[Homeworld Universe] HW3 patch 1.3 landing Nov 21st... and marks the end of development.

Athenor

On September 28th, 1999, my life was changed. That was the day I conquered my fears, learned to drive on an interstate in a driving rainstorm, and traveled an hour away to pick up a copy of Homeworld.

This series has been near and dear to my heart since then.

*Note: I don't know how long I intend to do updates for this. Game doesn't appear to be getting a lot of traction (here or elsewhere), but I still want to show my support. I'll probably die down to just covering major news.

LATEST NEWS

11/18/2024: The Dev Update and Patch Notes for 1.3 are released. The full update will come on November 21st.

10/15/2024: Small hotfix (1.22) released to fix a desync issue in multiplayer due to a windows update. No associated info posts, so I didn't make a post/update on this thread.

09/20/2024: The roadmap is revised. Rather than releasing 2 content updates in 2025, everything announced is coming this November.

08/15/2024: Patch 1.2 is released.

08/13/2024: Patch 1.2 is announced for 8/15, along with the first DLC pack. The Kalan Raiders for War Games!

06/10/2024: Patch 1.1 has been released.

05/28/2024: The First Dev Update has been posted to Steam. It mentions that the 1.1 patch will be coming in June.

05/16/2024: Small Hotfix rolled out, with talk of a bigger one coming soon.

05/13/2024: Homeworld 3 has officially been released

05/10/2024: Yes, Gearbox is giving away stuff behind Twitch drops and Shift codes.

05/09/2024: I am requesting the thread be put into closed spoilers. Here's my post on the matter.

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.

05/08/2024: Gearbox clarifies that their dedicated HW3 Dedicated skirmish editor tool will not be ready for launch, but mod support through mod.io and with standard Unreal tools will be available on the 10th.

05/07/2024: Collector's editions are arriving! I have a gallery here (and on page 3.) They have also given more details on how the game will unlock, which I reposted here.

05/02/2024: Gearbox clarifies Collector's Editions are going out. Europe distributes this week, with the US shipping next week.

04/22/2024: The "Official History" video from the Tech Preview is published to Youtube through official sources. This was technically released on April 12th, but I missed it at the time.

04/17/2024: The War Games (and other DLC) roadmap is released, along with updated PC specs and Collector's Edition details.

04/04/2024: Gearbox and Farbridge have announced Homeworld: Vast Reaches, exclusive to the Meta Quest 2 and 3.

03/27/2024: BBI publishes a sampling of how they are taking the feedback from War Games.

02/15/2024: BlackBird Interactive is laying off staff. Their spokesperson says it is because their partners have scaled back plans and proposed, unannounced games have been canceled or BBI is no longer needed to help with them. No word on if this impacts HW3's polishing phase. Blackbird Interactive is not owned by Gearbox or the Embracer group, so these were not ordered by Embracer. But it is likely that the canceled projects are from Embracer publishers, so feel free to blame Embracer in that way.

02/12/2024: The war games demo has concluded, without any news of an extension or another round.

02/07/2024: An announcement was posted in the Homeworld Universe discord regarding delaying the game by 2 months. See below for details.

02/05/2024: The War Games demo is available on Steam and Epic Game Store! It will be playable through the 12th.

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PC Gamer is going to be doing a documentary on the development of Homeworld 3! Today (November 30th, 2023), they released a trailer for this doc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VY8Q4X8GsE


Homeworld 3's system specs have dropped!

https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/homeworld-3-system-requirements/




IMPORTANT INFO

• Homeworld 3 is slated to release March 8th, 2024. Hopefully this doesn't slip again.
• Along with a campaign and PvP, there will also be a roguelike mode that involves pre-defined fleets taking on escalating challenges. This can be played single or multiplayer.
• The very first thing players begged for with Homeworld 3 was a return to the original game's physics style, where every bullet has mass and velocity and recoil. This helps a ton with making swarming smaller ships useful.
• The source for all things Homeworld is https://www.homeworlduniverse.com
• The official Homeworld discord server is at https://discord.gg/homeworld
• The official Homeworld Mobile discord server is at https://discord.gg/homeworldmobile. I should note that I do not personally play the mobile game.
• Modipheus has released an RPG corebook, Homeworld: Revelations! It is set in the time period of the first game, but there are references to others.
• Modipheus is also developing a tabletop minis skirmish/campaign game, Homeworld: Fleet Command! It is also set in the time of Homeworld 1, but they have not hidden their desire to expand it. They are also including supplements to have this work with Homeworld: Revelations.
• BlackBird Interactive are the developers of Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. They tried to buy the Homeworld IP during the THQ fire sale, but Gearbox got their first. As a result, Homeworld has been Embraced. You can see a lot of Homeworld's DNA in Hardspace: Shipbreakers.
• Sadly, Homeworld: Remastered uses the Homeworld 2 physics and ship AI, because it was originally going to just be a remake of Homeworld 2. Therefore, Homeworld plays... okay on it. It isn't the same game. Homeworld 2 is perfectly fine, though!

I'm posting this while at work, so I will fill in more details later. But I thought that the time had come.

Let us continue the Kushan Legacy... Let us learn from our past mistakes... and let us usher in a brighter future.

(And let's hope the Cataclysm doesn't return.)

BahamutZERO

woo I hope it actually comes out, I had feared it was lost in dev hell forever
what are the odds it's coming in super hot though

Athenor

Very hot. March is right before most companies do fiscal year end, and BBI had a few other commitments this last year. Very little gameplay was known about before 6 months ago.

I have hope, but with Embracer running the show....

tosorak

Sajuuk has returned.

TimFiji

My 49" monitor is so ready for this gorgeous series. Even the remaster looks amazing on it. Ugh and the soundtrack and radio chatter. I want.

-Loki-

That last shot of the ships on the ground looks so great. Very Deserts of Kharak.

Athenor

Big update day! Yay for the discord giving out notifications.

First up, the Behind the scenes video dropped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVjsnZGVAyM

Yay individual unit selection! Yay the sensor view! (and I like the addition of notes showing up there so you know something's up). Tactical pause is also there, though I assume that won't happen in multiplayer. Still, very much appreciated.

OOH! They are emphasizing the return to the physics-based model from HW1, where you can use large ships to shield smaller ones.

Oh fuck! There's a shot of a frigate strafing, and it has all the side boosters going!

I am so happy to see they are focusing on persistent damage and lighting and such so you see the scars of the ship.

OH fuck! It looked like resource collectors were docking with a supply ship! Ooooo...

And the audio stuff being a focus is wonderful too.

----



Second, a dev diary on two game modes: The roguelike War Games and the Skirmish multiplayer battles!

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1840080/view/7602703156611936561

Interesting how they are splitting up the artifacts (boons) into once per run specializations and then applying upgrades on top of that.

While I recommend reading the whole article, I love this line:

Each Pattern has three associated Upgrades, and many Upgrades can be taken multiple times. They stack, too. No diminishing returns trying to keep you in check. If you find a powerful strategy, we want you to leverage it. Go nuts. Break the game.

Hey, if you are gonna have a game mode meant to be unbalanced, lean into it!



... Oh shit, somehow I missed that The Spiffing Brit did a video on this a few months back! (It gets called out in this piece)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwN441gh9PM


Aha! And they have added a Heat-like difficulty adjustment!

Switching to Skirmish, right off the bat they mention having mod.io support to allow users to make more than the 8 launch skirmish maps. Sweet!


... Oh shit. And the other faction... is corvette based!




Damn... it's actually happening. I can't help but share this little snippet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABybPD8EUBw

Athenor

The final rules for Homeworld: Fleet Command (the board game) were just released via the kickstarter.

Core Game:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XpbaEIB3CcxESPEJjfFpP7oTLb0zkG6j/view


Campaign Expansion:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XUj1HgQ37KOZ2Tx_9PrNfd2AGTbkYQ4F/view

This should be arriving within a couple weeks. I'll be providing more details when it does. '

Edit: hah! Ramming is extremely prominent. The tradition continues!

Athenor

NEWS 2/5/2024:

WAR GAMES DEMO!!!!

https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/war-games-demo/

From NOW till Feb 12, 10AM PST, War games is available!

It’s important to note that any Fleets or Artifacts you unlock in the War Games demo will carry over when Homeworld 3 launches. For players not using Steam Cloud Saves, make sure you don’t delete your demo files as we’ll be sharing info on the exact transfer process later.

All the details are in the War Games FAQ: https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/war-games-demo-faq/

Athenor

FYI, multiplayer is in the demo. It does require using Gearbox's Shift for cross-play, but it is there.

NEO|Phyte

Tried a brief solo run, the main thing I have established is that I am hella rusty at RTS. The control scheme felt rather weird from a muscle memory used to the older homeworlds, might need to poke into the options and see if I can wrangle it into something a bit more familiar.

BahamutZERO

Oh shit a demo!

Athenor

NEO|Phyte wrote: »

Tried a brief solo run, the main thing I have established is that I am hella rusty at RTS. The control scheme felt rather weird from a muscle memory used to the older homeworlds, might need to poke into the options and see if I can wrangle it into something a bit more familiar.

You can flip to classic at any time. I also personally turned off the scrolling at the screen edge feature.

There's already a lot of feedback in the discord about toggles and options people would like. It appears this is the same demo that was given to influencers a few months ago, with a few more fleets unlocked. So it is possible they have updated the main game.

NEO|Phyte

The camera I've had on classic the whole time, what's throwing me is the command shortcuts. What sort of deranged control scheme doesn't put attack on A?

There's also some general UI strangeness, it feels like sometimes your mouse clicks don't register, and there definitely seems to be an issue of if you have a camera full of space terrain you cannot pan your camera because the game would much rather assume you want to issue a move command to the point your cursor is at.

Athenor

I can't speak to the clicking and control issues as I didn't do more than the tutorial, which is pretty laid back, and I was just gawking at things anyways.

However, your mentioning about the A command key made me think.. "Wait, wasn't the command ctrl+a or something?"

So I checked...




Now admittedly, this was the original Homeworld, which is now over 25 years old. I don't have my manuals for Cata or HW2 immediately available, nor did I want to pop open Homeworld Remastered or Deserts of Kharak.

I know they moved the movement disk key from "M" to "W" because that's more natural to where you have your fingers, and why the classic vs. modern control scheme matters for panning.

I will go in and check out some things in a bit, but for right now I'm kind of tired of sitting due to work.

stopgap

I've downloaded the demo. Super excited to try it out! So very excited.

NEO|Phyte

Poked at it some more, I think I've got the controls more or less worked out for getting stuff done. Not sure if/how things scale once you're in multiplayer, but I've noticed that there are definitely some artifact upgrades that seem to be absolute trap options solo.

Athenor

Yeah, War Games definitely seems like it was made for multiplayer first and foremost.

I'm still struggling a bit with getting overwhelmed on the 3rd mission. It keeps asking me to make different types of fleets, and all the mission points are so spread out that I can't really get in there and do anything. I also have this habit of having my build menu up most of the time, which throws off hotkeys (or at least seems to). I think space cancels building when you have that open.

The discord has a lot of people reporting bugs/problems, especially with units just freezing in place or otherwise not doing what they are told. This may be a side effect of the modern controls, and the fact that clicking on Megaliths sends your units there. I am not sure.

stopgap

I'm not a fan of how they've handled UI and the control scheme so far, however, the visuals are just great.

TimFiji

stopgap wrote: »

I'm not a fan of how they've handled UI and the control scheme so far, however, the visuals are just great.

But what about the sound? I loved the chatter and music and atmosphere in the previous.

Athenor

Very chatty pilots.

Also I should mention: the Homeworld Universe discord has started a "Feedback/bugs" forum area to track problems people are running into.

https://discord.gg/homeworld

Kruite

Still trying to decide if I want any of the premium /pre-order deals.

For one, I WILL be playing this game. And two, if the soundtrack is anything like 1 or 2 I will want to listen to it. The aesthetic / dlc pass I am less excited about but will probably purchase those unless the game is a mess.

stopgap

To answer your question, the audio has been pretty awesome too. I haven't been giving it my full attention because I'm trying to figure out somewhat difficult camera controls, which by the way you can adjust values to make it better. That being said, the audio seems pretty awesome.

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stopgap

I was pretty disappointed by several things in the demo, however I'm absolutely buying it, I just haven't decided if I'm buying it on launch day or not

Kruite

The controls are wonky. And targeting ships with special abilities can be difficult

Ive had control / mouse pointer issues too.

Not a good sign this late in the development.

Why did they change it? Homeworld 1 and 2 camera and unit controls were pretty fluid

stopgap

I've been thinking about it, and I believe the change in the camera controls were specifically because of the significantly more complex backgrounds that you'll be moving around and fighting in. I suspect it'll be refined or improved with feedback and I know that they have a ton of different settings you can adjust so I don't think it's an unsolvable problem

TimFiji

Kruite wrote: »

The controls are wonky. And targeting ships with special abilities can be difficult

Ive had control / mouse pointer issues too.

Not a good sign this late in the development.

Why did they change it? Homeworld 1 and 2 camera and unit controls were pretty fluid

I thought you could keep the older style cam controls

Athenor

Noelle, the community manager for Gearbox, just posted the following to the Homeworld Universe discord approx. 20 minutes ago:

Hello, Commanders @everyone –  

We hope you all have been enjoying your first-time going hands-on with Homeworld 3 during our public demo of War Games.  

Watching you share your experiences, exchange and debate strategies, and give us constant feedback has been incredible. This was our first time seeing the game played at scale, which is always an equally thrilling and nerve-wracking moment.  

We also recently gathered a dedicated group of players from outside our organizations to play through the full game. This resulted in additional insights and perspectives that will be incorporated to make Homeworld 3 the best experience possible.   

After careful analysis of feedback, we made the decision to delay the global launch of Homeworld 3 until  May 13, with advanced access set for May 10, to ensure that we’re making the final tweaks needed to deliver at the level of quality that we strive for and you deserve. 

To say that you as a community of players have been waiting patiently for this next installment would be an understatement, and we are deeply appreciative of that. We will continue to keep you updated on our progress.  

Thank you all for playing, and we’ll talk again soon –  
Gearbox and BBI

We understand you may have some follow-up questions regarding this announcement. Please read through the Collector's Edition FAQ in the ⁠faqs channel for more information there. [Editor: see below.]

If you have any other questions that were not answered here, please feel free to reach out to Customer Support. We'll also be keeping an eye on the ⁠homeworld-general channel incase there are questions we're able to answer.

We thank you for your continued support, patience, and understanding.

Collector's Edition FAQ:

We understand you may have some follow-up questions regarding the delay announcement and Collector's Edition status based on recent news. Please read through the FAQ below for more information.

Is my Collector’s Edition order from Amazon really cancelled?
To get the accurate, current status of your order you’ll need to reach out to Amazon directly.


Will I be able to re-order the CE if my order was cancelled?

Now that there is a new release date for the game, retail partners each have their own systems for determining when new orders can take place. It is each retailer’s decision once a product’s release date changes when and if to re-list it for sale. We are ensuring that the retail partners that previously had the CE for sale have all of the updated information on the new release date, and will communicate that information as soon as possible.

Why was my Collector’s Edition order cancelled on Amazon?
When some retailers don’t receive product on their expected timeline, in this case our Collector’s Edition due to the remaining work to be done on the game, automated processes can be triggered that can either send out a delay or cancellation notice to their customers. While all retailers have their own processes for this type of scenario, this is very likely what happened to your order. We’ve communicated our new release window to all our retail partners and expect the CE to be relisted, or delivery dates updated, soon.


Is the Collector’s Edition still available for pre-order?

Yes, as long as it has not sold out yet with your chosen region/retailer. Details on official retail partners can be found on Homeworld Universe.

When will my Collector’s Edition arrive? Will it arrive in time for the Advance Access period?
For players who purchased the Collector’s Edition through Fig, Gearbox Publishing is responsible for ensuring a timely delivery for the new advanced access date of May 10, 2024.


For those purchasing the CE through retailers, those retailers will receive the Collector’s Edition from Gearbox Publishing in time to ship them to customers for the new advanced access date of May 10, 2024.

Please note that we cannot guarantee delivery dates, as the speed of delivery is dependent on several factors, including but not limited to, shipping terms of the retailer and the possibility of general shipping issues arising that are out of our control.

Is my CE digital key included in the physical shipment?
Yes. Your digital download code will be packed inside your Collector’s Edition box. We cannot email you your key separately.


How can I update my Shipping address for the Collector’s Edition?
For players who purchased the CE through Fig, please reach out to Customer Support to update your address.
For players who purchased the CE through other retailers, address updates should be made directly with the retailer.



If you have any other questions that were not answered here, please feel free to reach out to Customer Support. We'll also be keeping an eye on the ⁠homeworld-general channel incase there are questions we're able to answer.

Athenor

... My coworker's first reaction was that they suddenly get 2 more months of me being productive.

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SyphonBlue

Oh damn I already asked off work for March 8. Oh well, I doubt I'll be done with Rebirth by then, and even if I am who's gonna complain about a day off work?

TimFiji

Dang it. I have an unknown time limit to play this. Was really looking forward to my birthday weekend in March.

BahamutZERO

a little disappointing but I was actually kind of worried they were pushing it out half-baked to die because of how embracer group has been murdering all the studios they own, so the fact they're delaying it kind of shows they're not just skeleton crew wrapping it up at least? I hope they don't get put through shitty game dev crunch though.

Athenor

The hints we got were that they can't talk about extending the demo, and they are getting clearance to talk in more detail about what they are adjusting.

BahamutZERO

Ok I finally got a chance to play the demo myself. The non-tutorial mission mode they included is interesting as a way to extend the gameplay out, with multiplayer co-op generated mini-mission campaigns with progression, but it's... hard to play without the pause and slowdown options you get in singleplayer. I see much more of the complaints about the camera controls when trying to actually do RTS things at full speed rather than play like I have tactical pausing, which is how I usually play this series, single player only.

Kruite

I did select classic controls, but I dont really know what it changed.

Ive gotten used to it and did a great tun last night.

The mode doesn't seem to be scaled well for solo play. It was ALOT easier with 3 people
/Carrier groups

NEO|Phyte

How do artifacts/RU work in multi, anyway? Is it first come first served or does it get shared?

Athenor

NEO|Phyte wrote: »

How do artifacts/RU work in multi, anyway? Is it first come first served or does it get shared?

My understanding is that you either find artifacts around the map (but they are hard to see) or you trigger artifacts based on hitting certain goals/milestones. I haven't done multiplayer yet though.

They are individual to each player.

Lord_Mordja

No, they're not. If one person picks up a salvage, everyone gets an artifact, and yes, you all also get one from completing the objective.

NEO|Phyte

up to profile rank 9 from solo runs, still haven't repeated my one victory, though I've had a few runs get close.