done, this prevents the crime, but any suspects they were supposed to meet with will get spooked and go into hiding, within a time. This can cause a chain reaction of hiding, since this causes the same effect with that suspect's contacts. I often leave suspects alone, despite having enough to arrest them.
Turning or 100% bugging a suspect will automatically give you arrestable info on anybody they contact: their name, job, city, organization, rank. With a Courier, you can reveal two suspects: one who hands them the goods, and the person they hand it off to.
Turning is always better than arresting, but it can get boring playing a "pink safe run". I tend to turn the significant suspects, and jail the rest.
Just don't let the FINAL suspect in the chain pull off their ultimate goal, ie. the assassination, blackmail, explosion, etc.
Another idea:
If you don't have a suspect's photo, but you know their job, and you have the Master Plan, you can compare their job name to the Master Plan photo to learn what they look like. The game doesn't automatically insert the photo into their file. The usefulness for such info is that you can go to one of the suspect's ally's offices in their same city, and watch for their face. They will show up eventually. You can then trace or tail the suspect to their previously unknown home base. Or hey, just run them off the road with your car.
This might not be super-useful advice, but it does hint at how you can think outside of the box a little bit. That's really what I'm trying to get across here, not just any one particular advice.
I'll just mention that it is entirely possible to arrest one Mastermind per mission. I'll leave that to your imagination.
I see people arresting a suspect the second they become aware of them. If you want to go for more arrests, sometimes it's better to turn or bug suspects instead of arresting them right away. If they are arrested before their job is done, this prevents the crime, but any suspects they were supposed to meet with will get spooked and go into hiding, within a time. This can cause a chain reaction of hiding, since this causes the same effect with that suspect's contacts. I often leave suspects alone, despite having enough to arrest them.
Turning or 100% bugging a suspect will automatically give you arrestable info on anybody they contact: their name, job, city, organization, rank. With a Courier, you can reveal two suspects: one who hands them the goods, and the person they hand it off to.
Turning is always better than arresting, but it can get boring playing a "pink safe run". I tend to turn the significant suspects, and jail the rest.
Just don't let the FINAL suspect in the chain pull off their ultimate goal, ie. the assassination, blackmail, explosion, etc.
Another idea:
If you don't have a suspect's photo, but you know their job, and you have the Master Plan, you can compare their job name to the Master Plan photo to learn what they look like. The game doesn't automatically insert the photo into their file. The usefulness for such info is that you can go to one of the suspect's ally's offices in their same city, and watch for their face. They will show up eventually. You can then trace or tail the suspect to their previously unknown home base. Or hey, just run them off the road with your car.
This might not be super-useful advice, but it does hint at how you can think outside of the box a little bit. That's really what I'm trying to get across here, not just any one particular advice.
I'll just mention that it is entirely possible to arrest one Mastermind per mission. I'll leave that to your imagination.