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[Homeworld Universe] HW3 patch 1.3 landing Nov 21st... and marks the end of development.
Posts
From Noelle:
They didn't link it in the announcement, but This is the blog post being talked about.
It is SUPER cool to see modding support baked in, even if the dedicated skirmish mode editor is not available at launch.
That skirmish mode editor is apparently only going to be available through the Epic Games Store, which.. well, Unreal, so not surprising.
No, this does not mean HW3 is available.
They don't say the exact time zone, so I'm assuming pacific.
That said?
WE ARE GOING CLOSED SPOILERS FOR CAMPAIGN MODE CONTENT.
I've been waiting for this game for 20 goddamn years, but at the same time I don't want to ignore my own thread. So I'm going to ask everyone to be respectful of this. We're gonna follow similar rules to the discord.
Please use spoiler tags for the following:
- Any discussion about the story of the Homeworld 3 campaign in its entirety, or in-part.
- Any characters revealed within the campaign whom we were not already familiar with.
- Any special campaign-only ships/technology or otherwise single-player campaign specific assets.
- Any lore specifically mentioned within the single-player campaign.
With that said? War Games is up for grabs. I suspect there will be some high level fleets that unlock in that, and they may tie back to the campaign, but let's be respectful if that shows up.
I have no clue how popular this game will be around here. I'm hopeful. I really, REALLY hope this lives up to my expectations. I dunno.
Tomorrow, I'll find out.
I am not the person to ask for help on making poor life decisions around Homeworld. I mean, I own the board game, the RPG, 2 collector's editions, extra soundtracks, and so on...
Yes, Unreal Engine is only available, for free, through Epic's store regardless of what game it is or where the game is sold. And there is no real difference between their "mod editor" and base Unreal Engine. It's the same tool, just with some additional files bundled in the download for game-specific code/objects you need to facilitate modding that particular game. Hence why mod editor distribution has the same restrictions as base Unreal Engine.
What tends to delay mod editor releases is the developers almost always have additional proprietary helper tools/code in their own Unreal installs that need to be removed since they don't have rights for public redistribution. But they need to do additional testing to verify things don't break for modders when that extra code is removed. And that testing is obviously lower priority than getting the game out the door.
My key was in my CE. Here's the official post from Gearbox:
edit: there also might be a little Syngyne flying around in someone's fleet if they accepted my pilot name.
1. My Fig backer rewards went into my google "Promotions" area instead of into my spam folder, so worth checking out.
2. Nuff said.
3. Yes, it's Gearbox, so that means Twitch Drops and Shift codes.
https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/homeworld-3-launch-day-twitch-drops/
Look, all I'm gonna say is... The intro is perfect. Exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you, BBI.
Edit: Okay, I have to stop. I saw something 10 minutes in that made me positively giddy, and if I keep going I will be playing it through work.
Sounds like a lot of people are having issues with Steam unlocking, but the GBX folks are on that.
Ran the benchmark, and it got a bit chunky on my 3090 with everything but nebulas set to high. Too many tiny ships and laser beams
To be quite honest, the story itself of Homeworld 2 is fairly forgettable. The biggest thing it does is introduce the Progenitors and the significance of the Hyperspace cores.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
edit: or wait... could it be The Beast?
I'll probably get this picked up eventually, I've already got games in need of playing from earlier this week
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
It's... still taking me some getting used to. I threw it into the modern control scheme, which is WASD + QE for up and down. I also skipped the tutorial because I did it during War Games. The sense of scale is really kind of hard to judge sometimes with a fully floating camera, and of course being new to everything.
The biggest issue still seems to be that ships just sit there if you don't actively set them to an aggressive stance, which is tough when you are trying to survive an assault.
Story spoiler, I'd say 6-7 missions in:
You can tell Battlestar Galactica taught this crew a lot.
Are any of the extras worth it? Should I just stick with the base game?
I'm also not a big micro guy so I hope there's not a ton of that required? Beyond that they can do what they like, I just wanna have big fleets fight other big fleets and me watch the pretty lasers and explosions
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
They are mostly cosmetics for War Games. If you threw money at Gearbox, check your spam or promotions folder, you should have something there. If not, I can point you towards resources to get it figured out.
The ships doing nothing bit is annoying. It seems to relate to when they are in parade formation, or when they aren't set to "Aggressive." I am trying to play with the modern camera controls, but that locks out the keyboard shortcuts under WASDQE.
There was a lot of Micro in the War Games demo, because the fighters had an extremely short cooldown on their ability. In the full game, they've slowed that WAY down so you don't have to constantly slam abilities. Positioning and terrain do still play a factor.
The game is absolutely breathtaking, graphically speaking. I am okay with them going FMV for the cutscenes, as it makes the story a bit more personal rather than the detached nature of the earlier games. This makes more sense in the context of the story.
If there is still one big knock I have, it is NLIPS being on. I think that's an option I could toggle at the beginning, but I want it about half the scale it is now. You can really tell the difference in sizes when you go to dock turrets, because the attachment reticle is the size of the real ship versus the NLIPS scale. The biggest downside is that NLIPS makes the fighters feel like they are moving WAY slower than they should be. It throws off the sense of scale of the whole game.
I submitted a ticket on the gearbox website with the appropriate tag, no response yet.
I am torn between waiting to play and getting money back or just throwing more money into the pit.
Just checked my promotions and general tabs. No correspondence about Homeworld 3
You can modify NLIPS in the settings
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Yeah, all missions end after you finish all objectives.
Wargames is the one lets you hang out as much as you can hold on (if you feel like it.)
It's listed as a Hotfix, so small stuff.
Well I finished the campaign.
I think the biggest issues on balance is that bombers are too easily killed and rail gun Corvettes stand still to fire. So removes any value to being a Corvette, as every class vessel can kill it with ease.
Bombers also work this way, and have no business being sent against anything but big targets they can total quickly. Any other time they should be left cloaked and waiting in ambush.
The "this is how corvettes" work pattern in people's heads from HW1 and 2 doesn't exist at all in this game. Corvettes as they were previously used aren't a thing, as "anti strike craft, weak to frigates" is not a thing. The game even says this on the help text for rail gun corvettes (weak against strike craft). Assault frigates now have the anti strike craft role, since they spit out insane amounts of fast tracking fire. There is no "middle class" general purpose corvette unit that is meant to be an "upgrade" from the interceptor.
It's not an issue it's just different.
To see just how much insane damage a bomber group can put out, make a save, attack something with a bomber fleet in a standard "swing by and attack then swing back" formation, and watch how long it takes to kill it. Reload, then let them swing by, then switch to sphere after they've passed the target and let them pound it. They will vaporise it. I don't necessarily recommend this but it's an example of how dedicated an attack unit they are.
Shields are units that protect while attacking, think Roman Phalanx. They cover for swords, who swing around and smash through the enemy. A notable "Wait that is different to how I thought of it" unit it mentioned as a shield is strike craft. Recons, in particular, with the speed upgrade, are really good at keeping enemies busy. Interceptors are good at swarming all over the place, and can deal some damage if necessary, but they mainly exist as a shield.
And then there's hammers, units with very heavy armor but weak attack, intended to draw attention (buffered by shields) while the swords strike. That's capital ships. In HW2 these units were massively powerful damage dealers, but in this game they're there to be the linchpins of your fleet.
Another trick with this game is don't always set your units to aggressive. Units will use cover when set to passive or neutral: just like hw1, these stances affect their behavior. Units will pop out of cover and shoot then go back in as a notable example. They also navigate terrain much better. On the other hand Aggressive explicitly makes them ignore terain: if all your units are set to aggressive, they charge up, ignore unit behaviors, and you are just throwing a blob against a blob. Sometimes that's what you want, but not all the time.
I always liked Deserts of Kharak's story, certainly not perfect but the aesthetics and the tone were there! This... wow it looks like shit. Just overanimated facial expressions and cartoonish body language. "Immature" was the word that came to mind, totally different than the elegance and austerity of basically every other Homeworld game. And the actual story itself? So much ink spilled in multiple interviews with the writers, and I feel like this is among the most generic, least interesting space opera narratives I've seen in a while
The missions themselves have been pretty simple, but the gameplay has been up and down -- I've felt like I have a lack of control over my ships, and putting them into formations rarely seems to have the effect I want it to. Strike craft feel particularly brain-dead, just doing repeated strafing runs rather than engaging in any kind of meaningful dogfights, and seem to have no idea how to prioritize targets. There are things I feel like are improvements, but at the same time... I feel like the lack of control I have over things like facing, or maneuvering during an engagement, really hurt my ability to want to engage with the strategy. The terrain and tunnels feel like such a pain in the ass to utilize I haven't bothered outside of the one time they introduce them, and I feel like the UI is super messy, especially with NLIPS on. But turning it off also makes the UI scale down with them! Baffling!!
I'm probably going to finish it, but good god, what a disappointment so far. I preordered the collector's edition! That'll fuckin' teach me, I guess!
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
Kinda disappointed it took this long and this is what they made, espcially when the first game is held up as the golds standard of 'this is how you tell a great story in an RTS'.