The latest two vids call for some comments, I guess.
I have never had a problem with mission 2. You have to scan the container, disable the freighter, then dogfight. Even when I ordered wingmen to protect the freighters, and joined in, it all came down to dogfighting, far away from the freighters (just like in your walkthrough). In many of my playthroughs, I simply ordered everyone to either defend me or engage the enemy, and fought until the mission ended.
The "invisible" fighters are Ptahs, who are stealth fighters armed with Banshee Xs. There will be some more Ptahs in the campaign as well, so if you get EMPed, look behind you and you'll likely get across one or two of those guys.
The dogfighting part was much longer (and bogus) in the original version. Apparently, even now when they jump out once the freighters are down/escaped. It wasn't rare, in previous versions of the mission, for the mission to drag on for 12-15 minutes, 7-10 of which was destroying Horuses.
The debriefing is indeed faulty. It was present in the original and left in in the rebuilt version, so it's partly my fault too. I don't recall changing anything in the briefing texts apart from spellchecking.
Mission-wise, I was primarily interested in fixing mission-breaking bugs. You'd have broken mission 2 in two of your playthroughs had you played the original.
As for the freighters:
I'm aware that it's strange that Freighter 1 happens to contain Icarus. In the original version, the freighters were given default names, and Icarus was in Ma'at 17 (no, not Bes 17). I advised Shadow to change the freighters' names, which he apparently did. I didn't complain, because I was concerned with getting the debriefs and the campaign file work right. I'd rather see people compain about a freighter's name than complain about getting a success debrief and not able to progress in the campaign.
Mission 3:
Looks like the release contains an older revision of the mission. The spelling errors (like "breifing") and that damn comma in "Get cracking pilot" were fixed in the latest revision, and there should be also a "Wait for Transport to Dock" directive.
About the Weapons subsystem: You have to tag it so the fleet knows where the Queb is, and you have to destroy it to disable its beams, like it is said in the briefing.
Generally speaking:
It's good that you're doing these video playthroughs, so thumbs up for your efforts, Lucika. :) Now we can see it through the eyes of one of our players. I'm certain that these videos will be useful for CoW2.
What the hell? :wtf: The Queb's Weapons subsys isn't meant to be invulnerable at any stage of the mission. Most of the time I simply fall back and snipe the Weapons from a distance between the "Wait for transport to dock" message and TAGging. I'm convinced that either your download is corrupted, or the main download is messy. No one has posted any feedback on the campaign, so I can draw conclusions based on your video walkthrough only.
However,
Not having to follow the transport to fulfill the "Follow Transport" directive is definitely a design and testing error.
[EDIT]I've just replayed the mission, and the Queb's Weapons are vulnerable, as they should be.
The Ogdoad was meant to go down. The mission played out as it should; however, the dialog and the action were out of sync, as you noticed. I was worried it would happen, but I always disliked this mission, that's why I lost the last bits of my enthusiasm to get this part right. I spend a bunch of time to get the big warship battle play itself out. Some Sobeks always got out of range and the friendly warships never pursued them. I'm glad the mission didn't break.
Storywise: Command wanted the Ogdoad captured IIRC, but Captain Houser lost his mind and destroyed the station in revenge of his son, whom he lost before the mission (this is mentioned in the brieifng). Well, yes, this plot element came out of nowhere, but a storyline rewrite fell outside the scope of the project. That's why it strikes you (and me too, BTW) as vague.
About mission 8, "Breaking the Wall":
Glad you didn't struggle too much with it, even though you didn't disarm one Sobek until later in the mission. The Apep (I think) wasn't meant to do anything in the mission but show its face. I really don't know. Ask Shadow.
Looking forward to your overall review after finishing the last mission (which is where you are now).
Also, a bit of advice for the last mission: You aren't in a hurry. Head toward the Apep with all your wingmen, take down the fighters that cross your path, then destroy the engines.