Sunday, April 13, 2008

Let's Play Homeworld - Mission 9 and 10

Welcome back! I was in New York yesterday, so I didn't have time to upload a blog, and I was busy figuring out why my computer was being stupid today, so that's why the blog is so late today. However! I will do two missions to appease you.

Charlie lets us know the truth about the Garden Dwellers. He figures out that they decided against continuing and remained in the nebula. They began to destroy ships and cause problems for everyone. Eventually shipping lanes were not allowed through the nebula. The Garden Dwellers developed inhibitor technology and drew more people into the nebula.

Karan discovers an anomaly, and hops out of hyperspace to see what the problem is. Charlie detects a gravity well from a ship with an unknown profile and orders us to investigate. There are several inactive ships around the object. Good.

This is why I built my Scouts. I send them to one side and my Attack Bombers and Defenders to the other. The Scouts dive in and draw away the enemy while Bombers and Defenders start attacking... a strange-looking ship.

The attack does nothing to the ship itself, but each hit causes a fluctuation in the control field. We blow more and more of the ship away, and eventually the field breaks down and all those ships are ours! Yay! We instantly gain Guided Missile (gives us Missile Destroyers, but no Missile Corvettes ;_;) technology since I didn't kill the Missile Destroyer, as well as two Assault Frigates and Multi-Beam Frigates and one Ion Array Frigate.

My Salvage Corvette goes and docks with the ship. And Charlie finds out it's millions of years old. The purpose is unknown, but he develops a technology based on the gravity well ability, Gravity Generator (gives us a Grav Well Generator... which I never use.)

Almost immediately, the Bentusi show up. They want the tech, and are willing to give us Super-Heavy Chassis research (gives us Carriers.) We ask for help against the Taiidan, but the Bentusi don't fight. They are willing to assist us by summoning the council, and the Taiidan listen to the council.

Now it's time to build what I can. I finish research and spend a good two hours getting the minuscule resources in this area. I build three more Destroyers and two more Missile Destroyers as well as a Carrier (for a very specific purpose) and five Repair Corvettes. We now hyperspace out of there.

We are at the edge of the Taiidan empire, and Charlie discovers a weak point in their defenses. There is a research station near an active supernova. The ships defending the station will be sparse, but this is perhaps one of the nastiest levels in the game.

There is a minimal guard around this station, but that's not the problem. The problem is two-fold. First - the supernova is emitting radiation which destroys small ships in a moment. Second - the only way to the research station without losing all your ships is by following a path of dust clouds...

... patrolled by these guys. While they themselves have no attack, they spit out mines. TINY mines. TINY mines in a wall. TINY mines in a wall CONSTANTLY. I hate Minelayer Corvettes. We do, however, get the research necessary to get these guys as well as Proximity Sensor technology (which will be useful two missions from now.)

After managing to get through without losing any ships, we come up to our first Heavy Cruiser! Huge ships that can murder my ships. I pile on all my guns and blow it to pieces, and then its Destroyer escort.

Once we get past them, we get to the research station. An enemy Carrier is there, plus a ton of - I imagine - some kind of sensor, and some Ion Frigates. After destroying the Carrier (who shoots out a bunch of Multi-Gun Corvettes) an Assault Frigate group comes up and tries to off me. I kill them, kill the sensors....

... and turn my attention on the station. It goes away permanently, and I stick behind and just wait.

My own Carrier goes out to the asteroid field and starts to harvest the many resources in this area. I build only ten more Scouts for the next level and nothing else.

See you next time!

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