Description
You are on the Mallot, part of a 3 Carrier Battle Group heading into Shivan Space. All you must do is protect the carriers till they jump and mop up all the remaining baddies.

Storyline:
Let's see. The player must defend a group of three destroyers as they move away from an Arcadia station, I was told in a truly horrible briefing. Not original, and rather poor. Let's move on. After all, can the quality of a mission really be determined by the story?

Balance:
Apparently, yes. The loadout available here is pathetic... no Avengers not already equipped and insufficient missles and other guns to outfit the two Apollos and Valk I replaced Beta wing's three Anubi with. In-game, the player's forces are more than enough to smack anything around with nary a second glance. Even the four Cains went down like Monica in a cigar factory.

Design:
Oh. My. [Vomiting sounds]. This is so badly designed I won't even begin to comment. But no, I must...<BR>There are, at the start, an Arcadia, two Orions, and a Typhon present. Then about fifteen Dragons ("Bad 1" and "Bad 2" wings) entered the fray... and were carved to pieces by my hastily-summoned four wings of reinforcements, also with absolutely horrible names. Later, with my mouth still open at fifteen Dragons being slaughtered by <i>anything</i>, I witnessed the arrival of four Leviathans (<i>Which were <b>in a wing!</b></i>)... then four Cains (in a wing, Bad 4)... And I praised my Voodoo2 to high heaven. Later, when trying Software Rendering, I found that I crashed as soon as the Dragons entered the battle.<BR>Even when I won, I was given a double - no, triple final insult. First, even when all the enemies were destroyed, I had to wait for the three Destroyers to lumber to their warpout point, badly positioned off-center inside a Subspace Node. It should be noted that the Coven, a Typhon, had to literally plow through a Leviathon to get home. Then I had to warpout in frustration when the last Orion, to my dismay didn't warp out - the designer apparently forgot to add that command. Finally, even though I had not completed the Defend the Destroyers objective, I was commended in the debriefing.

Gameplay:
Read the design for a great summary of this. I had no effect on gameplay aside from calling in reinforcements and telling them to attack at will. I must vomit.

Other Thoughts:
The mission's name, in the Simulator, is simply Mission 1.