Description
Terran Command sends you and your wingmen on a mission to capture a major HOL Destroyer. All goes as planned until...

Storyline:
The name "Hammer of Light Onslaught" conjures an image of a massive Hammer of Light attack that must be defeated by the GTA in order to save the day. However, this mission portrays instead a GTA attack on a Hammer capital ship, the PVD Salvation, which serves as the "foothold to all Hammer of Light activity in this system." Disable and capture the ship, so that a Terran repair ship can suppress the resistance, repair the ship, and capture any HOL leaders onboard to learn more about "this rogue splinter group." <p> Sounds simple enough, but don't think it will be easy. The Hammer of Light is merely the appetizer for the main course, when the Shivans arrive at the teaparty to spoil the fun. This stock "suprise" doesn't create an original story in this capture and hold the capital ship mission. Perhaps naming a few of the suspected Hammer of Light leaders the GTA intends to snare would give it a little more color. Or foreshadowing by creating the backdrop of Shivan activity in the area. Anything to give the mission a little more color and urgency would be appreciated (although the music is perfectly chosen). Maybe even a few more inflight messages and the addition of sounds would be enough, I'm not sure. But this mission is defintely missing <u>something</u> that would make it a little more memorable.

Balance:
The ship selection makes sense -- any Great War fighter or bomber, but not the Hercules or the Ursa (they're both too slow and have too many guns for a "disabling" mission basically). The Vasudans aren't very difficult to defeat, as there are only 18 fighters to defend the capital ship. Twelve Terran fighters can make relatively short work of the Vasudan fighters, but the PVD Typhon is a different story -- due to the weapon loadout, which omits the incredibly powerful Advanced Distruptor and Disruptor Missile. This choice was most likely to make the first part of the mission more challenging, which forces you to use either low-tech Stilettos/Disruptors or high-damage Prometheus/Banshee/Flails to disable/disarm a Typhon. <p> Here's the Catch-22: take out the Typhon quickly and you lower its hull to nearly 30%, but take out the Typhon slowly with the disabling weapons and you'll be unequipped to fight the Shivans: 21 fighters and one captial ship. Your only reinforcements will be 4 Medusa bombers, but by the time they arrive your wingmen will be dogmeat. The end result is that you will be ill-equipped for at least part of the mission. Although your loadout choice will determine which part. regardless you will be severely outnumbered at the end. The default loadout (plus Stilettos on the bombers) is probably your best option, but four more fighters (to at least cover the bomber reinforcements) would do a much better job of making this a more balanced mission. And a lot less frustrating at the end. <p> I give the designer credit for the carefully considered loadout, since the omissions make perfect sense, but the sheer numerical imblance will make this mission very difficult. But those who hate Dragon-class fighters will curse the inclusion of three of them into the heated battle. They're very difficult to kill, and you won't have the time to chase them down. However, the scale of the battle is reasonable, providing all of the excitement in a capital ship battle without suffering from Endor syndrome.

Design:
This mission is well-done technically, using appropriate events and directives. However, there are a few occasional flaws. One of these flaws would be the briefing icons, some of which just ever-so-slightly overlap each other or the end of the map. The briefing and debriefings convey the basic information and the events/objectives all work. The briefing also states the Beta Wing will attack and disable the PVD Typhon, but the AI orders for Beta will only take them along a waypoint closer to the ship -- so you must set the orders manually. It would make more sense to have a event which inlcudes a new AI-ordres sexp to disable/disarm the PVD Tyhpon when the waypoints are completed, just to help the player. Otherwise, your first few missions might be spent wondering why your bombers are engaging fighters instead of completing an initial run on the Typhon! Luckily, the Shivan bombers will similarly get sidetracked (until all the figthers are destroyed, at least). Another wrinkle is that the Shivans all warp in the same area, creating one densely packed firezone near the arrival location. <p> Another annoying quirk is that the PVD Typhon will come to a halt very quickly at a waypoint. For a large part of the mission, the Typhon will stand still just waiting for the Terran assault. It's no fun to "disable" a ship that's not moving anywhere.... And the Shivan capital ship should be able to make mincemeat out of the disabled and disarmed Typhon, but this might be more due to limitations in the AI and FRED. Hopefully, someone will eventually learn how to force two capital ships to fire on each other. <p> The mission doesn't forge any new ground, but it does do well what it attempts to accomplish -- a two-stage mission with a good flavor of the capital ship battles which FreeSpace does best. Timing and execution of the mission are well-done, except for where Alpha must wait as the PVD Typhon is disabled and disarmed safely. <p> Finally, the mission scoring is somewhat odd, awarding a bonus 2000 points (plus a possible kill score) for destroying the Shivan capital ship but giving 0 points for successfully completing the primarly objective. This is something Volition often did in the Great War campaign, so I can't fault the designer much. But, somehow, I feel that the GTA would recognize pilots for doing their job...in addition to recognizing the hotshot Top Guns.

Gameplay:
The Catch-22 balance situation makes this mission replayable. There are plenty of options to choose from, and a solution is there somewhere...you just have to look for it and practice your flying skills. Your selection of the ships, weapons, and your flying will have a profound effect on how the mission ends. It certainly isn't easy, but you won't give up frustrated until after a dozen or so tries at finishing the mission. By fixing the number of ships, this could be a much more enjoyable experience where there is a reasonable chance for a pilot of moderate skill to not only survive the mission, but to complete both the primary and the bonus ojectives. The interesting loadout would still make it worthwhile to play, even without any memorable story improvements.

Other Thoughts:
Has anyone else noticed that the GTT Elysium must be able to cram a tremendous number of people onboard? An extremely large number of both Marines and Mechanics would necessary in order to suppress any resistance and repair the damage done in the assault, all in under 200 seconds (3.3 minutes)? Not that this mission is any different from others which use the same plot element, but it seems a little hard to believe with a ship as large as a PVD Typhon. Maybe those Vasudans really are chumps afterall and aren't good at hand-to-hand combat. Or maybe the designer realized that three minutes is about the longest you could hold off the Shivan horde.