Homeworld 2 Sceenshots and Concept Art

[Dyntheos]

Homeworld2 Shipsyards Hosted by Arioch houses the most up to date collection of Homeworld2 screenshots and concept art.

HWS provides insightful commentary on each shot as well as officials details when released.

HWS is not an official Relic or Sierra site but a Fan Site, and is listed in here for easy access to forum members, to browse of all the released screenshots, as they are the best resource on the web for such material.

Just click here to access the site.


Thanks to Arioch.

[MajorFreak]

EDITED: 12-12-2003 at 01:49 PM


i'll eventually get an index all alphabeticized and keyed to subjects (though bug forum stuff isn't my ballgame)

• if you have ANY technical related programs about installing/running HW2 please go here and there

For now, i'm just going to use this one thread to stuff hints&tips&answers to questions that are well written, concise and insightful.

Map Making Tutorial

Originally posted by malignus
I took a few hours out of my day today to figure out how to map for HW2 using text files (no Maya required), and I designed a little tutorial for would-be mappers. Want a galaxy map? Good! Now, you can have one--make your own!

You can download the .doc version here.

You can download the .pdf version here.

Enjoy!

Originally posted by mecha
Why no replays?
Multiplayer recordings will NEVER play back properly, this is why the UI is disabled and you have to go to such lengths to load them.

Meaning that when you try to play back a multiplayer game it will never work as there's a low level floating point problem that always messes it up.

As for it getting fixed, if there's a patch then recordings will hopefully be fixed, if we can work out what the problem is, probably something switching the floating point precision underneath us...

personally, i think it'll be the hunt for the snark. (mecha also deftly avoided explaining why the demo had the load recording button and retail doesn't)

• see here

Originally posted by mecha
Oh that's just cus Stephane messed up

Originally posted by thrawniejoe
What no mission editor? and only Deathmatch? WTF?
No mission editor? And all we got it deathmatch?
none of the fun toys we had in HW? WTF?

Official word: "All Mod tools will be released shortly via RDN (Relic Developer Network)." ~JMA

Originally posted by JMA
Why there's no time compression (fast forward)
AFAIK, Time Compression was only a Debugging Feature. Now, before the outcry, the reason is simple. HW2 is a heavily simulation dependant game. It does not fake flight dynamics or combat, but uses real-time simulation calculations. For this reasons, Time Compression could easily mess up key calculations, resulting in numerous problems.

Why the manual sucks monkey poop
Originally posted by JMA
The reason the manual only covers gameplay is that it needed to fit inside a DVD case for the European release.

So, sigh, we couldn't do a mega manual full of story as was the plan. The stuff is written and the last I heard there are plans to release some of that material. However I do not have the details at the moment.

Originally posted by ÜberJumper
Relic's original plans were to release the backstory bits to the community (the ones from the strat guide). I'm not sure about the detailed game history for the manual, but there's a good chance that that'll be released as well.

I imagine there's a Relic.com website update in the works for HW2 as well... hopefully of the same depth as the HW parts.

Hopefully as soon as Geoff gets back on the 22nd, they can get it released.

See here For those who can't stand the suspense and need the backstory on hyperspace cores and here for Entrippy's crazed parody of 'quest for the holy grail'

Originally posted by CECIL
"Status Bar"
Don't forget that the bar at the bottom of the screen also shows the health of the units you have selected, which is essential for pulling wounded ships out of battle.

One thing I've been trying against the CPU of late (Which works pretty well), is having a carrier escort your fleet into battle. Have it sit a bit behind the front line and set it's rally point into the middle of the battle.

Now, as the battle rages on, select wounded strike craft (Ships who's health bar drops into yellow or red), then set passive mode (F2), dock them (D) and remove then from the hotkey group/strike group (Every now and then you need to readd the ships who come back into battle).

Now they fly back to your carrier, get fully healed and then come back in and join the battle. Essentially this gives you constant reinforcements for less RUs and less time. I guess it's a sort of "Rolling front" with your Strike Craft running "sorties" from the Carrier.

Originally posted by Ryan Norton
"Q"
You can hit the default key "q" to display the "Global Queue" on the left of the screen. It shows ship, subsystems, and research for every possible builder and researcher, itemized by production from each ship, and by clicking the progress display/goal (which is all this queue really displays) you open the build menu for that producer.

It took me 10 minutes, when I first got my hands on the demo, to figure out how to see the difference between subsys and ship queues on a producer. Then I noticed the minimize icon. Also, HW1 is so hardwired into my system that I found myself doubleclicking to produce and rightclicking to cancel, so I'd often get three of what I wanted nothing of!

Slight quibble: when you use the abovementioned method to access the build menu for the particular ship, you don't ACTUALLY select the ship itself. I think it should: that way, you could be supervising a battle that really needs more bombers, etc, and open the build manager, cycle through carriers, etc to queue up bombers, and, as they'd be selected, you could create a new rally point right into the battle, or directly onto a target (I think). Admittedly the battle or the target might not still be there, but I think it'd be nice.

Best,
Ryan

Originally posted by mecha
Attack/other commands able to be queued with waypoint command!
woah don't get carried away, you can lay out waypoints then end them with an optional right click command, so
move-move-move-attack OR move-move-move-dock
is possible. but,
attack-dock-attack-move-guard is not

Originally posted by Arconin
"RESOURCES COLLECTED"
I will feel very bothered and rushed (and i dont like being rushed) if the game automatically ends the level for me when its done, docks all my ships and collects the resources.

I like the time after the fight to assess my losses and in the cases of getting new ships I like to look them over and fly them around a bit.

I dont want to go from one furball to another fur ball feeling like im being pushed along against my will not every being able to catch my breath.

I want to be the one to decide when I leave and how fast to move along. (I understand if its part of the story, like in the first mission, but not in every mission!

[i]Originally posted by HellSpawn
Well, let's not forget that this time around we're the prey, we're on the run with a big, bad meanie hot on our tails. This auto-progress only adds to the stress-factor in that we simply don't have the time to take in the scenery. It all fits nicely with the story as far as we've seen.

Originally posted by mecha
Nope, you get quiet time at the start of most levels though.

click here to see Entrippy shower you with luff
click here to see an astonishingly cool lecture on 'pace' and 'cinema' (well, okay, not that cool)

[i]Originally posted by Parias
Here's a cute little heads up for players still concerned about this: Apparently, the "Resources Collected" functionality doesn't account for Carrier and other large vessel debris... so make sure you have it all salvaged before the mission ends if you want to get the most possible RUs

Originally posted by Eiden
INGAME TIME COUNTER
Based on mecha's info I threw together a quick timer for HW2 play. Just create a file called autoexec.lua in you hw2/bin directory**...You'll get reasonably well-formatted time on-screen as h:m:s since level start.

function updateTimer()
	dr_clear("timer")
	dr_setautoclear("timer",0)
	local time = Universe_GameTime();
	local h = floor(time/3600.0);
	local m = floor(time/60.0);
	local s = time - m*60;
	local str = format("Time: %2.0fh %2.0fm %3.1fs",h, m, s)
	dr_text2d("timer",0.0,0.98,str, 255,255,255)
end

Rule_AddInterval("updateTimer", 1)

It's better placement, makes the timer white, and uses h m s to denote time. I find it more readable somehow...

• BTW, in this statement
  
  dr_text2d("timer", 0.0,0.98,str, 255,255,255)
  
  It would appear that the parameters mean
  0.25*screen_width = x
  0.97*screen_height = y (from bottom of screen!)
  str = duh...
  200 = red component
  120 = green component
  240 = blue component

Originally posted by ZuiljiN
Nice job Eiden and thx mecha. BTW, heres another timer...classic..simple but effective

function updateTimer()
dr_clear("timer")
dr_setautoclear("timer",0)
local time = Universe_GameTime();
local h = floor(time/3600.0);
local m = floor(time/60.0);
local s = time - m*60;
local str = format("%2.0f: %02.0f: %02.0f",h, m, s)
dr_text2d("timer",0.0,0.98,str, 255,255,255)
end

Rule_AddInterval("updateTimer", 1)

screenshot

**- hi. for those of you who don't remember the fun days of DOS and autoexec.bat and config.sys, here's a way to create that ".lua" file easily: open your Homeworld directory using windows explorer (found in program files/sierra/homeworld2...) and open the /Bin folder. Once there, open up the File menu bar in your windows explorer tool bar and select the cascading option, New, and end your select function on Text document; Now, open up the new text document called, "New Text Document.txt"; copy & paste whatever code you want (of the two options above) into this new document; exit and save; now, rename (using right click function on the text document; or single clicking on the document title itself) the document title to read: "autoexec.lua"

there. done.

Originally posted by Lucky
how to deal with silly platform rushes
*SNIP* (lucky's) ; *SNIP* (uberjumper's)

Originally posted by sleezly
The best solution to a platform rush is Pulsar Corvettes. They eat Gun and Ion Platforms for breakfast. There is no need to run from this strategy.

I've seen a lot of complaining on these forums about balancing issues with platforms, and my response is to learn how to use counters properly.

Tempest is the best player I've seen use platforms, yet they don't stand a chance if countered properly. In fact, all ships in the Demo don't stand a chance if countered properly. Wow, imagine that!

Originally posted by Lucky
This is more like a lurker/dark templar rush from when the brood war expansion came out. For first month or so, most peeps that were relatively new, and didn't understand the ways to counter those rushes, bitched and whined about them being unbalanced. Then some time passed, they played those same rush strats vs good players that handed their asses to them on a silver plate, and then copied the way to counter them. End of whining.
I'm expecting the same thing to happen with platforms.

P.S. If someone beats you because they are simply more skilled/experienced, it's not disbalance - it's the way it's supposed to be.

Lucky kinda forgot about "scuttle" command, but that's neither here nor there.

Sleezy is correct about pulsars, though building lots so early in the game to defend seems might sketchy...I personally prefer to laff at a plat/ref. rusher and use bombers to eat them up and scream for more. *shrug* (there's no strategy to it. it's just a dumb thing that works against n00bs)...BTW, i hear the "move with prod.center" feature is actually an unintended one that the patch will fix.

Originally posted by ncarota; abridged by Muffy
Clarified Graphical Options
Shadows - [duh]
Hyperspace Quality - [ghey]
Detail Geometry- [snip] Ship surface detail. i.e. panels, vents, plasma coolers
Damage FX LOD - [snip] The higher the setting, the more battle scars will appear on the ship.
Lighting LOD - [makes pretty booms light up your ships]
Geometry Scaling - Setting this to on allows the game to switch ships to lower lod's when performance of the game becomes sluggish. Not good for screenshots

Originally posted by motiv-8
Vsync. Vertical Synchronisation.
It locks your framerate to your current monitor refresh rate. If your refresh rate is at 60Hz, you cannot get a higher framerate. If you turn vsync off, your computer renders as many frames as it can, potentially resulting in more fps. However, doing so can cause graphical defects such as screen tearing.

My advice is to set your refresh rate as high as safely possible (use a tool like RefreshLock if you need to), and turn vsync on for best image quality.

Originally posted by HOMEAgain!
yucky screenshots
Well IMHO** shadows OFF is a better pic, more hull detail.
But just my IMHO...

Originally posted by whitt107
Running HW2 at 1280*1024 rez
*SNIP*

**- IMHO, dear readers means, "in my humble opinion"

Originally posted by rolfski
Gameplay options (NLIPS)
It's only now that I discover the real epic beauty of this game! It does look so much better with the tiny fighters and huge capitals!

Btw for the ones not knowing: It stands for Non-Linear Inverse Perspective Scaling. It makes tiny ships look bigger as you zoom out. Good for gameplay but makes the scaling look very unrealistic (huge fighters). It's in the gameplay options.


Originally posted by Nomaarq
An added bonus to this feature is that it does wonders for your framerate--very beneficial if you find your machine does the chug-a-lug during big battles.

Originally posted by Starfisher
Badge Tutorial
*STUPIDLY HUGE SNIP*

Originally posted by Dyntheos
Keyboard shortcuts
http://forums.relicnews.com/images/misc/Controls.png

Originally posted by Horizon
SUBSYSTEMS
I think that the subsystem resistance is very balanced actually

As Arkalius said, i noticed that the subsystems have a good resistance when attacked by any ships, but die very quickly when hammered by 5/6 squadrons of Bombers with the Upgraded -special anti subsystems- bombs

That sounds very balanced in my opinion.

Defend your MS/Carrier from any Bombers incoming , if you dont want your production subsystem (and so your building power) to be killed very fast.

Be carefull when someone attack you in a sector and if you dont notice bombers in his attacking fleets, maybe he is using this fleet as a bait and he is in fact doing a sneaking attack on your subsystem with bombers by another route.

Originally posted by PeanutR
Why the mothership looks the same as HW1
Let's think about that for a moment shall we? The first Hw had the Kushan designing and constructing a mothership from scratch. According to the opening movie that took them about 100 years...

In Hw2 they suddenly find themselves under a quite immediate threat from the Vaygr. Now they have two choices: 1. They reuse and improve upon a design that has already proven it's potential and get it done quickly, or 2. They ask the Vaygr for a 100 year timeout to design and build a new type of mothership...

Now, assuming that they chose option number two, Hw2 would only be one mission long, as the Vaygr would arrive and the mothership would not even have begun to be built...

As much as I liked the first mission, I would be dissappointed if that was all there was to the game...

And despite the similar design the new momship just looks waaaay cooler than the old one, although this wasn't really apparent to me until I started replaying the original Hw...

Originally posted by Arioch
Vargyr BattleCruiser
Battlecruisers do have 2 module slots; according to the .ship file, they can build choice of: Hyperspace Module, Cloak Generator, Hyperspace Inhibitor, or Fire Control Tower.

• The Vaygr BC weaponry is as follows:
• 5 x Hull Defense Guns
• 4 x Laser
• 1 x Uber Pulse (forward weapon)
• Heavy Fusion Missile Launcher (8 tubes)

I've noticed that only the heavy weaponry (the missile launcher in this case) appears to be damagable; the other, smaller weapons cannot be disabled.

Originally posted by JamesX
Here it is: Hyperspace Module; Fire Control Tower. There is a red line and purple line. Red line is the sphere edge of the Fire Control Tower. Purple Line is the edge of the Hyperspace bubble.

Originally posted by Mandorallen
Strike Craft Usefulness
Scouts are a must have in any game. Interceptors are so-so - [muffy edit: decided to snip the disparaging remarks]. Bombers Chew up frigs pretty good and rox the sox of ionfrigs . GunCorvs is what protects the frigs from becoming debris by bombers ,and can persue a little bit. (Flak can either support them or make them redundant depending on numbers.) PulsiCorvi are a good vs all kinda ship ,ok vs bombers,ok vs frigs
and super vs other corvetts. (Flak supports thise nicely.)

So Useless ? NO SIR!!

About the flak: Yes its in the demo the king of the hill when downing strikecraft in large numbers - making strikecraft as good as useless against you (But still the refinery is still disturbingly competive in this area for just a few hundred more.) But, it has the big disadvantage of range and damage to other frigs, Making them totally rubish against them. And in big fights having 1 more flak is 1 less torp or ion, making the Core of your fleet comparativly weaker, meaning you got to have a nice strat of having the rest of the punch in other classes or loose hard.

So for me, it's always how to AVOID having more than 3 Flak (Once i had like 12 of them against a super strikecraft fleet , looked cool ww2 style and won the fight but almost lost the war when i tried to counter and was greeted with ions and torps.)

About Refineries: Get them and get as many as possible, its a Multigun frig and got the guns that the carrier wish for - And can be a REFINERY (its a secondery role with that kind of armament) !
These are a much better choice than the flak since it doesn't deplete your frig pool.

Just be careful glorifying 1 ship 2 much or the beating stick will turn against you fast!!

hi. please note the above quote has some flaws in it's logic and some i highly question. But, after major proofreading by moi, it is a very nice post. (please don't flame it unless your counter argument is a thing of beauty)

Originally posted by Doobz
VIDEO CARD BENCHMARKS
http://www.beyond3d.com/misc/traod_dx9perf/
http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware...desktop/001.htm
and if you want, i'll dig up Gabe Newell of HL2s confirmation

since i don't like to just dish out information without backing it up, check this article out: http://www4.tomshardware.com/column/20030624/index.html

Originally posted by Demigorgon
MARINE FRIGATES
Maybe Im dumb, but my marine frigates dont seem to want to go after anything. I use the capture command (U), the special attack (Z), and nothing. They just sit there. Sometimes they attack. But never capture.

Originally posted by ÜberJumper
They don't have to be disabled, but if they are damaged, they are captured more quickly. Just select a capture frigate, then right click on your target to use them.

Originally posted by orion68
you can't capture enemy ship making facilities like carriers etc.
The silly thing is that the ship will board and the blue line will progress and then.... nothing! like gee at least they should blow the ship up or something!

Originally posted by BrettMan
Thats messed up! In the strat guide it says you can even capture motherships. So you can't now?

Originally posted by FooF
You can, just not in SP...All ships are capturable in MP but for gameplay reasons, you can't build Vaygr ships in the SP.

Originally posted by Wyked
capturing vaygr build ships isnt allowed in single player.. not a bug. And trust me, its better this way

as far as skirmish mode, the only thing i can think of is that you were already full on that unit type, not being able to capture when you have a slot open has never happened to me

you can capture super caps like BCs and Motherships just fine in skirmish multi with one frigate, but its better to get like 4, because one will take you a long time.

You dont need to disable engines, you can capture any capitol class vessel (this includes frigates, and i think mobile refineries)
the ship does not need to be in the red, but the farther down its health is the faster the cap goes, so it is usually worth your time to pound the target a bit before boarding.

• Yes, you can capture capture ships - you can even capture a capture ship that is capturing the capture ship you have capturing a ship of theirs -hah

Originally posted by Keiichi
How to change ship colors/badge in single-player
All you have to do is edit the persist2.lua file and find the following sections:
*SNIP*

Originally posted by motiv-8
GeForce drivers
This thread will describe how to properly and completely switch the Detonator driver set to 44.03 for GeForce cards. 44.03 has been shown to grant a substantial performance boost and smoother shaddows (ie less jaggies) compared to the latest 45.23 release.
*BIIIIG SNIP*

sorry, folks, haven't found a tutorial for the Radeon ATI cards yet of the same caliber...anyone? ah ha! found one here

Originally posted by mecha
REFRESH RATES
refresh rate can be set from the command line, your card and monitor need to support it though...so that would be "-refresh 85" to get 85 hz

Originally posted by ÜberJumper
Right click on the Homeworld 2 Demo shortcut, go to properties, then to the command line tab... after the .exe (or the .exe") put -refresh 85

Originally posted by eraser
I always use RefreshForce to lock my refresh rates.

Originally posted by JamesX
STRIKE GROUPS (meta-tactics)
You can also set the behavior of the strike group via the strike group key. If you set fighter screen, your fights will fly ahead and attack the incoming ships. If you set Capital Line, they kind a just kick back and defend.

hmmm...actually, i had a different thing happen when i tested 'Strike Groups' *shrug* (see here)

Print & Cut HW2 Keyboard Overlay (Large Images)

Mikail has come up with a good cut'n paste KB overlay

[theBlind]

on queuning orders: mecha just posted that move^n+stuff is ok, but stuff-stuff-stuff is not. So no attack-attack-move-guard or something alike, if I get him right

[MajorFreak]

crap! so simply hitting W then doing a bunch of right click attacks is outta the question? I wonder where POWER got his info from?

[theBlind]

Here, same as me, but mechas post is rather new as of now.

[HellSpawn]

Originally posted by Parias
Here's a cute little heads up for players still concerned about this: Apparently, the "Resources Collected" functionality doesn't account for Carrier and other large vessel debris... so make sure you have it all salvaged before the mission ends if you want to get the most possible RUs

This quote is from a post regarding the demo. Could somebody please confirm its relevance with regards to the full game and add it to the FAQ?
Thanks.

[MajorFreak]

thanks, hellspawn. please noone start countering this with arguments pro&con without actually playtesting this, thx.

could someone take a screenshot at game end with their harvesters idle and build queues paused just before the vargyr carrier is killed (mission 2) and then take another screenshot right at mission 3 beginning please? (upload using this: http://m0z.net/ )

• actually, this was on my to-do list... (the RUs just might be calculated without changing objects onscreen...who knows...it does fade out and back in right before mission over)

*shrug* it seems i was confident enough to add it before you replied, hellspawn.

[POWER|NoBeta]

Originally posted by MajorFreak
crap! so simply hitting W then doing a bunch of right click attacks is outta the question? I wonder where POWER got his info from?

I got it from the manual, but appearantly, it's not quite as straight forward as the manual would have you believe.

Quote: "You can also use waypoints to give units a command after a series of movment orders. --- For example, you could set a series of waypoints to take advantage of a Dust Cloud and then attack an enemy Carrier or heal a friendly Destroyer."

So yeah, my bad, it's not the free for all I said it was, but it's better than nothing. They need to fix it so that any command may be interspersed with movement commands. Including posture changes.

[MajorFreak]

Enabling Right-Click Menu
in gameplay options you'll see the toggle for this. it's on by default. I didn't exactly know how to make this show up in game because i'm so used to "right clicking" to get the unit's order menu.


It's actually a two-step process: <SHIFT+Right click>

• disabling right click menu might be for those who dislike it popping up unwanted during a massive furball. But, then again i never used the rightclick menu period. *shrug*

Everything you can do with this menu can be done with hotkeys. But, it is more aesthetic to do it with the menu i suppose.

[MajorFreak]

Build and Launch micromanagement
solution # 1: number your production centers, open the build manager. voila! (make sure it's individual and not a grouped thing with other stuff, k?)

• hitting the number gives you the build of that ship. you can also hit the "Show All" <shift+L> for better cross-class building choices

solution #2: same thing with launch facilities - remember, the group set must only have one ship in it (the prod.center)...unfortunately this doesn't solve your "launch all of one type"

• as for launching all your ships? hold mouse over "autolaunch" and click it and "L" (lather, rinse, repeat)...you'll get everything launched quicker than snot.

Oh, BTW, someone remarked that corvettes use different launch/dock bays than fighters - use this to your advantage.

Originally posted by entrippy
Why there's no PilotView
We have to save something for the patch!

Seriously though, it may show up in a patch or mod. No promises, but it would be nice to go back and do it right.

Originally posted by JamesX
Hyperspacing 101

1. You need to build a hyperspace module first.
2. first turn off automatic release on the docking for your carrier/mothership.
3. Dock all the ships u want.
4. Press Tab till you see a purple wire sphere. That is the range at which all other cap ships will be taken with the jumping ship.
5. Select all ships you want to jump (Including the carrier/mothership with the hyperspace moduel).
6. And press "J" then set the destination.
7. Everything that is docked with the ship, and every cap ships (frigates and up) that is selected and also in the Hyperspace sphere, will be jumped along with the carrier/mothership.

Originally posted by mecha
TACTICS (f2-4)

• Aggressive: attack any enemy ships that come in range
• Defensive: attack anything that is attacking friendlies in range including yourself.
• Passive: don't attack anything, even if you're being shot at.

Originally posted by Antra
As I keep stating, make sure that there aren't friendlies in range who are set aggressive, because that will cause enemy units set to defensive to target them back, which cause those set to defensive near the friendly to go after the enemy. Carriers and motherships set to aggressive cause this repeatedly.

uhm....not really sure if Antra's speculating but i'll give him the benefit of the doubt until he's contradicted.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Keiichi
Graphics Card recommendations (radeon or geforce?)
Both companies have problems with HW2, at least as far as the demo is concerned.

ATI has trouble with dynamic shadows. [radeon]
NVIDIA has trouble with anti-aliasing. [geforce]

Speaking personally, I'd go with the ATI card. I used to be an NVIDIA fan, but they've really been slacking off lately. I guess too much time without competition willl do that to you...

Originally posted by RoachMojo
Ahem..HW2 has a 4XAA problem with Nvidia cards, not the other way around. 8XAA and Quincux work just fine with my 5900U and is totally playable...with my awesome shadows, too.

The shadow issue with the Radeon 9800 Pro, however, is a problem with the drivers, not HW2.

Originally posted by Blue_Vermillion
go with ati because nvidia only makes chip sets not the full video card, which means u really dont know what ur getting. I mean back in the day when it was the Asus Hercules card that was different. Besides every few months Ati only gets better! Which is amazing, they put alot of effort into what they do.

Originally posted by Mehrunes
*SNIP*
Valve's been working closely with ATI, Id's been working closely with Nvidia. Surprise, surprise, Newell says ATI will run HL2 faster and Carmack not only says Nvidia will run Doom III faster but we have the benchmarks to prove it.

[MajorFreak]

Originally posted by ShineDog
Frigate Role
tbh, frigates are now PICKET ships, as they should be. They are far from useless, but they are not the mainstay of a fleet.

Originally posted by Akathrielah
Frigates no longer serve as the backbone of the Hiigaran fleet in HW2. They serve as escorts for the Destroyers and the Battlecrusiers. They serve as support for fighter and corvette wings. HW2 emphasizes a mixed fleet philosophy and that doesnt mean throwing in some multigun corvettes with your Ion Cannon Frigate fleet like in Homeworld 1. It means having Flak Frigates providing anti Fighter support while your Bombers come in and your Pulsar frigates hit the flank and maybe a Destroyer or BC serving as the decoy , the main attack force or both at the same time.

*amen*

[StratComm]

Originally posted by MajorFreak
thanks, hellspawn. please noone start countering this with arguments pro&con without actually playtesting this, thx.

could someone take a screenshot at game end with their harvesters idle and build queues paused just before the vargyr carrier is killed (mission 2) and then take another screenshot right at mission 3 beginning please? (upload using this: http://m0z.net/ )

• actually, this was on my to-do list... (the RUs just might be calculated without changing objects onscreen...who knows...it does fade out and back in right before mission over)

*shrug* it seems i was confident enough to add it before you replied, hellspawn.

Don't know if this has been resolved, but from playing the later missions (especially 11-12 and 12-13) I am extremely confident that salvageale resources ARE taken into account for the "resources collected" in the main game. It's especially noticable in 12-13, as the Vagyr harvest almost all of the asteroids before you can stop them unless you move REALLY quickly. My pool went from 50k to 120k RU. Yeah, I'm sure.

[MajorFreak]

Originally posted by StratComm
Don't know if this has been resolved, but from playing the later missions (especially 11-12 and 12-13) I am extremely confident that salvageale resources ARE taken into account for the "resources collected" in the main game. It's especially noticable in 12-13, as the Vagyr harvest almost all of the asteroids before you can stop them unless you move REALLY quickly. My pool went from 50k to 120k RU. Yeah, I'm sure.

cheers! yeah, just played the game and i'm pretty sure as well. Actually, i played it a little obsessively. sorry for the lack of updates. hee

Originally posted by Alpha_1
I have some SP tips if you want them MF, happy to provide any help with your new FAQ.

cheers! let me get caught up on the backlog of stuff. *G*

[Mr.Freeman]

can someone tell me how can I see (if possible) the FPS?
thanks :square:

[MajorFreak]

no problem. there's an excellent program out. you can either take the demo for the windowsXP version or the freeware windoxs(x) version at:

Edit: ah yes, after sobering up, muffy finds the proggie's name: "FRAPS" (i believe it's www.fraps.com )

[Alpha_1]

FCT (fire control tower) gives your units a 15% accuracy and damage boost, it can be compounded once, that is you can get the most benefit from 2 intersecting FCT fields, a max of 30% to accuracy and damage.

Now for the info for the faq.

Single player:

By the end of mission three you should have a total worker compliment of 20. With workers collecting RUs, debris and on repair dudty, you will reduce the possibility of replacing losses and running out of RUs.

Once you have the scout ping ability USE IT! At the start of each mission PING the map, zoom out so you can see the whole map, then pause the game. This allows you the time you need to review the enemy locations and the forces arrayed against you. In most mission fighters and corvettes are built as needed, this means the faster you can take out that production facility the faster you can win the game.

Using the tip above regarding ping, send out your fighter force with at least 6 bomber wings, way point it around or over/under the forces layed out against you. If you can get to the carrier/shipyard (SY)/MS to take out frigate and fighter mods then you have just reduced the difficulty of your mission. For carriers I say take the time to also kill them. Keep a constant build of inties and bombers and only send them out as a group. I'd say repair if this was MP but since it isn't consider scuttling the fighters once you have lost at least 3/4 of them so you can build replacements for more carrier killing.

Do not use more workers than the collection field warrents, Relic has already said rocks have 1, 2 and 3 latch points depending on size. To maximize your collection in SP have no more than one worker over the max number for the field in question, any more and the workers are being wasted when they could be on other duty.


There you go MajorFreak, hope those are good enough for your FAQ.

[Ressev]

Homeworld, the real Kushans and Central Asian history

Pretty cool analysis of the names used in HW and HW2 and how they relate to wolrd history.


HW:Too
and
HW: Too Comic - MERRY XMAS TO RELIC!!!

Very humorous comics poking fun of HW2.

[Mikali]

Q. I have a high speed Internet connection. Why is my game laggy when I play multiplayer?

A.

Originally posted by ÜberJumper
Consider the speed of ALL computers in the game. The Slowest one becomes the limiting factor for the game. Even if all computers are super fast, the amount of ships in the fight really effects it. More ships means more CPU time spent controlling the ships and their individual actions.

The only thing that's really transmitted across the connection is each command that's being issued by each player, along with info to keep the game in sync... frame numbers and what not. So what happens when the game starts to bog on one machine, is that the others kinda slow down to keep up.

In RTS games, every computer is running the game, and each person's CPU has to handle ALL the actions of EVERY ship in the game when a player issues commands. So even if you can only see your fleet, your CPU has to handle the calculations for everyone elses commands as well.

The ping is only a measure of how much time it takes for info to pass between two computers really, so not a good measure of lag... the ping more or less effects the delay in time between when you issue a command, and when it would be executed.

Anyway, post your HW2.log file, and we'll have a look at it... to do that, go into the Homeworld installation directory, and look for the \bin\release folder... inside the release folder will be a file called hw2.log (may only say hw2 on your system). Open it in notepad, then copy and paste its contents into a reply here.

[Mikali]

Q. How do I change the color of text messages in the Gamespy lobby?

A. See this thread.

[Pherdnut]

You can tell whether you're the lagger simply by rotating your camera typically. If the music is fine, you can issue build commands no problem, and switching views goes smoothly then odds are good that you're not the guy.

[Mikali]

Q. How do you play the game in English, if you own a copy of the game in another language?

A.

Originally posted by sosobx
ok if you own another language and want to play the game in english then download the demo and copy the English.big and EnglishSpeech.big files to your game. save over the old ones but be sure to back them up. you can now play vs. cpu all you want. the catch is you can only have the 2 first levels of the campain in english. the rest of the levels will only show numbers when they talk. but at least you can play vs cpu in english.

if anyone has these 2 full big. files in english then send a link to me. my email is bxbomba718@hotmail.com

Note: send the link to sosobx, not me, Mikail.

[Caesar]

Hey guys, how do you use custom maps?

[coldhead]

How do I change the multiplayer music (like on Homeworld with the < and > keys)??????

[Mikali]

Q. Where are all the big maps?

A. See this thread.

[Mikali]

Originally posted by coldhead
How do I change the multiplayer music (like on Homeworld with the < and > keys)??????

You can't, unless someone creates a mod that makes it possible.

[not_sid]

The site has some cool ships and i wouldn't mind actually making a model of one if a could:monocle:
The ships:catpilot: were awsome

[Chrome]

Holy Bumpage Batman!

Have you checked the time stamps on the last posts to this thread before posting? It really would put you on posters' better side not to resurrect old and pretty-much-dead threads.

If you check in the Tanis forum down under Relic Developer's Network (RDN) you can find all sorts of tutorials and information on making models for Homeworld 2, if that's what strikes your fancy.

However, I strongly suggest you read all the pertinent threads before posting one, so you're not posting to an old thread or, making new ones that are essentially repeats of others.

You can find the Forum Guidelines at the top of the main Forums page. Please read those; they will help you to better get along with everyone here.

Welcome to the Relic Forums.