Operation Paper Trail is a series of 6 missions that was added to GTA Online during the Criminal Enterprises update last summer. Today we’ll revisit these missions and rank them. We share some impressions with you and tell you if they are still a effective way to make money.
DISCLAIMER: There will be some story spoilers in the mission summaries.
The missions are given to you by Agent ULP situated at the yellow U in the middle of Los Santos. You as a player are hired as a IAA field operative to investigate, if the Duggan Family, some corrupt petrochemical magnates, has influenced oil prices. The family was first introduced to the game with the Diamond Casino & Resort update.
If you play through these chronologically this is the correct order:
- ULP – Intelligence
- ULP – Counterintelligence
- ULP – Extraction
- ULP – Asset Seizure
- ULP – Operation Paper Trail
- ULP – Cleanup
1. ULP – Cleanup
The Cleanup mission is the last of the 6 part story. The danger of an economic influence by the Duggans is over but you have to destroy the last backups inside a bunker in the mountains. Once you’re inside the bunker you’ll first have to restore the power before deleting backups from servers and saving it on your phone. While hacking the second server a failsafe mechanism is activated that leads to the players being attacked by juggernauts scattered throughout the complex. Complete the deletion proress and go outside where you need to take out a chopper before escaping to a IAA guarded location while being followed by enemies.
This mission is lots of fun but also quite scary when you’re playing it for the first time as the “sleeping juggernauts” at the beginning of the mission are master in scaring the sh*t out of you. Fighting your way through the bunker complex while hacking the servers really was a amazing end to the mission series.
2. ULP – Operation Paper Trail
ULP informs the players that they need to prevent a deal between the FIB and the Duggans that want to purchase a backup of Clifford, an AI to manipulate the market. You need to fight your way through a construction site and reach the top of a sky scraper. You can complete parts of the mission in stealth which makes it easier as the enemies don’t know you’re coming but you can also shoot everything in your sight. At the top of the building Mason Duggan is escaping with a helicopter. You need to follow him to another location where you need to take out more guards, eliminate him and drop off the briefcase with the backup to the IAA.
This is the challenging mission of all 6 as you really need to time your attacks if you want to complete the mission in stealth. Especially the fighting parts inside the building are quite hard to complete stealthy as there are enemies everywhere. What we really enjoy about the mission is that you get to jump of the sky scraper before following Mason Duggans helicopter. (Keep in mind that you need to press the left mouse button not the space bar to activate your parachute 😉 )
3. ULP – Counterintelligence
To gain more information about the FIB interactions you are tasked to hack some drones which will give you the location of a secret base. The traces lead the player to a motel where he needs to hack another computer. ULP realises too late that the base was a trap and the players are knocked out by gas. In the second half of the mission you need to drive a van with a bomb to a drop-off point while one player needs to defuse a bomb that was place inside the van.
This mission is quite boring at the start but the minigame at the end is quite fun. The first time we got trapped in the motel we where really surprised.
4. ULP – Intelligence
This missions introduces you to the ranks of the IAA with a pretty funny cutscene. After that you are tasked to steal intelligence from Mason Duggan through hacking his laptop. During the procress you learn that the Duggans made a deal with the FIB and two locations are displayed where you need to steal 2 hardware pieces each. After stealing all 4 of them you need to deliver them to the IAA.
What we really enjoyed about the missions is the inflitration of the FIB HQ, one of the hardware locations, where you have to disguise yourself and stealthly search through some heavily guarded offices. You need to approach situations tactically under the pressure of risking to trigger an alarm. The other location on the other hand is quite boring in comparison as you only need to enter a warehouse and shoot your way out of it at the end (if you fail to turn off the alarm first).
5. ULP – Asset Seizure
The Duggans want to relocate an AI which is used to manipulate the oil enconomy to a new location. The players first need to destroy 5 guarded signal jammers before securing a van with the equipment and delivering it to a drop off point.
The missions can be completed rather quickly if you’re playing with a full squad of friends but you need to watch out for the exploding signal jammers. Some locations are a pain in the ass to get to while other are really easy to complete. Nonetheless the final journey with the van is fun as you need to deal with pursuing Duggan members.
6. ULP – Extraction
The players are tasked to locate Agent Johnson, an undercover agent that stopped responding. You first need to search for coordinates in her garage and look for clues at different locations before driving to a final location. There you need to take car of enemies involved in a shootout between the Duggans and cartel soldiers while looking for Johnson. After the battle you need to loose your wanted level and transport the agent to the hospital.
The missions feels boring as it doesn’t reveal lots of new plot and also doesn’t involve much action except the shootout.
Conclusion
Most of the ULP missions are lots of fun but some of them are quite boring. The whole story is really interesting as it describes a scenario that might happen in the near future. The missions are defenitely worth a playthrough but not really made to grind for money as long as they aren’t boosted for double rp and money as they only give around 20.000$ each.
Let us know your personal ranking of the ULP missions.
