There is a way to add terrain and such to space games. Things like asteroid fields, little clusters of gas, dead space stations, etc... In fact you could make interesting mechanics to where small ships, like fighters, can fly through dangerous areas while capitol ships must divert their course and go around them, as to avoid damage.
...There is in Homeworld. There are many missions with various tactics. Some of them entail avoiding posion gas clouds that corrode certain ships. There is a mission where you have to stay within a nebula to avoid detection and use hit and run tactics. There is a mission where you have to navigate an asteroid field and try to avoid oncoming asteroids and or destroy them so you can get out. There are many other examples. It's obvious to me you haven't played Homeworld and you have no idea what you are talking about.
We aren't talking about missions, we are talking about multiplayer, missions can be as extravagant as you please but they never represent the actual gameplay online.
Says who? And who is we? Multiplayer isn't the only viable form of entertainment. Its unfortunate you can't see beyond that and enjoy a game for what it is. It sounds like the only game you like is PA, that's fine and that's your prerogative. I recommend you branch out however and explore other games out there, you might find that having such a narrow opinion is really preventing you from enjoying great games.
no it wasn't. dude FFS play the game. going towards the enemy mothership is what a noob would do there are SO MANY tactics in homeworld. here's an example. in HW you could capture any ship bigger than the corvette except the mothership. definitely worth it especially if the enemy was not playing your race. wherupon you can retrieve some of the techs your race doesn't have in it's tree (this could be techs that are extremely usefull; teleportation-gate ship, gravity well ship), I believe that also if you do have it in your tree but haven't researched it you autmaticaly get the tech (yes this is MP). not only that but beat the unit cap limit. (no cap on captured ships but capped ships do count as population. EX: if you want to aim for most possible you start by hitting your unit cap (they are per type of ship) then you capture and the ships you capture will actually work even though they are effectively overflowing your unit cap in that unit type's category. stealth bombing runs on ressouce gatherers would yeild fantastic results. mines are invisible unless you have an advanced sensors array in your fleet set up guet-apens, using combinations of different techs you could get creative well+mines, steath field+capture vehicle, mine+ressource patch.... the list goes on. you really are spouting predjudice when it comes to homeworld.
Capturing units is really nothing revolutionary in RTS games, capturing spaceships is not special. Gameplay wasn't the only problem the game had, the sensor mode toggle was horribly unintuitive, it was like the strategic zoom, but without the most important part... the zoom.
Multiplayer and skirmish matches are the only viable forms of entertainment, games are made to be games, not story books. I only like great games, that is my problem. I like supcom and TA and PA because they are the greatest games. Homeworld does not live up to this by any stretch of the imagination.
You realize just because you say something, doesn't make it true right? The collective perspective of peoples views is far more important. Homeworlds metacritic is much, much higher than PA (93 vs 62) so I'd argue reverse that Homeworld is a great game and PA is simply a good one. Gameplay, Story and Graphics is the trifecta that makes a game good. PA completely lacking story makes the game medicore In my mind. Some of the highest rated games of all time have a good narrative. Atleast for their time. Final Fantasy 7, Homeworld, Half-life 1 and 2, Zelda, Starcraft are all good examples. You are missing out on a lot of great expirences. That's your choice, but don't lie and try to tell us story doesn't belong in video games and single player doesn't matter. History and reviews tell us otherwise. You are definitely the minority in that regaed.
Single player matters a lot, I practically only play it, but stories are not replayable, galactic war and skirmishes are. I do not know where you pulled the "single player doesn't matter" from. Additionally, game rating sites do not often accurately represent the quality of the game. For example, homeworld is a vastly overrated game, PA is a solid 25 points underrated, and SupCom only got an 81 on metacritic, despite being one of the most innovate and best games of all time. Sins got about as close as possible to a "good" space rts, but it just wasn't good enough. I haven't played Hegemonia, though, but I do not have high hopes for it.
http://shallow-space.com/the-emptin...ique-features-to-a-featureless-playing-field/ this highlights the problem with space rts games, and why the past ones are terrible. It does not however, explain why the developers believe their game is an exception (it most likely won't be).
"only"???!! that is a feat for a simulated projectile games on that website. they don't give a rat's *** about that category let alone RTS, generally. the way they did it was novelty, you had to latch on a sufficient number of capture ships to be able to neutralize it and a couple more to be able to move it (all depending, of course on the size of the ship in question), loosing one of them could at any time make the whole progress regress. a capture procedure, for those reasons involved weakening the ship beforehand in the majority of cases. then you had to bring it all the way back to your MOTHERSHIP which had to ingest it then spit it back out. (a high risk depending on the lethality of said ship, imagine they let you then a fleet of clocked bombers swoop in and kill all your capture ships, you've suddenly got a situation on your hands, you could even loose the game) on a 3D and graphics technology point alone this was amazing, let alone the process, and lastly the simple idea of capturing was new. Yes NEW you big fat noob. appart for ONE game : total annihilation a mere SINGLE YEAR before homeworld (not to mention in TA the commander was the only unit to be able to capture). I don't see what RTS had capture even before. in the age of empires series it appeared in the second volley which was a 2006 title. what about gravity well? stealth fields? mine field? drone fields? missile and anti missile tacs, gates? I love how you casually brush those aside while only addressing the most obvious of those and the only one to appear in other games of the same era : capture. I don't know why I'm even arguing with you at this point. you're just as one tracked and misguided as MrTSBC. have fun convincing all of noone.
Though to be fair the earlier scores of supcom were quite low, go check out the reviews when supcom originally released, I didn't see good reviews until computers improved enough to run the game well.
You realize that statically speaking a large population of peoples views is a lot more accurate than your own personal belief of PA being underrated and homeworld being overratted right? Statistics don't lie, they carry a lot more weight than your own opinion. The reason I bring up single player is because you claimed that only multiplayer and skirmish matter. Again, you are not God, your opinion isn't absolute truth. I also don't think you realize how revolutionary Homeworld was for its time. No one had done space with a third axis until then. No one had done permanent persistent units from level to the next. The sound was phenomenal for its time. The story was top notch and the gameplay was amazing. I find it odd that you don't enjoy story. There are ideals, morals, and exciting moments that we keep with us forever. if they are good, they even help shape who we are. It saddens me you don't see the value in this. I can only guess that you hate reading and maybe even movies as well. Based on your responses I can only guess you are young, or perhaps immature for you age. Hopefully in time you will see the value in some of these great games. And Supreme Commander really wasn't all that innovation in my opinion. It ripped off TA without really improving on it. The story was medicore, the maps and level design was boring as hell. Basically it introduced a few new units and control schemes. PA takes that a step further with circular planets and some orbital combat. if it ever gets a lot of the polish it needs perhaps you'll be right and one day be considered great in the publics eye. If you want to play a revolutionary rts play the orginal Company Of Heroes (93 on metacritic).
The difference being that TA was the successful model for two more large titles, homeworld simply keeled over and died until remastered, and that's still not worthy of being called a "new" title. So, regardless of all those minefields, gravity wells, missiles, gates, and stealth fields, the game failed hard, people didn't like those things.
The opinions of many people are still a lot less accurate than the money, and the money says that homeworld was horribly unsuccessful after homeworld 2 was released. I absolutely realize how revolutionary homeworld was at the time, that doesn't mean those revolutionary features were well-designed. Stories, specifically, are not meant to be played, they are meant to be read or watched. If I wanted a story, I'd go out and buy a book or a movie, not a game. Supreme commander had the only things that could have made the homeworld series remotely good, strategic zoom, and "proper" simulated projectiles. That would have solved the terrible UI, but that still leaves the gameplay - all space RTS games are by default **** because of the nature of space, terrainless without artificial crap being haphazardly added in to "solve" the problem. Spoiler I used to play company of heroes... I was heavily disappointed when the servers were handed over to Steam, though, and haven't played it since
and even that's not a problem with the game, that's a problem with both hardware manufacturers and people's wallets.