Homeworld 2 Ships

HW2 Shipping

Homeworld 2's multiplayer game is all about using a mixed fleet. At it's heart is your massive Mothership, providing crews and the bulk of your manufacturing. Servicing it is a small fleet of Utility vessels, extracting resources, and executing repairs. Your armed warships work in three rough sizes: snub sized Strikecraft, medium sized Frigates and heavy hitting Capital class. Forming the backbone of your task forces are a small number of prized Capital warships that deliver the body blows against your opponents. Backing them up are the Frigates and Strikecraft squadrons, who act as a mobile buffer against most basic threats.

The Paper-scissor-rock trumping is especially pronounced and every unit in the game is a counter to something else. There are no all weather units that you can just throw at any situation and expect to work every time; and no all-powerful ultimate weapons either - not even the mighty Battlecruisers, formidable though they may be. Using the wrong ships for the wrong job will at best make them look and feel useless, and at worst, get them utterly destroyed. Old Homeworld ships could plug away at each other for entire minutes before something finally blew up, but in Homeworld 2, its all too easy for upgraded Frigates to get get blown away by Strikecraft before they can even squeeze a second salvo off. At the same time though, a large swarm of Fighters can fly into three or four Flak Frigates and vanish in a cloud of exploding shrapnel just as fast.

The trick to getting anywhere in this game is using the right shipping at the right time. For newbies it can be a bit confusing: while their roles can be radically different, a lot of ships look very similar both in look and vital statistics. All the ships of a particular class will share the same general attributes (moreorless) but have radically different weaponry and firepower. The only difference between a "Light" and "Heavy" version of anything is the weaponry it packs. Certainly, the bigger the ship, the more firepower it carries, and while each size of ship is countered by the next size up, you can get Capital-killing Fighters, Frigate killing Corvettes, and others. Its far easier to whip up a swarm of smaller ships than bigger ones, so peoples' first impressions with Homeworld 2 is that Strikecraft are overpowered, and Frigates underpowered.

There are two sides to pick from: the Hiigarans and the Vaygr. The Hiigarans are the good guys, defending their homeworld (from which the first game is named) from the hostile Vaygr raiders. Hiigarans are a mite slower and more defensive. Their forces have extra Frigates and tend to be versatile and robust. Beginners have little trouble in picking them up and getting to know them. The Vaygr are lighter, faster and slightly more numerous; they get more Strikecraft and they work best in attack, faltering in defence. They're a little more work to push around, and need a bit more effort and practice. However, they can seriously flatten the Hiigarans once you've learnt how to handle their forces.

Top


	Homeworld 2 Shipping Links These shipping pages in the RTSC Homeworld 2 section are just a rough "Rule-Of-Thumb" guide. I've avoided getting too carried away with numbers, although there's a fair bit of info here. These shipping guides are based on extensively playing the game and trying to get a feel for how everything fits together, taking note of any rough numbers the game reveals. I've also occasionally used the following fan sites to look up vital details and info not normally available through the game's interface or manual. Really, these sites are just fantastic, both for a quick browse or as a detailed reference. Even better, they all have different takes on explaining and revealing the game, and all of them complement each other tremendously.

			Homeworld Shipyards: I nearly abandoned the RTSC Homeworld section when I came across this site years ago. If you want to find anything about any ship, floating relic, single player race, out take and concept art any of the Homeworld universe, start here. There are extensive databases of all the ships in the first game and Cataclysm, and an expanding encyclopedia on everything in Homeworld 2. The Homeworld Shipyards is succinct and easy to navigate, and an excellent browse!

	HW2 Ships Stats & Models		An exhaustive breakdown off all the ships' vital statistics in the game, including all the changes made by the 1,1 patch. Its an impressive effort. For any sharp eyed Homeworld 2 fans out there, you'll notice many of the entries seem to have more weapons listed than what actually appears in the game: this is because many ships have two guns in each turret.

	Homeworld 2 Build & Stats Tree v1.2		This is the new and improved interactive Homeworld 2 tech tree by NemesisChiken. It features all the tech's, upgrades, basic specs and stats of each ship in the entire game; including weaponry, costs, research times, special attributes and abilities, ranges of sensors and weapons, cloaks and other special items and even parades of all the Strike-Force formation. There are also tables for unit limits, info on the single player mission units, and descriptions, notes and strategies to go with each and every item. Its an excellent reference.