Description
A simple escort mission. But you're in Anubis. And you have no shields! have fun...this is basically a stick-my-head-out-to-see-if-anyone-cuts-it-off mission, so tell me what you think.

Storyline:
The storyline is more than sufficient and is fairly believable. You are a fledgling vasudan pilot on your first assignment in the T-V war. Your mission is to defend four unarmed transports carrying supplies to the front lines. There is a well done command briefing with some amusing backstory that helps fill out the mission. The briefing is adequate, although there are some icons that are halfway off the screen or overlap each other. Also, the infamous "jump node with navbuoy icon" problem is present. There are a few in-game messages that don't really help the story, but they manage to give the mission some life, and that's always a good thing. Debriefing is also adequate, congratulating you on a job well done. There are no real problems with the story, but it is rather bland. What we really need here is some sort of plot twist...

Balance:
Man, oh man, this category really drags this mission down. It is virtually impossible to fail this mission, especially with two seths available as reinforcements. You and your wingmen will make short work of the drones (?) and a handful of pirate anubi that will threaten the transports. The drones really should have been true enemy ships, since they never got a single hit in on the transports before they bit the dust. Just for fun, I played this mission on insane difficulty and beat it with no problem. None of the transports dropped below 70% hull, and I was never below 95% (caused by enemy ai colliding with me). My suggestion would be to change the enemy drones to anubis-class ships, and change the enemy anubi to something a little harder to kill, like seths (but not horuses, since you don't have afterburners, they would be a real pain to kill).

Design:
Ah, once again, simple design shows its elegance. The only real mistakes are the briefing problems and the fact that all ships are on the same y-plane. This continues to be a problem in a lot of missions, and it really shouldn't be. It's not that difficult to move ships up or down, and if you've read any of the reviews on this site, you know that it's one of our pet peeves. Okay, enough ranting... Overall, design is graceful. Ships are named, event fire off properly, team loadout shows some thought, and directives are properly implemented.

Gameplay:
This mission suffers greatly from the ease with which you can complete it. Shooting down enemy drones isn't too much fun, and there aren't enough enemy ships to pose a threat to anyone. With more hostiles (and no drones) and a twist in the storyline, this would be far more enjoyable. As it stands now, it's not a whole lot of fun.

Other Thoughts:
Cheese is one of my favorite foods.