First impressions from a noob

[Soltaris]

Well this is my first time trying out HW2 so take my observations with a grain of salt Also keep in mind I don't actually own this game so I played it at a friends house and I didn't get too much time to play with it

 

To be honest I really didn't like the game too much. The mod itself is great, it's HW2's gameplay that I couldn't adjust to. This is mostly because there's too much stuff going on all at once. It's like running the tactical game in rebellion with a larger environment, while you have to do all your resource scouting/collecting and ship building/production and technologies research, etc and all the while keeping a lookout for what the enemy is doing. You have to constantly manage all these things all at once!

 

Keeping an eye on the enemy is difficult to do with everything else going on. You can only keep the screen panned in one direction and everything is real-time.

 

Units are hard to select - especially smaller units that are bunched up together. It would be nice just to have a panel like rebellion has at the top of the tactical display. The one in HW2 only has units you manually put there.

 

I couldn't figure out how to dock stuff. It would have a dock selection, my fighters would move around a bunch, but they didn't seem to dock in my ISD III's. Also is there even any advantage or reason to dock them in this game?

 

Traveling long distances doesn't seem practical to control. Also I didn't have time to figure out if there is an option to jump to light speed or if there are any effects/benefits to having an interdictor with gravity well generators.

 

Several things I wasn't able to test and I cannot really comment on the following questions: How are tractor beams handled? Can you ram or capture ships? Can you order your ships to fight at maximum range so they just fire into the battle and take less damage? Can you fire on a ships subsystems (to knock out it's engines and such)? How is damage control and ship repair handled?

 

Fighters really seem to be hard to get a handle on controlling especially in a big battle. How can I ensure my TIE bombers only go after the capitol ships while my fighters try hard to protect them? It would sure be nice to be able to assign a unit to defend another unit instead of having to click on multiple incoming groups of hostiles.

 

Even capitol ships are difficult to manage in a big battle. It's hard to select them and even worse to try to click them to go to the correct target when there are so many vessals in close proximity.

 

One of my biggest disappointments is that ships should take months to produce but in this game you can keep cranking them out left and right. It kind of sucks that the rebels can keep building stuff when I'm fighting their base, and I have to divert my attention away from the battle to manage building more ships and keep a supply line of new vessels heading to the combat area just to keep up.

 

Conclusion: Some of these issues likely have to do with my inexperience with the game, but many have to do with the gameplay of HW2. As for the mod itself, it seems EXTREMELY nice and the ships are very cool. There are a WIDE variety of ships that are well balanced with how I envision Lucas meant them to be. The graphics are quite STUNNING. I do wish it had some Star Wars background music but perhaps there's already an option to play a CD with a Star Wars soundtrack in the background. Anyone who likes HW2 would surely LOVE this mod

[Evaders99]

Homeworld is much the tactical simulation. Live in the moment and know that the enemy is doing the same. It certainly makes for such fun gameplay... if annoying at times.

 

I would recommend trying Homeworld 1 and just getting used to the game. Its not like any other real-time strategy game out there.

 

In terms of Eville's mod, there are still tons of things to be worked out. That's why its a beta. Every release is more and more polished though. I'm sure he will work out all these issues.

[EvilleJedi]

you brought up a good point about the unit selection. I'm afraid the selection system like rebellion would be even more impossible to manage. this is an RTS and controlling an RTS properly means hotkey mashing. I really wish there was a way around it, but it's the reality of realtime, you just have to do everything at once.

 

as for ships targetting what they are best at, the AI already does this. HOWEVER the AI doesn't matter if the player just selects everything and has every ship attack one enemy ship. the AI only makes a difference if you set up a proper strike group and guard pattern which is not the easiest thing to do unless you've played the game a bit.

 

A lot of what you mentioned is actually just because it is a realtime RTS and believe me, homeworld has the absolute best controls currently avialable in any true 3D RTS it just confuses the heck out of normal 2D RTS players and all sim players

[Soltaris]

Hehe it's true I've not played many RTS. I think the biggest thing with HW2 is that a true 3D environment takes some getting used to, the immense size of the battlefield and how spread out your units are, and the whole thing about managing research, unit production, and resource gathering at the same time you're trying to conduct your battles.

 

Spending more time with it might help overcome some of these obstacles. Also your point about hotkeys is good because I didn't know any of them. I might actually buy the game if I can get it on a good clearance.

 

I've tended more towards strategic level games such as SW Rebellion, Fields of Battle, the Total War series (Shogun, Medieval, Viking) and MOO 2. I also like most tactical games that have limited reinforcements such as Myth, Myth II, and Jagged Alliance 2.

[Cain]

I've tended more towards strategic level games such as SW Rebellion, Fields of Battle, the Total War series (Shogun, Medieval, Viking) and MOO 2. I also like most tactical games that have limited reinforcements such as Myth, Myth II, and Jagged Alliance 2.

 

 

cool me to .....I die to see the Total War : ROME

 

 

EvilleJedi can you send me some textures for the ships ?....for me to work on and a small tutorial where you tell me what you want me to do for the art part ?

 

 

BTW guys the HW series is like this : Homeworld, Cataclysm, Homeworld II ...i gues

 

 

about the play try ctrl 1,2,3,4,5,6 your ships and taskforces and try to see the battelfield in a 3D space a 3D sphere in your mind..... also use the [m] key for move and hold also shift for up and down ,[w] key for waypoints , ctrl [attack] ,[d] defend ...... and also try all 3 games for the series you dont know what you are loosing

 

 

The droid is makeing my spelling errors

[DarthFelth]

actually ages ago i was doing a star wars Cataclysm mod, Cataclysm has alot more options than homeworld but is really a ass to mod