Discussion:
Homeworld2 is exhausting.
(too old to reply)
Louis Nick III
2003-09-28 08:47:19 UTC
Permalink
I mean, great game and all, but it just takes too damn much energy for
me to enjoy playing it. It's bizarre[1] -- I used to /like/ Homeworld
games.
I'm glad someone agrees with me on this, not that I've looked high and
low or anything. I was about to uninstall it because I was having such
trouble with DVD playing that I thought DX9 plus the new Detonator
drivers were fux0ring my DVD player, but it's working now, so go figure.

I'm on level three or so, and I'm losing terribly-- I think I need more
scouts, and the whole "build gun corvettes" deal is a red herring.
Killing Vagyr carriers is hard.

But man, Desert Combat is easy and fun, whereas Homeworld is hard and--
fun at times, not much more engrossing than Cataclysm, which I never
finished, was. ("WE...WILL...NOT...BE...BOUND!" *BOOM*)

Oh well, maybe it'll come around, or maybe I will. Email me if you're
up for some hawt mothership-on-mothership action, Stephen, someday.
We're in the same timezone, and might even manage some decent pings;
only a hundred or so miles apart if I remember correctly. Just wait
until I've played a little more.

-Louis
Teck
2003-09-28 14:02:58 UTC
Permalink
On Sun, 28 Sep 2003 01:47:19 -0700, Louis Nick III
Post by Louis Nick III
I mean, great game and all, but it just takes too damn much energy for
me to enjoy playing it. It's bizarre[1] -- I used to /like/ Homeworld
games.
I'm glad someone agrees with me on this, not that I've looked high and
low or anything. I was about to uninstall it because I was having such
trouble with DVD playing that I thought DX9 plus the new Detonator
drivers were fux0ring my DVD player, but it's working now, so go figure.
I'm on level three or so, and I'm losing terribly-- I think I need more
scouts, and the whole "build gun corvettes" deal is a red herring.
Killing Vagyr carriers is hard.
Sadly, the mission design and storytelling isnt a patch on Homeworld
or Cataclysm. Aside from a couple of isolated missions, it's survive
wave after wave of tiny annoying fighters. Later in the game it turns
into 'survive wave after wave of battlecruisers'.

At least multiplayer is sort of fun.
Stephenls
2003-09-28 18:20:12 UTC
Permalink
Post by Louis Nick III
I'm glad someone agrees with me on this, not that I've looked high and
low or anything. I was about to uninstall it because I was having such
trouble with DVD playing that I thought DX9 plus the new Detonator
drivers were fux0ring my DVD player, but it's working now, so go figure.
I need a better computer. I suffer horrible chop even with all the
graphic options turned down as far as they can go.

For that matter, why aren't there more graphic options to turn down?

Of course, needing a new computer doesn't mean I'll be buying a new
computer. Just that over the next year I'll slowly lose the ability to
play new games. It doesn't really matter -- this one can read USENET
and browse forums and thanks to my TV card, I can use it to watch cable
and play console games.
Post by Louis Nick III
I'm on level three or so, and I'm losing terribly-- I think I need more
scouts, and the whole "build gun corvettes" deal is a red herring.
Killing Vagyr carriers is hard.
Damn, red herring? Multi-gun corvettes were so cool in the first one, too.

OTOH, I haven't built any scouts at all. Just interceptors and
corvettes, in groups of two interceptor squadrons and one gunship
squadron per strike group. It seems to work okay until the "defend the
shipyard" level (3?) at which point I stop being able to function. Too
much stuff going on at once, and it takes way too much effort. Better
to just switch on my XBox and play Halo on Easy.
Post by Louis Nick III
But man, Desert Combat is easy and fun, whereas Homeworld is hard and--
fun at times, not much more engrossing than Cataclysm, which I never
finished, was. ("WE...WILL...NOT...BE...BOUND!" *BOOM*)
I never finished either of the other Homeworld games, but at least I had
fun playing them. Especially the first one, thanks to the insane
cheapness that was salvage corvettes. Which, I see, Homeworld2 has
nerfed into uselessness.
Post by Louis Nick III
Oh well, maybe it'll come around, or maybe I will. Email me if you're
up for some hawt mothership-on-mothership action, Stephen, someday.
We're in the same timezone, and might even manage some decent pings;
only a hundred or so miles apart if I remember correctly. Just wait
until I've played a little more.
We should try this, yes.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"Go then. There are other worlds than these."
Louis Nick III
2003-09-29 06:27:19 UTC
Permalink
Post by Stephenls
I need a better computer. I suffer horrible chop even with all the
graphic options turned down as far as they can go.
I had some chop when ships are arriving or departing via hyperspace, but
upgrading to the latest nVidia drivers solved the problem. That said,
we all need better computers; I hope this PC will make it through
another season of holiday games before I have to upgrade something.
Post by Stephenls
For that matter, why aren't there more graphic options to turn down?
Probably because even basic visual effects use the 3-D accelerator,
things like missile trails, ship exhaust trails, bullets, etc. Plus
they don't want to shrink their new, mega-huge background bitmaps.
That, and they're so closely tied with graphics card companies like
nVidia (or ATI in the case of the upcoming Half-Life 2), they really
want you to spend $50 or $150 or $400 to upgrade to the latest chipset.
Post by Stephenls
Of course, needing a new computer doesn't mean I'll be buying a new
computer. Just that over the next year I'll slowly lose the ability to
play new games. It doesn't really matter -- this one can read USENET
and browse forums and thanks to my TV card, I can use it to watch cable
and play console games.
Well, getting a new computer doesn't mean throwing away your old
computer. I bought the one I'm using because 2 years ago (August 2001)
it met its match in the form of Max Payne, the first game I really
wanted whose minimum specs exceeded the abilities of my last PC's CPU.
But you could consider getting a cheap-side gamer box, like a micro-PC
that has an AGP slot for, say, a GF3 (what I have, which does the job
(just) at 1024x768x32) or GF4 (don't get MX!) and a PCI for an
affordable quality soundcard.
Post by Stephenls
Post by Louis Nick III
I'm on level three or so, and I'm losing terribly-- I think I need more
scouts, and the whole "build gun corvettes" deal is a red herring.
Killing Vagyr carriers is hard.
Damn, red herring? Multi-gun corvettes were so cool in the first one, too.
Well, I haven't tried it, but my corvettes take forever to build and
they're getting schooled every time any one of 3 carriers decides to
offload 4 groups of 5 fighters. I think scouts might be necessary to
handle the fighters (especially when they attack the "forward resource
area")
Post by Stephenls
OTOH, I haven't built any scouts at all. Just interceptors and
corvettes, in groups of two interceptor squadrons and one gunship
squadron per strike group. It seems to work okay until the "defend the
shipyard" level (3?) at which point I stop being able to function. Too
much stuff going on at once, and it takes way too much effort. Better
to just switch on my XBox and play Halo on Easy.
Yeah, that's exactly where I am, and exactly my problem. Something
tells me that I had this same thought about scouts with the original
Homeworld (or maybe it was Cataclysm), but whichever it was, worked-- I
got through Homeworld, and I got pretty far into Cataclysm, before I
realized that I wasn't using any of the cool new features that Barking
Dog had added, and therefore wasn't getting the game.

I called a gamer friend on the phone the other day, and we got to
talking about how hard games are lately, and came to the conclusion that
games aren't harder, but we're just downhill. BASTARDS! I'M JUST
TURNING 28! Maybe we should play more twitchily, like a console-trained
gamer.
Post by Stephenls
Post by Louis Nick III
But man, Desert Combat is easy and fun, whereas Homeworld is hard and--
fun at times, not much more engrossing than Cataclysm, which I never
finished, was. ("WE...WILL...NOT...BE...BOUND!" *BOOM*)
I never finished either of the other Homeworld games, but at least I had
fun playing them. Especially the first one, thanks to the insane
cheapness that was salvage corvettes. Which, I see, Homeworld2 has
nerfed into uselessness.
Man, salvage corvs were the coolest thing ever. I don't know if you got
as far as the original game's level 14, where you ahd to destroy a space
station that was preventing the mom-ship's hyperspace from taking you
all the way into Hiigara, but the whole level involved catching as many
ion frigates as you could manage with those things-- I think I got 40-
some when I hyperspaced out at the end. Super fun, even though it took
all day. (If you played as the side with the cloaking fighters, you
could skip all of that, but you'd be so far beyond screwed on the
following level, you'd just have to cry.)

-LAN3
swt
2003-09-30 00:31:17 UTC
Permalink
"Louis Nick III" <***@seanet.com> wrote in message news:***@news.seanet.com...
[...]
Post by Louis Nick III
Probably because even basic visual effects use the 3-D accelerator,
things like missile trails, ship exhaust trails, bullets, etc. Plus
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The subject line is true - Homeworld 2 *IS* exhausting!

[I have a sneaking suspicion that a pun that bad might have relegated me to
at least one killfile...call it a hunch. Call it... clairplonkitude...]

[..]
Post by Louis Nick III
I called a gamer friend on the phone the other day, and we got to
talking about how hard games are lately, and came to the conclusion that
games aren't harder, but we're just downhill.
PaH, I say, PaH! And fie! Video games aren't football, you don't peak at
25 and have a midway-to-midlife crisis. Many fine years of
universe-conquering, princess-saving, and head shots stretch ahead of you.
You just can't see how far they stretch ahead, due to bad pop-up artifacts.

Of course, I have little room to judge, because I was pathetically bad at
Homeworld, and whined and gave up after a few hours.

If all else fails, you can switch to games that don't require reflexes. I
bring this up only because we need more for our Age of Wonders circle.
Post by Louis Nick III
BASTARDS! I'M JUST
TURNING 28! Maybe we should play more twitchily, like a console-trained
gamer.
Maybe you should call the Nintendo hint-line, like a console-trained gamer!
Sometimes, when I'm drunk, I call them up late at night, and ask them what
in HELL the deal was with Milon's Secret Castle.

Actually, I don't do that. Because I don't drink. In part, because if I
did drink, I would do that.

I have fond memories of calling with a question about how to get the
grappling beam in Super Metroid. I had already gotten the x-ray scanner,
with a combination of ice shots, luck, and sheer determined cussedness. The
poor guy on the other end of the line failed his saving throw versus
Bogglement.
--
,, If I gave my heart...to you \ /
W () I'd have none and you'd...have two (oo)
|->< swt {***@hotmail.com} """"
| )(\ DID STEPHEN WILL TANNER EAT THE BANANA OF NOT BEING HERE?!?
Stephenls
2003-09-30 14:38:05 UTC
Permalink
Post by swt
I have fond memories of calling with a question about how to get the
grappling beam in Super Metroid. I had already gotten the x-ray scanner,
with a combination of ice shots, luck, and sheer determined cussedness. The
poor guy on the other end of the line failed his saving throw versus
Bogglement.
Heh. Super Metroid was great for collecting items out of order, it was!
--
Stephenls
Geek
"Go then. There are other worlds than these."
Stephenls
2003-09-30 14:46:22 UTC
Permalink
Post by Louis Nick III
I had some chop when ships are arriving or departing via hyperspace, but
upgrading to the latest nVidia drivers solved the problem. That said,
we all need better computers; I hope this PC will make it through
another season of holiday games before I have to upgrade something.
My video card is a GeForce4 MX 420, so I'm not exactly running top of
the line hardware. Also, this computer doesn't have an AGP slot, so
it's PCI.
Post by Louis Nick III
Probably because even basic visual effects use the 3-D accelerator,
things like missile trails, ship exhaust trails, bullets, etc. Plus
they don't want to shrink their new, mega-huge background bitmaps.
That, and they're so closely tied with graphics card companies like
nVidia (or ATI in the case of the upcoming Half-Life 2), they really
want you to spend $50 or $150 or $400 to upgrade to the latest chipset.
This is one theory that is cursed but probably true.
Post by Louis Nick III
Well, getting a new computer doesn't mean throwing away your old
computer. I bought the one I'm using because 2 years ago (August 2001)
it met its match in the form of Max Payne, the first game I really
wanted whose minimum specs exceeded the abilities of my last PC's CPU.
But you could consider getting a cheap-side gamer box, like a micro-PC
that has an AGP slot for, say, a GF3 (what I have, which does the job
(just) at 1024x768x32) or GF4 (don't get MX!) and a PCI for an
affordable quality soundcard.
One of the advantages of buying a new PC at the moment is that I can rip
components out of my old one -- there's nothing wrong with my 111 GB
hard drive, for example, or my TV card. But I really don't want to
spend multiple thousands of dollars until I have multiple thousands of
dollars to spend. I need to be able to pay for college.
Post by Louis Nick III
Well, I haven't tried it, but my corvettes take forever to build and
they're getting schooled every time any one of 3 carriers decides to
offload 4 groups of 5 fighters. I think scouts might be necessary to
handle the fighters (especially when they attack the "forward resource
area")
My "forward resource area" is thoroughly defensible, thanks to my set of
three squads of two interceptors and one gunship, plus my squad of five
bombers. I managed to collect EVERY SINGLE crew transport ship in the
previous level, so they gave me elite stuff.

It's more the carriers I'm having trouble with.
Post by Louis Nick III
Yeah, that's exactly where I am, and exactly my problem. Something
tells me that I had this same thought about scouts with the original
Homeworld (or maybe it was Cataclysm), but whichever it was, worked-- I
got through Homeworld, and I got pretty far into Cataclysm, before I
realized that I wasn't using any of the cool new features that Barking
Dog had added, and therefore wasn't getting the game.
I think Homeworld is better than Cataclysm. Cataclysm has a better
control scheme, though -- that's pretty much the only new feature I used.
Post by Louis Nick III
I called a gamer friend on the phone the other day, and we got to
talking about how hard games are lately, and came to the conclusion that
games aren't harder, but we're just downhill. BASTARDS! I'M JUST
TURNING 28! Maybe we should play more twitchily, like a console-trained
gamer.
He lies. LIES!
Post by Louis Nick III
Man, salvage corvs were the coolest thing ever. I don't know if you got
as far as the original game's level 14, where you ahd to destroy a space
station that was preventing the mom-ship's hyperspace from taking you
all the way into Hiigara, but the whole level involved catching as many
ion frigates as you could manage with those things-- I think I got 40-
some when I hyperspaced out at the end. Super fun, even though it took
all day. (If you played as the side with the cloaking fighters, you
could skip all of that, but you'd be so far beyond screwed on the
following level, you'd just have to cry.)
I don't remember that level, but I do remember the nebular level with
the damn multibeam corvettes. I stole six of those. They're fun.

The major problem with Homeworld is that levels have more enemies the
more ships you start the level with.
--
Stephenls
Geek
"Go then. There are other worlds than these."
Louis Nick III
2003-10-03 05:47:43 UTC
Permalink
Post by Stephenls
Post by Louis Nick III
I had some chop when ships are arriving or departing via hyperspace, but
upgrading to the latest nVidia drivers solved the problem. That said,
we all need better computers; I hope this PC will make it through
another season of holiday games before I have to upgrade something.
My video card is a GeForce4 MX 420, so I'm not exactly running top of
the line hardware. Also, this computer doesn't have an AGP slot, so
it's PCI.
Okay, well, you know what needs doing.
Post by Stephenls
One of the advantages of buying a new PC at the moment is that I can rip
components out of my old one -- there's nothing wrong with my 111 GB
hard drive, for example, or my TV card. But I really don't want to
spend multiple thousands of dollars until I have multiple thousands of
dollars to spend. I need to be able to pay for college.
And as long as you're saving for college, it's best that you don't get a
new PC, because it'll be harder for you to spend all of your studying
time playing new games. Instead, you'll play the classics like Half-
Life, X-Com, Dune2. That should cover the important genres.

THE REST OF THIS POST TELLS HOW I BEAT LEVEL 3, AND IF YOU WANT TO KEEP
THE CHALLENGE FOR YOURSELF, SKIP THE REST. IT DOES NOT, HOWEVER, SPOIL
THE COOL ENDING OF THE LEVEL.
Post by Stephenls
My "forward resource area" is thoroughly defensible, thanks to my set of
three squads of two interceptors and one gunship, plus my squad of five
bombers. I managed to collect EVERY SINGLE crew transport ship in the
previous level, so they gave me elite stuff.
It's more the carriers I'm having trouble with.
Ditto. Okay, I just got through this a minute ago, and I'm happy to
report that the end of the level gives you something spectacular, which
will draw your chin to the floor.

That said, I found it useful to sprint to the Forward Resource Area
(FRA) ignoring my previous advice, or more importantly moving the Mobile
Refinery to the FRA, which will trigger your ability to build mobile gun
platforms-- I found that sending 5 (or 6-- I lost track of one) of those
to the vicinity of the shipyard help to deter the fighters while corvs
could attack the infiltrator frigates and assault frigates. Gun
platforms are like probes-- once you send it somewhere, it goes there
and says there.

Even though the infiltrators didn't get much time to work on it, the
shipyard still fell to the Vagyr and required recapturing. It took all
4 (odd artificial limit!) Marine Frigates most of 4 minutes to recap, so
don't be sitting on your hands when the time comes to start building
those thing. Queue many, and it'll keep building until there's 4, and
start building again (I think) if one ship expires.

I don't know how I got all this together, but I used interceptors to
cover bombers, which attacked the carrier's frigate facility (center
carrier has fighter facility, other two have frigate facilities).
Bombers (5) destroyed one carrier in the process of attacking its
frigate facility, and quickly destroyed the other's frigate facility.
By this time, I ahd other thigns going on, and they started getting
messed up by fighters.

All this time I built groups of gunboats and pulsar gunboats,
alternating groups (or, say, two each and two). Lost all of my bombers
by the end of the level.

Also, I think I triggered somethign prematurely, because I didn't get to
build anything at the shipyard before jaw-dropping event started.
Post by Stephenls
I don't remember that level, but I do remember the nebular level with
the damn multibeam corvettes. I stole six of those. They're fun.
Oh, I had one of those once, but it got schooled on a later level.
Post by Stephenls
The major problem with Homeworld is that levels have more enemies the
more ships you start the level with.
Level 14's the one where you have to capture all-you-can-eat Ion
frigates, and Level 15 has basically one enemy. After that, 16 (final
level) is a piece of cake, as long as you split your forces a bit.
Considering I had a so-so good frame rate on a TNT card, you're probably
way ahead of the game with your GF4.

Also, worth noting that unofficial relic fan site www.relicnews.com has
"Walk-Thru" forums, containing one thread per level per game, for each
HW and HW2 (as well as Impossible Creatures, another Relic game, and
possibly but not certainly Cataclysm, which wasn't Relic's game.

-LAN3
Level 4 looks scary, tellyouwhut.
Teck
2003-10-04 11:12:30 UTC
Permalink
Post by Louis Nick III
-LAN3
Level 4 looks scary, tellyouwhut.
The second time through the game, it's actually much easier. In Level
3, I'd wrecked the enemy's production abilities, letting me build
marine frigates and hijacking all their pretty infiltrator frigates
and carriers, before blowing up the carriers and using the
infiltrators in Level 4 to capture everything in sight in the first
few minutes, including a nice Vaygr destroyer. Yummy.

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