Gearbox to release Homeworld 1 & 2 HD

Few notes:
Support frigates are broken. totally broken. It used to be you could set them to guard a group and they'd heal as needed - now they need specific instructions
Drone Frigates: also broken. They used to be able to launch their drones automatically, now they can't. Micro-managing them is difficult in the middle of combat.
Defenders: Broken too. Sphere formation guard should put them around what they're guarding - not anymore (IIRC - this may have just been cataclysm).
 
Picked this up today. Overall, a good redux of the originals, but there's something I just cant put my figure on that's different. It just doesn't have the same gameplay "feel". I don't know, maybe that it actually plays at over 10 FPS when I used to play on my geforce 4400...

Who knew that a 15 y/old game could hold up so well. A must play for any real-time Sim enthusiast (although I figure anyone over 30 has already played it.) And ooo-eee boy, does it look good at 4k.
 
Also got stuck on a mission - added black bars for a cutscene, scene never played. Finished out the level that way (no building made it hard...), but no finish. Sigh. Bugs for the lose.
 
Close proximity path-finding is a bit dodgy for me when a large frigate+capital ship formations guarded by squadrons of corvettes and fighters. They just seem to get in eachtother's in way tight turns. Defenders are useless and usually cannon-fodder though.

Having a blast though. Cant wait to play HW2.
 
on mission 13, i love it. i wished i knew of this game when it came out.
 
lopoetve said:
Also got stuck on a mission - added black bars for a cutscene, scene never played. Finished out the level that way (no building made it hard...), but no finish. Sigh. Bugs for the lose.
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If this happens exit to the main menu. Then start the mission over again from the select screen. Do not load an auto save. If you get hit with this error, any quick/custom saves will be effected to. Sadly restarting the mission from scratch will be required. I had no issues with the HW2 campaign though.

HW Remastered online has changed up the balance a bit. For example, Vaygr DDs are now much better than the Hig DDs. They changed something with burst damage which makes them significantly better. I assume this is an error. Although do keep in mind, the MP in the Remastered version is a beta.
 
on mission 16, there is so much wait time. i thought i had it done so i sent probs out and i see the final guy was up. i send my heavy cruisers and destroyers out with some fighters and then they hyber right behind the mothership. my first big lost since the asteroid field. :(
 
Seyumi said:
I'm surprised people are complaining about this remaster. Try buying something like the Grim Fandango remaster. It still had the original 2D pixelated backgrounds and even the same audio. All they did was make the "3D" characters higher res/more cleaned up with some BS developer commentary throughout the game. Even the "widescreen" fix just stretched the square picture out until a rectangle and looks worse. It's obvious many companies are hopping on the "HD remaster" bandwagon to make a quick buck but at least the Gabriel Knight, Resident Evil 1, & Homeworld HD remakes did it right.
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I think some people don't want to be happy :p. Well more accurately, I think people have no idea the time and effort that goes in to something. So they think it is perfectly reasonable for companies to just give more, more, more and not charge for any of it. So whatever comes out isn't good enough, isn't enough of an improvement, etc.

Some people are just never happy.
 
Reading some of the gripes on the Gearbox forum it sounds like Pitchford and co did fuck up porting HW1 to HW2's engine.....formations are broken, some of the ship design/combat does not work well because of the differences with the ballistics modelling of HW1, repair corvettes not working as intended, etc. Forums mods are assuring that feedback is being collected and fixes will be issued, so hopefully they keep to their word. If all else fails, at least you can now play HW1 classic on a modern PC without compatibility issues.
 
Blade-Runner said:
Reading some of the gripes on the Gearbox forum it sounds like Pitchford and co did fuck up porting HW1 to HW2's engine.....formations are broken, some of the ship design/combat does not work well because of the differences with the ballistics modelling of HW1, repair corvettes not working as intended, etc. Forums mods are assuring that feedback is being collected and fixes will be issued, so hopefully they keep to their word. If all else fails, at least you can now play HW1 classic on a modern PC without compatibility issues.
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This is definitely true, and only going to be really noticeable to those that played the shit out of HW1 originally. They're right though - many things are slightly broken.

Formations - forget them. Sphere doesn't work right, claw is only useful in very specific circumstances, etc. Evasion used to be part of a formation (or wingman setups), now it doesn't work. Use a formation to keep a group together, then tell them to break for combat when the time is right and they survive and do a lot better.
 
As much as I'm bashing this and saying it isn't worth $30, I did still buy it. I wanted to go back and play it.

Formations is the only thing that isn't like I remembered it. The only formations that seem to work are the wall one and a delta/claw one. If I select a bunch of groups then hit a formation they don't mass into one large formation like I swear they used to.

I can't remember if that is how they used to do it or not. Like, in this each little 3-5 ships makes their own formation instead of all 50 ships etc.
 
aeonrevolution said:
As much as I'm bashing this and saying it isn't worth $30, I did still buy it. I wanted to go back and play it.

Formations is the only thing that isn't like I remembered it. The only formations that seem to work are the wall one and a delta/claw one. If I select a bunch of groups then hit a formation they don't mass into one large formation like I swear they used to.

I can't remember if that is how they used to do it or not. Like, in this each little 3-5 ships makes their own formation instead of all 50 ships etc.
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They definitely used to. One of my strategies (in the old days) for the ghost ship level was to group ~everything~ into a massive sphere - corvettes, fighters, defenders, and capital ships, and throw it at the thing. They'd start to target the capital ships first, and slowly convert them, but each would get one shot off at the ghost first, and the enemy ships would ignore the corvettes/fighters long enough for them to get lined up with the ghost and finish it off. Now, that doesn't work as well, and they don't "envelop" the target in sphere mode either.

Don't get me wrong though - I'm loving every moment of it, but you do have to re-strategize slightly, which is fine by me (except support frigates - those being funky is a problem for repairs and maintaining the fleet - much more micromanaging).
 
Blade-Runner said:
Reading some of the gripes on the Gearbox forum it sounds like Pitchford and co did fuck up porting HW1 to HW2's engine.....formations are broken, some of the ship design/combat does not work well because of the differences with the ballistics modelling of HW1, repair corvettes not working as intended, etc. Forums mods are assuring that feedback is being collected and fixes will be issued, so hopefully they keep to their word. If all else fails, at least you can now play HW1 classic on a modern PC without compatibility issues.
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There are other changes to how HW2 units behave as well, as I mentioned above. Lance fighters often shoot themselves, and there is a massive balancing issue with one of the races. I'll keep that one a secret because being slaughtered by it in MP is no fun. :p

This is unfortunate because you would think porting over the HW2 units would have been easier. The HW1 units were essentially rebuilt from scratch to work in HW2, so I can see some issues propping up.
 
lopoetve said:
Few notes:
Support frigates are broken. totally broken. It used to be you could set them to guard a group and they'd heal as needed - now they need specific instructions
Drone Frigates: also broken. They used to be able to launch their drones automatically, now they can't. Micro-managing them is difficult in the middle of combat.
Defenders: Broken too. Sphere formation guard should put them around what they're guarding - not anymore (IIRC - this may have just been cataclysm).
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Support frigates and repair corvettes are working.

Hold Y and select the group you want them to heal, if it selects the ships you need to do it again. I should say something like "Repair Request Acknowledged" and use a light blue pathing line. The reason it doesn't look like they are working is because they are using the repair drone mechanic from HW2 aka get right the **** up on the ship being repaired and sit there until its fixed then move on to the next vessel. Its not like the original game where they healed from a distance.


Drone Frigates

Just bind them as part of a squad and hit Ctrl+Shft+D to deploy them and move on. When they run out it will auto recharge then you just deploy it again. Drones stay deployed about 195 secs and take about 25 secs to recharge. Thats not a whole lot of micro managing.

Defenders are trash.

Atm all fighters outside the Attack Bombers are trash. They get hosed by almost everything and can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn. Even Attack bombers will get rocked by any large ship with guns. Something is wrong with the accuracy against fighters from the larger bore guns.
 
SithSolo1 said:
Support frigates and repair corvettes are working.

Hold Y and select the group you want them to heal, if it selects the ships you need to do it again. I should say something like "Repair Request Acknowledged" and use a light blue pathing line. The reason it doesn't look like they are working is because they are using the repair drone mechanic from HW2 aka get right the **** up on the ship being repaired and sit there until its fixed then move on to the next vessel. Its not like the original game where they healed from a distance.


Drone Frigates

Just bind them as part of a squad and hit Ctrl+Shft+D to deploy them and move on. When they run out it will auto recharge then you just deploy it again. Drones stay deployed about 195 secs and take about 25 secs to recharge. Thats not a whole lot of micro managing.

Defenders are trash.

Atm all fighters outside the Attack Bombers are trash. They get hosed by almost everything and can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn. Even Attack bombers will get rocked by any large ship with guns. Something is wrong with the accuracy against fighters from the larger bore guns.
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Yeah, I got the drone guys working even as part of a main group - way more useful than the old ones too!

Neat trick on the support frigates :)
 
Cool to see this out. I loved HW1 but only played the free demo for HW2, trying to remember the interface. I actually thought the interface for HW1 was manageable and pretty groundbreaking at the time, but that was obviously ages ago.

Kind of sucks about the formations being jacked, but I think I will still have to have this. Hard to believe it is as old as it is and still a fairly unique game. I was hoping when Ender's game came out (meh on the movie, but still have a soft spot for the books) there would be another coll 3d space game, but I guess this will have to do for now.
 
SithSolo1 said:
Support frigates and repair corvettes are working.

Hold Y and select the group you want them to heal, if it selects the ships you need to do it again. I should say something like "Repair Request Acknowledged" and use a light blue pathing line. The reason it doesn't look like they are working is because they are using the repair drone mechanic from HW2 aka get right the **** up on the ship being repaired and sit there until its fixed then move on to the next vessel. Its not like the original game where they healed from a distance.


Drone Frigates

Just bind them as part of a squad and hit Ctrl+Shft+D to deploy them and move on. When they run out it will auto recharge then you just deploy it again. Drones stay deployed about 195 secs and take about 25 secs to recharge. Thats not a whole lot of micro managing.

Defenders are trash.

Atm all fighters outside the Attack Bombers are trash. They get hosed by almost everything and can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn. Even Attack bombers will get rocked by any large ship with guns. Something is wrong with the accuracy against fighters from the larger bore guns.
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Didn't repair corvettes auto repair? It has been so long so I don't remember if it was always manual.
 
TheCommander said:
Didn't repair corvettes auto repair? It has been so long so I don't remember if it was always manual.
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Yes and no. You could set them up to auto-repair a group of ships, but they have to get a lot closer now and teh anti-collision system makes that a hilarious dance till it suddenly works... . and takes about 15-20 seconds before repairs start now.
 
Gearbox released the soundtracks. You can get them now on Steam - HW1 HW2.

But what really has me happy is this part in the Gearbox announcement:

UPDATE: As a thank you from Gearbox and composer Paul Ruskay, all Collector's Edition owners will be receiving FREE download codes for both of the remastered soundtracks at the email address that they registered their CE with! Give us a few days to sort out the logistics and keep an eye out here, and on Homeworld Twitter and Facebook for updates on code distribution.
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I remember taking the survey they released about the CE, saying that a statue could be nice, I didn't really care about the artbook, but could they please, please include the soundtracks, in lossless if not on CD? Looks like they were listening, because this release comes with both MP3 and FLAC.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
Gearbox released the soundtracks. You can get them now on Steam - HW1 HW2.

But what really has me happy is this part in the Gearbox announcement:



I remember taking the survey they released about the CE, saying that a statue could be nice, I didn't really care about the artbook, but could they please, please include the soundtracks, in lossless if not on CD? Looks like they were listening, because this release comes with both MP3 and FLAC.
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You can open the .big file. ;)
 
The crashes in HW are infuriating ... really wish this would have been more polished.
 
MP stability in Remastered is very poor at the moment. I am lucky to even get into a game. It is a beta though... but their recent patch did not seem to address the balance changes or improve MP stability. Or make the UI/HUD scale look proper.
 
Big patch dropped today. Very interested to hear what the vets have to say.
 
Seems like its a labor of love for them. Well, that and profit ; )
 
Blech. Ok, so I figured out what the crash bug often is.

If you capture a mission critical ship (one that must be destroyed), the game can't handle that. It dies.

WTF. Makes some missions hard as hell (11, for instance - I warped in with a small as hell fleet and end up dying unless I use salvage corvettes to distract the ion cannon frigates or the heavy cruiser).
 
Just finished these this past weekend. Ah... good stuff. Very enjoyable. Way too quick though.

Some pretty difficult points in the 2 for sure.
 
ghostwich said:
Ah this would be great.
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Not really. My understanding is that it breaks the way formations work. So now if you want a squadron to split up into multiple groups it will not work unless the squadrons are very small, as in 3 or less. This is a problem for a number of mods which used more realistic attack patterns and had squadrons split up during battle. Fixing something that isn't broken.

I believe they are also changing the way passive mode works; fighter squadrons will be penalized for being in passive. Which is a pain because if they're not they can easily be lured into radiated dust clouds and get killed. Even if a probe many KMs away gets knocked out fighters may be lured in. It is typically best to keep them on passive until it is time to attack. Again a change that wasn't really needed.

They should have just made the HW1 units adhere to HW2 standards. The UI is based on HW2 which is much better than HW1. Likewise, the way units were handled were much better. Would have made so much more sense and saved modders a lot of pain if they didn't change HW2's functionality so much.
 
Flogger23m said:
Not really. My understanding is that it breaks the way formations work. So now if you want a squadron to split up into multiple groups it will not work unless the squadrons are very small, as in 3 or less. This is a problem for a number of mods which used more realistic attack patterns and had squadrons split up during battle. Fixing something that isn't broken.

I believe they are also changing the way passive mode works; fighter squadrons will be penalized for being in passive. Which is a pain because if they're not they can easily be lured into radiated dust clouds and get killed. Even if a probe many KMs away gets knocked out fighters may be lured in. It is typically best to keep them on passive until it is time to attack. Again a change that wasn't really needed.

They should have just made the HW1 units adhere to HW2 standards. The UI is based on HW2 which is much better than HW1. Likewise, the way units were handled were much better. Would have made so much more sense and saved modders a lot of pain if they didn't change HW2's functionality so much.
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I knew something was broken with the way unit handling was done, and I did realize that HW1's plot was pretty much ripped out and glued together with HW2's unit handling. I didn't realize just how deeply it was broken - seems much more than I thought, and I hadn't played with too many of the mods that were trying to fix how things worked.

Given that this is the only space RTS I know of that does full 3D combat, I welcome any improvements - maybe it needs to be thoroughly broken before it can be re-made and fixed? Either way, I'll reinstall on Steam.

Maybe. :)
 
Rebalancing...

So since ion frigates are designed to take down capital ships, If i put down the same amount of RU's in ion frigates as i do 1 destroyer, the outcome wont be a complete wipe of the frigate fleet (or maybe one left heavily damaged)? or the fact enemy AI fights as annoying as possible?


I still want a remake of cataclysm, i think i played that through 5 times.
 
They bought this title to release the same thing that was released a decade ago, and just now restored the original functionality, plus a texture upgrade that was done better with previous mods.


I know I keep being harsh about this, but this still seems like such a waste of the franchise, we need new titles in the world, not the same game. Where is shipbreakers?


EDIT:

omfg it's worse than I thought, It seems it's been renamed deserts of karak... ground based rts.... so ashes of the singularity... wtf is up with these people not releasing new SPACE BASED rts games? Seriously, wtf?
 
tybert7 said:
EDIT:

omfg it's worse than I thought, It seems it's been renamed deserts of karak... ground based rts.... so ashes of the singularity... wtf is up with these people not releasing new SPACE BASED rts games? Seriously, wtf?
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Shipbreakers was also going to be a ground based RTS well before Gearbox bought and licensed the Homeworld IP to Blackbird Interactive. That was all very clear from the early promotional material that was released prior to it being rebranded as DoK.
 
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