Description
The NTCv Atlantis is evading GTVA pursuers and is low on supplies. Lead Alpha squadron on a stealth mission to capture a damaged GTVA freighter that has fallen under attack by shivans.

Storyline:
Well, this is a different story idea to the norm. In this mission, you are a pilot on board the NTC Atlantis-fighting for the Neo-Terrans, for a change. The briefing and command brief are reasonable enough, although the author seems to be a little confused on how to colour in the names of important things in the briefings. However, there are some nice touches, such as the explanation of the need to use stealth, despite quite a few spelling and grammatical errors. Improvement in these areas would bump the score up a notch or two.

Balance:
Both of the ‘parts’ of the mission are well balanced. When attacking the GTFr Saber, you must focus on disabling it and it's communications systems, as the number of fighters defending it is enough to draw you away, but not enough to overwhelm you. In the ‘stealth’ path of the mission, a couple of wings on patrol arrive to give you some hassle, but they aren’t a great danger. The ships are actually set to disable the NTF capture vessel, which is nice, though I haven’t seen it done. Your wingmen are also pretty-clued up on survival tactics, which is nice. In the other part of the mission, the effects of the nebula and the fact that the fighters don’t give chase ships arriving cancel the huge number of enemy out somewhat. A couple of wings attack the Mayflower, but they’re easily dealt with. It would have been nice to feel you were fighting against the odds more here. The mission loadout is also poor, with all kinds of weapons creeping in.

Design:
The FRED design of this mission seems to be quite good, above the normal level of understanding, at the very least. Waypoints are used reasonably well, beam weapons work, and thereÂ’s some good use of s-exps to create what are in effect, almost two different missions. However, there are no chained s-exps, which could have been used or send-message-lists, and all but one of the directives fail to execute properly. Some of the ships arenÂ’t aligned very well, and just face the same way as they did when they were created. Many ships also warp in without a warp effect, which is disconcerting to say the least.

Gameplay:
I was surprised to find that Running on Empty was quite a bit more playable than I had anticipated. The radar range is really too short at 900 metres, but it isnÂ’t so short as to interfere with dogfighting too much. The stealth aspect of the mission is actually handled quite nicely, with the penalty for failure to silence the freighter being an Aeolus and a Hecate breathing down your neck. It is at this point that the mission diverges into two. Both play quite well, although there are a couple of long lulls in both of them.

Other Thoughts:
The author says that this is the first mission in an upcoming campaign, which will include sound and more, allegedly.