Homeworld - Grace Under Pressure

[DraQ]

I actually bought HW2 back when it came out :<

HW2 isn't that bad tbh. I kinda enjoyed the hugeass battles with hundreds of ships raping the shit out of each other. And the better balance - now bombers indeed posed threat to capital ships

Mechanically, and ship design-wise it was good, as usual, and I enjoyed pulling bomber raep on enemy subsystems, but plot-wise and lore-wise it was irredeemable, and scaling combined with auto ending just shot you in the balls if you dared to transcend absolute mediocrity in the preceding mission. Plus the recycled T-Mat outtakes and "BRING SAJUUK TO BEAR!!!1" were just plain lulzy.

and there were no Ultimate Ships Of Doom that killed everything like in previous games (especially Dreadnought in Cataclysm).

Cata was horrid in this regard - SU limit ensured that you had to sacrifice almost your entire fleet to accommodate MOAR DREDNUTS, while energy cannons pooped on the game balance as they allowed your dreadnoughts to pop fighters with ease thanks to their fantastic plastic homing capabilities.

But the story and visual design were of course lackluster. Space started to look like some fucking sky.

The worst thing visually was that ships burned and smoked instead of just venting, BG near galactic core, OTOH, was pretty awesome.

Warner Media Group. You know, the "IP owners" that force people to mute their videoes on Youtube even if it's a short clip.

Ah. A subset on my "people to be put against the wall immediately when I rise to power" list.

 

[kaizoku]

*thread digging for the win*

A friend of mine recommended me SoaSE in the past and recently I faced myself with the Trinity Edition bargain (somewhat elusive in europe).
While seeing some youtube vids there was a comment by a user that basically told that SoaSE is good gameplay wise, but lacks a spine in terms of story, something which Homeworld also excels in.
I've just read the same thing here on this thread.
For me a game without any story/lore/characters is just a souless thing. What's the point? Why do I care? This is basically the main reason that made me love SC1 (sure, gameplay wise some may consider it meh).
So this just eliminated SoaSE from my wishlist.

Now for the reasons of my message here...



I want to buy HW1 and I'm curious if the slim editions (they are slim, but aren't those "white label" value releases) include the manual and a reference sheet like the old one (sure it's not the same print, but it's still useful). Can anyone tell?
Buying the old big box version seems to be impossible.
As for HW1:C, is the story that bad? Can the problems, like the moving galaxies, be fixed with some kind of mod? Finding this one is even more elusive.
As for HW2, considering your comments that the story sucks and is full of plotholes... I think I'll skip it.


Star Wolves has been mentioned here. How does it fare against HW story and gameplay wise?
On another note, 1C has a record of bad translations and voice overs... is this the case?


Nexus: The Jupiter Incident was also mentioned here.

Isn't "Sins of a Solar Empire" is a Homeworld spiritual successor?

no. sins is more like dune 2 in space.
the closest to a spiritual sequel to homeworld would be nexus, i think.

Nexus is fucking great. One of the most underrated games evah.

It might be less underrated if it's devs at least pretended to test it for gameplay balance.

A great game, but physically unplayable on higher difficulties - in the convoy mission right after leaving solar system, no matter what loadout you choose, you won't knock the shields or disable even the weakest of enemy vessels without help, and the only allied vessel gets razed seconds into the scenario, no matter what you do.

I wikied it and lore-wise it seems quite nice. What about in terms of story?
And as for the broken gameplay... are there any mods that fix it? I googled for a rebalance mod and I found this (click on Read full details...) I'm not sure if this is enough or even on target.


Back to my starting subject... SoaSE. Stardock also published and in this case also developed Galactic Civilizations, which from what I've read is not as good as SoaSE in terms of 4X, but story wise it's quite good. Your comments on story and gameplay?

 

[DraQ]

As for HW1:C, is the story that bad?

It's not bad. It's actually pretty good, but not as good as HW1 and not nearly as well told. Main problems with HW:C are of mechanical nature - energy cannons render anti-fighter craft (and fighters) obsolete, SUs make building anything but the heaviest ships impractical in the end, most ships are fucked-up and extremely niche.

Can the problems, like the moving galaxies, be fixed with some kind of mod? Finding this one is even more elusive.

Dunno.

As for HW2, considering your comments that the story sucks and is full of plotholes... I think I'll skip it.

"Plothole" is quite an euphemism here. It's not so much about story sucking, it's about setting getting raped by excessive retcons. It feels as if someone tried to splice HW1 with fucking Silmarillion. There are some good and genuinely memorable moments and mechanics is mostly good, it's just that you might be to busy screaming to notice if you played HW1. Or getting steamrolled by ridiculously scaled-up fleet seconds from mision start because apparently developers consider playing somewhat decently a corner case that won't ever happen during normal playthrough.

Nexus: The Jupiter Incident was also mentioned here.

I wikied it and lore-wise it seems quite nice. What about in terms of story?

Depends.
The first part of the intro had me roll my eyes a lot, but it got much better.

Story is generally p. good, although more 'treky' than in HW. Most aliens, on the other hand are atrocious. They are easily the worst aliens to ever disgrace computer games, though Vardrags are at least somewhat interesting visually and manage to look alien.
Still, I'd really recommend giving it a spin.
It also has awesome ship design. Ships, especially in early missions are very utilitarian and pretty much look exactly the way a spacefaring vessel not meant to ever enter the atmosphere should. If you loved 2001 or 2010 the ship design in this game will make you come.

From minor peeves, the interface is a bit wonky and you may pretty much play all the way through without figuring out how to move into arbitrary position.

And as for the broken gameplay... are there any mods that fix it? I googled for a rebalance mod and I found this (click on Read full details...) I'm not sure if this is enough or even on target.

Copypasta plox?

I can't be arsed to figure out what exactly does strategyinformer think it needs me to enable in my browser to make the site remotely functional.

 

[kaizoku]

The site worked fine for me and given my lengthy post I opted by posting a link instead of pasta. But here it is:


Crap... the guy says at the end "There are 4 missions for now"... so this probably doesn't affect the campaign, IDK.

I decided to make this basic balance mod because I got bored durring my Easter holiday and I really got pissed after playing a MP 1 ship vs 1 ship
when after like 4 minutes none of us managed to lower the shields of the other. This is how Nexus SHOULD have looked IMO.

This is a very basic rebalance mod, so no new ships. I have started with the Gorg vs NDF but I may add more races if you guys like this mod.

Current version: 1.2

Changes:
- all weapons now do hull, shield and subsistem damage. Some of them may be better suited for one task than another. All weapons now can't penetrate through shields so in order to do hull or subsystem damage you'll have to bring down the enemy ship's shields.
- all shields will now charge faster(including the fort shields)
- better power management system on all ships(you can now keep the shields and weapons at 200% for a longer time)

The weapons are(they are the same for both races):
- Plasma shell: the old energy shell, now capable of damaging hulls as well as shields. Rate of fire buffed, energy consumption and damage decreased
- Kinetic gun: the old plasma gun, much faster rate of fire and less damage and power drain
- Particle laser: a new weapon, it has good rate of fire and is capable of damaging both shields and hulls. It excells however at destroying devices, 2 hits will destroy most devices.
- Plasma torpedo: the old energy torpedo, slightly better rate of fire, very effective against both shields and hulls, power drain decreased
- Assault laser: the old siege laser, now with slightly better rate of fire and fort shield penetration(this is the best weapon to use against stations with fort shields)
- Removed energy bomb and missile as they were IMBA.
- Removed bombers and gunboats. Now fighters have 2 weapons: a rapid fire pulse laser(same used by the flak cannons) for taking out enemy fighters and plasma torpedoes for anti ship usage. Be aware that fighters are now very strong against capital ships so taking out enemy fighters is a top priority.

There are 4 missions for now but feel free to make more.

All the credits go to me for making the mod and arpaso for making the Nexus skirmisher on which the mod is based

Enjoy!

 

[DraQ]

The site worked fine for me and given my lengthy post I opted by posting a link instead of pasta. But here it is:


Crap... the guy says at the end "There are 4 missions for now"... so this probably doesn't affect the campaign, IDK.

I decided to make this basic balance mod because I got bored durring my Easter holiday and I really got pissed after playing a MP 1 ship vs 1 ship
when after like 4 minutes none of us managed to lower the shields of the other. This is how Nexus SHOULD have looked IMO.

This is a very basic rebalance mod, so no new ships. I have started with the Gorg vs NDF but I may add more races if you guys like this mod.

Current version: 1.2

Changes:
- all weapons now do hull, shield and subsistem damage. Some of them may be better suited for one task than another. All weapons now can't penetrate through shields so in order to do hull or subsystem damage you'll have to bring down the enemy ship's shields.
- all shields will now charge faster(including the fort shields)
- better power management system on all ships(you can now keep the shields and weapons at 200% for a longer time)

The weapons are(they are the same for both races):
- Plasma shell: the old energy shell, now capable of damaging hulls as well as shields. Rate of fire buffed, energy consumption and damage decreased
- Kinetic gun: the old plasma gun, much faster rate of fire and less damage and power drain
- Particle laser: a new weapon, it has good rate of fire and is capable of damaging both shields and hulls. It excells however at destroying devices, 2 hits will destroy most devices.
- Plasma torpedo: the old energy torpedo, slightly better rate of fire, very effective against both shields and hulls, power drain decreased
- Assault laser: the old siege laser, now with slightly better rate of fire and fort shield penetration(this is the best weapon to use against stations with fort shields)
- Removed energy bomb and missile as they were IMBA.
- Removed bombers and gunboats. Now fighters have 2 weapons: a rapid fire pulse laser(same used by the flak cannons) for taking out enemy fighters and plasma torpedoes for anti ship usage. Be aware that fighters are now very strong against capital ships so taking out enemy fighters is a top priority.

There are 4 missions for now but feel free to make more.

All the credits go to me for making the mod and arpaso for making the Nexus skirmisher on which the mod is based

Enjoy!

Looks like it shits all over the game, TBH.

Maybe the end result is more balanced, I don't know, but doesn't seem worth it. Just don't play it above medium.

 

[Reject_666_6]

It seems like Homeworld might be worth picking up, since so many of you like it.

But is a campaign all it has to offer, or is there some kind of multiplayer mode? I'm also curious about this regarding HW2, because the majority of its criticism I've read here is only to its story/campaign.

 

[DraQ]

It seems like Homeworld might be worth picking up, since so many of you like it.

Might? :/
Fucking might?

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

It seems like Homeworld might be worth picking up, since so many of you like it.

Might? :/
Fucking might?

Is he fucking serious?

 

[YourConscience]

Someone makes a joke and you guys fall for it... Come on, how could someone come into this thread in the first place and not have played Homeworld. Logics, man!

 

[SCO]

It seems like Homeworld might be worth picking up, since so many of you like it.

But is a campaign all it has to offer, or is there some kind of multiplayer mode? I'm also curious about this regarding HW2, because the majority of its criticism I've read here is only to its story/campaign.

I'm not as personally involved. Yes it is a fun game.
Very slow, or very frenetic (sp). Most rage inducing thing about it (again sp, and i don't play mp) is that you can't give orders while paused (neither queue them obs). So if you are a micro-guy you'll be pausing, making a plan, unpausing giving the order quick, pausing again to give another order etc). I suppose you can't do this on mp.

The game campaign *looks* to me as if it was balanced to you capturing the most ships you can, otherwise, many later levels may severely fuck you up (it should be possible to finish though). You should learn the tactical abilities of the ships. Namely the guard function (if you use it correctly), formation and the aggression/defense toogles are very useful. Their "special ability" - press the letter Z and keep it pressed - is sometimes useful too.

Though, full disclosure, the last RTS i played before was Red Alert lots of years ago. I'm not big into the genre.

HW2 i didn't play, but what most hated was that it has level scaling, punishing you for capturing ships.