Description
The GTD Bastion and it's battlegroup have gotten a chance no one has had before, the chance to capture a Shivan node, with all the information it contains, intact. Alpha wing is the lead element in the strike. My first mission! The node should have been protected, but for some odd reason, it's not, so you'll have to manually order your ships to ignore it.

Storyline:
An above average storyline here. The whole premise is out of the ordinary, and the briefing gives plenty of information. The ships and icons match for the most part, though the Shivan Comm Node and Pi wingsÂ’ donÂ’t. To be fair, there is no icon for the Comm Node though. There are a couple of grammatical errors in the briefing and debriefing, but theyÂ’re minor. Some radio chatter in mission is also welcome.

Balance:
Balance is pretty good here. Due to the inclusion of bombers, the Vasudan corvette is never really under threat, unfortunately (something which including fighters instead might have fixed). However, the threat to Pi wing is finely balanced. You absolutely have to intercept the bombers or youÂ’ll fail the mission. Weapon loadout is also good.

Design:
There are some frighteningly complex s-exps driving this mission along. In fact, at first I couldnÂ’t stand looking at it all, it made my eyes go funny. Really, it did. Anyway, the directives all work, thereÂ’s a nice background, send-message-list s-exps and all sorts. Capturing the Shivan Comm Node is a bit of a missed opportunity for a variable to be used, but that doesnÂ’t affect the mission really.

Gameplay:
ItÂ’s pretty good fun to play the mission and the difficulty is about right. Right from the start something goes slightly wrong, and the messages are welcome. The second part of the mission is pretty frantic when you fight the bombers off, though it's rather annoying to be able to watch the fight between the Shivan cruisers and your corvette and not take partÂ

Other Thoughts:
I really am running out of other thoughts to put into these thins, although this is, I suppose, a thought. The attack by the cruisers on the corvette could have some more punch by including bombers.