getting HW2 tommorow

[Serbitar]

im buying hw 2 tommorow and was wondering if i could get any tips about it

[Moe]

You may start by reading through the information provided in this thread.

[Pherdnut]

You could also try using the search option in the strategy section rather than the HW2 General Discussions section.

A few quick pointers though:

Losses are always best avoided but don't freak when you find yourself losing a lot more ships than you did in the previous two games, especially frigates. These missions generally have a much higher attrition rate than before. Instead, get as many carriers as you can whenever you have the RU so you can replace stuff quickly. Try to keep carriers close behind your fleets so they can act as repair bays for strike craft and quickly replace frigates. When building from five sources, you can replace frigates as quickly as they are destroyed.

Once you have an excess of RU, keep those resourcers on repair duty since everything gets auto harvested at the end of a mission.

A quick overview of the Rock Paper Scissors format of the game so you know what to look for.

Strong against gun platforms: corvettes, any capital ship

Strong against missile/ion platforms: Any strike craft (fighters or corvettes) is immune but bombers, pulsars, or laser corvettes are ideal since they kill plats quickly

Strong against fighters: Other fighters, flak and assault frigates, to a lesser extent gunship and missile corvettes, hull guns (carriers, Motherships, mobile refineries, but these need to be force targeted on one squadron at a time - otherwise they switch to a new squadron every time they kill a single fighter or vette - you'd be surprised how quickly massed hull guns alone dispatch fighters and even vettes with a little micromanagement

Strong against corvettes: lance fighters, missile and pulsar gunships, torpedo frigates

Strong against frigates: Bombers, Laser Vettes, capture frigates, Ion frigates, Heavy Missile Frigates, any combat capital ship, to a lesser degree pulsar vettes are effective and immune to most and torp frigates hold their own against non HMF and ion frigs

Strong against Destroyers (DDs): Capture Frigates are their achilles heel, combat capital ships, ion or Heavy Missile frigates, to a lesser extent bombers but they do decent damage and are practically immune when repaired regularly

BCs, bombers to disable engines first, missiles/ions second, combined with any anticapital. Massed ions/HMFs can kill any BC easily if you keep them moving to avoid the Vaygr BC's main gun or the Hiig BC's ion cannons by keeping your frigates directly above it (preferably above - it has two extra arbiter cannons on the bottom).

Generally speaking, I'd say strike craft have one of the best survival ratings in the game if you pay close attention to avoid their weakness units and send them back for repair before they reach the halfway mark. Keep your strike craft away from all progenitor stuff. Just dock 'em and wait 'til you're fighting Vaygr again. Keep those elite bombers from mission 2 (have to rescue all the transports) alive for as long as you can, but don't worry as much about the elite gunships. They don't even go as fast as fully upgraded normal gunships. Don't count on your BCs and Destroyers too much. Your frigates do the real work while BCs and Destroyers are great for soaking up damage.

On mission 3 (a big stumbling block for a lot of people) just build one marine frigate, use it to capture an enemy infiltrator frigate (vaygr capture frigate - use right click to order a capture) and repeat until you have three infs and one marine. Use them to hit other frigates while the rest of your ships, kill the carriers and any remaining infiltrator frigates.

Mission 4 (another stumbling block) - just move quickly and waste the two carriers patrolling between the large asteroids with the HS inhibitors. You can do this easily with strike craft alone. Start building up your carrier and torpedo frigate fleet on this mission. Capture a hyper space gate. Use it to send all your ships through, attack the carriers with your bombers and torp frigates and harrass the Destroyer with interceptors and corvettes while moving in for the capture with your 4 capture frigates. Waste all the resource collectors at the nearby asteroid and hyper back. Get everybody fixed up, destroy all the hyperspace inhibitors, and move your fleet towards the base after you auto-hyper. Use your collectors to repair your frigates, keep your fighters away from their assaults, and you shouldn't have any problems if you moved quickly. Avoid large strike groups. These only slow your frigates maneuvering down and they are pretty good at getting out of each other's way without them.

Max out your torpedo frigates until at least mission 6 and dock everything else you have except for collectors to repair your frigates for that mission. Launch one squad of interceptors later to act as a diversion when you have to salvage something and send them in first. If you still have capture frigates, move these behind your starting position and leave them there for the remainder of the mission or simply salvage/scrap them so you can build more torps. Keep your torpedoes focus targetted on one enemy at a time while moving them towards the mother ship and you should be fine. (CTRL-A and click on your target, and then move)

[troff]

No offense but screw the tactical tips and strategy and just play the game yourself first. I do however highly recommend that you play Homeworld 1 and Homeworld: Cataclysm if you have not already done so in order to fully appreciate the universe.

You can also download the backstory to get an idea of the epic and also download the Homeworld 1 pdf file (ask me for a link in this thread if you need it) to read the story there too if you are not playing it.

"Why?" you may ask. It's something like watching Return of the Jedi without watching Star Wars and TESB to a certain extent. As for the strategy, that's gameplay.

The only tip I have about gameplay is to play the HW2 game WITHOUT the patch first. You will be slaughtered and want to throw the game out of the window because of the difficulty. I finished the game pre-patch in 2-3 days, but when I patched it and played it again, it took me only half a day. Playing without a patch will definitely harden you and prolong the life of the game (hey! that would make a cool HW: Too comic joke! cool!)

You will get burned like hell - but you will be hardened I assure you hehe.

Phernut - You may want to put some spoiler tags in your advice strats - esp. for people who haven't played the game yet. Imagine the following advice haha:

Mission 8 - In this mission, the Council ship will hyper in with several new warships that were stolen in the intro story. They will attack you first, revealing the Councillor to be the traitor. You have to renounce your fake faith and then dock the two useless carriers in order to make them into an uber-ship to kill the traitor mothership before backup arrives.

[Pherdnut]

If you'll notice, I didn't even mention who or what you are targetting in mission 6. For mission 4, I don't think it's a huge shocker that there is a base in the game.

[ilia1986]

Dont forget to install the latest 1.1 patch. Dont click "Gamespy" in the Multiplayer menu without it.

[Progenitor]

why not just go find the homeworld backstory in www.homeworldshipyards.com ?

[Starfisher]

Because HW1 was an incredible classic that will convey the backstory infinitely better than a website.

[Progenitor]

Because HW1 was an incredible classic that will convey the backstory infinitely better than a website.

i have no arguments about that. homeworld was TEH greatest game ever developed...in terms of storyline.