I've just read-up on using variables in Fred2 and it looks promising.
I've designed a test mission for the Alpha Quadrant project where the Federation battles a small Borg Fleet led by a Borg Probe (Borgified Setekh) (steak will be happy). When a fighter's shields go down (including Alpha 1) a Borg drone can beam in and assimilate the pilot (including you) and fight for the Borg. If you are assimilated, you will follow the Borg campaign. But, anyway... I used a variable to count the number of ships assimilated to use in messages and debriefing. It sorta looked like this (for every fighter/bomber).
Alpha 2 Assimilated
when
-Shield Quad Low
-Alpha 2
-0
-Change-IFF
-Hostile
-Alpha 2
-Send Message
-$Command
-High
-Federation vessel assimilated
-Modify Variable
-StarshipAssimilated
- +
-StarshipAssimilated
-1
It worked and it was cool.
I was just wondering what are some other things that you can do with variables? What's the best thing you have done?