Description
Escort 2 new GTD destroyers to there subspace jump point from the Factory where they were built. Keep hammer of light wings from destroying them.

Storyline:
The designer notes claim that this mission sets the plot for a 15 to 20 mission campaign. Unfortunately, the author attempts to tell the entire story in <u>one</u> mission. The result is a babble of disconnected, but interesting, story elements that never come together cohesively. <p> This mission takes place in a shipyard and repair station where 2 GTD Orions have been commissioned and will be sent to Sol. However, the damaged GTD Ward arrives for emergency repairs as the Shivans send a scout at long range, then a decoy, and finally a main force which attacks the installations. Your task is to defend the GTD Orions as they depart and also defend the installations. When you do figure out that six fighters are supposed to provide the main defense, you begin to wonder why the hell the GTA didn't produce FIGHTERS instead of ORIONS! <p> However, the Command Briefing makes it clear that you're SUPPOSED to be onboard the GTD Castor on a general patrol search for Hammer of Light forces who have been stealing cargo and are "up to something." This has nothing to do with the mission at all, and only adds to the confusion. <p> But, wait, the storyline isn't over yet! The Shivans unleash an interesting "subspace field enhancer" which requires a rescue mission of the Terran victims...which means the mission isn't over even though it's rather clear the action is done. If you're tired and frustrated at this point, you'll have jumped out and missed the ending.

Balance:
Awful. The loadout limits your ship selections to GTF Ulysses, Apollos, Valkyries, and Athenas. No Hercules are available, even though the battle is absolutely massive and the extra hull strength would be useful. None of these ships can last the battle unless you cheat. <p> I was eventually forced to activate the invunerability cheat in order to survive the waves of Shivan fighters/bombers. If you engage the enemy too far away from the safety of the capital ships, you are overwhelmed when the next wave appears. If you wait inside the safety of the capital ships, you get only a few kills since the capital ships finish off the enemy.

Design:
Simplify, simplify, simplify! The complexity of this mission and the noncohesive storyline results in serious design flaws. This doesn't come from a lack of effort on the author's part, as there are many events to make the design dynamic. Unfortunately, not everything works and large bugs lie everywhere so I can only touch on a few highlights. <p> The biggest design flaw in this mission is that there are too many things going on without explanation. Yours objectives remain the same but the triggering events are different from what you'd expect. Using the "invalidate-goal" and "validate-goal" sexps, the objectives of this mission could change along with the story events (already present in the design). In addition, directives would be extremely valuable to help Alpha keep track of which orders are currently in effect. Without either of these devices, pilots end up spending more time pulling out their hair trying to figure out what's going on than actually shooting at things. <p> Many of the messages are so extremely long that you can't read them all if you had the time to read instead of fly. Many of the messages are just too long to fit entirely onscreen, other times new messages will arrive immediately after a long message. In addition, there's no warning about "key" objects in the mission -- such as a set of cargo containers that you're supposed to be guarding, in addition to three capital ships and two Arcadia installations. Players receive only a message that the cargo is attacked and/or destroyed, never a message that there's some replacable food and water (not sensitive equipment) that Command would like protected if possible. <p> Another bad design element is using Shivans placed at impossible distances as "decoys" to draw your fighters away from the battle. A sole Shivan fighter or capital ship at 15000 or 31000 meter distance shouldn't receive much attention at all, but Volition's AI can be exploited in this manner. <p> Only one of the capital ships (GTD Simmons) actually moves, the capital ship which doesn't end up leaving in the end. The other capital ship (GTD Taylor) will sit waiting at 0 speed until it "thanks you for the escort" and jumps out from a standstill. Most of the ships are also placed on the same 2 dimensional plane (X, 0, Z) but there is enough distance between them so that only at a few times will the mission slow to a crawl. There are too many capital ships in this mission for my taste, but I was suprised that my system didn't crash. <p> Probably the worst part of the mission is the 45 second delay after the GTD Ward jumps out in pursuit of the Shivans, where Alpha is expected to wait around until <u>yet another</u> capital ship arrives and the final sequence is played. I missed this entire section of this mission, but that's not a complete loss as the Pod Return event has a second "when" sexp in it. <p> Chained events could also have been used to simplify the taks of sending messages at various times. Even though this feature of FRED was not used, this mission does use a number of sexp events to make the mission change dynamically and to keep the story moving. It doesn't always work, but a good effort was put into this mission and it's a shame that testing didn't demonstrate that there was too much going on to leave any room for fun.

Gameplay:
This mission results in an extremely unentertaining and unsatisfying mission. It's like slow torture, since you're spending more time confused about the story than actually seeing some action. What action you <u>do</u> see results in either you racing to get one shot in before the capital ship annihilates the hostile or you racing to get away from the massive horde as a new wave of Shivans arrives. And since none of the ships actually have a strong enough hull to last such a large and long battle, you will die unless you cheat. That's just not fun at all.

Other Thoughts:
An exmaple of what happens when your mind races with interesting ideas and have to stuff it all into one mission. Beta-testing this mission would have shown that there was too much in this mission to work.