Operations and requests
Story operations at named places, officer requests wherever the front is active, and what happens when a place falls while Old Marta is somewhere else.
Orders in Shellfall belong to places. Story operations and officer requests appear on the map table as pins, each with its distance by rail, and you take one on by driving Old Marta within range. Several can be open at once, and leaving one does not end it: the war goes on without you.
Three kinds of work
| Kind | Example | Where it comes from | If its sector falls |
|---|---|---|---|
| Story operation | Protect the field hospital at Brennhof. | Written by hand for a named place; about 14 drive the four seasons | Warning first; if still lost, it branches into a written lost variant |
| Officer request | Cover our dig at grid C4. | Frontline officers, wherever the front is active | Expires quietly; new requests appear |
| Letter | Light up the sky on the 14th so my son can see it. | Villagers, soldiers and your family | Missed for good; a later letter says so |
Officer requests are short jobs, such as covering a dig or knocking out the MG at the crossroads. Each one earns goodwill with that sector. The order slip shows when it expires, in war time, and nothing is accepted by a button alone: you drive to a siding in reach. More requests appear in The hot zone. Letters have their own page: Letters.
When a place falls while you are away
Because the war never pauses, a place with an open operation can fall while the gun is on the other side of the valley. Key story operations never fail outright; they branch. Requests expire. Personal promises can be missed for good. Nothing is ever game over, but every loss leaves a mark.
A key operation runs along a fixed path:
- Protected
- Warning
- Contested
- Outcome
- Protected. While the operation is open, its sector cannot fall to the distant background war alone. Only a real attack can take it. See One continuous war.
- Warning. When the enemy masses, the radio and the map warn you and a countdown pin appears: 2 war hours (8 real minutes) on normal, 4 war hours (16 real minutes) on the relaxed setting. The pin shows war time first, then real minutes. See The war clock.
- Contested. Get Marta in range in time and the attack plays out in full detail, with you there. If not, it is settled in the coarser background war, without the protection.
- Outcome. Held, or lost. A lost operation becomes its written lost variant at a nearby place, so the story carries on. The ruins and the new front stay on the map.
Rustcoats massing at Brennhof. 1 h 52 m.
How it can turn out
Defence lost, story continues. You stay in the west to finish a dig. Brennhof's warning runs out and the hospital is overrun. The operation becomes "Bring them home": the wounded were moved to Altwasser, and you cover their convoy along the river road under Rustcoat fire. The nurse's next letter describes the retreat. Brennhof stays a ruin on the map.
Retaken. In spring your side pushes back into Brennhof. A short aftermath plays: Fenn wants to stop at the ruins, and a request appears to clear the road for the returning villagers. The original operation does not come back.
In The shared war, a sector can also fall to other players' pushes; the same rules apply. For how operations carry the seasons, see The campaign: four seasons.