Description
This mission takes place in subspace, and your goal is to protect the PVC Battle Cat from any Shevin attacks.

Storyline:
Not much of a storyline in Battlecat. Apparently, the Battlecat, and Aten cruiser, is the best scout cruiser in the Vasudan fleet, and it will be intercepted en route to its next scouting mission by the "shevins" ("Shivan" is constantly misspelled). However, a question instantly emerges in one's mind: Why use a cruiser? Why not fighters that can be undetected? And if the Shivans know to intercept it, won't the ships on the other side know it's coming and be ready for it? These combine to really ruin the plot. Still, it serves the mission.

Balance:
Horrible. The player can take ANY ship. While this is normally a good thing, it makes Battle Cat horribly unbalanced. As there are no shields in subspace, the Hercules' weapons are absolutely incredible, and Hornets really unbalance the field of battle -more on this later.

Design:
This mission smacks of someone who thought, "Hey! I can do missions in subspace!", and promptly slapped together a mission. There are so many fighters, plus the special effects of subspace, that my framerate - normally in the high 40s - dropped to about 5 fps. Besides this, the enemy is a Shivan force. The Shivan's low armor is enough of a weakness in normal space - in subspace, the lack of shields makes any Shivan fighter child's play to destroy. Finally, as has been shown countless other times, the fighter AI, as it is, cannot adapt to the flow of subspace. A pack of hornets spells instant doom for any Shivan craft.

Gameplay:
Overall, this mission simply was not fun to play. In a Hercules, a single salvo of Prometheus shots takes out one of the far too numerous Basilisks, and a single salvo of Hornets will destroy anything. The mission quickly degenerates into a turkey shoot. A turkey shoot with low framerate. Because of the aforementioned issues with massive numbers of ships and special effects, any enjoyment that could have been is quickly lost.

Other Thoughts:
Unfortunately, there are no redeeming elements of this mission. It is badly designed, boring, and impossible to believe. Don't waste your time playing Defend the Battle Cat.