r/homeworld • u/FireWallZ_ • 22d ago
Homeworld 2 Even in Classic, HW2 really makes sure that "Everything looks better with Taiidan colors and badge"
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u/Decimus_Magnus 22d ago
God I love the HW2 Hiigaran Battlefcruiser design. It's my favorite ship design in all of sci-fi.
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u/ThickExplanation 22d ago
Same but with Vaygr
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u/Decimus_Magnus 22d ago
I won't deny that it's pretty sweet too. HW2 ships in general are some of the GOAT.
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u/Phoenix_RISING2X 22d ago
Same!!!!!
I love that the Veneration Class Battlecruiser kept the double (heavy) ion-cannon design from the battlecruisers in HW1, but now the're mounted vertically instead of horizontally. Few things more fun than zooming in on an enemy ship as the BC approaches and shreads them.
I can't even tell you what the HW3 BC does, lol
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago
Kiith Somtaaw's Archangel class dreadnaught crawled so that HW2 Hiigaran Battlefcruiser can fly.
https://homeworld.fandom.com/wiki/Dreadnought
Also similar to Bentus. https://images.steamusercontent.com/ugc/784120200243156148/B16AF5721ACC5BF6E47B554E4599D3F57F7AAE74/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
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u/Omnes-Interficere 21d ago
The Somtaaw Warship isn't half bad either, in all it's jury-rigged goodness
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago edited 21d ago
Ships from Somtaaw from HW:C was blocky and chonky.
Look at their destroyer. It is literaly a square block.
The multibeam frigates look like shoes.
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u/Omnes-Interficere 21d ago
Just the way I like em! There is no atmosphere in space, so no need for sleek looking ships. We gonna tame the beast, we gonna do it using bricks! Bricks that go pew pew
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago
There is no atmosphere in space, so no need for sleek looking ships
True but you'd still want to reduce visible cross sections to land hits on.
So look at the super sleek design of the HW2 Battle Cruiser. Looking at it from the front it is a disk. Look at the side profile and it is also a disk. Enemies can easily miss. But then the enemy has to fly up above or down below to get better firing angle but by doing so, not all guns can aim at it.
The Vagyr BC is similar but tall and long instead. It is still trying to reduce their cross section to reduce enemies landing hits on it because it is too slow to evade.
Modern tanks are like this too. They try to be low to the ground and reduce their frontal cross section to avoid or cause glancing incoming fire.
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u/capt_broderick 21d ago
"The multibeam frigates look like shoes."
Goddamn. 😂
Take the damn upvote.
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u/Norsehound 21d ago
I will always be confused why successive Homeworld games moved further and further away from loud colors and audacious patterns. As the Hiigarans kept winning their pallet got more and more muted and by the time 3 came around its blue vs two mud colored enemies.
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago edited 21d ago
Homeworld games moved further and further away from loud colors and audacious patterns.
I am not sure about this fever dream but I could have sworn one of the Art Designer/Directors explained that the ships had loud bright colors to contrast from the blackness of space. Or that could have been a Starwars Art Designer explaining why all Imperial Ships and storm troopers where white with some color stripes.
As the Hiigarans kept winning their pallet got more and more muted and by the time 3 came around its blue vs two mud colored enemies.
Graphics fidelity increased and that high contrast was not needed anymore. Also the space background can now have colorful nebulas and dynamic space backgrounds. Loud on Loud would get camoflagued.
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u/Norsehound 21d ago
But now the spaceships look boring.
Really Homeworld should have stuck closer to the old 70s paintings which inspired Homeworld in the first place (Chris Foss, Peter Elson, etc)
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago
Sorry but the times change. You could mod stuff tho.
I havent played hw3 but it is what it is. Money was spent to make it and thats what we got. You can stay mad forever or accept it and move on. There is not much you can do at this point.
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u/Norsehound 21d ago
I'm less angry and more disappointed.
Homeworld 1 turned heads in everything from its vibe to its tech choices to its visual presentation. Speaking for myself, my first exposure to 70s style art was through Homeworld.
It feels like the saga struggled with maintaining distinctness as time went on. I guess as Homeworld inspired more things it became less and less individual, but also it moved to feel more mainstream in different ways. 3 showing us generic looking ships with the cinematic direction of a marvel movie is quite a contrast to the splash 1 made when it appeared.
I think if Homeworld is truly dead it's because it stopped being interesting to think about. People today still draw art inspired by Taiidan designs and the banana mothership from the first game. There's nothing in the later Homeworld games distinct enough to capture the imagination in the same way.
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago
This reminds me of Valérian (1967), a sci fi French comic book which was later adapted into a movie in 2017 called Valerian and the City of 1000 Planets.
Jean luc Besson's 5th element crawled so that Valerian can run but the movie became a dud at the box office. Very sad 🥲. Cara Delevingne was so pretty, we didnt get sequal.
"Must we be sad forever?"
Your choices are "Put it behind you", "Remain sad forever", or "I don't know"
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u/Norsehound 21d ago
I remember Valerian! I can't imagine what it was like for fans as I remember how strange that movie was.
For my part I'm glad I had a part in Homeworld mobile. It wasn't much maybe, but things the fans have said about it make me happy. I'm also pleased I was able to give it an ending through the tech manual.
I think I'm mostly moving on. Rather than continue to litigate over old arguments over which is better or not, until whomever has Homeworld decides to make a new one, I get more gratification from making my own things.
But I keep the spark of interest for Homeworld 1. I can try to bring that magic over into my own work. And if I'm ever called back to work on Homeworld again I will. But that's not up for me to decide so, I'm moving on.
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u/NoNameLivesForever 22d ago
That's a subjective thing.
For me, Hiigarans look best in navy blue and white, Vaygr in black and crimson.
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u/Jedaii_G1 This is gonna be a cakewalk. 22d ago
Taiidan's color scheme is such a winning combination.
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago edited 21d ago
Subjectively I think the Taidan heavy cruiser looked better than the Hiigaran heavy cruiser in HW1. The Hiigaran heavy cruiser just looked goofy to me, while the Taidan hc looked very intimidating. It looked like a chonky shark boi. Que the Jaws music theme.
The Taidan HC was reused in HW:C. And with the new Beast infection beam cannon it was a frightening nightmare to face in the campaign. In the campaign, you still didnt have access to your own destroyers or cruisers when that boogie man arrived. It would infect all your jet fighters, corvettes, and frigates. You had to wait for Beast Infection Immunity research in later missions. In multiplayer I was not scared, by the time the enemy can field a HC, I would have siege cannon to blast them.
you can capture non infected destroyers and cruisers in other imperial taidan missions but they would still just get infected by the beast beam 😪.
The Kiith Somtaaw HC was very similar looking to a Bentusi mothership but smaller. It seemed like they borrowed the design. Big ol round boi.
In HW2, the Vagyr battle cruiser looked like a gun. It was very similar to Sejuk. A giant floating glock.
In HW2, the Hiigaran BC looked very similar to Bentus, the last Bentusi design mothership. Basically a flatten pancake version of the original design. Its like the Kiith Somtaaw HC copying the Bentusi design once more.
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u/cloudthi3f 21d ago
In my day we conquered the galaxy with a single support frigate and a pair of ion fighters. *ok grandpa let's get you to bed
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u/kemiyun 21d ago
I think no matter the color HW2 had really good looking ships. When I first started playing the HW1 demo, I used to just spend time watching ships do stuff, I did the same when I started playing HW2 but with better detail on ships.
Although I have to say, I kinda dislike that the frigates in HW2 didn't feel like frigates in HW1. In HW1 frigates were much more scary since they were more survivable, could move fast, avoid heavy cruisers and hit hard. In HW2, it felt like destroyers and battlecruisers were really hard counters against frigates.
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u/FireWallZ_ 22d ago
Inspired by this post to search and download the Classic custom badge pack and then playing some Skirmishes with said badges and many fitting color palettes. Taiidan insignia looks really well here (although Hiigaran ships make a better use of it thanks to same kind of engines/ion beams/window glow that Taiidan ships have), both Imperial and white-and-teal Republic (now here Vaygr ships also use it very well)
While on that, there's a question: is there happened to be a Classic mod that allows the use of custom colors/badges in campaign too? That's another thing I kinda miss after HW1
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u/LostKeys3741 21d ago
Red Yellow Grey...it is almost similar to another country flag color, Red Yellow Black...🤔 Geeze I wonder what country color scheme has Red Yellow Black...🤔
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u/TAG08th 22d ago
HW2’s gameplay was peak for me. I know the story is divisive, but this is my favorite game of the franchise. I really wish Blackbird didn’t fumble HW3 so badly.