Single Player Mission 1 - Continued

Stick around to fight additional waves of Shivans that arrive to investigate the disappearance of their capital ships, and you have the chance to play as the predator in the nebula. If you complete these "extra" objectives in the mission, your efforts and flying skills will be recognized by Allied Command. As a reward, you will be permitted to fly the fast GTF Pegasus in the next mission. The GTF Pegasus is more maneuverable and quick than the default GTF Hercules Mark II, which will make the next mission slightly easier. These events which "carryover" from one mission to the next will be used to create a more responsive campaign that includes additional subplots (or "story arcs") for players to enjoy if they wish.

Other than the nebula, however, this mission is a standard FreeSpace design where you assault a group of capital ships and their escort. The fighters must cover the bombers on their runs to take out the capital ship. This provides plenty of dogfighting action familiar for those with any space dogfight sim experience, so even a traditionalist will be pleased by the gameplay. However, the new weapons provide a twist that greatly changes the dynamic of space combat.

Those choosing to lead the bombing runs will have a frightening experience under fire from flak guns while approaching near a capital ship. Those who play it safe and launch their bombs from a distance will find that the new beam weapons are quite effective at swatting down your packages of doom. However, runs by wings of bombers will be an important way to take out an enemy capital ship -- if you're skilled enough -- without calling in one of your own capital ships.

Fighter pilots will need to focus on protecting their bombers from hostile fighters and capital ship turrets. Another key strategy will be destroying the subsystems of capital ships so that bombers will have an easier attack run. The dynamics of the game have changed so that it is futile for a lone fighter to hover in space and try to blast through a capital ship with their primary cannons. Anyone attempting such a foolish strategy will find themselves easy targets of lessons from the effective flak guns. These flak guns also make life difficult for fighters dogfighting near a capital ship, since flak fires in an area "burst" effect.

Most dangerous of all are the massive laser weapons that capital ships use to sweep across space to slash through both fighters and bombers. In order to explain all of these different weapons, however, we'll have to move on to the next mission...

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