"Man I suck."
-DisgruntledApe
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| Homeworld br | | | Author: | | | IP: | static-4XXXX | | Date: | 02/03/01 06:02 | | Game Type: | Starcraft | | Labels: | Famous Reporter(1), Rare game(1), Great Writing(1), Problem: Broken Images(1) | | Report Rating: , # of Ratings: 1, Max: 9, Min: 9
Lifetime Rating for |]agomar: 8.6667 |  |
You know, I sometimes wonder how many people actually read this introduction moosh. Maybe 1 in 2. Certainly my friends would . . . wouldn't they? Actually . . . probably not. Make that 1 in 3.
Anywho, this br is bigger, better and cooler than the previous one. I realize the mistakes I made on that first one, and now here's the improvement. The screenshots are more descriptive of the action, and generally more dynamic, plus I have a better race, which is always good. I'm still waiting for a good Starcraft FFA to br . . . message me at dagomar@hotmail.com with the subject name "SC" if you want to participate. It'll have to be a on a desert map, due to the nature of the report ( see my latest Starcraft brs for more ).
One more thing. I am going to explain and describe everything in relentless detail, so Homeworld veterans may want to skip over those parts. Sorry to them, but I realize the majority of those at this site don't ( yet? ) play this game. I forgive you.
Pregame . . .
I stumbled into battle.net around 5:00 AM Thursday, Febuary the first, looking for a good game and searching for my friends. I found neither. Instead, I ended up smashing through walls and walls of sunkens a couple times, playing some crazy newbie who kept wanting to rematch me. I ended up cordially advizing him that yes, shockingly, tanks and reavers do indeed own sunken colonies. Badly. Apparantly he thought I was trying to make fun of him, so he amiably disced several seconds later.
I left in fury, throwing in my homeworld CD and simmering as the familiar blue screen materialized on my monitor. Skidding into WON several seconds later, I felt I'd come home to a fuzzy place of blue backgrounds, blured graphics and relentlessly talking strategists ( otherwise known as obsessed fanatics ). I blended in nicely with the others for some time, then decided I wanted to be an individual, and created a game. I spammed GameOverZ here on the forum, yet apparantly he took no notice, so I waited a bit until someone decently good appeared to challenge me.
"Hi," I said.
"Hi," he proclaimed.
We were getting off to a good start.
Early Game . . .
I suspect you read none of the above, which is good because the first morsels of useful information will be released here. Shadow warped in his gargauntuan Kushan mothership at the northern side of the map, while I, smurfing as TritontheBold, appeared as Taaidan around 6:00. The map was relay, a fairly simple yet rather nice battlefield, where the resources ( consisting of dust clouds and asteroids ) cluster both at the center of the map and initially near the motherships.
Let's kick the fires and lite the tires.
My plan was simple, yet strangely elegant. To make the screenshots on this br as spectacular as possible, I'd do the techline most prefered by newbies: 1) capitol ship drive 2) Capitol ship chassis 3) Ion frigates 4) Destroyers 5) Guided missiles 6) Cloak Generator. Oftentimes, this is an excellent recipe for defeat, yet I brushed such thoughts aside as I added another two harvesters to my initial resourcer, while constructing a research ship, along with 10 scouts for harrassment. Now what, you ask, is a research ship, and why build more than one? Simple, I say, in a bemused and lecturing tone. In order to progress to more advanced technologies in Homeworld you must research them at least one of the floating laboratories known as research ships. Many technologies open up others for research, and so you progress up the proverbial tech tree. There are far more technologies available in Homeworld than in Starcraft, but no upgrades available. Every additional research ship not only increases the aggregate armour of the entire facility, but also allows you to tech to multiple different areas at once ( you need 1 research ship for every technological goal ), or speed the pace of your current research. So, that's covered =)
Now I sent out a couple probes, about four, in a wide fan from my mothership. Probes are tiny little buggers, the smallest ships available, which can travel at a whopping 4000m/s ( compare that to 1000m/s for the scout ) and have rather powerful sensors. The downside is that since they can only move once; when they're in place, they stay in place. Their miniscule cost makes them excellent as early alert doppler radar ( you know what I mean ), or quick scouting of the enemy establishment. I always think it important to find your opponant early on; oftentimes you can know by his early units what type of tech he's advancing towards. Plus sometimes your probe remains undiscovered ( I like to fly it well above the enemy mothership, this way it usually remains unseen for longer periods of time ), or at other occassions you can scuttle right in the midst of intercepting scouts, sending both them and your probe to their dooms. Don't try that with the better players though; sphere formation owns this cunning little tactic.
In any case, one of my scouts quickly stumbled across his base, and was immediately destroyed. So fast I wasn't sure whether my foe was building interceptors or scouts. I decided to remain hopeful, and prayed it was the latter.
My research into capitol ship drive was now complete, so I could start constructing controllers and support frigates now. I believe I already explained what controllers were in my previous br, so if you can't remember or didn't read that particuar article, I'm afraid you're out of luck. Support frigates both repair your ships and refuel your strikecraft ( which are too small to generate their own fuel or something ), so they're useful things to have around. Plus they have one turreted gun, which does a decent amount of damage. I constructed one of these along with a controller, then pressed forward with my tech drive. Suddenly I received alert my forces were under attack. Startled, I whirled in upon the stricken probe from above, only to see a full 10 or so Interceptors slicing it to smithereens. Oh no.
Interceptors are nasty - at any stage of the game. A little fighter research and you've got em. Take a scout, which is basically a big engine and a little gun strapped onto some pitiful excuse for a hull ( very fragile ), make it a little slower, give it a weapon nearly twice as powerful and much tougher armour, up the price a bit ( from 35 to 55 ) and you have yourself an interceptor. Now even these craft are weak - but they can be produced in such massive quantities so quickly that they're always a threat. Him having interceptors before I had anything really useful to combat them was not very good.
I pumped out scouts like I was a bannana man from Jamaica, until I had a rather substancial fleet. Feeling confident, I continued my previous research - until two Interceptor swarms just smashed into my resource operation. Time to metal the rubber ( or something like that ) and use those scouts. Giving them a speed burst ( which ups their maximum velocities from 850m/s to 1000m/s ) I hurled them into battle. Scouts must be careful to continue using that burst against Interceptors, for it's really the only advantage they have against them.
What followed was a furious dogfight, offering both extreme doses of fun with equal loads of excitement. I guided my scouts, locked into Claw stance ( an excellent formation against larger vessels and also strikecraft to a slightly lesser extent ), to the first squadron of interceptors, which were arranged in X formation ( much the same as claw but a little more balanced ). I held my breath as I engaged the lower tip of the X, and scored my first kill. The fighters whirled about with bluring speed, and engaged my own. I moved ahead confidently, heavily outnumbering his craft, yet I had underestimated the power of those blasted Interceptors. They put up a mighty barrage of fire and enveloped my relatively stationary scouts with a Sphere formation. Now this - this was bad.
If the enemy encircles you with a sphere formation, he is bombarding you with a continuos stream of withering fire, without bothering to maneouver. This is particularly devastating when you have units as fragile as the lowly scout. Hence, soon it was down to 5 interceptors for him, 3 scouts for me. I tried to micro my way out of calamity, setting my scouts on evasive ( which gives every individual scout a distracting wingman and commands them to concentrate more with their own survival than destroying the enemy ) and giving them a speed burst, hoping to use my now superior velocities avoid the enemy guns and knock em out, one by one. It didn't exactly work that way. Soon enough, my entire scout wing, which earlier had boasted 20 fighters, was completely vaporized, while 4 enemies remained. Plus that other fleet of interceptors - it was totally unscathed. AND, worst of all, a full wing of bombers was easing into combat.
Attack Bombers are utterly lethal against capitol ships. They can oftentimes be the weapon against choice against any of these except missile destroyers or special frigates. With their devastating, lightning blue plasma bomblets, they do a full 8 times more damage than a scout, but cost 50 Resource Units ( RUs ) more. However, their bombs don't move fast enough to effectively bombard fighters, while their maneouverability is the same as a far larger corvette. In this case, with my fighter fleet gone, they were absolutely the last thing I wanted to see.
An assault frigate lumbered out of my mothership, but I wasn't too pleased to see it since it was as good as scrapmetal against those bombers. Assault frigates have a full five turrets, but these aren't fast enough to target fighters. Against corvettes, they're excellent, and they can hit bombers with some success, yet this lone capitol ship would do about as much good against the maruading enemy fighters as Hawk could do against a grizzly bear. Not all that much. Oh did I mention these frigates have dual plasma bomb launchers? Nice against capitol ships but brutal versus strikecraft.
I was about to give in to my fate when suddenly I remembered this deeply inspiring weight loss spam I recieved in my e-mail some days ago. "I LOVE YOU I DON'T WANT YOU TO DIE!!!!" is what it screamed out at me through my monitor, ( it went on to state that being fat means you die quicker ) and I was so compelled by this I just had to forward it to a couple friends ( including SlingsNArrows ) before I deleted its sorry hide. Someone out there didn't want me to die. Thinking of who that might be, I realized it was myself. I didn't want to die. Well, by golly, I wouldn't dissapoint myself like that. Furious, I initiated corvette chasis research as I sent a couple repair corvies out to fix my now double controllers, wading about in the resource-rich center of the map, under heavy fire from the enemy interceptors. One of my harvesters went with a thundrous eruption, yet I stayed focused, unlike I'm doing in this report, waiting to execute my revenge.
My research completed just as one of my controllers tilted to one side and blew itself to firey oblivion. I squealed in rage as I started construction of my first 5 light corvies. A light corvette is a very simple little craft. It has a single rather powerful little turret, which can track fighters very effectively. This coupled with its tough armour makes it an excellent anti-fighter weapon, until, at least, the multi-gun or heavy vette comes along. ( Sidenote here: anyone who has Homeworld, please throw out the Strategy Guide. It's about as accurate as the map of Mars I have hanging on my wall ). I often build light vettes even in the end game, for their superior speed makes them good escorts for raiding fighters. Corvettes are, by the way, the most versatile and useful ships in the game, if you ask me.
In any case, just as two more harvesters detonated in conjunction, I was finally ready with about 6 fighter-smashing corvies - against roughly 20 interceptors and another 8 bombers. Usually this is only a halfway fair match if those six corvettes are multiguns ( I'll explain what those are a little later ), but in this case I had the wrath of Mark4 behind me. Anything was possible.
I sent in my strikecraft. All the enemy ships were focusing fire on my last remaining controller, which, if destroyed, would allow my opponent to install a deadly siege against me. No more controller = all harvesters must travel to my mothership to deposit their resources = not good since there's a hoarde of strikecraft between the central asteroids and my base. The controller was being kept alive by three repair vettes, nonetheless it was slowly losing hitpoints and would soon detonate. My corvies, in a simple X formation, opened fire with a vengeance. First I slashed into the leading curve of the spherical Interceptor formation, all of whose member were still pelting away at that Controller. A critical flaw.
First one, then 2, then 5 Interceptors erupted in hurting yellow-white fireballs as I bore down upon them. Another 4 perished before my foe began to target me, yet I slashed another 2 before my first vessel exploded. Bombers were screaming in down upon me, and though most of their shots missed, those that hit were quite devastating. Another two of my already damaged Corvettes lost their lives before every last Interceptor was vanquished. My remaining vessels finished off the bombers with a single casualty, and I breathed a shuddering sigh of relief as the cold, dark space I called home was quiet once again. He pressed on towards my mothership and destroyed my research ships, there was no way I would've survived. Lucky me.
I constructed a couple new harvesters, while planning a devious counterstrike. I knew I was well behind now, but my against the odds victory had inspired me enough to keep on fighting. Surprisingly quickly I found a pompous-looking row of 11 corvettes all lined up infront of my mothership. Woohoo. I took these, arranged them in claw, and sent them screaming at where I'd last seen my foe's mothership. I also had a good 18 or so scouts, so I sent them along with my only two frigates to guard my Controller. I created another one of those, while continuing Corvette research, hoping to tech up to Salvage corvies. You should know what these are from my previous report, yet I'll explain it again here. A salvage vette steals enemy ships through use of force fields. It takes 1 to capture a strikecraft, 2 for a harvester or frigate, 3 for a controller or destroyer, 4 I believe for a Carrier and 5 for a Heavy Cruiser. Once a ship is clamped within the salvage forcefields, it becomes utterly helpless and can't fire. Hence, with proper distraction, salvage vettes can own any capitol ship fleet, even one composed of the vaunted missile destroyers.
Anyway, my light corvettes had come within sight of that towering enemy mothership, and what they saw was more than enough for me to order them back out again. A lumbering controller was just leaving, guarded by a sphere of the enemy's own light vettes. What's more, a couple Ion and assault frigates stood guard over the mothership, together with a load of mean-looking fighters. Bleh.
On my way back out, however, I stumbled upon a lone harvester, with an escort of about 5 or so light vettes. Now, as some of us know, quintuple vettes in sphere formation are not much of a match for 12 in claw. Five blindingly bright explosions later, my enemy discovered the same. Another harvester now rolled in to mine a nearby asteroid, escorted by another swarm of vettes. Feeling the force, I sent in my counterparts, swirling about to attack from the weakest side of the enemy formation. The enemies countered by diving in upon themselves to form an Evasive X stance, yet with them outgunned 2-1 and me not being a total fool, the final results were still quite obvious. Only a gosu like Fractal_Wave could beat me now.
Losing just one of my own craft I tore through the opposing vettes, just in time to glimpse that enemy Controller descending down through a dust cloud, its escorting corvettes aligning themselves to attack. I backed away - for now, pumping out a few assault frigates back home ( I'd need them against all these corvies ) while teching to Ion Cannons.
My group of corvettes was not through just yet, however. I spotted a harvester out of range of those escorting corvies, and opened fire with a wrath. Pummeled by my guns the wretched ship's armour began to buckle, and before it could reach the relative safety of the enemy vettes it detonated in a blaze of gaseous glory. Suddenly, emerging slowly against the cold, dark backdrop of space, I spotted my own Controller. It was only then that I realized we'd been drifting forward the whole time!
Well, so much the better. By now, I'd constructed 3 salvage vettes, so I sent these in as my assault frigate ( has anyone else noticed these these look almost exactly like rhinos? ) prepared to engage. My strategy was devious, and I convinced myself it would also be brilliant. I would attack first with my scouts, distracting the enemy vettes. The best thing for a corvette to do against a scout is to stay in the same place - there's not much damage the little fighters can do unless they come in vast swarms, and vette turrets can track any strikecraft with ease. The enemy corvies would thus stay still, but now I'd send in my assault frigate, supported by my own corvettes. About the worst thing a corvie can do against a frigate is to remain in the same place, and staying stationary is also rather disastrous against opposing vettes. I decided to try it.
First, my 18 or so scouts swooped in and engaged. My timing was a little off here as my own vettes arrived several seconds late. Hence, a couple light fighters were blown to bits until I opened up with my more powerful forces. As soon as I did, the swarm of escorting corvies simply crumpled, just in time to see my salvagers riding through the storm and lock onto their Controller.
I shifted off my assault frigate to destroy a mining harvester, as my vettes did the same to another resourcer and my scouts fended off frantic waves of fighter-based reinforcements. Soon enough, their numbers were down to 5, and I'd lost a single salvage vette. Breathing deep, I constructed another, and really there was only a minor delay before the hulking enemy support vessel could be towed in to my mothership. The two harvesters I'd been bombarding erupted in spectacular fireballs as the odd procession of dwarfed salvage vettes huddled around the massive alien Controller dissapeared from view.
I allowed myself a chuckle, knowing I'd now siezed the momentum. A little luck, and the game would be mine.
Mid Game . . .
Lined up majestically infront of my mothership were about 3 Ion Cannon frigates, another 3 assault frigates and a support frigate. I was just now building a Destroyer, and was advancing rapidly towards guided missiles. Most you don't know what an Ion firgate, let alone an Ion cannon, is - so here the explanation. An Ion frigate is basically one big Ion gun. As such, it is hideous against strikecraft, for its slow rate of turn allow such craft to easily evade any shots the capitol ship might throw at them. However, an Ion cannon does a simply staggering amount of damage per hit - it is the most powerful weapon found in Homeworld, and with a single hit it can both incinerate even the mightiest of corvettes and do tremendous damage against any vessel whatsover - even the huge mothership. Hence, to serve as the hard backbone of your capitol ship armada, these are rather useful. And they're tremendously cost effective against Missile Destroyers. But one other thing - they have no turrets, so anything that does can simply ease up broadside to an Ion frigate and fire in a perpendicular direction to the hull, maneouvering as you do so you can't attack back. So watch out.
What's a destroyer? Well, take two Ion Cannon frigates. Merge them together, and add two giant turrets. There you go. The turrets allow the destroyer to fire broadside, making the tactic discribed above almost worthless ( almost because the core of a destroyer's firepower is in its Ion Cannons ). What's more, those same turrets allow the destroyer to smash fighters in sphere formation, or even limited numbers of vettes. Destroyers are your premier capitol ship killers; they have speed and maneouverability approaching that of a frigate, plus are rather inexpensive to boot ( only 1350 RU ) considering the damage they can dish out. In most longer games, the Destroyer is usually balanced against the corvette for effectiveness - until somebody comes up and makes something better. Which you'll see later on.
Anyway, back on track. A couple minutes later, I really had quite the fleet - with that Destroyer as the flagship. I decided I'd reached critical mass, and ordered my hulking vessels to power up those engines and lumber away to the enemy mothership in a Wall stance.
I decided not to hyperspace - the cost would be too high ( only capitol ships can leap into hyperspace, but there's a price you pay for every Jump, which increases as ship sizes go up ), and besides, it wasn't exactly the largest of maps. I sent my now 17 vettes and 15 scouts ( I rebuild fast, thanx ) to guard my behemoths, while I ordered another 5 salvage vettes out as well, to see what they could steal. I'm too much a fan of capitol ships to make as many corvies as I probably should ( the same applies to Starcraft sometimes ), but at least I respect their strength, so I keep producing them throughout any match.
Slowly, I neared the opposing mothership. Tensions ran high, and occasionally I thought I could glimpse the fleeting trails of scouts. I really didn't know what the enemy had in store for me, only a couple miles away now. Could I expect to face masses of fighters, armadas of corvettes, thick minefields, flotillas of Destroyers - or maybe all of the above? I would know in several seconds.
Suddenly, two standard Destroyers, two missile destroyers, a couple frigates and hoardes of strikecraft appeared, looming infront of me. Aie. This was going to be something. Maybe even something that might generate a couple good screenshots. Ion cannons sizzled against a nebular backdrop as I attacked head on.
Just a minute, I almost forgot ;). A misisle destroyer is your friend, unless it's the enemy's, and then it really blows. Oh wait - too much armour for that, doesn't explode very easily. It really - well, it's really not nice. Missile Destroyers release hoardes of guided rockets, each of which do rather devastating damage, and rarely miss their targets. Every destroyer can carry 32 missiles at the same time, and each has a massive production facility deep within its big belly, where it constantly produces more. You can fire off all the missiles at once - which is good if you want to make a powerful first strike or exterminate hoardes of fighters all at once ( although some good players can dodge missiles rather effectively - I can only do is so-soishly ). These are among the best rounded units in the game, good against capitol ships and strikecraft alike. The best way to take one out is to either salvage it while distracting it with corvies ( fighters are too weak and will get owned quickly ), or smash it cleanly with Ion-bestowed capitol ships, which are quite cost effective against them. Got that? Now let's get back to the action.
I immediately targeted the leading missile destroyer with the full brunt of my powerful armada. The enemy vessels were probably not expecting company so soon, and they weren't in any kind of formation - one advantage I'd have. I steered clear of the missile destroyer with my strikecraft, instead targeting his swirling fighters ( apparantly he'd gone off vettes . . . hehe, wonder why ). Ion cannons blazed, turrets rolled about and opened fire, armour crumpled, corvettes detonated and fighters tumbled about, fires streaming from their engines. The pace was hectic, to say the least.
My frigates were taking massive damage, but suddenly the first enemy missile destroyer erupted in a brilliantly bright explosion. I looked about for the other one, only to realize that my foe had split aprt his forces while I was distracted with his missile destroyer, and was now flanking my formation from both sides. Oh shoot.
Visualize a wall for a moment. Say the way is made out of 9 units. If you're facing the wall, you're in the line of fire from all nine units. At the sides, it's only 3. Now you can see why flanking was a very, very good idea here. Of course, from the corners, it's only one . . . but we weren't good enough to try something like that yet.
Cursing wildly, I whirled my entire armada about to engage my foes, a cumbersome process with my capitol ships all rated as having very low maneouverbility. Ruining my formation I finally eased into the proper position, losing two assault frigates as I did. The flanking armada which included the missile destroyer lashed out as my ships, yet seeing both Destroyers distracted I ordered in my salvage team. Just as the missile destroyer was smashed in a deeply satisfying, roaring detonation, my tugs chugged up towards the far, far larger enemy destroyer, activated their forcefields and, straining against its 185, 000 ton weight, began to drag it back to my mothership.
Suddenly, something rather horrible happened. A full five of my emerald-green frigates, the core of my flotilla, exploded in a tremendous blast rivaled only by that of an erupting mothership. All five dreadnoughts jerked ahead and tilted upward as spreading flames engulfed their rears, eventually consuming all and engulfing five corvettes in the inferno. We both starred at the screen, dazed, and our forces seemed to pause for a moment. You're lucky I was facing in the right direction as this apocalypse sacked the greater majority of my fleet, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take these shots.
Anyway, I continued on. My survivng strikecraft had crushed his fighter opposition, and after all I'd just captured a standard destroyer ( anytime the stealing of a massive capitol ship is overshadowed you know something big has happened ). With my remaining fleet and still fully intact destroyer, I blasted his similar, yet larger, armada.
I managed to lay waste to his destroyer, and crush two of his frigates before another frigate came steaming out of his flagship and a couple of my last frigates bit the dust.
With my strikecraft under heavy fire, I sent them out, and rolled about my destroyer as Ion frigates sliced into its rear. What a battle - what a failure.
End Game . . .
Just now, I was creating a missile destroyer, as well as a carrier. A carrier is an enormous ship ( they just keep geting bigger don't they ). At three times a missile destroyer's weight ( 600,000 tons ) you'd think it's have some really big guns to boot. It doesn't. It is, however, perhaps the most unique ship in the game
Think of it as a mini-mothership ( mini being very relative here, lol ). A carrier is a number of things, one of those being that it's a production facility. You can build everything from scouts of Ion Cannon Frigates ( nothing larger ) within the mighty bowels of a Carrier, meaning that it's a great way to increase your productional capabilities. One of these ships can also act like a controller - it can dock with the dwarfed resource collecters, and therefore be the core of a mining operation. What's more, it has two rapid fire deck guns, which give it adequate protection against most strikecraft ( don't rely on it though ). Finally, and perhaps most importantly, it can keep strikecraft docked within it's titanic docking bay, just like the mothership. Now here it's getting complex. Just what exactly is a docking bay?
The Launch Manager is the way to access it. You can determine whether you want the strikecraft you build in a carrier or the mothership to stay inside it by selecting the "remain docked" button, or to immediately pop out as soon as they're finished ( by deselecting that same button ). Likewise, if you command a fighter or so outside the mothership to enter the docking bay, it will remain there unless you do not have the remain docked button activated. From the Launch manager, you can either order all ships of a certain kind ( say, only Defense Fighters ) to leave the Carrier, or you can select you ships to leave ( by clicking the Launch All button ), or you can even deselect that "remain docked" button, and your ships will fly out two by two. Got that? I suppose you can think of it as a flying Starport with guns and the capability to jump into hyperspace, plus the ability to carry within it 50 wraiths and 25 valks ( a carrier can hold 50 fighters and 25 corvettes ). Not too bad eh?
In this case, I wanted to have the ability to jump fighters about the map, thus increasing their mobility, and also desired to start a push towards the enemy base. A carrier, with all its myriad capabilities, it the perfect engine, or core, for such a push. And it better be, becaue the 2000 RU price tag is rather hefty.
Right now I was teching straight to heavy guns, and the heavy cruisers that come with it. Things would become a "little" hectic before I could get to that though.
I Jumped my Carrier to a nice spot about three fourths of the way between his mothership and mine, then started to create a fleet of bombers ( yes, I can make those now - I ordered one of my research ships to start working on bomb tech ) along with light corvettes, commanding those to remain docked. Meanwhile, I realized that the map was now completely mined out, and that the three harvesters steaming towards my mothership would deliver the very last load of cash. I began to retire my controllers, including my captured one, as well as those harvesters which weren't currently returning with resources.
Just then, my worthy foe enacted a triple strike upon me. First, a destroyer sailed down from the abyss, heading straight to my carrier. I stood my ground, even though my carrier was only about a third full, and decided to fight it out. I commanded what ships were ready within the docking bay to launch, and soon sent every last strikecraft out into a sphere formation about the big capitol.
This was to be a mistake, as I discovered later, but I was distracted from that realization by a monstrous missile destroyer which came bearing down upon my returning harvesters like a wolf upon sheep. A squaked a brief chirp of indignation, and kamikazeed a resourcer straight into the teeth of the destroyer, to buy time, while I frantically sent the full force of my fleet into battle. I also began construction of a titanic Heavy Cruiser, and concentrated on the two unfolding conflicts.
Suddenly, out of the black ( space isn't blue ) came a standard destroyer and two mean-looking Ion Cannon frigates, smashing straight into my mothership! More reinforcements were undoubtedly underway, yet I simply couldn't afford to return my main fleet to my mothership - I'd need at least one full harvester load to complete my cruiser, and one of my two surviving resourcers was already in the red.
Panicked, I tried to ignore the calamity unfolding at my main base, where my research ships were already being pummeled by nearly continuous Ion fire. My two destroyers and single missile destroyer sighted the opposing missile destroyer, and let loose a barrage of devastating proportions. The enemy battlewagon whirled about, perhaps to lead me away from my mothership, where my research craft were being utterly shattered.
Back at the Carrier, the enemy destroyer was putting up a display, smashing multiple strikecraft simultaneously with its powerful turrets and deadly Ion Cannons. It still didn't filter into my mind that sphere formation was suicidal for my attackers here - I suppose I need more practise.
My heavy cruiser was halfway done as both harvesters arrived and attempted to dock. The one suceeded, yet the other was brutally owned by Destroyer turret fire. My research ships just barely squeezed off defense field research before they detonated into blazing oblivion. Now the mothership was under the gun once again, and I wasn't sure if she'd survive. Oh well, I still had my carrier ( which can function as a mothership if the real one is destroyed, thus keeping you alive ) - oh wait it was under attack too. Great. At least I was repairing it with two repair vettes, and she was still in the green.
The one success story was with the enemy missile destroyer, which was sliced to smithereens by my own behemoths. Chuckling semi-happily ( I was still losing ) I sent the fleet over to my distant carrier. I couldn't hyperspace since I needed the money for my cruiser . . . which I bet would finish before my fleet could arrive back home anyway. If the mothership survived, of course.
The destroyer back at my carrier was having quite a romp. By now the doomship had crushed nearly every single attacking ship, with the help of a couple dirty little mine-laying corvettes. Mine corvettes are tough little corvies, being able to either create minefields ( their special function ) or attack regularly by simply dropping mines onto their foes. Since mines are very powerful against all manner of vessels, the couple supporting that enemy destroyer was doing tremendous damage. Only a couple of my brave strikecraft were left, battling against immense odds. But help would soon arrive.
Suddenly, back at my mothership, my heavy cruiser was complete! At 3700 resource units ( that's, what, 106 scouts? ) it was one big bundle of ownage. A Heavy Cruiser weighs 800,000 tons, has 6 heavy turrets each the size of an entire frigate, and wields not 2, not 3, but 4 big Ion Cannons, each blazing with superheated fury. Plus its armour is so strong, I once crushed a missile destroyer and its standard counterpart with the Kushan variant of the cruiser, just after having defeated 3 asault frigates - all while remaining well into the green. Needless to say, enemy go bye bye.
Or, in slightly more sophisticated language, the Kushan were caught utterly unprepared for the massive leviathan, the only ship that could come out of the mothership which could hinder their bombardment. With my mothership well into the yellow my titan tore into the destroyer, which soon took massive damage as its armour seemed to crumple backward upon itself. The frigates reeled back in confusion as my Ion cannons blazed, my cannons thundered and I lit up the surrounding space like a supernova.
Soon enough, the Kushan taskforce had been reduced to swirling ashes, and, smiling grimly, I ordered the sluggish cruiser over to my carrier, where, at this point, all hell had broken lose.
My destroyers tore into their counterpart, yet unbeknownst to me Shadow had cordially mined the area around my carrier, making me wonder whether he had researched Sensors ( which can detect every ship on the map - but not what type they are ). My captured destroyer suffered massive internal damage and soon erupted in a blaze of glory, before I managed to order my missile destroyer to clear out the minefield, letting my standard destroyer engage the already heavily damaged enemy. Soon enough I smashed his mining vettes, only to be counterattacked by a wing of defenders ( take a scout, make it slower, give it three more turreted guns and add a couple more layers of armour. Raise the price, and voila, you've got the defender, the toughest fighter in the game ). My missile destroyer was more than a match for this half-hearted attack, however, and soon enough all fighters were destroyed. I repaired my carrier as I continued to bombard the enemy capitol ship with everything I had.
Soon enough, the opposing ship detonated into firey oblivion, and I let loose a wild yelp of elation. Suddenly, my heavy cruiser, half way to the carrier, came across a destroyer steaming straight towards the mothership. I smashed it without too much difficulty, yet it is worth noting that if my enemy would've had this vessel with me to combat my cruiser, he probably wouldn't have lost.
Somehow, I had beaten off an assault that nearly destroyed my mothership, and now was marshalling my forces near the Carrier, preparing for the final offensive, the assault that woud make or break the game for me. I retired my last remaining harvester, as I watched the sole surviving strikecraft from the previous battle - a single interceptor - sail back into the mothership. Somehow, the moment was rather touching to me, so I thought I'd share it with you =).
I polished off a defense-field frigate at my carrier. These automatically deflect any incoming fire except for mines, Ion cannons and Missiles ( basically, only plasma bombs and turret fire ), and can be very useful against anything which has big turrtes, or any manner of strikecraft, which rely on them almost entirely. Field frigates are slow and not very maneouverable, and are a craft only the Taaidan can create ( the Kushan counterpart would be the drone frigate ). Here was my fleet at this point ( sans standard destroyer and field frigate ):
With the map utterly mined out, I retired every last ship except those I would definately need to attack my foe, in order to create 18 attack bombers at the Carrier. Sighing, I surveyed my forces, and sent them into battle.
A couple corvettes is the first thing I saw. These could have ruined my day regarding the bombers, but as it way they were easy prey for my missile destroyer, which tore them to shreds within seconds. My carrier's bombers began to undock as the last buffeting corvie was blown to smithereens.
As the enemy mothership shimmered into view, perhaps for the last time now, the full dimensions and nature of the defensive force became apparant. It was not very encouraging. A missile destroyer supported by a sizable fleet of frigates plus a number of corvettes opposed my own flotilla, ensuring that this would be a rather hard fought battle. Something looked, well, lumpy about the enemy corvies . . . I give them a second look, and spewed forth random jibberish for a couple seconds before I could stabalize my mental pathways. Multi-gun corvettes. Each one has five crippling little turrets, each of which can smash five strikecraft at the same time. In other words: man's best defense against fighters. Or bombers. So I couldn't use those until I killed the vettes, which would mean I wasn't hitting the enemy capitol ships, which would then get in a number of free shots. Life just isn't fair sometimes.
Nonetheless, it's livable. And worth living. So I targetted the corvies with my missile destroyer, while ripping into the enemy destroyer with my cruiser and remaining standard destroyer. My defense field frigate lumbered into position, but I couldn't use it against the corvettes yet as it was still a little whiles away. Space exploded into a frantic apocalypse as the epic final battle erupted across the now desolate landscape.
The corvettes were crushed and now I coud finally unleash my bombers, which quickly sacked a big Ion frigate as it desperately tried to return fire. The missile destroyer was obliterated in a brilliant explosion with the loss of one of my frigates, yet I didn't care that much, since the cruiser was really what mattered.
Some of the frigates now frantically tried to crush my carrier, shooting right through its front and into its docking bay with their Ion Cannons ( now that must be terrifying if you're inside ). Yet I stood firm, blasting them with my monstrous cruiser before they detonated, one by one. Finally, with heavy losses, I had prevailed. Only a couple of my bombers had survived ( explosions do a great deal of damage to fighters ), yet now, at last, I was through. All thanks to that weight loss spam. Go me.
A heavy cruiser has all the sizzling power of five Ion Cannon frigates, so it didn't take long before the mothership began to flame. We exchanged ggs as my cannons seared the surface of his flagship, and I graciously allowed him to flee in an escape pod while his armour disintigrated under my bombardment.
And there she goes, at last. The battle over this forgotten wasteland at the fringe of the galactic rim had finally ended, yet the casualties were high, and the damage great. Someday I might return here, to remember those that died for me today - in the meantime I'm off to join Nobody in Temptation Island.
Post Game . . .
Whew . . . what a game. As I write this I'm still on an adreneline rush from it, which is quite something for me. It seems the more I play Homeworld, the more I like it . . . GameOverZ, Fractal, derek - if you want to tech me a lesson in humility sometime ( ie wanna play ), just write me an e-mail at the address above.
I hope this br is better than the last one. The game took longer so it must be ;). Unless something unexpected occurs, the next report will be Starcraft, so if you like my style with SC, there's something to look forward to. Or participate in if you msg me.
Sorry . . . one last thing. There's a little favour I'd like to ask the Admin . . . I wrote two reports once that I'd be much obliged if you delete. One is called "Zerg vs Protoss on Dark Continent," written maybe a year back. I'd only like you to terminate the prepost, which recieved a five and was never deleted earlier. The real post got a 7 or 8 I believe. The other is my Birth of the Federation br. I never finished the report and hence it was never rated, but the game is horrible so please delete the post. Many thanks.
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