No idea if this is the right place to do this, but I finished my second playthrough of Derelict not long ago (and my first not too long before that), and there were some things that stuck out. Oh, and spoilers, if anyone cares.
First, it's very very good. Just wanted to get that out there.
Second, it's really not what I expected, mostly because I thought the title referred to the setting. Given the first mission or two, I thought it was going to be about pilots out in the middle of nowhere, with little advanced tech. You know, a sort of "derelict" area of space.
Now, I knew there was going to be something called the Nyarlathotep, obviously a Lovecraft reference, involved, due to seeing it mentioned on the wiki. Again, due to the first few missions, I thought the general thrust was going to be pilots disappearing and going crazy on the fringes of space, lots of weird psychological stuff, more dream sequences, and then maybe culminating in a small-scale but still terrifying Shivan attack that an ill-equipped force had to deal with.
I didn't really expect a slightly better-thought-out, but not quite as well voice-acted, version of the FS2 campaign. Not complaining, though, it was excellent. I mean, that's pretty much what it is, though. It's just FS2, but longer, more detailed, and more interesting. It lacks the epic quality of the retail campaign, though. Probably due to not actually having a budget.
Anyway, on to the only real problem. The writers seem to have vastly overestimated the power of the average Shivan warship. The GTVA would have wiped the floor with that fleet.
Remember, the only reason the Lucifer was ever an issue at all was because of its shield, which the Nyarlathotep doesn't have. Not only that, but it's implied that beam cannons would go right through it anyway. In fact, the Colossus was as I recall specifically designed to deal with Lucifer-types. As such, I only started to notice this when one of the briefings claimed that the Colossus, had it been there, would have lost to the Nyarla.
I mean, come on. Once they figured out a way around the shield, the Lucifer was taken out by like four wings of fighters. The thing just isn't that formidable. Even a single Sathanas juggernaut wasn't that big a deal during the Second Incursion; it just took a bit of firepower to deal with.
Now, I suppose that gameplay can't always be taken as canon, but it should still be noted that during the final mission, the Nyarla is usually half dead already by the time the Argentus gets there. Now, admittedly, this is a major flaw with the retail campaign as well; nobody ever thinks to just gather all their ships together and overwhelm the Shivans rather than setting up a ridiculous supership confrontation, but this is a bit more egregious, because it's just three destroyers, and a smattering of smaller ships. The GTVA has...I don't even know, but it's a lot more than that.
Oh, and the MT thing was never actually explained, although I suppose that's par for the course with Freespace.
Anyway, this has been all rambly and not really as well-put-together as I'd intended, so I'll stop.
