Description
A small depot expedition mission gets significantly harder. For starters, a small problem prevents you from engaging the enemy - and once you've been repaired there's plenty of new objectives to fail. Quite rad... <p> Because of the large number of irregular features in use in this mission (using Alpha 1 as the target), FRED2 will report numerous _warnings_ (not actual game errors) if you do check it. Also, you are actually supposed to become disabled within the first few seconds of play. THIS IS NOT A BUG. HINT: Call for reinforcements and watch the messages.

Storyline:
In what appears to be a standard supply depot mission, the mission takes a nice twist at the beginning, with the player's ship becoming disabled. Unfortunately, the twist is given away in the author's description! In addition, the twist can't overcome the short briefing, (and lack of command briefing,) the few in flight messages, and lack of explanation of your objectives in the mission. The storyline develops very abruptly in the mission as well, with new objectives popping out of nowhere for no reason. The debriefing is okay, if you ever live to see it. (See balance.)

Balance:
If you like being destroyed, then "Disabled Parking" is for you. The greater numbers of NTF fighters quickly wipe out your captain-AI wingmen, leaving you alone to: destroy a Leviathan, scan 12 cargo containers, and fend off over 30 NTF fighters. If you manage to survive this, there is only an Aeolus Class cruiser (and 2 wings of enemy fighters) left to take out with the help of four GTVA bombers. In addition, it doesn't help your situation to have your hull knocked down to around 70% when your engines are disabled in the first seconds of the mission. On the bright side, the author was kind enough to turn off one anti-fighter beam and one standard turret on the Leviathan if you play on very easy difficulty.

Design:
The design shows some promise in this mission, even through the glaring problems with balance and gameplay. The author used chaining, send-message-list s-exps, and the goals and directives seem to function properly. Small design flaws include the orientation of most ships in the XZ plane and a pretty sparse background, but the largest design flaw (aside from the balance itself) is the lack of information for the player once he has been disabled. A message telling the player to call in a support ship and reinforcements would be helpful, although being able to get captured is a cool idea.

Gameplay:
Challenging doesnÂ’t even begin to describe this mission, even on Very Easy difficulty. The creative side of the mission is completely overshadowed by the difficulty. Either the author is an God-like pilot, or this mission wasnÂ’t play-tested very much. Alpha 1 is always the target in this mission, and staying alive is as much as an objective as any of the many mission goals. As stated before, if you like being destroyed, this mission is for you.

Other Thoughts:
Using Alpha 1 as the target of a capture operation is a clever idea, especially since you can get captured if the NTF transport makes it out with you.