Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations

Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations is an expansion pack for the original Command & Conquer, released in 1996. Like many expansion packs at the time, it did not bring any changes in gameplay or options, while new units were limited to the dinosaurs in the secret Jurassic Park mode. It did use some of the previously multiplayer-only units, such as the Chem trooper and SSM launcher in its missions.
The expansion included fifteen new single-player missions (7 for GDI, 8 for Nod), ten new multiplayer maps and seven new high quality CD audio tracks, as well as lower quality in-game versions. In contrast to the original game, the new expansion missions could be played at any time, in any order and are not accompanied by briefing cutscenes - instead they are selectable from a list. Amongst the expansion packs files are several unused music tracks that were present in the DOS version of Command & Conquer, but not in the Windows 95 (Gold) version. In the PS1 version of C&C, after completing one faction campaigns, there will be password seen in the credit part to open The Covert Operations in the start menu. From there, players can proceed to play the missions individually.
On 14 November 2018, it was announced that Command & Conquer would be remastered by Petroglyph Games and Lemon Sky Studios under supervision of Electronic Arts, along with the Covert Operations expansion pack.
==Missions==
===GDI missions===
*Blackout
*Hell's Fury
*Infiltrated!
*Elemental Imperative
*Ground Zero
*Twist of Fate
*Blindsided
===Nod missions===
*Bad Neighborhood
*Deceit
*Eviction Notice
*The Tiberium Strain
*Cloak and Dagger
*Hostile Takeover
*Under Siege: C&C
*Nod Death Squad
==Secret Jurassic Park mode==
The expansion pack contains a hidden 5-mission mini-campaign of dinosaur missions. The actual mission files of this campaign have actually been in the game from the very first release, but the funpark command-line argument that unlocks them wasn't added until DOS C&C v1.20, the game version that came with The Covert Operations. The expansion pack also contains an update of the dinosaur missions, in the sc-000.mix archive.
The missions can be accessed by starting the game in 'funpark' mode, starting a new game, and selecting a faction to play as. While most of the missions start with mixed tech units, and the second mission simply has a prebuilt GDI-tech base, this choice determines which faction's aircraft you get, and what you can build in the fourth mission, the only one where a construction yard is available. While the player's color resembles the color of Nod units in the main campaigns, it is the actually the 6th color for multiplayer as the player's structures also use this color instead of red; this becomes more obvious in Remastered as that color becomes more cyan than metallic.
The secret mode has several problems, through. In some cases, missions finished from loaded savegames go on to their GDI equivalent, despite starting the game in 'funpark' mode, and the game also becomes prone to forgetting the user's starting faction choice, giving a full 2-faction combined tech tree in the aforementioned fourth mission. Some of these bugs can be avoided, if the player launches the game in funpark mode, starts a new game (with their currently played faction), and then loads their previously saved game with the same faction.
Because of early fan-research into the game, the existence of the missions was known long before the official funpark command line option was known (or even added), but the missions were made difficult to finish by special code that made the dinosaurs invisible outside the special mode. Since this invisibility logic is tied to the special walk animation logic enabled on the dinosaur units, and tools already existed to tweak the unit stats, third party fixes available back then 'solved' the problem by disabling that option on all dinosaurs. Since the dinosaur's sprites are meant to be sets of animations in 8 directions, much like those of infantry, and not a 32-frame rotation like vehicles typically have, disabling this option made the dinosaurs visible at the cost of messing up all their animations. The unofficial 1.06 patch fixes this properly, by removing the special code responsible for making them invisible.
===Without the 'Funpark' mode===
The original Funpark campaign used a multiplayer logic to assign GDI or Nod tech to the player's faction, which was the House "Multi4". Due to the difference in UI, the Remaster could not reproduce this, and instead left the player as unspecified multiplayer faction, which gives access to all tech from both factions. This has certain drawbacks, however; some things internally will always default to treating the player as Nod. This means helicopter pads will always spawn with an Attack Helicopter on them, and the only superweapon available to the player is the Nuclear Missile. This can be an issue in some missions; notably, mission 2 is a lot faster to clear out with Orcas, and in mission 4, if the player decides to build the Advanced Communication Center, they will not get its superweapon.
The unofficial 1.06 patch for C&C95 similarly made the missions playable without the problematic 'funpark' mode, but got around the faction-related issues by adding two separate copies of the missions set, with the two specifically tweaked to play respectively as GDI and as Nod. To achieve this, the real GDI and Nod were used as playable sides, and new options for missions were implemented in the patch to allow things like changing the player colors and radar logo, and unlocking the ability for Nod to build its full multiplayer tech tree, disguising everything to look and act identical to how it was in the original Funpark campaign. However, the Chem Warrior is not buildable in these missions, due to a bug in its single player Buildlevel configuration classifying it as "should never be buildable" (99) rather than "multiplayer-only" (98).
===Behind the scenes===
At GDC 2019, lead programmer William Randolph revealed that the Funpark mode was initially an Easter egg made by Joseph Bostic without the knowledge of Brett Sperry. Gradually, more people from the studio were involved in developing this hidden mode with dinosaurs. However, during a QA session at which Sperry was present, the factionbar logo with the dinosaur head (an intentional homage to Jurassic Park) appeared in regular gameplay due to a bug. Angered, Sperry called Bostic for a direct conversation, after which Bostic initially wanted to remove all of it, but after giving Sperry some time to cool down, Randolph convinced Sperry for the Funpark mode to be included after all, but was only allowed to do it in spare time.Classic Game Postmortem: Command & Conquer (42:49). YouTube (14 April 2019).
==Trivia==
===Names in different markets===
* France: Command & Conquer: Opérations Survie (lit. "Survival Operations")
* Germany: Command & Conquer: Mission CD - Der Ausnahmezustand (lit. " Mission CD - The State of Emergency")
==See also==
* Command & Conquer Unofficial Patch 1.06
==References==
==External links==
* 
* 
* Command & Conquer folder on Westwood FTP (Bachsau.com mirror)
* Command & Conquer Gold folder on Westwood FTP (Bachsau.com mirror)
===Community websites===
* Nyerguds' 1.06 project site
* Command & Conquer portal on CNCNZ.com
* Command & Conquer portal on the C&C Communications Center
* Command & Conquer Gold on CnCNet
===Freeware links===
* Freeware Classic Command & Conquer games at CNCNZ.com
* Command & Conquer Gold installer download on the C&C Communications Center
Category:Tiberium universe games
Category:Covert Operations
de:Der Ausnahmezustand
ru:C&C: The Covert Operations