Description
First mission of upcoming campaign. A Knossos testing mission become a threatening situation when Shivan armada jump in.

Storyline:
The briefing and Command brief to this mission set the scene adequately enough. However, they’re dragged down by poor spelling and grammar, incorrect use of icons and ship types in the briefing stages and poor debriefing structure. It would also have been nice to see other command animations than the default one, as there are dozens relating to the Knossos. It also would have been nice to have a few messages explaining the totally baffling situation you find yourself in – the one that there is doesn’t send because of the annoying <any wingman> choice in the s-exps. I think that in order to fix this, the wings have to have personae themselves.

Balance:
This mission is quite odd in terms of balance. If you can survive the first part of the mission, the rest is relatively easy, as the Shivans are too busy fighting each other (!) to pose a threat. The greatest threat to your completion of the mission will be to yourself; the capital ships seem fairly capable of handling themselves. That isnÂ’t to say, however, that you donÂ’t have to do anything at all. YouÂ’ll probably have to get stuck in at least a little.

Design:
The design of the mission isnÂ’t that bad, apart from the aforementioned briefing/debrief problems. Events are used well, including chains (but no send-message-lists, tsk). All of the capital ships use their beam weapons appropriately and waypoints are used too. Because the Shivans seem to be ordered to attack one another I canÂ’t really say that itÂ’s bad design, but itÂ’s certainly confusing. Some of the s-exps are of questionable value, and could have been cut down. The second Shivan fleet also arrives too far away from the GTVA vessels to be any threat.

Gameplay:
Gameplay in this mission is furiously action-packed until the three Shivan corvettes have been destroyed, with bomber and bomb intercept at the top of the list of things to do. After that it becomes something of a watching game as the Shivans carve up a Ravana-class destroyer without posing you a threat. The messages serve to create something of a Half-life feel (an experiment gone wrong), but the poor spelling detracts somewhat.

Other Thoughts:
This mission really doesnÂ’t make sense in the scope of a single mission, leaving a lot of loose ends. However, it would help if there were a little more explanation. I wonÂ’t say this isnÂ’t a mission without potential, though.