Homeworld 1 & 2 Remastered!

I got halfway through the third before just going "BORED NOW!"

Played a bunch last night, you'd be surprised what you can recover from now though. You didn't used to get resources from destroyed wrecks in hw1 so that will lighten it up a bit. It also has hw2's scaling system in place. I am really surprised how well this game holds up. It has all the modern features you'd expect from games today.

Capturing corvettes is actually viable now, steal the turanic corvs and you won't need to build nearly as many heavies in the future.

I played Cataclysm and did not like that once you had the tech for it all you really needed was dreadnaughts with a spattering of support units. Homeworld 1 and 2 were both very well balanced.

They also lost the source code to Cataclysm, if memory serves.

On the game itself, wasn't really a fan of the ship designs, though I liked the story. Hated the gun upgrade that made everything into homing red blobs though.

Maybe in multiplayer but I always figured the dreadnoughts were for fun factor in single player. I absolutely loved them, they felt really epic. Keep in mind most people buy and played these games for the single player experience, multiplayer is usually pretty niche.

There is talk from Gearbox about rebuilding Cataclysm from scratch if the remaster does well. I really enjoyed Cataclysm, upgrading from a simple mining vessel into a warship felt really good. I also thought the units were unique and interesting (multi beam frigate). You also could get a giant siege weapon on the mothership and it had great story. I am a bit sad to see it not included but I will cross my fingers for Homeworld Remastered success.

The homing proton torpedoes were the best! Your crazy.

It made the ships look like toys
Plus having every weapon almost guarantee a hit every shot removes a lot from the ship interactions between strike craft and capital ships (which were already pretty screwed from multi-beam frigates and having super capital ships that had effective anti-strike craft weaponry).

Yeah but it upgraded your mothership into something that was semi formidable. Something I always hated about HW1+2 (no weapon upgrades). I didn't really get the toy feel you describe. You didn't get that feature until late into the game anyway and that's sort of the point of upgrades, for you to feel more powerful. I thought it was interesting that Barking Dog Studio took the ship designs and weapons into a new direction instead of copying what was already done. You gotta admit slowly jettisoning ore tanks and mining equipment from your ship to build weapons and hangers was pretty cool. Keep in mind multiplayer back then was a bit of an after thought or bonus for games. It wasn't until later that multiplayer games and competitive balance really started to take off. Probably why things like strike craft not mattering late game was a thing. I played it for it's single player campaign anyway, so it never really bothered me.

I think the game had a lot going for it and holds it's own among the Homeworld franchise. Innovative ship design, an interesting protagonist throughout the whole game, great story, and some pretty fun missions. There is a reason a lot of people consider it the best in the series. Interestingly enough, a lot of people find it the worst. It's definitely one of those games that's pretty split.

I know I will get a lot of disagreement about this, but I actually liked HW2 better then HW1. Having just played them back to back I feel pretty comfortable saying that. Don't get me wrong, the story was great in HW1 and I will always be nostalgic for it. But HW2 just adds a lot more interesting gameplay elements. Having researchable ship upgrades adds an extra layer of fun. Customization modules and turrets is pretty cool. I think the ships look better and play better. I love how the destroyers turn to broadside like something out of Master & Commander. And lastly, I actually liked the story better (this is where I'll probably get a lot of disagreement). Don't get me wrong, HW1 had a pretty epic tale and I loved every minute of it. Trying to avoid spoilers here but HW2 goes so much deeper with the lore, there is a stronger protagonist, and I find the progenitor race as a whole fascinating. Each level I find myself wanting to learn more. Where in HW1 I felt like there was a lot of filler story that didn't really add a lot.

technically in 2 you DID get to upgrade your mothership. And not a bad one at that

I'm with you on all of this. Cataclysm was by far the best game in my opinion- even if it was unbalanced towards the end I think it was the creativity in the units that really got it for me, compared to the 'main' games.

I mean in Cataclysm you had:
- Ramming Frigates (so awesome)
- Mimics (stealth ftw!)
- Ore processors that doubles as escort frigates (really nice for expansion)
- Fighters that linked into Corvettes and had missiles for strikes, as opposed to the usual scout, fighter, bomber arrangement from 1 / 2.
- Stealth 'leach' drones that slowly damage a target over time.
- Point defence drones (slow but high damage output) that could also be linked together to form giant shield domes around capital ships
- The beautiful and devastating Archangel Dreadnought (the repulse weapon is really what made it so strong, as it allowed it to keep other ships at range)
- The siege cannon on the mothership was also epic.

When I then played HW2, I spent the game wishing I was commanding a Somtaw fleet rather than a standard one. So many interesting moves you can make in cataclysm that simply aren't possible in either of the main games, and at the end of the day with a steady paced RTS like Homeworld, being able to orchestrate diverse and interesting strategies to best your opponent is what it's all about surely? The main games always felt more brute force than anything, and I say this as a fan of the games.

HW2 has :
- Ramming Frigates (so awesome)
- Mimics (stealth ftw!)
- drones field that slowly damage a target over time.
- defence fighters
- The siege cannon on the mothership was also epic.

plus some of the other gimmicks like gravity well, teleport gates.... ect.

Ah ok, been a long time since I played hw2 so I've obviously forgotten some stuff....

Not liking some of the changes that HW1 experiences due to the new engine & balance. In mission 5, got attacked by 3 Taiidan destroyers. I had 8 ion array frigates. End result: all frigates dead, all destroyers alive, with maybe 20% damage to 1 of the destroyers. The destroyers were 1-hitting the frigates with a single Ion beam salvo. That definitely isn't what I remember - probably due to the armor system that HW2 uses (HW1 just had straight HP).

Doesn't seem to be a lot of polish in the conversion of HW1 in general - the new model/texture assets are great, but if you are going to port a game and make fundamental changes in the process due to a new engine, you should also consider altering the game to accommodate. For example:

• you are specifically asked to put scouts in either Evasive or Agressive Tactics in-game in the first mission. Evasive doesn't even exist anymore.
• The Turanic raider attacks in the 2nd mission do effectively no damage to your mothership.

This is only so far as the 5th mission. I expect there to be more issues (and I've heard reports of such) arising from this in later missions.

Also:

• Lost the option to play as either Kushan or Taiidan in the campaign
• You can't capture the Taiidan frigates in mission 3 - the salvage corvettes will take them into the mothership, but you don't get control of them.

Also seems buggy - had the game crash to desktop on me once, and the stay docked/auto launch setting isn't remembered from mission to mission so your ships always fly out at the beginning.

Edit:

• Make that 2 crashes-to-desktop. I had just stolen a destroyer, too
• Also noticed the probes don't open up while moving once you deploy them.

Edit 2:

• Captured the carrier, couldn't build anything from it.
• Interestingly, after the carrier launched from the mothership, enemy fighter craft came out of it.
• After capturing, the objective marker stayed on the carrier, even though it was mine.

Edit 3:

• Sometimes captured ships get your team colours, other times they don't.
• Drone frigate research says 24 drones; only 14 are actually launched.
• Resource collectors need to be micromanaged, because they don't automatically move to the next resource all the time, even when it's right near them in visual range.
• In one mission, the stay docked toggle bugged out, and I couldn't get my ships to stay docked.

yup.

maybe they're going to do a balance patch.