Hello, I'm new, I just downloaded FreeSpace 1 and 2 a week ago. I'm... mostly enjoying them, but the stupid yellow screen of death plus a host of other nebula-related problems are eliminating any chance I have of enjoying FreeSpace 2 and I'm about ready to uninstall it.
Judging from all the nebula-related topics here, the best answer seems to be FreeSpace Open, which I will give a try, but I have a question. Will my current FS2 save data carry over? I left off after saving the Aquitane in the Craptacular Crappy Nebula of Craptastic Crappiness and just accepted a second offer from the SOC, and I would prefer to not have to play through 35 or so missions again.
Also, I would prefer to avoid spoilers, but as spoiler-free as possible, how many more stupid nebula missions are there in this game? I already listened to the briefing to the next mission (about rescuing Snipes) and it looks like yet another lame nebula mission. Is the game going to be set in that stupid nebula all the way until the end?
Thank you for your time.

Thanks for the reply, I'll give FSO a try later.
EDIT: FSO worked, there's nothing better than flying through that excessively stormy nebula with a smooth, perfect framerate. Big thanks.

Yeah, FSO is just an improved version of the FS2 game engine and it supports the same pilot files. They are located in \freespace2\data\players\ by the way (singeplayer and multiplayer pilots are divided into separate subfolders).