KickStarter Homeworld 3 from Blackbird Interactive - coming May 13th

[AlwaysBrotoMen]

How is this game shaping up ? is it worth to give a shot? is it half as good as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

 

[ArchAngel]

How is this game shaping up ? is it worth to give a shot? is it half as good as Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

That is a completely different type of RTS. DoK was attempt at making a more classing RTS like C&C

 

[Berekän]

Have you even played DoK?

 

[Elthosian]

Looks ok to me, at the very least they're trying to keep all the details that were annoyingly removed from HW2. I hope I don't get burned with this

 

[DesolationStone]

I'm starting to get nervous. Their rhetoric "we've made the game accessible to FPS and moba players", I don't know...
Also, it seems from the FAQ that the DLC will only add a faction for the War Games mod, and that the support for the mod will only be for adding maps and gamemods, not full conversions or gameplay enhancements like the old title in the series.

 

[Elthosian]

Demo is available on Steam from right now until the 12th. Gave it a try just now, it has a tutorial plus the co-op multiplayer mode they had been mentioning. Thankfully, you can play the latter alone if you set up a private lobby.

The good: honestly despite the FPS/MOBA focus seen in the previous video this plays fairly well in classic mode and feels right at home, although I did have to spend some 10 minutes adjusting speed settings until I felt it clicked. The game is a bit on the demanding side technically but looks very nice; regardless, I'd say it's better to lower some settings and go for stable 60 or 120 FPS as the camera feels too janky otherwise. They do have DLSS but the current implementation has some ghosting, which I assume will go away for the release in a month. They added a tactical pause which I kind of like (can't remember whether we had this in HW1). Controls feel quite well with all of the formation and fine-grained control options I loved from HW1, with combat being ballistics/trajectory-based . All in all, I think they got most of the basics right (no fuel though), and the game will live or die by its mission design. The 3D interactions with terrain are welcome IMO and I like that they added a set of new turret unit types that go very well with it. Fairly little popamole vibes in that regard.

some screenshots

The meh: of course, hard to have an interesting story without retconning the mess that was HW2, and they didn't. Not expecting much here and the enemy faction being called 'incarnates' doesn't give me many hopes, plus the voice acting is... eh, ok, I guess? Can't say yet, but it's fairly generic compared with the original. I'm putting all of this in 'meh' simply because I don't think you could get much more out of the HW universe in an RTS game after the ending of the first game. Anyway, resource operations are now based on having resource controllers unlocked from the beginning that spawn (?) 4 resource collectors that cannot be controlled independently. Resource collection never was a big thing in HW1, but this seems like a weird choice which I suspect will make the starting 10-20 minutes of most missions less engaging. Also, the resource controller appears to double as a capture unit (despite a dedicated capture corvette still being in). Also, navigation in tight areas feels a bit janky, hope this improves in time for release.

The ugly: research options are there and while they are expanded compared with HW1, adding skills/buffs to your units, but *all* of them are cooldown-based with no drawback other than waiting for the next time the skill is available. I guess this does add an extra tactical layer of deciding when to use them during combat, but it feels like it will get old veeery fast. Also, the following is not strictly a negative, but it looks like they have some other upgrades coming from 'artifacts'. Not sure if this is for the co-op mode or if it applies to the campaign too.

Upgraded from neutral to cautiously optimistic. Has anybody else tried it and wants to share some takes on it?

 

[Tyranicon]

Steam forums hate it. Apparently bad control schemes or something?

 

[AwesomeButton]

(can't remember whether we had this in HW1).

There was no complete pause but just very very slow-motion speed which was practically the same.

 

[Tweed]

This is going to be a disaster.

 

[Elthosian]

Steam forums hate it. Apparently bad control schemes or something?

Some parts of controlling stuff did feel off and I've seen serious concerns by some (not all) HW veterans there, but this seems like the kind of stuff a demo helps to correct course for and gets fixed by a month 1 patch in the worst case scenario. Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst

Then again, Steam is filled with casuals so I wouldn't be surprised if half these complaints could be solved by spending enough time playing with the settings.

 

[Jeskis]

no fuel though

A what?

 

[Hellraiser]

Played the demo's roguelite mode twice, failing the on the third mission (which seems to be the same map always and kind of a boss fight) both times.

Main gripe with the controls is that I would expect right-clicking on RUs etc. to move units close to them, but it seems for instance for the carrier it doesn't register the order. Also the mouse scroll seems to be really slow, it's a lot faster to zoom in/out the other way using keys. Also I have no fucking clue how to salavage wrecks of shit I blew up, with support frigates maybe?

Finally the sensor view is not a global/strategic map view mode anymore, but local. I know they needed it to also help when inside the "megaliths, to actually fucking see what is occluded behind terrain, but I would like to have an option where it automatically zooms out and gives that birds eye view I know and love.

Still besides that game does look decent, I like that they managed to implement the megaliths that got axed during the development of HW2. I once got a map where there was a massive flat ice "sandwich" below me that covered almost the whole map, you could fly between the two surface layers through a few entrances and find plenty of open space inside, guard the entrances etc. And the scale of the thing was just amazing. Artifacts (basically unit specialization bonuses paired with some minor drawbacks) are a decent gimmick for the roguelite mode, but I'm hoping there's more variety to them in the full game.

In general the terrain and the 3d gameplay work well together and I found myself positioning my carrier and resource escort in ways to take advantage of it and the newtonian strikecraft movement for defense. Hugging a surface behind a corner is a good way to get a few seconds of free potshots at enemy ships, and since the roguelite mode marks incursion points you roughly know the attack direction and can position accordingly.

One nitpick I have is that I heard fuck all music despite it being one of the iconic elements of the series besides 3d space fleets and general art style. Surely the actual campaign is going to use the same composer as always doing the good shit, since he also worked on the music in deserts of kharak?

 

[Elthosian]

no fuel though

A what?

HW1 had a fuel system for smaller craft which some people hated but I liked as a mini-tactical layer. They didn't bring it back for HW3 but I suppose that was a given since they also axed it for the HW1 remake.

 

[Elthosian]

Played the demo's roguelite mode twice, failing the on the third mission (which seems to be the same map always and kind of a boss fight) both times.

Main gripe with the controls is that I would expect right-clicking on RUs etc. to move units close to them, but it seems for instance for the carrier it doesn't register the order. Also the mouse scroll seems to be really slow, it's a lot faster to zoom in/out the other way using keys. Also I have no fucking clue how to salavage wrecks of shit I blew up, with support frigates maybe?

Finally the sensor view is not a global/strategic map view mode anymore, but local. I know they needed it to also help when inside the "megaliths, to actually fucking see what is occluded behind terrain, but I would like to have an option where it automatically zooms out and gives that birds eye view I know and love.

Still besides that game does look decent, I like that they managed to implement the megaliths that got axed during the development of HW2. I once got a map where there was a massive flat ice "sandwich" below me that covered almost the whole map, you could fly between the two surface layers through a few entrances and find plenty of open space inside, guard the entrances etc. And the scale of the thing was just amazing. Artifacts (basically unit specialization bonuses paired with some minor drawbacks) are a decent gimmick for the roguelite mode, but I'm hoping there's more variety to them in the full game.

In general the terrain and the 3d gameplay work well together and I found myself positioning my carrier and resource escort in ways to take advantage of it and the newtonian strikecraft movement for defense. Hugging a surface behind a corner is a good way to get a few seconds of free potshots at enemy ships, and since the roguelite mode marks incursion points you roughly know the attack direction and can position accordingly.

One nitpick I have is that I heard fuck all music despite it being one of the iconic elements of the series besides 3d space fleets and general art style. Surely the actual campaign is going to use the same composer as always doing the good shit, since he also worked on the music in deserts of kharak?

Yep (from PCGamer's preview):

 

[fizzelopeguss]

No skirmish?

Units have spastic abilities to spam which doesn't seemingly go beyond more damage, more speed etc. Remove it immediately.

Catastrophic UI and controls.

These companies make me so angry, this will be a fuck up on par with DoWIII if they don't get their shit together.

 

[Idiott]

I was cautiously optimistic but after playing the demo I'm very concerned.

UI is ass. It literally looks like it was made for mobile. You also can't see shit. Class icons aren't a toggle in game, you need to enable that in the menu. You have no idea which units are currently selected, even when changing selected units' color in accessibility half of them don't register. I spent more time fighting with this retardo UI than against enemies.
Controls. What. The. Fuck. Almost nothing is rebindable. Don't like that after 20+ years movement key is suddenly W, dock is A and harvesting is Q? Well fuck you.
Default camera controls are ass. You need to disable the retarded mouse smoothing to actually control the camera somewhat.
Unit abilities. MOBA/FPS players won't even touch this game, why the fuck would you try to cater to them?
Oh, and they are apparently adding Denuvo to this, because fuck you even harder.

Yeah, this surely will be a hit. It's apparently 'old build' and sure, things can be fixed and patched, but the fact that this was supposedly made by HW veterans and it was allowed to be shown in this state is not reassuring.

 

[Alienman]

Kinda lame how the fighters move in formation instead of dogfighting. Also, I was very confused when the tutorial wanted me to use waypoints. I managed, but I have no idea how it works. Sometimes the game reacts to my clicks, other times it just gives no fucks. Game is also blurry as fuck, as all modern titles.

 

[Raghar]

I looked at beta, and from what I remember since HW2 release, original HW2 was a game of passion where they thought how these ships would defend themselves and what compromises they would have to do during theirs design, and designed both ships and combat with relatively realistic feeling.

It's one reason why carrier ship was vertical and fighters and corvettes were launched perpendicularly from bulky areas in the hull.
Nowadays we see flat design because USN carriers are flat. That's not incorrect design. BUT. Fighters would be launched from different areas. Tips have too large angular force even with hypothetic inertia nullifiers.

 

[Jeskis]

no fuel though

A what?

HW1 had a fuel system for smaller craft which some people hated but I liked as a mini-tactical layer. They didn't bring it back for HW3 but I suppose that was a given since they also axed it for the HW1 remake.

Weird, I don’t remember any. Was it in the remaster as well?

 

[Tyranicon]

no fuel though

A what?

HW1 had a fuel system for smaller craft which some people hated but I liked as a mini-tactical layer. They didn't bring it back for HW3 but I suppose that was a given since they also axed it for the HW1 remake.

Weird, I don’t remember any. Was it in the remaster as well?

Can confirm it was in HW1. All it did was basically limit strike craft to carrier/mothership range. Did the healer ships refuel as well? Don't remember.

 

[Idiott]

no fuel though

A what?

HW1 had a fuel system for smaller craft which some people hated but I liked as a mini-tactical layer. They didn't bring it back for HW3 but I suppose that was a given since they also axed it for the HW1 remake.

Weird, I don’t remember any. Was it in the remaster as well?

Can confirm it was in HW1. All it did was basically limit strike craft to carrier/mothership range. Did the healer ships refuel as well? Don't remember.

They did. I think every ship that you could dock to could refuel.

 

[Berekän]

no fuel though

A what?

HW1 had a fuel system for smaller craft which some people hated but I liked as a mini-tactical layer. They didn't bring it back for HW3 but I suppose that was a given since they also axed it for the HW1 remake.

Weird, I don’t remember any. Was it in the remaster as well?

No, it wasn't in the remaster.

 

[Elthosian]

no fuel though

A what?

HW1 had a fuel system for smaller craft which some people hated but I liked as a mini-tactical layer. They didn't bring it back for HW3 but I suppose that was a given since they also axed it for the HW1 remake.

Weird, I don’t remember any. Was it in the remaster as well?

Can confirm it was in HW1. All it did was basically limit strike craft to carrier/mothership range. Did the healer ships refuel as well? Don't remember.

It’s been a while but I recall seeing strike craft refueling off the support frigates.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

Main gripe with the controls is that I would expect right-clicking on RUs etc. to move units close to them, but it seems for instance for the carrier it doesn't register the order. Also the mouse scroll seems to be really slow, it's a lot faster to zoom in/out the other way using keys. Also I have no fucking clue how to salavage wrecks of shit I blew up, with support frigates maybe?

With the resource gathering unit. Just send it to the debris field and tell to gather stuff.

 

[DesolationStone]

Delayed to May