Yes, the lack of AMD made drone chuckers really nasty back then, but then again, scatterpacks were always slow missles only; For drone praticioners a hard trade off.
Ah, the days of SFC1; Fast loading hellbores, no AMD, admin shuttle 'fightercraft', and of course, magic photons. The ragging and complaining back then could fill entire forums in mere minutes.

All highly amusing to the lurks and ghosts, such as myself.
As to your Hydran missions, I don't know; EAW and OP came out before I had become sufficently proficient in federation light ships, and so I moved on. I was able to find out how to change your officer names though, but I digress.
Cats are very adept at lurking about,
Holocat.