Description
The GTD Jocasta is sent into the frontier of the GTVA to search for a long-lost group of colonists.

Storyline:
This mission has an interesting take on things here. The GTVA is almost broke and has sold off much of the fleet after Capella, except for a few ships. You're flying off the GTD Jocasta, one of 5 Hecate carriers left in the fleet. Just before the NTF rebellion, a group of colonists was sent off to an explored node beyond Luyten, and now you're going to find out what happened to them. This is told to you through 3 pages of Command Briefs and a short briefing to tell you that you're in a nebula and are being deployed as the eyes and ears of the Jocasta. It would have been nice to have something other than the GTVA logo to look at while you read the Command Brief, but otherwise the briefings are done well. There aren't any spelling or grammar errors to be found anywhere in this mission, and all briefing icons match up with their respective ships. Finally, this story is a bit of a change from other post-Capella situations; now you're in a bind because of funding, not because the fleet was decimated somehow. Overall, it's pretty good.

Balance:
Agh! This has to be the worst part of this mission. You start out being ambushed by Mjolnirs, and then 2 Iceni frigates jump in with 4 large wings of fighters! Defending the Jocasta isn't an easy task, especially since sensors are limited to 1000 metres. Yes, you heard me right, 1000 metres. The Jocasta's beam cannons can't get a lock on the frigates, and you fly around almost blind trying to hunt bombers. I somehow managed to complete the mission one time, but was never able to do it again. The default loadout of Herc II's isn't that great. In fact it was almost impossible for me to use. This mission almost requires a Maxim to pick off the turrets on the frigates attacking your carrier, and it's not part of the default loadout. At least you get some wingmen to help out when they're deployed to try and balance out the numbers. Unfortunately, the wingmen get ripped to shreds very quickly in the nebula trying to attack the enemy frigates, leaving you to defend the Jocasta yourself. Increasing the sensor distance would GREATLY help balance the mission out better.

Design:
Although it's nice to have a thick nebula with occasional EMP bursts to fight in, this really isn't the kind of mission that seems enjoyable in an ultra-low visibility environment. It's simply too unbalanced to be fun, and since the capital ships don't have great sensor range in the nebula the Jocasta can't bring its beam cannons to bear on the enemy ships very well. The design itself, although I feel it's serving a bad mission balance, is very clean. Objectives are laid out clearly, attack orders are given at the right time, and message events come off smoothly. To convey the warning message from the colonist Mjolnirs, the designer used a Vasudan stealth ship as an instructor ship and made the message clearly visible in the center of the screen. It's a nice touch, and since you're in a nebula you won't notice the little thing sitting there. There are a LOT of ships flying around in this nebula, however. I don't know if it's just my computer or a flaw in the mission itself, but this mission has crashed on me about 50% of the times I've tried to play it. I run a PII 300 with 64 Megs of RAM and a Savage 4 video card, not exactly a low-end system for Freespace 2. When I could play the mission through, though, everything ran without a hitch.

Gameplay:
It starts off strong, with an intriguing story and a hunt through the fog for the Mjolnirs, but Second Contact quickly degenerates into another carrier defense. The unbalanced numbers have you flying like a madman trying to destroy the bombers and Ares heavy fighters pitted against you, but after that it's simply picking off the turrets on the enemy Iceni frigates and waiting for the Jocasta to force the ships to withdraw. Your bomber wingmen get wiped out very quickly, leaving you to sit all by yourself waiting for something to happen. Boring! Again, a better balance would make this mission so much better.

Other Thoughts:
Although a well designed mission, the lack of good play balance simply threw me for a loop. A bit more refinement and this could be a very great mission. (I wonder how many times I mentioned play balance in this review?)