Description
The GVD Psamtik is under heavy fire from the NTD Haccetan. You´ve been assigned to cover the Psamtik at all costs. Failure is not an option.

Storyline:
That most accident-prone of Vasudan destroyers, the GVD Psamtik is under attack and it's up to you to defend the hapless vessel from the NTF. Nothing new here, then, and you won't find any startling plot twists during the mission either. The briefing needs some serious work – one stage, all written in red except for one word. It's all of two lines, and makes almost no sense at all in its current state. Ah well, at least the icons match up with the ships they portray. There are a few messages in the mission, most relating to the status of ships but a few mission outline messages. You can tell the author is German, because they have no apostrophes (which I won't lower the score for) and some of them have German words in the titles. Don't worry, they're not in German or anythingÂ

Balance:
This mission is virtually impossible to complete thanks to some poor planning. If you manage to save the Psamtik, which is by no means an easy task, you'll spend the next hour trying to destroy the leftover NTF capital ships. The Psamtik itself can't fire powerful beam cannons and is pounded by bombers, cruisers, corvettes and the NTD Hacceatan. Unless you destroy the Orion's beam cannons fast, it will destroy the Psamtik. However, at the same time you have to fend off bombers and other capital ships. It's virtually impossible to destroy the Hacceatan or any other large capital ship in the mission because you don't have any friendly bomber or capital ship support.

Design:
Remember that I said the messages weren't in German? Well, some of the directives are but they work. In fact, the design of the mission is quite good – there's a background, waypoints, directives and so on. The layout of some of the messages is a little inefficient (here I go again ), as send-message-lists could have been used for at least one group. However, some of the design, such as the departure cue for the Psamtik are seriously flawed – you must destroy all opposition before it leaves, and even then the vessel won't be going anywhere, as it's disabled. D'oh!

Gameplay:
There's something of a leaning towards capital ship combat here, despite the fact that almost all of them don't fire beams or only do so very sporadically. At the same time as stopping the bombers you have to fight off vicious fighters. This is quite good for fighting but quickly becomes annoying when they reduce your hull considerably and prevent you from stopping the bombers. After the smaller ships are gone, it quickly becomes tedious as those huge lumps of capship metal aren't going anywhere fast. They even stay still. I like the fact that it's difficult to stop the NTF destroyer, but a bomber wing would be appreciated.

Other Thoughts:
No, no, no! Capital ships the way are not. Fighter battles must your mission include. Then your mission good might be. With a few fighter and bomber wings replacing the load of capital ships, it might be a lot better.