there is a campaign mission each "turn", but in a turn you ca do more mission (2-3 generally) so one mission scripted and other mission random skirmish. there is a lot of strategy on the resource and fleet management.
Mission variety? I mostly enjoy going into games blindly, so I've been avoiding streams and let's plays.
campaign mission have special objetive and are different from "random skirmish". while skirmish have always the same 4-5 modes, escort, data capture, assassination, cruiser clash, planetary assault etc etc... all mode require different tactics and approach but in the end is the same mode over and over again.
That is a bit disappointing. On a different subject how, how is the customization per ship, both cosmetic and weapon/ability-wise?
weapon are fixed: with the exception of ork that can customize ship weapons. weapon are based on the ship class, but all the rest is customizabile. you can have active skill passive skills crew points (more passive stuff) and in addition favor: that is one of 4 organization that give you special bonus to the ship and also change the aspect of the ship, eldars have craftworlds, ork have clan chaos have mark imperium have inquisition space marine ad mech and navy. there is a slot for change color but for now is locked (was visibile during the beta and in some old video). also is possibile to change name to ships.
As far as cosmetics gun loadouts affect the ships looks, the various favors change the ships looks, and i bet the add something later.
Favours change the customization heavily asthetic wise (But they add specific bonuses as well) The only faction who can really customize the weapon "loadouts" on their ships are orks, The favours mainly change the color scheme of the ships, but there is a few extras thrown on it (IE an imperium ship with a mechanicus favour has the mechanicus logo on the prow instead of the default, ship lights also change color). Chaos has the biggest difference with favours, nurgle affiliated ships have clouds of fart gas around them and weird skin flaps/tentacles protruding from the ship. Theres plenty of abilities/upgrades for the ship, thought most of them are similar, with only 2 or maybe 3 being faction specific. Eldar have the most standing out abilities I think though, since they cant do micro-warp jumps they just do this thing called vauls maneuver where they turn 180 degrees, as well as some other abilities related to holo-fields
Just an fyi it appears they overtuned the crap out of eldar. I had an ork battlecruiser with bonus hull points get 2 shotted by a medium eldar cruiser. Oh and they nerfed the hell out of mini warp jump. Pretty kuch un usable now. Also the trakter beam on ork ships doesnt seem to throw for as long. Basically eldar seem to have gotten all the stuff their fan base was crying about on their forums. ....no I'm not angry why would I be angry. Edit: can orks ever be good without every other faction fan crying foul ever? I'm completely serious here. It's like if orks are ever in an advantagous position it pisses people off I just dont get it.
Mode rating: Battlestation assault > Cruiser Clash > Escort > Planetary > Breakthrough > Assassination = Data (this is a very stupid mode, especially with races that have fast ships)
