About the game's structure:
Standoff will be divided in two very different parts. There's the Prologue, which will be the first part of the project to be released to the general public, and the Main Campaign, which will be a lot longer, and will try to incorporate as much as possible the suggestions obtained from user feedback on the Prologue. The Main Campaign has four episodes, which will probably be released one at a time.

Prologue:
The year is 2668, and the place is Gemini Sector - the new land of opportunity and organized crime in the known universe. A few weeks after the Confederation has accepted the truce proposed by the Kilrathi, you find yourself in the shoes of Captain William Bradshaw, wing commander of the TCS Lionheart. You've won the Admiral's favour after Operation Nightshade in 2666, and now he's rewarded you with one of the few fighter wings under his command which are expected to remain operative now that the war is over. Each day there are more and more Confed capital ships sent to orbital shipyards for mothballing, and pirates have identified these undefended ships as an opportunity to capitalize on. It's up to you to teach these individuals a lesson about property, while looking out for the pilots and fighters under your command - this might be your chance of reminding Admiral Terrell that you and your crew belong in active duty, since the government is calling for another budget cut in military expenses.

Main campaign:
A few months have passed, and there was nothing you could have done to keep your unit from being deactivated: the Lionheart was mothballed, and you and your wingmen were reassigned to Home Defense squadrons throughout Potter quadrant. That's free money when compared to all other Confederation jobs in Gemini - janitor at Perry Naval included. From 2668.342 on, though, you'll have to earn your paycheck again. A suicidal bombing by a Kilrathi ambassador on Earth killed most of the Confederation's upper-rank officers, and a massive fleet of Kilrathi ships preparing to attack Earth was discovered. Admiral Terrell has reassigned you as wing commander of the sole operational carrier under his command - the TCS Firekka. It's your first time in command of a complete flight wing, in which you'll have to look out for almost ten times as many fighters and pilots than you were responsible for onboard the Lionheart. As if that wasn't enough, the situation now is much more dangerous, and much more desperate... the TCS Firekka's job is to join up with the Confederation's third fleet at the Warsaw system, and act as support ship for the TCS Concordia. The Confed fleet will include dozens of support ships and a few full-blown fleet carriers - ships over twice as big as the Lionheart or the Firekka - all of them dedicated to the task of stopping the Kilrathi fleet at any cost, before it reaches Earth. It may be impossible for a single fighter pilot to make a difference in a campaign with such large-scale battles, but nevertheless, here's your chance to prove that a converted freighter with a few dozen second-rate fighters and a handful of rookie pilots from a backwater sector can do it.