Wow, look at all the traffic here!
I only have the basic + music packages so far, but I have to say, from the moment I saw the intro - even on my ultra-slow computer, I was very impressed. So much attention to detail, even little things like the ship stats thingy (can't remember the name right now) is there! (Heh, another SWC model creeps in with the Hornet).
There are a few niggling details, like the odd look of the text in the fiction viewer (and the odd spelling mistake), but of course, what can one expect from people who've worked on this thing out of their own time, with no compensation. I keep thinking - if there was a little time and money to polish this thing up, this really could be a commercial quality piece of software. Actually, even better, given the buggy stuff we're given these days.
Um, about the music. I hope I'm not insulting Needaham again, but I have to say I was a little disappointed with the sound quality. The actual compositions are pretty good, however, the first half of the 'combat' music annoys me a bit. Sorry. Neat idea of rearranging the original WC1/2 music for some of the simulator levels, but again the quality is not too good. I suppose it would have been too easy (or questionable) to use the KS tracks, wouldn't it? I loved the music from the first simulator level though.
One more thing, has the "shoehorn" code been disabled? Because I used it a few times, and then it won't seem to work anymore. Before you accuse me of being a cheat, let me explain: many extra missions made for SO were made with newer computers than mine, and so have more resources at their disposal. Using the Hi-Res patch at 800x600 D3D 16-bit (which is the most my machine can handle without crashing at the start) on SO will often exit straight to Windows when there's too many ships to handle. Running UE will often do the same thing to me, even at 640x480 D3D and software. So I need to use the cheat just to progress past a mission without being chucked out of the program. Currently, I can't do the last simulator mission and I'm stuck on the third (fourth?) main mission - the one where the Ralari attacks the Dauntless. Oh yeah, the textures on the Ralari and Fralthi look a bit plain, but that's a very minor thing.