Well, like so;
we have been posting material to build interest. And we are hard at work to pull this sucker together.
However, we aren't talking about "cutscenes" we could do cutscenes. What we are talking about is sort of a "between mission" player to character interaction. Where the player in way of an RPGesque or Mass Effect style thing where you interact with your wing mates between missions.
We want to build the story outside of the cockpit.
As a player of more action oriented space games, I've never been a fan of sitting in autopilot, or flying in a straight line for 5 - 10 minutes while listing to my wing mates yammer on about the games plot. When in battle, you have more important things to worry about than the story. Like, survival.
So the idea has been to develop the characters outside the battlefield. Through a multi-option dialogue system. The mission briefings would also come directly from this format.
Example:
Admiral Joe gives the mission brief.
Rather than jumping straight into the fray, you have a multitude of dialogue options to ask Admiral Joe, like secondary objects, details on the mission that might not have been mentioned in the brief. Perhaps even give the player opportunities to shape their character to how they may behave themselves in a situation.
This game will also have two possible endings. And two possible factions to fight for. 25 or so missions per faction. (35 total, the first 10 missions are fought with the "Shadow Squadron". Mission 10 will be the planned branching point. So about 60 missions total.)
I'm kind of rambling here, so I'll just end the infodump here.