Description
A gas mining operation fell under attack. Defend the remaining miners until the Corvette Wasp arrives to defend the operation. The GTC Defender is currently on station.

Storyline:
The storyline has potential. A GTVA gas mining operation has fallen under attack and it is up to you to defend the remaining gas miners. The briefing is good, if not static. There is no Command Briefing, however, which could have been used as a vehicle for furthering the storyline. The Debriefing is also pretty simplistic, consisting of merely two stages - one for success, the other for failure.

Balance:
The problem with this mission is that the player really doesn't have to do much to succeed. The wingmen can tackle the Shivan fighters easily, and the two sides are evenly matched throughout in number. The Debriefing even acknowledges that the Shivans don't pay much attention to the gas miners.

Design:
Ships appear on multiple axis and the Shivans arrive from a variety of directions. One thing that bothers me about this mission, though, is how the escort is very spread out. Each wing looks after one miner, and they are all positioned about 6,000 meters from eachother. You'll have to do a lot more running than fighting in this mission. What events there exist are effective, but what's with the sudden death of the Defender? Also, the arrival of the Wasp is very awkward. It comes in way too soon and caught me off-guard. Despite the fact that I had orders to Return to Base, there were still Shivans arriving and fighting my wingmen. The Wasp also never uses its beam weapons.

Gameplay:
It's okay... but if the miners were closer to eachother before the mission began, it would make for a far more tense battle. At least have the miners moving somewhere instead of acting like sitting ducks. While this mission is fun at first, it disintegrates into a lot of running around and ultimately does not require the involvement of the player to win.

Other Thoughts:
Are nebulas an excuse for not having to put in background nebulas and such? It's not that I'm insinuating that this mission did it for this reason - I'm just speaking generally.