Description
You are called to reinforce a strike against a pirate cruiser that has been harrassing the L-5 colonies for the past two months.

Storyline:
The storyline of this mission isnÂ’t too bad really, provided that you read the readme file. A decent Command Briefing wouldÂ’ve helped a great deal to explain the setting and the rivalries. Anybody who does read the readme or knows what L5 means will realise that this mission takes place in the Sol system. Anyone who doesnÂ’t will be confused. There are plenty of messages to keep things moving along, which are nice, but the briefing is a bit short. It also contains a couple of typos and some of the ship icons donÂ’t match their ships.

Balance:
The first part of the mission is easy to complete, but it makes up only a tiny part of the whole mission. Saving the friendly Orion-class destroyer is considerably harder, but still doable. Your actions do make all the difference, as most of the enemy force is comprised of bombers and cruisers. ItÂ’s also good that itÂ’s not you who is most at threat during this mission, but the friendly capital ship. Only old (FS1 era) primary and secondary weapons are included too. A nice touch.

Design:
The choice not to use beam weapons in this mission is a good one. Anyone who played the first game will know that beam weapon technology would not have reached Earth. Mechanically the mission is sound, with directives working and the escort ship list used to good effect. There are some nice waypoint paths too. There are also a couple of higher level s-exp uses, such as send-message-list and the good-secondary-time s-exp. Though not strictly necessary, it does make the bombers a little more threatening.

Gameplay:
This is a pretty good mission in terms of gameplay. The first part of the mission is just a prelude, though it might have been nice to see a little more made of it, perhaps with pirate reinforcements. Defending the Orion is fun, but it’s not all that challenging. The bombers didn’t do much damage at all when I played it. Making them appear nearer to the destroyer would have helped a good deal, though it’s good how the wings ‘leapfrog’ over each other.

Other Thoughts:
Pandi Magic!? What kind of a ship name is that? :-) With a little more explanation of the situation of the mission this could be better.