Homeworld Remakes, It's Actually Happening!!!

[Simon_Jester]

There's a certain kind of mindset that, faced with things that can be salvaged, will salvage them. It's just... appealing.

[Nephtys]

I definitely notice ships moving 'Homeworld 2 like', after having spent Kharak-knows how many hours in Cataclysm and knowing EXACTLY how an Acolyte maneuvers (banking passes, then space immelman). Even frigates are zooming around like crazy, and not maintaining formation.

That's a shame. HW1's formations were actually key to maximizing your firepower or survivability, and why clever tricks like Battle Balls worked.

I don't miss fuel. Even if that means the Kadeshi are going to be a horrifying pain. But the translation of stats between engines has had a few unforseen effects: Assault Frigates now actually can and will successfully swat strike craft from the sky. Interceptors can't seem to dogfight anything, and that damn cakewalk asteroid impact mission now guts my fleet as it was scripted, for my bombers now are suiciding into the rocks.

[AniThyng]

I definitely notice ships moving 'Homeworld 2 like', after having spent Kharak-knows how many hours in Cataclysm and knowing EXACTLY how an Acolyte maneuvers (banking passes, then space immelman). Even frigates are zooming around like crazy, and not maintaining formation.

That's a shame. HW1's formations were actually key to maximizing your firepower or survivability, and why clever tricks like Battle Balls worked.

I don't miss fuel. Even if that means the Kadeshi are going to be a horrifying pain. But the translation of stats between engines has had a few unforseen effects: Assault Frigates now actually can and will successfully swat strike craft from the sky. Interceptors can't seem to dogfight anything, and that damn cakewalk asteroid impact mission now guts my fleet as it was scripted, for my bombers now are suiciding into the rocks.

Thinking about it it's even more blatantly obvious when you realize they did not even modify the tutorial, and that there is NO MORE evasive mode. No wonder fighters in the dogfight turanic raiders mission felt useless...

[Coaan]

It's worth noting that while your strike craft no longer need fuel, the Kadeshi forces will still fall back, hook up to the fuel pods then return. They haven't actually changed that aspect of fighting in the garden which is a bizarre choice given they have done away with fuel.

Honestly, given how wonky the strike craft AI is right now, I'd just use corvettes in their place entirely and just opt for bombers when you need larger targets cracked, though they really have tuned up capital turrets to be able to murder smaller targets.

I was scrambling around in the Turanic raider mission until I realized that corvettes are just plain better choices than fighters given the survival and relatively low cost of corvettes.

At least until Drone Frigates are an option, and then you can return the favour with hilarious strike craft slaughter.

Though I do miss fighter swarms being a viable tactic to bringing down larger ships rather than just being target bait to cover salvage corvettes doing their thing.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah the Kadeshi missions are now much easier without needing to bring ships in to refuel. Basically, as soon as possible build corvettes over interceptors. Defenders now seem utterly pointless, I built a bunch in preparation for the Kadeshi missions and they got slaughtered in minutes.

[White Haven]

Defenders are fearsome engines of devastation -- and they die like a bitch if something looks at them wrong. A surprise defender swarm can utterly boat-violence a whole host of different threats...but they very much are a disposable asset. In particular, I've found that a carrier packed with Defenders can be a great mousetrap.

[bilateralrope]

Soooo
If I have the pre order... How do I download the game?

How did you preorder it ?

Generally if you preorder through Steam, the game will automatically show up in your library. If you preorder via other means, they email you a key. If neither of these have happened, email Gearbox's tech support.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I preordered the Physical game, with the statue of the spaceship an all...so.. I don't get a download till the game is delivered which SUCKS, but alas

OH anyone got to any of the levels with the Bents traineeships yet? I can';t wait to see how those look in HD!!!

[Eternal_Freedom]

The Bentusi ships look gorgeous.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Screenshots! I demand Screenshots!!!

[White Haven]

Not until you can properly spell what you were attempting to communicate with 'Bents traineeships.'

[Crossroads Inc.]

That's what I get for not turning auto correct off my cell phone >_<
"Bentusi Tradeship"

Which I have always loved, it's a ship that looks like what one thinks of if you say "Market in space"

[Nephtys]

Is Diamond Shoals (mission 6) broken? I cannot protect the Mothership from the rocks, when I could do it trivially in original HW1. And the rocks are slaughtering my strike craft, who fly into them and die.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Use frigates and destroyers, keep three (my usual number) Support Frigates constantly healing the Mothership. Don't use strikecraft at all.

Incidentally, the "stay docked" feature doesn't work between missions, which is extremely annoying when you're starting, say, Mission 10 (with the radiation), Mission 12 (where the Taiidan ambush you with Missile Destroyers) or Mission 16, for the same reason.

[Crossroads Inc.]

so I found me some Bentusi!

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCMkzn0C68M[/youtube]

Found the whole lets play of Homeward one early this morning and been watching it. Is defiantly meeting what I expected in terms of 'remastered' The graphics are about what I expected as well.
It really gulls me that i see what 'seems' like a lot of people bitching about how the graphics "Aren't as good as they COULD be" and so forth, and that "All" the game is, is "Just" a re-relase thats prettied up... To which I say,
Yeah AND? I mean really, what more did you want? I am just happy to have a Non-CD Version I can play as much as I want wherever I want!

EDIT: Gods dernit.. Whats fcked up with the youtube tags????

[AniThyng]

I might actually have been happier if hw1 were not shoehorned into hw2 on account of what that did to strike craft...

[White Haven]

The same thing that's always up with Youtube tags when you forget to strip out the 's' in 'https.'

[Coaan]

Is Diamond Shoals (mission 6) broken? I cannot protect the Mothership from the rocks, when I could do it trivially in original HW1. And the rocks are slaughtering my strike craft, who fly into them and die.

As others have been saying, you'll need four support frigates (or repair corvettes) to permanently attach to your mothership and then have your frigates and destroyers moved slightly behind the mothership so that they don't really have to move.

I've heard it said that if you select the mothership and look down from the center point of it that you will be able to tell what asteroids need blowing up. Avoid using strike craft at all during this mission though, their Ai is hilariously broken to the point where they should really be nicknamed the suicide kings.

Ion frigates and the destroyers you hopefully stole in the last mission should be enough to deal with anything sent your way, so long as you prioritize the rocks that will definitely hit your mothership.

[Steel]

Is Diamond Shoals (mission 6) broken? I cannot protect the Mothership from the rocks, when I could do it trivially in original HW1. And the rocks are slaughtering my strike craft, who fly into them and die.

As others have been saying, you'll need four support frigates (or repair corvettes) to permanently attach to your mothership and then have your frigates and destroyers moved slightly behind the mothership so that they don't really have to move.

I've heard it said that if you select the mothership and look down from the center point of it that you will be able to tell what asteroids need blowing up. Avoid using strike craft at all during this mission though, their Ai is hilariously broken to the point where they should really be nicknamed the suicide kings.

Ion frigates and the destroyers you hopefully stole in the last mission should be enough to deal with anything sent your way, so long as you prioritize the rocks that will definitely hit your mothership.

Yeah, jesus christ I lost 21 bombers in the first 30 seconds of that mission, absolute misery. I hope ongoing patching actually sorts this out.

One other thing to watch for in this mission is that the rocks may need to be broken multiple times. They will display an RU number when they don't need to be broken and will not have a red outline.

[Wing Commander MAD]

This link should be useful. From what I gather GB handled the HW1 port pretty terribly. From the sound of it they are even using the multiplayer rulesets in the campaigns which is causing massive balance issues. I do regret not getting the CE (that's what I get for debating the decision too long and ordering from NewEgg), though I don't regret not being able to play the game currently (hardware's old and I am holding out to do a completely new build with Skylake, DDR4, either GM200 or R300 this fall).


http://forums.relicnews.com/showthread. ... ch-changes

[White Haven]

I'll be blunt: A lot of the Reddit/Relicnews posters are incredibly whiny motherfuckers. The first time I saw someone claim 'this is unplayable!' because of some minor change, my eyes just about rolled out of my head. Is it a perfect copy of HW1? Nope. Is there room for improvement? Yep. Do I hope it gets addressed? Yep. Still pretty damned good, though.

[Coaan]

All told the balance is not that terrible, but it does currently favour capital fleets in a big way.

Strike craft need a lot of work in both AI and their counters...the lack of evasion combined with the insane ultra-lethality of turrets on larger ships is basically making strike craft and to a lesser extent corvettes, useless.

I am more miffed about the changes to repair ships though...without their ability to range support with that handy green beam, repairing ships in a large scale engagement is an exercise in frustration, as the pathing on support ships suck and all ships have way too few hit points for their weight classes. This makes most fights end very quickly when you have larger fleets. Even faster when heavy cruisers show up and start punching everything.

If they give strike fighters and corvettes the ability to evade again and make everything more durable with more of a focus put on knocking out subsystems than just rampant naval hull fuckery, I think they could find a better balance and put some longevity on fleet engagements.

[White Haven]

What I'd really like to see from a systems perspective would be more a HW3 prospect than a HWR one, as it would be a major departure from the originals. I'd like to see frigates and capital ships be substantially harder to actually destroy...but relatively easier (current or somewhat more longer, but same ballpark) to mission-kill, leaving them as hulks. Think you're going to hold the battlefield? You want enemy ships left hulked but intact to salvage (NOT free, given the amount of serious repair work that'd entail, but cheaper than a new build), and you want your own disabled ships left intact to repair (again, NOT free, but cheaper than a new build and also cheaper than salvaging a hostile hulk). Think you're going to be forced away and not hold the field? You might want to start targeting disabled ships on your way out so the enemy can't make use of them. As an added bonus, that provides a salvaging mechanic that is less bullshit than 'sneak up in mid combat and just steal shit when people are distracted.'

Like I said, though, that's more pie-in-the-sky territory; a change that major would be very out of place in a remaster of an existing title.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I'll be blunt: A lot of the Reddit/Relicnews posters are incredibly whiny motherfuckers. The first time I saw someone claim 'this is unplayable!' because of some minor change, my eyes just about rolled out of my head. Is it a perfect copy of HW1? Nope. Is there room for improvement? Yep. Do I hope it gets addressed? Yep. Still pretty damned good, though.

Eh, I don't know. Mind you this is all second hand, but the strike craft issues are not what I would call minor changes. Quite frankly it sounds like they focused heavily on the visual aspects and and very little on the gameplay, in particular the HW1 campaign gameplay. At the very least, they did not appear to due diligent QA testing from what I am hearing reported. It seems this needed more time in development, but didn't get it due to already having been delayed. Even their apparent attempt to do some retconning in the manual to bring HW1 inline with HW2 is somewhat poor, apparently having contradictory information from one paragraph to the next on the same page or some such.

In your opinion what are some of these minor changes that are overblown?

[White Haven]

The strike craft behavior is not a minor change, no. It does not, however, make the game 'unplayable' by any stretch of either imagination or rhetoric.

You want to talk minor changes? Fine, meandering through a few of the more common whines on RN/Reddit

-Removal of fuel - almost never mattered, was at most a mild irritation.
-Repair corvettes latch onto repair targets instead of using green beams - Uh...fucks given? Anyone? Now, the fact that support frigates aren't as useful as they used to be is a separate issue.
-Research costs a small amount of RU now - Both the original and the remastered version drown you in RU. Minor, trivial change.
-Can't pretend the Taidanii aren't the bad guys in single-player - ...What? Really?
-Can only build fourteen salvage corvettes at once - Yes. People actually whine about this.
-'Scout fighters aren't good at combat anymore' - ...Yes, and?
-Support frigates can no longer hyperspace while carrying strike craft - This is what carriers are for.
-Strike-craft stored in a carrier will sometimes glitch their engine sounds - Cosmetic, albeit irritating.

Someone in that thread you linked to, MAD, is actually complaining that the original HW1 UI was ditched. That's not even rose-colored classes, that's actually being literally blind and using a rose-colored cane.

I could go on, but eh, I think that's enough. Now there are non-minor issues, mainly relating to HW1 strike craft and multiplayer balance. There is nothing 'game-breaking,' however, outside of one or two people I've heard mentioning repeatable crash bugs, but given the rarity with which I've heard them, that most likely has something to do with either local software issues on their own computers, or really, really obscure and rare hardware configurations. Those people get to talk about gamebreaking errors. Nobody else.