Let's Play Homeworld - Introductions and Mission 1

Welcome to the first update of the Homeworld LP. Homeworld is a great game, and has a fantastic (albeit a little confusing) story. You play a group of people who have been living on an awful planet (Kharak) for as far back as they can remember. Only the severe north and south poles are livable, and even so, not by very much.

When you start the game, you can choose from two different races: the Kushan or the Taiidan. Officially, the Kushan are the proper group to use, but each race is practically the same aside from two ships and how the ships look.

The Kushan have the Drone Frigate and Cloaked Fighter. I never use defensive ships (except for very rare cases) and the Cloaked Fighter is just too danged expensive for its own good, so I don't care much about the Kushan. Besides, their ships just don't have that appeal.

That's more like it. The Taiidan look cool! Their race-specific ships are the Defense Field Frigate and the Defense Fighter. Again, I hardly ever use defensive ships, except if I'm fighting a whole lot of Strike craft, I'll throw some Defense Fighters around my Research Ships and protect them. Anyway, I chose the Taiidan. Let's start.

The story is told by the Narrator... who I assume is some important commander in the rest of the missions. Since he's not named or identified. I'll call him Charlie. Charlie tells us that a satellite discovered an object buried under the sands of the great desert. An expedition was sent and they discovered a massive starship buried underneath the sands.

Inside the ship was a stone with a galactic map etched onto it and one single word that the scientists and archaeologists knew. "Hiigara." "Our home." Obviously the planet Kharak was not the original home of the people, and some accident caused their ship to crash into the desert.

The clans united and built a massive colony ship that would take 60 years to complete. They developed new technology for the project and sacrifices had to be made. A scientist, Karan Sjet, had herself permanently attached to the ship, its living core. She is Fleet Command.

So the clans finished the ship and she's ready for preliminary tests. Karan's cheerful voice tells us that everything is online (except Research) including the six cryo trays that hold the people of Kharak. After finishing a rotation, the ship is released from its scaffold and the ships docked within are sent out into space.

This is our humble fleet. It ain't much now, but it will be in time. Charlie tells us to go perform some tests. This is basically a tutorial mission. The Resource Collector goes off to happily mine some asteroids while we build our Research Ship and our Scouts go off to blow some cute little drones away.

More drones are sent out and I have to blow them up with my fighters in either Aggressive or Evasive stance (most of the time I'll keep them to the default stance - Aggressive makes weapons stronger, but engines slower. Evasive makes weapons weaker, but the ships go real fast. Also, my fighters will always be in Claw formation, it's so very useful.)

My Research Ship is done, so I start researching Fighter Chassis technology (gives me Interceptors) and Charlie tells me to build a Salvage Corvette. ^^ I love Salvage Corvettes. These babies are the most useful ship in the entire fleet. They can steal ships right from under the enemy's nose. They're undeniably the best thing you can build for what they cost. Charlie orders me to go capture a drone...

... and I gleefully agree to his demands.

Now that everything is done, I build six Interceptors and finish up my research (Corvette Chassis - gives me Repair Corvettes, a useful ship in a few missions.) It is always important to go into endgame mode after everything calms down (except for most of the last missions.) Although my Resource Collector has finished already, you must let it harvest every single possible rock in the entire map. Also you must research everything you can and make sure you have a decent force for the next level.

Fleet Command alerts me to the fact that the hyperdrive is finished charging and we should begin testing it. Charlie chimes in and lets us know we can do it whenever we want. I'll test the hyperdrive next time. See you then.