Homeworld: persistence of units and resources throughout campaign

[SkiNNyBane]

I thought about Homeworld 1 recently. One of my favorite games growing up. I skipped school to play that shit (incline?)

This got me thinking that one of the major reasons I play RPGs over RTS games despite loving its gameplay, is RPGs feel way more immersive. One exception being Homeworld. That game managed to make RTS feel like an RPG by saving every unit and resources mission to mission, creating a sense of countinuity that RPGs take for granted. You could fuck up your playthrough early on and not realize it. Not to mention you could capture enemy ships and make them part of your fleet, scratching the hording itch throughout the entire campaign. Incline all around.

Can we talk about persistence as a feature of immersion in games? Are there other examples of this type of thing that you know of?

Btw if you ever actually buy homeworld remastered keep in mind that original homeworld is way better then remastered b/c they rebuilt hw1 in hw2 engine which removed fuck ton of incline features that made it great. Not that hw2 is a terrible game. Its kind of like what fallout new vegas is to fallout 2. Homeworld: Cataclysm is also incline (now known as Emergence cause hurr durr blizzard bully)

Also don't want to make a separate thread about it but freespace 2 and tachyon: the fringe - oh man I kind of want to go back and replay those. What are your favorite space games?

 

[thesheeep]

Couldn't agree more.
What I love most about RTS games is persistence - or something else that connects separate levels/mission.
And those that do not have any are RTS games I play through once and then never touch them again. Don't think I played C&C or AoE through more than once.

This is one of the main reasons I like the Warlords Battlecry series (especially 3) so much. You do not get to keep every unit, but at the end of the battle, you get a selection of units that gained the most experience during the level and can put some of them into your retinue. And at the start of a level, you can select a few units from your retinue to accompany you on the battlefield. When a retinue member dies that you carried with you through a lot of battles, it really is a loss (both emotionally and in actual power).

It is also why I like RPG/RTS hybrids so much more than "just" RTS games - the RPG part pretty much guarantees at least something carries over.

 

[Beowulf]

About unit persistence?
Myth games had it.
Ground Control as well.
And old WFB games, like Shadow of the Horned Rat and Dark Omen.


I guess that's the reason why are remember them fondly, and they get recommended every now and then in the RTS/RTT threads.

In DoW 2 you also keep your squads and level them between the missions.
One could argue that in Total War games, when you level up your armies, you sort of get attached to them as well.

 

[DraQ]

I thought about Homeworld 1 recently. One of my favorite games growing up. I skipped school to play that shit (incline?)

This got me thinking that one of the major reasons I play RPGs over RTS games despite loving its gameplay, is RPGs feel way more immersive. One exception being Homeworld. That game managed to make RTS feel like an RPG by saving every unit and resources mission to mission, creating a sense of countinuity that RPGs take for granted. You could fuck up your playthrough early on and not realize it. Not to mention you could capture enemy ships and make them part of your fleet, scratching the hording itch throughout the entire campaign. Incline all around.

I even managed to steal capture a whole bunch of Kadeshi swarmers once.

Not to mention multibeam frigs.

Can we talk about persistence as a feature of immersion in games? Are there other examples of this type of thing that you know of?

IIRC Nexus: The Jupiter Incident featured some missions where you could retain ships or at least their experienced crews (if the ships were destroyed but evacuated successfully) and use them in the subsequent missions, else you got replacements crewed by rookies.
Good game.

Cortex Command's (half assed) campaign mode has everything persist between missions - terrain damage, unit damage, etc.

Nothing else other than already mentioned Myth series comes to mind.

Homeworld: Cataclysm is also incline (now known as Emergence cause hurr durr blizzard bully)

I've never liked Cata all that much. It had some retarded mechanics (energy cannons that homed, destroying the whole point of fighters and the like, SU's that further discouraged anything but building a small bunch of superheavy units, and the fact you only got niche, overspecialized weirdo ships) and I nerdraged deeply over the animated backgrounds.

Also, LOL, blizztard.

What are your favorite space games?

Well, there is Homeworld (1, 2 is derpy Silmarillion in space, cata is somewhat blah), Nexus is good (though not as good), other than that there is Frontier (mad props for proper scale, proper physics and graphics to carry the whole concept - in 1993) and FFE, and recently I've been playing CoADE a whole fucking lot - its main selling point is it's marriage of space combat with pedantic levels of realism and full customizability.

 

[Storyfag]

Earth 2150

 

[Sitra Achara]

War Wind had partial unit retention IIRC. Also individual upgrades.

 

[trais]

Earth 2150

Oh, yes, this.

Having persistent main base outside of current mission map allowed not only for carrying over units between missions, but also outsourcing part (or even whole) of research or unit production to it.

Too bad the game wasn't hard enough to really force you to utilize this feature, but it was a nice touch nonetheless.