Primary Crime

A Primary Crime, also referred to as a Major Crime (to distinguish it from Minor Crime) is a type of event that occurs during Plots. If allowed to run its course, each plot will see the perpetration of one Primary Crime - this is basically the objective of the entire plot! 
The Primary Crime occurs shortly after a plot Participant - the Major Agent - acquires all the items and information he needs to perform this crime. Once the crime has been committed, it may generate a new Item which will then be delivered forward from the Major Agent to higher-ranking agents in the plot. Allowing a Primary Crime to occur detracts significantly from your score!
==Who perpetrates Primary Crimes?==
The Primary Crimes are always perpetrated by the Major Agent, the key participant in any plot.
==Event Description==
Once the Major Agent of a plot acquires all the necessary items and info they require, they proceed to perpetrate a Primary Crime. This is the culmination of all events transpiring up to this point in the plot.
Firstly, this crime will automatically generate a News Bulletin alerting you to the issue. It will detail the nature of the crime, its target, and the location where it was committed. This is the location of the Major Agent of the plot.
In addition, the Major Agent may end up with a new Item in his possession as a result of the crime. This valuable item will then be passed forward to a higher-ranking participant - possibly the Mastermind himself.
In most cases, whether or not an item is generated by the crime, the plot will generally continue onwards - possibly with Message Traffic going between participants to acknowledge that the plot has successfully concluded.
Failure to prevent the Primary Crime from occurring will always increase the Maximum Points for a mission by a very large amount. Due to the way the game calculates your final score, having a larger Maximum is very bad, as it basically diminishes the value of all arrests and confiscations you've made so far in the plot. Your primary goal in every mission is to prevent this from happening - sometimes at the expense of letting participants in the plot disappear into hiding.
==Intercepting Primary Crimes==
The CIA and InterPol will always be made aware whenever a Major Crime is perpetrated. As such, one or the other will generate a Bulletin explaining some details about this crime - most likely its nature, target, and the location where it took place.
The location detailed in the Bulletin is, in fact, the location of the Agent who perpetrated the crime. This is very helpful if you do not yet have the location of that particular Agent, though it will not be automatically added to the agent's Suspect File.
==Stopping Primary Crimes==
This is really the main thing you want to achieve in any mission you play. You may be surprised to hear that it is in fact relatively easy, and there are several ways to do this:
*If a Minor Agent is arrested or somehow sent into hiding before they can acquire and deliver the item or piece of information they were supposed to get, this will eventually cause the Major Agent to give up his mission and go into hiding if possible.
*Confiscating an item acquired from a Minor Crime may lead to a plot breakdown. This occurs only if the agent who was originally responsible for acquiring this item has gone into hiding or been arrested. Otherwise, they will try to reacquire the item/info as many times as possible until the Primary Crime succeeds or the plot breaks down.
*Arresting an Organizer before they can activate all the agents they were supposed to activate, will cause the plot to break down eventually as one or more Minor Agents, or the Inside Contact go into hiding as a result. This is a rare occurrence, since Organizers tend to send all their required messages before the mission even starts, but it can happen nonetheless.
*Arresting the Major Agent will obviously prevent the crime immediately, as he is the only agent who can perpetrate it.
*Turning the Major Agent. When this happens, even if all the required info and items are delivered uninterrupted to him, he will not commit the Primary Crime. This is an especially-desirable outcome, as it prevents the crime from taking place without immediately breaking down the plot. In fact, it can often lead to opportunities to keep the plot going indefinitely, by simply making sure to confiscate items whenever they are acquired or whenever they are delivered to the Major Agent. In any case, you run no risk of the Primary Crime actually being perpetrated anyway.
Category:Events