Homeworld Hints and Walkthrough

Okay, here's my short walkthrough for Homeworld.  The game is difficult at 
first, but once you figure out the "tricks", it's pretty easy.  Of course, I 
didn't learn the "tricks" until I was near the end of the game. Luckily, you can 
use this to help you beat the game easily.  There's only a couple of hard 
levels.


General Hints:

1) Enemy AI is very weak. Once they pick a target, they'll stick to it.
Use salvage corvettes once the enemy ship has locked on to one of your ships.

2) The mothership can heal itself pretty fast so don't be afraid to use her as 
decoy in the earlier levels.

3) Collect all resources after a scenario.

4) Remember formation.  Concentrating fire on a single capital ship is much more 
effective than concentrating fire on a small fleet of capital ships.

4) Always salvage whenever you can, but there is a limit.  I think it's thirty 
or so capital ships of any type.

5) If you don't have enough time to react, keep pressing the space bar to skip 
through the mission briefings because everything is in realtime here.

6) Use evasive tactics when moving your fleet, aggressive when attacking.

7) Salvage enemy collectors first since you're competing with them for RUs.

8) If you destroy all the fighters in a scenario, it means there's an enemy 
carrier without any fighter protection perfect for salvaging.

9) You tend to develop technology after you encounter it.  It's usually better 
just to salvage the enemy ships and their technology than to wait until you 
develop it.

10) Salvage whenever possible.  The cost for 12 salvage corvettes is about 2400 
RUs.  But with those corvettes, you can salvage 8000-10000 RUs worth of enemy 
ships.



Ship Hints:

1) Light and heavy corvettes are good against other corvettes and that's about 
it.

2) Multigun corvettes are good against other corvettes and fighters.

3) Destroyers are the best capital ships because of their speed/firepower.

4) Heavy cruisers sound good, but they're way too slow to keep up with an 
attacking fleet.  Pretty useless unless you get into a huge firefight.

5) Carriers are a must for any fleet.  They can take lots of damage and make 
great distractions for the enemy to attack.

6) Ion frigates are the best frigates for their firepower.

7) Assault frigates are good against other assault frigates and corvettes.

8) Drone frigates are good against space mines and enemy fighters.

9) Missle destroyers are great against smaller ships like corvettes and 
fighters.  But don't count on them against other capital ships because their 
firepower decreases greatly after an initial burst of missles.

10) You really only need one research ship because the only thing they require 
is time.

11) Mine laying corvettes are good against capital ships if you have a small 
contingent of them, otherwise, they'll just get wasted.



Walkthrough:  SPOILER WARNING!

Kharak System.  
This is like a short walkthrough.  Just follow the computer's instructions and 
you'll be fine.  Try to get the fighter formations down because you'll need them 
later.

Outskirts of Kharak.  
You'll get attacked by a bunch of fighters if you launch a probe.  Don't launch 
it.  Gather resources. After a while, you'll get attacked by a bunch of fighters 
(there's a timer).  Get your fighters in formation (I prefer claw) and beat 
them.  Afterwards, build as many salvage corvettes as you can. This is the key 
to winning the game.

Return to Kharak
You have to save those cryogenic trays.  Launch your fighters and destroy half 
the enemy ships.  Now salvage the remaining with your salvage corvettes. This 
way, you can add a little firepower to your fleet.  After the battle, salvage 
the remaining trays.  Be sure to harvest resources.

The Wastelands.
Trade with the Bentusi.  You'll get attacked by the enemy afterwards.  Have your 
salvage corvettes a little behind your mothership.  Enemy frigates will jump in 
and start attacking the mothership.  Use her as bait and salvage as many of 
those frigates as you can.  After you jump, you end up here again.  If you set 
your salvage corvettes to the side or beneath your mothership, you can salvage 
more ships that are headed for a direct attack on the mothership. Otherwise 
destroy them with your frigates that you captured from the previous misson.  Use 
claw formation for the frigates.

Diamond shoals.  This mission is tough.  Get your capital ships to one side of 
the asteroid field and have them destroy any that are headed for the mothership.  
Now is the time to use all your fighters.  Get into formation and take out the 
asteroids right infront of the mothership.  Look at the mothership from straight 
above to get your bearings.

Garden of Kadesh.
You'll get attacked after harvesting.  Can't change that.  Launch all fighters 
before harvesting and get into formation.  There's nothing to do here but last.  
They'll go after your collectors.  Take out enough enemy fighters, then attack 
the capital ship with everything you got.  It'll jump after awhile and reappear.  
Attack it again.  Then it'll disappear for good.
Now collect all the resources.  This is why it's called the Garden of Kadesh. 
Build the fleet up again with plenty of fighters.

Citadel of Kadesh.
Lots of enemies here.  Just try and last.  Don't stray from the mothership like 
the computer says.  Let them come to you.  Concentrate of the fighters first, 
then the capital ships.  After the battle, collect and rebuild your fighters.

Sea of Lost Souls.
Send in all of your salvage corvettes and one frigate (the one you don't need 
most).  Make sure you have at least eight salvage corvettes.  Lure the missle 
destroyer away with a small squadron of fighters while the rest of the fighters 
attack and destroy the ghost ship.  After the battle, salvage the rest of the 
fleet.

Super Nova Station
Send a resource controller and collector to gather resources at the asteroid 
field to the north of the mothership.  Then build a destroyer or two.  You can 
also build a carrier.  Now have them head for the first red dot in the line of 
red dots near the center of the screen.  Try to follow the dots since they kind 
of form a line, but you don't need to follow all of them exactly.  Watch out for 
the space mines.  You can try and build a controller as a decoy, but that won't 
last long.  The best thing to do is hit the mine layer corvette fast so it can't 
build anymore mines. When you reach the station, concentrate fire on the first 
capital ships you see.  Then take out the carrier immediately.  Launch all 
fighters to even up the fight and wipe the rest of the enemy forces.  Forget 
salvaging.  The space you have to fight in is too small and the only thing you 
can really salvage is the cruiser, but you'll have to drag that thing back to 
the mothership though the supernova.

Tenhauser Gate
I don't remember anything about this part so it musn't been very difficult.  If 
someone could help me out here.  But when all else fails, use some ship as a 
decoy and salvage whatever you can.  I think the Bentusi get attacked here. Help 
them out.  That's about it.

Galactic Core
You must save an enemy destroyer.  So do it. It's not difficult because the 
enemy will be concentrating their firepower of the mothership/destroyer you have 
to save. I believe you can salvage some destroyers here, but I forgot.

The Karos Graveyard
Tricky level.  Use all your fighters to reach the ship at the other end of the 
screen.  Fight your way through the autoguns.  That's it.  If you send in any 
captial ship or even a collector, and enemy salvage corvette will get it. I've 
never been able to destroy that thing even with the combined firepower of the 
entire fleet.  You can destroy the jump gates, but there's too many and you can 
only collect about a 1000 RUs.

Bridge of Sighs
My favorite level.  You're outgunned a hundred to one.  I'm not kidding.  Then 
enemy fleet is surrounding the core jump gate that you have to destroy and 
there's over a hundred of them.  Don't worry, they won't attack until you 
attack.  This level took me a day to finish, mainly because this is where you 
can salvage most of your fleet.  Use a couple of light corvettes as decoy and 
lure a portion of the enemy fleet towards you.  Build as many salvage corvettes 
as you can.  While their busy attacking the corvettes, salvage as many ion 
frigates as you can.  Have all your fighters close by because there are always 
more enemy ion frigates than you can handle.  By now, you should have one or two 
carriers close by so the ships can be converted without having to go all the way 
back to the mothership.  Repeat a couple of times until you have thirty or so 
enemy ion frigates.  That will be your attack fleet.  Gather your fleet near the 
enemy's fleet and a new scenario will activate.  You must destroy three jump 
gates.  Have all your capital ships attack one.  There'll be a couple of 
destroyers in your way.  Salvage them by using the fleet as a decoy.  Repeat 
this for the other gates.  Now you should have ten or more destroyers and a 
couple of missle destroyers.  Now you can take out some of the enemy ion 
frigates.  You can't salvage anymore and everytime you try launching your 
salvage corvettes, an enemy destroyer will uncloak and attack them. Launch all 
fighters and attack the cloaking enemy fleet.  It's kind of difficult.  They 
keep cloaking when you're near so move the fighters away from them and they'll 
uncloak.  Immediately attack the cloak generators.  Forget the destroyers.  
Afterwards, dock your fighters.  They're through for now.  Use the rest of the 
fleet as decoy and salvage those remaining destroyers.  Destroy the rest of the 
ion frigates until they all start running from your fleet.  Then salvage all the 
ships near the main jump gate, then destroy it.  If you run out of salvage 
corvettes, then don't be afraid to retire a carrier/resource controller.  You'll 
get them back by salvaging when all of this is over.

You can't jump now.  It's decision time.  You can retire all your useless ships 
including any carriers you don't need, or you can save everybody.  If you don't 
retire any ships, it might be difficult to control your fleet in the next 
scenarios and you won't need any of them anyway.  Build as many bombers and 
light/heavy/multigun corvettes as possible.  Make sure you have as many 
destroyers as possible too.

Chapel Perilous
You have to stop a giant asteroid headed for the mothership.  Group all your 
capital ships infront of your mothership and attack that asteroid.  Don't send 
your carrier in because it doesn't have enough firepower and all your fighters 
will be wiped out by that asteroid. Afterwards, you can jump out immediately 
while still engaging the enemy fleet.  I just jumped because I already have 
enough ships and I didn't want to salvage/lose anymore.

Hilgara.
This is the final level.  There's resources, but if you have thirty or so ion 
frigates and fifteen or so destroyers, you won't need them.  All you have to do 
is last out until the enemy fleets stop jumping in.  When you first jump in, 
you'll be attacked by an enemy fleet.  You have to marshall your forces, which 
might be difficult if you have too many different kinds of ships.  If all else 
fails, hit space bar when the game jumps into the mission briefing since it 
takes some time away from you.  Afterwards, try to lure the enemy fleets in by 
moving your captial ships away from the mothership and then moving them back 
quickly.  After a while, the your some friends will jump in and help you beat 
the enemy mothership.  Just follow them.  Cut through the enemy fleet and 
destroy the mothership.  That's it!  Your done!


By Jimmy Johnson
[email protected]
http://trademystuff.com/giveaway/index.html