Description
Locate and retrive cargo hidden in a astroid belt. Hostile freighter with Loki support are in bound so act quickly. 2nd mission in a campaign called "3rd Strike".

Storyline:
Although the storyline to this mission is quite intriguing, it would be nice if the situation you find yourself in was explained better. Alpha wing is sent in to capture some cargo because Beta wing and a science cruiser were destroyed, but it's not explained what they were doing really. The briefing explains what you need to do quite concisely, and although the ships and icons match up a couple are incorrectly named and there are a couple of small spelling errors. Despite this, the storyline has promise. Unfortunately the messages found during the mission are quite unhelpful and there are far too few of them. I had to check the events screen to see what was going on a lot of the time. The debriefing is the biggest disappointment – it will come up with a victory even when the NTF steal the cargo.

Balance:
If you allow yourself to be lured away from the cargo chasing down the Shivans and saving the Cenovis (donÂ’t, sheÂ’s NTF) then the enemy freighter will probably make off with the cargo. If you stick by it you can deal with the NTF quickly. The most annoying thing about the balance and design of the mission is that you have to destroy everything before the friendly freighter comes in, so the final part of the mission is done in a lull, which is boring.

Design:
The design of the mission is functional, but not the cleanest that it could have been. For example, warpout for the Paris is handled using initial orders, whereas using the departure cue would be more flexible. Curiously, although the goals work, the debriefing doesn’t, so you’ll get the success debrief as long as the cargo isn’t destroyed, as I said above. There’s a background though, and the placement of the Rakshasa cruiser in relation to the Aeolus is very good – it can fire at full effect and the GTVA cruiser can hardly return fire. The best design feature has to be the use of the skill-level-at-least s-exp to damage the hulls of your wingmen if you play it at higher difficulty levels, and is certainly novel.

Gameplay:
Despite itÂ’s flaws, this mission plays fairly well, with some good dogfighting, though it never gets particularly intense as the Aeshma is more suited to heavy assault and is a lame dogfighter. However, the Maras pose a danger. If you can lure the Shivans to the NTF Lokis, theyÂ’ll deal with one another, which is nice. The NTF themselves are easy to beat. The most annoying and tedious thing about the mission is destroying the SC Pollution at the end and then waiting for the Paris to capture the cargo. Still, thatÂ’s what the X4 time switch is for, isnÂ’t it?

Other Thoughts:
This mission could have been made a lot more intense with better dogfighters and the need to defend the Paris from the Shivans, especially their cruiser. ItÂ’d make a nice strike mission, something that weÂ’re sorely lacking.