Modular Enhancements

In Homeworld : Cataclysm, we were introduced to modular upgrades for the mothership. Basically, this means that subsystems can be built into the mothership. In fact, they are prerequisites for certain upgrades and abilities.

In Homeworld 2, each of the capital ships is capable of having additional subsystems added optionally. For example, the carrier and mothership is capable of building various subsystems like the fighter facility, corvette facility, frigate facility and so on. You can choose to build all if you think your carrier should be ready to build anything when needed or just build one if you think your carrier should be dedicated to only one production type.

Now that capital ships are capable of building subsystems, they bring about additional tactical considerations into the game as units are actually capable of attacking subsystems. Not all units are good at this though. My personal favorite is the Bomber. I like the idea of destroying one subsystem in a single swoop. This brings us to the issue of Units.

Units And Tactics

Units in Homeworld 2 vary between Hiigaran and Vaygr forces. As mentioned earlier, units range from fighters to capital ship classes and also other utility units and gun platforms. Each unit has its own strength and weakness, some have special abilities. For example, the Resource Collector which can repair and salvage other units or the Defense Shield Frigate is capable of providing a temporary shield against most attacks.

Another worthy addition to the game is the gun platform. Relatively cheap and very fast to build, they hover around your mothership and shoot at any hostile units within range. The only downside is you cannot carry them over to the next mission. I was like "Oh man, I just wasted 12,000 RU on them!" as I built 20 (the maximum number allowed) of these gun platforms at 300 RU each.

When it comes to unit behavior and formation settings, I was disappointed that the creators actually removed them completely. Sometimes, it is very handy to have a wall formation for defensive actions and claw formations for offensive actions. I greatly miss my all-time favorite sphere formation which is really great for both attack and defence.

However they did replace it with Tactic settings that determine how your units behave when they encounter an enemy. Relic also included the Strike Group settings that make it easier to coordinate attacks by forcing a group to travels at the speed of its slowest moving unit.

As for me, I had a very tough time trying to get my units to stay put. They just seem to enjoy getting into trouble - somehow they keep engaging any nearby enemy. The lack of a "hold-fire" button is really annoying. It gets particularly annoying when you are trying to capture an enemy ship with a less-armored frigate and the decoy units end up killing the target. It took me a few attempts to get it right.