Exactly. I would be curious to see what a no-wave FS1 & FS2 campaign would look like
By no-wave you mean only 1 wave with reasonable numbers or every single ship warping in simultaneously?
I recently started replaying ST:R and noticed just how ****ing many Shivans you have to kill. In "He Who Rides the Tiger" I ended up with 41 kills due to near-infinitely respawning waves of Manticores and Basilisks(and 3-4 wings of Dragons too
). I didn't even kill them all, I warped out as soon as the Ratna did. If I had to guess I'd say there were at least 80 Shivan craft in that mission, depending on how fast you kill them(since they respawn after a whole wing dies). If they all launched or jumped in simultaneously it would be completely impossible.
If done well, a no-wave campaign would be a lot less frustrating than waves gone wrong. Seriously, killing opponents faster should be rewarded with some safetey, not more respawns that get progressively harder to deal with as you start running low on shields, weapon energy, and dumbfires. If you just had everything that could ever jump in as a wave jump in instantly it would be impossible and probably break the engine or something.