I complete the final Oxford mission flying to Perry base and back. Just like a lot of the other final missions, I run into a load of those unknown fighters. I’d swear flown with any skill at all, my ship is pretty much invulnerable by this point in the game so they aren’t any trouble.

I get the name and location of his contact at last and head straight there.

He’s waiting around in the bar like everyone else and also wants me to fly missions for him. The only surprise is that he isn’t going to pay me other than in information. I learn that I’m on the retros most wanted list for some reason. Before he will tell me more I have to fly him to Detroit. On the bright side that means I won’t be flying back to this station surrounded by asteroids for every mission so the relocation is fine by me.

I get a bit more information when we land, this time about the Retro’s becoming more organised under their new leader. I had noticed more retros around but then again theres more of everyone else as well. My next mission is just to fly to a particular station and get a mission off someone else.

When I land, the informant hands over some sort of coded documents and tells me to fly back with them.

I land with the documents and now get sent to clear out a nav point in the Nexus system where an ambush awaits for my employer.

I clear out a few waves of Retros and fly back with the news. I still don’t get any information about Jones but I do get a mission to kill off this Meneche character who has so many bounties on his head. This mission involves searching 5 systems and is the longest mission in the game so far. Just finding him takes long enough with me having to search around 20-30 nav points before I finally catch up with him.

He confesses to stealing my gun and selling it to the Retros in turn so that they can put it on their ships. He runs for the jump point and I get left dealing with a few waves of the previously unknown ships which turn out to be retros. I have to kill 12 of them before I head into the jump point. Up to this point all the new gadgets on my ship weren’t strictly neccessary but I would have struggled here without them. As it was even up against this many, I don’t think they ever got my shields down.

I follow Menesche through the jump point and have to cope with him in his Centurion + more waves of the unknown fighters. I manage to kill him off – by this point I’m nearly out of jump fuel so I head for the nearest inhabited system and land. I’ve got 3 bounties to collect on this guy which is the next job – I expect another mission will come out of that as I’ve no other loose ends to chase up.

I feel like I’m getting close to the end now and will attempt to finish it up tonight. It still hasn’t thrown anything new at me and the storyline doesn’t appear to be going anywhere in particular. The limitations of the game are in strong evidence after all this time – there is just enough variety to carry this mission pack but a second would have been pushing it. I’ve not been disappointed by this add-on but its not going to leave me wanting more.

Given the difficulty level of the last mission, I should probably expect to have a lot of enemies to cope with from here on out. It needs to up the difficulty a bit as it has been far too easy so far. It could get easier still as I’ve nearly got enough money for the speed boosting gadget which is the last upgrade that I really want. All that leaves is the advanced repair droid + the thrust enhancer (which increases acceleration). Neither of these sound all that useful although they are both relatively cheap.