Mission name
Deepspace

Instructions
Just unzip the missions into your Freespace/Data/Missions folder.  Place the sound file into the Data/Voice/Special folder.  Play as many times as desired.  Do not overcook.

Version
1.7

Author
Red_two

Files included
DSMis01a.fsm
DSMis02a.fsm
message.wav
This file!

I understand message.wav was publicly released, so I'm using it here.  If I'm wrong and you created this file, please email and I'll either remove it at your request, or just give you due credit.

Send bug reports and comments to Alf_ax@usa.net
If you have ever messed with the campaign editor, and have any idea how it works, you can email me about it too.

Knowns bugs
None >:)  Yay.

Description
The first two missions in a very long campaign to be.

Background
It's the beginning of space colonization, when jumpdrives are very new (see Jump Drives, below).  Because of the power required to jump between systems, communication between the colonies is slow at best.  Many of them began to break away from Earth, seeking independence.  Earth's nearest neighbor, Vega, has been causing a lot of trouble lately.

Terra formed the Space Defense Force in order to take care of pirates and police the system, and to protect themselves against attack.  In response, Vega formed the Imperial Star Fleet.  For the past 20 years they've been causing a lot of trouble.

You're stationed on the Valley Forge, a cruiser patrolling the outmost reaches of the solar system.

Ramblings
	I've seen only a few good dogfight scenarios, so I decided to try it myself with these first two missions.  I've spent a lot of time getting the balance just right.

	I play the game on hard level, and I'm not that good a pilot, so I designed all the missions to be just slightly too hard for me.  I can make it out alive in these missions.  If a lot of people seem to think this stuff is way too easy, I'll increase the difficulty to 'impossible' for me >:)

	And jump drives.  I've started the story in another universe, completely apart from the Freespace story laid out by Interplay.  I'm using their program as a background for my story, and that's where the similarity ends.  I have no idea how they explain jump drives... it seems pretty inconsistent.  Here's how I explain them, and the way they're used in these missions.
	Jump drives allow ships to travel nearly instantly from one location to another, across great distances.  But they do take a lot of power, and they're not very small.  So fighters don't actually have jump drives.
	A fighter jumps by sending a signal to a nearby ship or base.  That ship then sends a jump wave back to the fighter, and yanks it through subspace.  This doesn't take too much power, so a cruiser can jump several wings of fighters several times.  Without a cruiser or base nearby, however, a fighter cannot jump.
	Cruisers have their own jump drives, but the range is limited.  A cruiser can make a jump to another star system, but it would need to charge up, which can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours.
	Cargo ships, such as freighters, also do not have jump drives.  They can jump further than fighters, however, because they use engine coils, which enhances the subspace wave sent to them.  Some freighters which are large enough are sometimes modified with their own jump drives, and used by pirates.  This takes up all the cargo space in a large freighter, but is a cheap, easy way to get a ship that can jump your fighters around.
	Capital ships have very powerful jump drives, and can pretty easily go between systems.  They are also extremely expensive to produce, so there's only a few.  Bases are even more powerful, as far as drives are concerned, but they can't use the drives themselves.  Since they're stationary, they can use all their jump power to assist other ships.  A base can send a fighter all the way across a system, or a freighter to the nearest star.
	Ships can also use La grange points.  These are points of gravitational distortion, usually in a system, which magnify the range of a jump, sometimes up to 100 times the max distance.  Those that have been found have been marked with buoys, and ships can always locate unknown ones with their sensors.
	Long range sensors work a bit like submarine sonar.  They pick up energy signatures at great distances, and the computer translates that data into a ship type, based on previous data.  If you find a new ship, the computer won't know what to do with it, and it'll be hard to tell if it's a ship or just some energized space dust.  Science ships, of course, are far more accurate, and are indespensable in assessing enemy forces.

Legal stuff???
All applicable rights are the author's.  Don't be mean.

Please do not alter and then redistribute these missions in 'improved' form, or any other form, without indicating that you have done so in this readme file.  I'd like to keep track of the original, which you can always get by emailing me.