Let's Play Homeworld - Mission 2

Welcome back folks!

Into hyperspace! Whee! It's kind of strange-looking in this game, hyperspace, but I dunno what I'd expect. Everything checks out, is working properly, and no one seems to be injured. Charlie? You okay?

Of course Charlie is okay. He tells us that a vessel named the Khar-Selim (by the way, the big colony ship that was found on Kharak is the Khar-Toba) is out at the edge of the system. It's been traveling for 10 years on conventional drives (that must have been a boring, boring trip.) It will monitor the hyper space jump, if anything goes screwy, we will dock with it and adjustments will be made.

But, when we come out of space, there's no sign of the vessel. Charlie informs us we've misjumped. He searches for the Khar-Selim's beacon while Karan tries to get in touch with the ship. That's okay. There's a lot of stuff I need to do before then anyway.

For example, mine the ever-loving crap out of this place. We have a few research topics that are new to this level - Corvette Drive (gives us Light Corvettes) and Heavy Corvette Upgrade. With the RUs given by the Resource Collector, I build two waves of Interceptors and three Heavy Corvettes. Charlie finds the Khar-Selim reaally far away, and tells us to build a probe and send it to the vessel.

Once I get the last possible dust ball (without going near the Khar-Selim) I make sure my fleet is in proper position. Heavy Corvettes protect my Research Ship. My Salvage Corvette and Resource Collector move behind the Mothership and are protected by my fighters, and my two waves of Interceptors get into Claw formation in front of the mothership. I send my probe the long distance to the Khar-Selim...

... and get a lovely picture of the vessel. Isn't she...

Crap.

Crap.

Crap.

Crap crap!

Quickly I spring into action against these guys. They are pretty nasty if you're not careful, but otherwise, they're a simple little distraction. My Heavy Corvettes could take out one of the littler ships in a flash, but I send my Interceptor teams after them instead. The bigger ships are basically light corvettes, except for the ones that shoot missiles at me! I want one of those! I can't get one of those ;_;

Needless to say, I win. They're pretty weak, and I just spin around. I only lose one Interceptor in the battle. Charlie tells us to go investigate the Khar-Selim and get its mission recorder with a Salvage Corvette. I send it away with my Corvettes and one Interceptor team (the other is guarding my Research Ship.)

When I hit the Khar-Selim with my corvette, a few moments pass and Charlie lets us know that an enemy squadron is showing up. My Interceptors take care of the smaller ships, a few go past and my Heavy Corvettes tear them apart. Charlie tells us about a Carrier, which I get a little too close for comfort a few times (that's it in the top middle there. At this point, I lose versus the carrier.) The Khar-Selim's mission recorder is downloaded, and basically they were attacked right out of hyperspace. They tried to tell us to abort, but we never got the message.

More waves of attacks come until eventually I get the last ship blown up and the Carrier flees (we'll be seeing that again soon.) My Resource Collector goes off and happily mines the last few dustballs in this sector. Meanwhile, I build five Salvage Corvettes in anticipation of the next level. That's pretty much how this game works, you go to the next level, lose, and then return to the previous level and build up what you need FOR that level.

I retired my Scouts (won't need them except for distractionary purposes at a later time) and one of my Heavy Corvettes, but I managed to build the five Salvagers. They're much more useful than Heavy Corvettes. I'll just build another next level to replace it.

Charlie lets us know we have to hyperspace back to Kharak and prepare the Cryo-trays for departure. Then we can warp on out of this system and leave that crappy planet for good. Hopefully the people on that planet will be safe.