Are you supposed to lose your initial aircraft you started the mission with? I brought a Helios and all I got was this lousy Manticore, and now the Helios is gone. Also what’s with all the enemies on this mission? 2-3x as many as normal, pretty unexpected. Entire mission is more easily done with a single heavy than any actual squad.
I just can’t tell what’s an oversight anymore or what’s intended. Should I assume this intended?
Yes, I wondered about the same thing. Can’t remember the exact mission briefing, but I thought I was going there to get an extra aircraft (The Gift, not The Trade!)
Apparently you watch my video in YT 
It is intended, but poorly explained. You lose your aircraft during the attack, and you have to recover that Gift (armed Manticore).
If you decide to bring Helios, TB or Tiamat, that is the aircraft that you will lose
Original ship is swallowed by a sinkhole.
I wonder if got a bug in my game then.
Because i went into the mission, finished it.
And immediately after i had a “The Gift” aircraft + a Maticore 2.
If you play on lower difficulty than Legendary you get free Manticore(s) on PP bases that you only have to activate. Maybe you have done that but not realised that there is one of these free Manticores stationed? “Manticore 2” looks for me that this is the case, the first starting one is named “Manticore 1” 
So shouldn’t I lose 2 aircrafts if I do the mission with 2? This really sucks…
I’m actually curious now how that’d work. Unlike many missions, I couldn’t select who I wanted and who I didn’t want to do the mission (so I had to fly back to base to drop off all the losers who were just slowing me down) to return with my Jumper to quickly complete the mission. It’s kind of unrewarding too so I’m not even sure if it’s worth doing until the very last moment because after completing it, the egg suddenly hatched and the behemoth started roaming and sending out flyers. If that all could be avoided by delaying the mission, might as well just delay it. Edit: I take that back. Didn’t realize yet that there were hefty rewards for shooting down flyers attacking bases. Pretty worth it to get on it right away.
No, you just lose one of them
Yeah, it’s pretty irritating. I tried doing the mission the ‘normal’ way the first time, lost soldiers due to the huge numbers of enemies, restarted and did it more carefully the second time and was successful.
But if I’d just brought a single Heavy I could have done it 10x faster and more effectively.
And losing your original aircraft is really stupid.
you can do that with many missions already in the game.
overall it is not. But the way it is presented kind of lacks…
I also lost my starting manticore after i finished the mission the gift. I got a new manticore called “the gift”. I guess this is a bug. I think we are supposed to get an additional aircraft and not loose the aircraft we fly with to the mission.
No bug, it is intentional to lose the aircraft you go there. It is mentioned in the text when you start the mission:
Ah I just did the mission again and it definitely does not mention it in the text. It just says a sinkhole opened and pandorans emerged to attack the haven.
In fact it even says that Citizen … lady… wants you to help fend off the attackers and she’ll assist you with the aircraft. Consider that that’s not even the mission objective in tactical either. Everything’s pretty off on the description and objectives with this mission.
Honestly though, that lines up perfectly with my expectations now and matches nearly everything else in this game.
Next I’m guessing is going to be a “Your be chased and must excape pandorans!” and the mission is yet another “Secure the area” and I’m betting (but hoping I’m wrong) that the new infestor thing has only 1 target point, no weak points.
Yeah, I was wrong, it is only mentioned in one on-screen hint-and-tips and you will not see this when you deactivate these hints. IMHO not a good way to go, because I had these deactivated as probably many experienced players will have, but activated them for my first campaign with FS.
Oh well that was a mistake.
