Description
The GTD Titanic is on a collision course with Vasudian Destroyer Deberg after making a hyperspace jump. You must evacuate and escort the lifeboats to a friendly installation nearby. You have Beta wing as help in escorting the remaining crew. The Vasudians will also have lifeboats making their way to the jumpnode in wait for a Vasudian cruiser. Pirates are told to be in the area.

Storyline:
The command briefing in this particular mission made me crack up. Some guys aboard the GTD Titanic took apart some electronics that controlled the ship's jump drives. They left the parts laying around and ironically, some of it was left near a bathroom where it electrified a toilet seat as a young officer relieved himself. The officer died, but the short caused the electronics to short out and basically make the ship's jump drives go nuts. So now the Titanic has randomly jumped it's way into a collision course with the PVD Deburg (Called the SD Deburg in the briefing and in-game for some reason). <p> The Titanic will die, but not after it pours out escape pods that the player has to guard. To make matters worse, pirates show up and start causing some general havoc. The plot is complex and not very plausible, but you have to give it points for creativity. <p> The briefing is lacking, and could've been worked out more. It conveys most of the information you need, but the icons and camera angles are sloppy none the less.

Balance:
Forget about ship and weapon selection, there is none. You aren't allowed to choose your ship or loadouts, but what makes it worse is that you're dumped into the mission with an Apollo sporting default armaments. That wouldn't be so bad if all the ships had no shields, but alas, they all do. Fortunately, the enemy isn't armed any better. <p> In TR you'll have to deal with enemy Apollos, Valkyries, and Ulysses fighters. It's not too difficult, but it's more of issue of being in the right place at the right time. Enemy ships will jump in here, there, and everywhere. Since there are so many escape pods it can get difficult to guard them all.

Design:
Design in TR varies between the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. On the up side, the author really took advantage of all dimensions. This mission also makes good use of Volition-created sounds to indicate the death of the Titanic and other events. On the down side, there are way too many escape pods. About 20 escape pods are present for you to worry about when the bad guys arrive, so you better be quicker than cops on a donut if you want to make it. On the downright ugly side, there's the SD Deburg. Besides making a bad joke, why is it a Typhon class destroyer with the Shivan Destroyer prefix? On top of that, the Deburg is hostile when you start the mission, yet the escape pods that emerge from it are friendly! <p> On lesser notes, the events are fairly well done, but the corresponding messages could see a little improvement. It gets difficult to keep track of what's going on, so more messages from command or Hobb's Corner station could help. Wait a second, wasn't it command that said "I'm gonna blow up the staaaaaaaation!!!" in the mission? Oh well, TR has some definite bugs, but no gaping holes.

Gameplay:
Gameplay is actually a little boring if nothing else. Because you're stuck with such weak weapons, any fight you pick with enemy fighters is going to be long and drawn out. In an Apollo with default weaponry, there's no way you'll be able to take down anything alone quickly, so use your wingmen wisely (They have default weaponry too, ACK!). Better weapon selection, and a tougher AI could go a long way to improving this category.

Other Thoughts:
Take a look at the cargo that's laying around for a quick chuckle.