On Homeworld Remastered · 5:31pm Mar 1st, 2015
So since I've sort of become the "Homeworld guy" here on FimFiction (for what little that's worth) I thought I'd throw in my two cents about the remake, and my general impressions.
...
This is gonna piss some people off.
I really want to like this. I really do. And if I'd just played the HW2-based parts of the game... I really would have liked it. Unconditionally and completely.
But... they screwed some things up. Big time.
Homeworld one was, at its core, a very slow game. This was intentional. Space is big. Everything you do has weight. Plan carefully, steal everything, and pray that you don't fuck something up. It was amazing. The tension nailed you to your chair, and the payoff sent you soaring into the sky.
Homeworld 2... was not. It was sleek, fast, polished, and pretty. Homeworld got by on its rugged, determined charm, but Homeworld 2 was going for style points. And you know what? It worked. Sure, there were some problems with the campaign... a lot of problems, really—but it worked out all right. And the engine itself was host to some of the greatest mods I've ever seen. Nothing to sneeze at.
But these are two very different games and, over all? Homeworld 1 was the better of them. Flat out. There, I said it.
So... you'll understand my concern when Homeworld (1) Remastered is basically Homeworld ported into HW2's engine with some admittedly very pretty touch-ups.
Now, it wasn't done without thought. The basic functionality is all there, and for the most part, it all works pretty damn well, but... there are problems. The AI has a tendency to hang, I've noticed, especially after a fight, and salvage corvettes are far too easy to use. (Though stealing a carrier means basically NOTHING now, because of the way the goddamn build system works! 
) Fighters even do that cool external docking thing on support frigates/resource controllers/repair corvettes, which is really nice.
But... like I said, there are problems. The altered build system means that capturing a carrier is pointless. The lack of fuel bars means that all those nifty little docking options are going to get used rarely if at all (and make fuel pods confusingly pointless for the Kadeshi.) The hardpoint-method for resource collectors causes serious collision issues (issues which were bad enough with the old system). Repair ships look goofy as hell latching onto their targets and swinging around beside them. You can't use support frigates as hyperspace carriers anymore (WHY????)
But those are fairly minor, ignorable.
Two of the issues? Not so much.
I'm cribbing these points from a steam community review, so I apologize to that guy for basically stealing his points, but... he's right.
HUGE PROBLEM #1: Formations and tactics.
Formations in HW1 meant the difference between winning and losing. Just... flat out. No question. They helped you focus your fire, position your forces, and generally just keep your ships from wandering off and dying out in the cold. In Homeworld Remastered, they don't work. I mean... they just don't! They're there, and they sorta put the fighters or frigates or whatever in the right position for a while (sort of—they don't always even work that well) but once combat starts the ships break formation and go on their merry little flight paths... and die, most of the time. The point of formations was to organize your forces, during the battle, not before, and it just doesn't work.
Tactics are a trickier beast. They're also present, but I've never understood how HW2 tactics worked. I assumed they had some affect on aggression, but I never mapped it out satisfactorily. In HW1 they actually did what they sound like they do (evasive evaded, aggressive attacked) but here... well... let's go to problem 2.
HUGE PROBLEM #2: The ballistics model.
Homeworld 1: The bullets fly in a straight line. This means that you can dodge.
Homeworld 2: The bullets fly in a straight line sometimes, but when Random Number Jesus decides they hit, they magnetize towards their target.
This means that "evasive" tactics are completely pointless, even if they did make your fighters juke and weave like they used to. In fact, they'd probably be less effective if they slowed you down in the process. It worked for HW2 (where the emphasis was more on style than on butt-clenching tactical maneuvers) but in HW1 it just... hurts. I didn't even need multigun corvettes to fight the Kadeshi. That's just wrong.
So, there are problems. Big problems. I'm no expert, but these may even be unpatchable problems, embedded too deep in HW2's code to extract. I'd like to believe that there are ways to fix them (change the fighters' movement paths and aggression protocols, set all the hit chances to zero and narrow the cone of fire?) but I don't really know. My hope is that modders will come together and create a "Remastered Classic" patch, or something, which fixes this at least for the campaign segments. Hell, I'd join that project. I can't do much, but I'd learn for this game.
I should make a point of saying that I really think what they've done with the HW2 sections of the game is phenomenal. They polished up what needed to be polished and left alone what needed to be left alone. The one stable multiplayer match I've managed so far was HW2 only, and it was pretty damn amazing how well my old tactics worked for me (4player FFA, I came out on top! 
) I don't think they skimped out on us. I just think that they lost focus a bit.
I just came for the first game, with the second as a bonus. I liked HW2, but I loved HW1, and I think that's a pretty common sentiment among older fans of the series. So you'll understand why the treatment of this classic has me a little disappointed.
For those of you who're new to Homeworld and looking at the series for the first time: Get the collection. I'm not saying this isn't worth your money—because it absolutely is. These are two of the greatest real-time strategy games ever made, and none of this changes that fact.
But know one thing: If you want the real Homeworld 1 experience, play the "classic" version. At least until the modders come up with something equally amazing.
P.S.: To the guy on the Complex team who decided that "Challenges" were a good idea... seriously, what the hell? Giving people more money for having more money than everyone else? Just... think about that for ten god damn seconds!
Alas. At least we still have the original. There's something strangely appealing to me when I just zoom in on a frigate and listen to the engines hum...
I have to wonder how much of my love for the first game is just nostalgia bias, though. I liked the story in the second, but the gameplay was almost a chore. I liked most of Cataclysm... Cataclysm better than 2. I'd like to see more expansions on the original engine. More campaigns, different Kiiths, maybe some of the other civilizations we've never seen before.
To be fair, though.
From what I've heard under the hood HW1's code was this mess of bailing wire, duct-tape and used bubblegum.
All the more impressive in its own right for actually working, but not fun working with.
Even though I don't play much strategy, I've been following this because of how impressive it seems, and it's really disappointing to find that this remake seriously messes up the gameplay of the famous single player campaign. It's very disappointing, and I'm baffled at how often developers of remakes seems to much up or just not even notice gameplay issues.
Yep, agree with pretty much everything said here.
There seems to be some debate with how fixable formations and fighter/corvette behavior are but hopefully not all is lost on that front. This guy explained it better than I ever could: http://www.reddit.com/r/homeworld/comments/2xff6q/dont_panic_how_flight_behavior_works_why_hw1r/
As for the RNG system, I'm completely at a loss as to what could be done. The numbers need to be adjusted (especially for fighters and corvettes, they just seem to spew lead everywhere) but that would that would be hard to achieve without increasing the amount of magical heat-seeking projectiles flying around the screen. I liked your idea about decreasing the firing cone but with hit chances set to zero I'm not sure if that would work out with the RNG system. Just like it's possible to have a round track a target because the game rolled a "hit" for that particular shot it's also possible to have an on target round suddenly veer off course or physically hit a target on-screen but do no damage because the RNG rolled a "miss". This is most evident when you see an ion beam warp off target, when the animation begins the ship/turret is correctly lined up but the RNG determines that the shot should be a miss so the game has to compensate.
The thing that gives me hope though is that if there is a fanbase out there with the passion and drive to fix these problems it's definitely Homeworld's community.
Also, I know it may seem minor compared to some of the other problems but I was incredibly disappointed to hear that Yes had to be dropped from the end credits due to licensing issues. However I managed to stumble upon a workaround last night while browsing around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhYeAAGbNEA
If interested just follow the fairly simple instructions in the description. I tried it out last night and can confirm it works.
2840441 Wholeheartedly agreed.
2840742 I heard the same thing. Amazing as it is, the old bastard still worked on my Win8 laptop. Gotta give the devs credit—the built that hunk of junk to last.
2841005 The problem's that they tried to cram the two games together, rather than just building two separate remakes. It saved time, probably, but it's causing all kinds of havoc.
2841036 Thank you for the links. I wasn't even aware that they had to cut Yes, but I'm glad it was that simple. I though the HW1 animatics were originally packed into the .big files, but I guess when the converted it all over they organized it like HW2.
Ahh... goofing around the hw2 data folder. Good times...
I'm glad to hear that the fighters could be fixed. As it is, despite really wanting to have an interceptor force, I'm kinda having to rely on assault frigates and corvettes to brute-force my way through fighter problems. It works, but it's not too fun.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Having never played HW2, when I hit the tutorial, I was understandably all "What the shit?!" with regards to the UI, but just figured they'd given it a spit polish for the remaster. I could deal, it seemed streamlined, more accessible, was just going to take some getting used to.
Then I played the game.
Paying for research? Low RU asteroids (30-60)? No harvestable dust clouds? No evasive tactics? Busted formations? No location dot for the enemy mothership in skirmish (resulting in lengthy and painstaking probe searches)? No proper customisation in skirmish options (only 3000 RU injections every minute)? No Taiidan for singleplayer (a.k.a the guys with the boss-as-fuck ship designs)? What is this game, Gearbox, and what have you done with Homeworld?
I'll admit it looks fucking fantastic, runs smooth and sounds just like the game I grew up with, and finally being able to have a black Taiidan mothership with a red stripe is a huge bonus (seriously, try that, it really looks the part), but it sure as shit doesn't play like it.
It's disappointing, for sure. I was really looking forward to playing the old girl with shiny new graphics, watching with glee once again as a heavy cruiser tears apart assault frigates with its ion beams like they're so much wet paper, but it was not to be. I guess I'll wait for the modders to figure it out and do what Gearbox didn't, and do it for the low-low price of 100% off.
That's another thing, actually: Capital and Super-Capital class ships now seem able to hold their own against strike craft, without the assistance of friendly units of the same class. Three destroyers, three missile destroyers and three heavy cruisers (what I will from now on call a 9-Wall) could take on a patrol of strike craft in the original game, but as soon as the MD's had exhausted their initial supply of ammunition, you had to send in the interceptors and damn quick, too, if the enemy had attack bombers. In Capital or Super-Cap situations, a 9-Wall excelled, annihilating anything in their path; especially if you caught the other party napping. Now, just a couple of assault frigates can hold their own against strike craft.
And when you finally do get a chance to build a 9-Wall (because the game loves to starve you of resources), you find they're pretty much all you need, despite the nerfing the missile destroyers have taken. Fighters? 9-Wall. Frigates? 9-Wall. Destroyers? 9-Wall. Cruisers? Even then, 9-Wall. Now, all this is based purely on my admittedly noobish skirmish playing, but even so, I expect to run into trouble if my Super-Caps are on their own against strike craft, much less being swamped by assorted groups of ships. They could barely hit the little buggers in the original game, now they're picking them off like so much cannon fodder, it's ridiculous.
Bah. I can't even say Gearbox dun fucked up another game that isn't Borderlands, because in every other respect, the game's fine. It's just... not Homeworld. It's Homeworld 2 pretending to be Homeworld. And, unfortunately, those of us in the old guard can tell that so very easily.
Anyway, hit me up on Steam, Runner. Maybe at some point I can find the time to get completely annihilated by you.
Well, this being the first time I've played it, I pretty much enjoyed the whole thing. It didn't occur to me that they had made changes to a lot of this stuff. I suppose I'll just have to play the classic version sometime.
Just from my general attitude, I didn't question the logic of their decisions, I just took what they gave and played. Yeah, in the end, I just used formations to make ships get to where they were going at the same time and I just used the tactics as 'shoot' 'don't shoot' buttons.
Anyway, it would probably do me some good to check out the classic version. If anyone wants to play together, my steam name is the same as my fimfiction name. None of my friends got the game. :/