Description
You have just joined the NTF, and under Bosch's command. Bosch has decided to go after the Knososs portal, but first he has to get out of Delta Serpentis. The Jump node going out is heavily guarded by the GTVA, so it will take all of your talent to get it through alive. <p> This is my third FS mission, and my first for FS2. I made 'The Push Back' and 'Protecting The Powers' for FS1. This is much more complicated than those two. Enjoy!

Storyline:
We have here another mission that is spoken of during the command briefings of the main FS2 campaign but the player never actually sees. Well, now they can see one interpretation from the side of the NTF. The briefing sets out what needs doing well, but doesn’t really build on any feeling that you’re in a force different to the GTVA or create much atmosphere in the Command briefing. There are a few spelling errors, but nothing too major, and the ships and icons match up in all cases. However, the briefing screen remains static throughout the briefing and it becomes terribly cluttered with capital ship icons. During the mission there’s also no real atmosphere created by the messages, because there are only 2, one to say that the Iceni has departed and the other to say it’s been lost.

Balance:
Despite having a massive array of firepower at the blockade point, the GTVA forces are actually dealt with fairly easily by the NTF corvettes, the Iceni and the bombers. The mission would be fairly nicely balanced, with a bit of dogfighting, some bomber intercept and cruiser and beam turret destruction was it not for one thing. For some reason a wing of Ares fighters armed with Cyclops torpedoes jump in about 1.5 kilometres from the Iceni and launch about 12 torpedoes from point blank range. There are 2 waves of them, so before long the Iceni is just dust. It’s doubly annoying that it happens fairly near to what would be the end of the mission. The loadout for this mission has been edited, but is still a bit too broad – and Helios bombs make it far too easy.

Design:
While the design of the mission works, there are several areas that could do with some improvement. The area that needs most attention is the mission’s events. These are very few in number, with only 2 directives that appear fairly late in the mission (so at the start you feel like a spare part) and 2 messages. That said, there are actually 4 messages in the mission, but 2 haven’t been implemented, which is quite odd. All of the other events are beam or turret-free s-exps, some of which aren’t required – a ship is usually automatically turret free. The GTVA ships seem a little oddly placed, but all function from their positions in the mission, so that’s just nit-picking. The mission could be given a lot more structure with less initial ships and more imaginative waypoint paths. As it is, most of the action takes place on a totally flat plane. When I opened up the mission in FRED I noticed there’s a Shivan fighter a long way out from the battle. I wonder what it’s up to?

Gameplay:
The fighting in this mission is intense and doesnÂ’t let up, so youÂ’ll always have something to do and lulls arenÂ’t really a problem, provided you can finish the mission. The mission does seem like a free for all, not a defence mission because of the lack of structure in the mission, and that detracts. ItÂ’ll probably make some computers chug along too. If you want to go into FRED and modify the fighters itÂ’d probably be a lot more fun rather than frustrating to escort the Iceni, but that would be modifying another authorÂ’s work. The mission can actually be played through a couple of times just to see how many capital ships you can destroy, which is always fun. You can also switch roles with the bombers for a bit of variety.

Other Thoughts:
On the subject of modifying the work of others, I believe that the line used to be that it was okay to modify a mission if only you played it and you didnÂ’t distribute it as your own, or to others, or something. And also, look at all thse reviews! Wow! :-)