A Homeworld Play guide vr. 1.8 (10/26/99)

Played in the 'C' key, fifth measure.

Written, directed, edited, starring in, and catered by; Conskill 
([email protected]).

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Table of Contents:

Introduction
Updates
What's New
Corvettes, and Strike Crafts, and Frigates, oh my!
General Rants
Level specific rants.
Contributor information
Disclaimer

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Introduction:

Welcome to a completely genuine, artifical FAQ. Browsing through GameFAQs the 
other day, I noticed a rather stunning lack of anything Homeworld oriented. 
Given it is a rather complex, hot new game, I figured someone with far more free 
time then I would have written something up by now.

Apparently of all people, I have the less of a social life. That being the case, 
this completely unprofessional and highly opinionated FAQ should suffice. I'll 
probably be taking it down once someone that actually knows how to write one of 
these things gets off their behinds and does it, so enjoy it while it lasts.

Like most FAQs, I will fail to answer any questions, no matter how frequently 
they've been asked. Instead I'll give strategies for each level, my personal 
tactics, and a other myriad of stuff you probably don't really care about. Also 
note that I am writing this as I go along. Do not expect completely enlightened 
tactical advise from a Kushan sage on the mountain.

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Updates: 

1.0 - FAQ created
1.1 - And on the .1 day, he rested.
1.2 - Numerous spelling errors corrected.
1.3 - Numerous grammar errors put in.
1.4 - Added Tenhauser Gate and Galactic Core levels, fixed a few spelling and 
level name errors (Hiigara, not Higarra, Hiigara...)
1.5 - First batch of reader contributions added, as well as a What's New section 
for stuff I can't put to bullet point.
1.6 - More reader contributions added. Minor change to Salvage Corvette listing. 
Major change to What's New (yes, this is a hint).
1.7 - Updated Ships, Kharak System and Outskirts of Kharak System level.
1.8 - Updated Ships, General Tactics, and Great Wastelands (prt 2) level. New 
large helping of reader contributions put in.
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What's New:

Nothing much to rant about this time. Specifics of the contributions include 
additions to almost every level up to the Galactic Core level, as well as a 
interesting tidbit for changing your color schemes in the Ships area *and* a 
long addition to the General Tactics (by the same writer, no less). 

As a small reminder, I still am writing as I go. I try to save all tips/tricks I 
get for levels past where I am now, but I do not read them untill I am at that 
point. Sorry for the selfishness, but I'm trying not to spoil my own fun *too* 
much. ;)

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Ships (or; Used Starship Salesmen's Bluebook)

The Taiidan arn't *that* bad.

Despite what I've said earlier, I realized why the Taiidan Mothership was 
horrific to the eye; whoever paints the Taiidan fleet should have a serious 
discussion with the business end of a Ion Frigate. Given custom colors, the 
Taiidan fleet types look pretty neat, all told. However, since I'm playing the 
Kushan fleet at this time, I'll only list those. Submissions are accepted for 
Taiidan craft and 'third party' (Guardian, Raider, ect) that can be captured.

FuSchnick reminds: "The size of the "effect" area for field frigates, grav-well 
generators, cloak generators, and proximity sensors can all be seen with the 
tactical overlay (CAPS-LOCK)."

For the hex-nerd in all of us, Warith gives: "Want to change your ship colours 
directly?  Get a good hex editor like Hex Workshop (shareware) and load up your 
save game file.  Offset 212 (0xD4) contains the 3-byte RGB code for your ship 
colour (and exhaust trails)  You can even enter in 00 00 00 and your ships will 
be dark grey, with NO exhaust trails!  Pretty good for stealthy multiplayer 
games.  Offset 224 contains the stripe colour, once again in standard 3-byte RGB 
format.  Note:  I've only tried this on Single Player saved games, but I would 
bet money the structure for every type of save game is practically identical."



Scout: Scouts are fairly decent fighters, striken with two majors blows. First, 
their special ability ("Afterburners") seem to have absolutely no effect. 
Second, Interceptors cost only 20 more RU, and are aviliable 7 minutes into the 
game. Scouts never have the time to shine before something better comes their 
way.



Interceptor: Something better. It's slower then the Scout, but not by much. In 
raw speed's place is more firepower and the ability to survive being hit. Even 
to this point, the Interceptor remains a backbone in my fighting forces.



Defender: I tried to like this craft. Really. I'd group 'um, have them guard 
various ships in various formations. This way, they looked kinda pretty when 
doing nothing. I tried using it as a heavy point-blank interceptor. This way, 
they looked kinda pretty when running out of fuel. These things have to stretch 
their engines just to outrace a Destroyer, and that's a bit too slow for 
practical application.



Attack Bomber: Aside from it's depressing tendency to blow up, the attack bomber 
is a fairly decent craft. While in later levels the sheer flack running around 
makes using them for heavy assaults expensive, given sufficient cover they are 
able to take down Destroyer and smaller capital ships by themselves. The slow 
speed of building (compared to other fighters) makes replenishing them after the 
battle a pain, though.



Light Corvette: The Scout of the corvette family.



Heavy Corvette: The Interceptor of the corvette family. More useful then the 
Light version, but only until the attack bomber becomes available for purchase 
at your local Mothership-Mart. On a related note, these are nice targets for 
your attack bombers.

FuSchnick gives a better (and bigger) opinion of the Heavy Corvette: "Good 
against cap-ships because they have a decent punch (more than the piddly 
fighters) while still being decently mobile (enough so to avoid most cap-ship 
weapons).  Corvettes in general are better against cap-ships because, unlike 
fighters, they can actually "hover" in one spot or in circles around their 
target, whereas fighters make "passes" (I don't know why, being space ships and 
all, they shouldn't HAVE to move forward all the time).  A big squad of 
corvettes set to "evasive" tactics will actually circle around a cap ship that 
they are attacking, like Indians around a circle of wagons.  The cap-ships have 
a hella hard time hitting them back.  Heavy corvettes are only so-so against 
fighters... they have a hard time hitting them, but they have a LOT more armor, 
so they survive a long time against fighters.  Corvettes are also susceptible to 
the grav-well generator's effects."



Repair Corvette: Am I the only one who never used these? By the time I had the 
pressing need to keep my strike craft in long battles, the Support Frigate had 
already made it's way into my heart. Aside from it being replaced too early, it 
would be useful if a strike craft had a dire need for a drink, though refueling 
entire squadrons from one would be impractical.



Salvage Corvette: Far, far to many people to credit offered me suggestions on 
this one. Alright, I was wrong. In fact, almost stupidly wrong. Many people have 
come forward to remind me of one insanely useful thing for the SCs; they can 
capture most any enemy craft, no cost, adding it to your fleet. 

Ripped from the readme file itself, here are the number of corvettes needed to 
capture each thing that needs more then one: 

Any Frigate = 2 SCs 
Any Destroyer = 3 SCs 
Heavy Cruiser = 5 SCs 
Carrier = 5 SCs



Multi-Gun Corvette: I have them available, but I have yet to play with these to 
a serious degree.

Koensayr offers the following; "The cool thing about multiguns is their guns can 
actually hit enemy scouts and interceptors, whereas the slow-arse rate of turn 
on your assault frigates means they are only really useful against opposing 
corvettes and capitals."

FuSchnick agreed and expands on the concept: "These are great against fighters, 
because they can track multiple targets at once, and have good coverage. The 
Multi-Guns do much better than heavy corvettes against fighters, but do slightly 
worse against cap-ships, because they have slightly less total firepower."



Minelayer Corvette: Ditto.

Mark Harrison's opinion on the Minelayer: "Minelayers are deadly. Five 
minelayers will generate a field (after 5 minutes) that'll anihilate at least 4 
assault frigates."



Assault Frigate: I actually like these better then Ion Cannons. Though that 
isn't saying much. Whenever I needed extra punch, I brought one of these along. 
The extra coverage (compared to it's bigger, energy based brother) means it has 
a chance against a wandering scout looking for some fun.



Ion Cannon Frigate: Better, in terms of firepower, then the Assault Frigate. 
However it is extremely simple to destroy. There's no denying that they're fun, 
though. It's like a nice toy; fun to use, but impractical.



Support Frigate: Until the day you're blessed with a carrier, this is as close 
to a mobile base that you'll get. Plop it down a small distance from where you 
want your strike craft to go party, and have them refuel. It is not a craft to 
take into battle, though, unless you're looking for a sacrificial lamb to throw 
onto the fire.



Drone Frigate: In the mid/later levels, if I want to use a Frigate, I use a 
Drone Frigate. It's all around better then the other offense minded ones, except 
for cost. Does anyone know what those drones do, by the way? The manual claims 
that it gives 'superb protection against fighters', though my drone frigates 
tend to burn just as easily as my Scouts.

Mark Harrison informs: "The drone frigate basically has a buncha-defender guns 
in sphere formation. they mince small fighters."



Destroyer: The first cap ship I started taking seriously. Once you have two or 
three of these, you can almost keep your fighter bombers at home. Twin lasers, 
and more then enough conventual firepower besides. As long as you keep their 
skies clear, they'll take care of other cap ships themselves.



Missile Destroyer: Impressive, if a tad unwieldy. A full salvo attack will 
utterly destroy most frigates, and even bug another destroyer. Keep these to the 
sides instead of the rear, though, you can (and will) hit your own ships with 
those missiles. This is also great to use against swarms of strike craft.

FuSchnick adds: "These are ABSOLUTE death to strike craft.  Fighters and 
corvettes absolutely cannot maintain any kind of assault if there is a missile 
destroyer nearby.  They are fast enough to flee from it, and that is about their 
only option.  The missile destroyer is not really powerful enough to assault 
other cap-ships on its own (it isn't bad, but other ships are a lot better).  
The missiles themselves do not do a great deal of damage, but the tracking 
ability makes them much more likely to hit fighters than other cap ship weapons, 
and the damage is high enough to down interceptors with just two or three hits.  
The missile destroyer will track multiple targets, and fires 4 missiles at a 
time roughly every 0.5 seconds or so, until it depletes its reserves, then it 
spits them out at about half that rate. Grav-well generators do not affect the 
missiles."



Carrier: Mini-Mothership. These take a insane amount of time to build, but is 
worth every second if you plan on taking actions away from your Mothership. 
Serving as a Resource Controller, a huge Support Frigate, a manufacturing plant, 
and a nice slab of armor. A Carrier under a few destroyer's escorts can head to 
a pocket of resources, mine it dry, cannibalize it's collector, build it's own 
assault fleet, and obliterate a target handily.



Mothership: It's about as graceful as a orca (or, for Taiidan version, a 
autistic speech giver), and just as fat. Extremely impressive armor, but it's 
firepower comprises of a few pea shooters Fleet Command fires when she is bored. 
Don't count on her defending herself, but she is able to absorb quite a few ion 
blasts before exploding.

Mark Harrison found he was unable to capture hyperspace inhibitors (which show 
up as Motherships). I'm willing to bet this is a trait common with all 
Motherships (sadly, the joy of having mobile, expendable Motherships must be 
reserved for multiplayer only).



Resource Collector: I can't say much sarcastically about such a vital thing. It 
would be like trying to insult my foot. They're defenseless, but relatively 
strong. They scoop up galactic litter, and as a bonus can serve as a re fueler.



Resource Controller: A absolute must for the impatient among us. An even better 
re fueler, and a place for resource collectors to drop off their ill-gotten 
gains. For the fastest possible mineral recovery, try having a controller for 
every collector, and having each controller guard a collector.



Probe: The pen-ultimate sacrificial lamb. Aside from going really, really fast, 
it does absolutely nothing special. However, it is cheap, and the speed allows 
it to quickly trigger those events that result in death of the thing 
investigating.



Grav Well Generator: Fun toy. With it you could almost totally forget ever 
making strike craft again. When it's special is activated, all enemy strike 
craft in range lose control, momentum (except for their inertia), and firing 
control. Add a destroyer or Missile Destroyer for spice, and you'll be taking 
out squadrons easily. Note that when the generator goes down, it stays down 
permanently (retire it), and it effects your craft just as well.



Proximity Sensor: If you want to probe something, use this instead. Being 
actually reusable helps. Slower then the probe (but tying Scouts as second 
fastest craft), but it can also detect cloaked ships.



Research Ship: Not as totally vital as it seems. Most research projects get 
learned through the course of a level even if you have just one of these. Still, 
it allows you to speed up the process, and adding more makes it a viable slab of 
armor.



Heavy Cruiser: Simply huge. They take a insane amount of time to build, a huge 
amount of RUs to build, and you come out with the largest fighting machine 
available to you. There's no doubting the sheer firepower on the thing, however 
the cost is sometimes a bit too much. If you want them, you might be better of 
trying to capture yourself one (or two, or four...).

Jon Lauridsen gives a warning about trying to capture Heavy Cruisers: "Enemy 
Heavy Cruisers apparently has a built-in fear for Salvage units, because as soon 
as they spot them they drop anything they're doing and begin fireing it's rather 
deadly and precise beam-wepons. It can in a matter of seconds turn your mighty 
salvage-fleet into something quite pulpy and redish. And this piece of advice 
should also go with the notion that a Heavy Cruiser doesn't really turn THAT 
slowly. Even if attacked from the side it might still be able to turn towards 
the Salvages."



Multi-Beam Frigate: It's not Kushan, but you might start adopting them into the 
family once you see them. They combine the power of four ion-beams into one 
(relatively) small ship. The set back is that they are relatively inaccurate, 
'raking' the lasers instead of the pin-point action of the Ion Frigates.

Webrunner found a good use for the inherent weakness of the frigate: "Multibeam 
Frigates even work against *fighters*... they essentially end up 'combing' the 
area and raking up some dead things."



Field Frigates: It's a Taiidan ship, so I havn't touched it. However, yet again 
proving that he should be writing a play guide about this game instead of me, 
FuSchnick gives the following.

"A field frigate has a protective sphere around it, in which about 80% of small 
arms fire gets stopped.  Small-arms mainly includes fighter and corvette 
projectiles.  It does not stop missiles, ion beams, or mines.  The field frigate 
itself has no weapons, it is only a support ship.  The biggest problem with it 
is that it is really hard to get it into a formation where it actually keeps a 
few other ships within its sphere.  If the field frigate is in any kind of 
formation with other cap-ships, it will barely keep two other ships at most 
within the protective area (you can see the size of the area with the tactical 
overlay, hit CAPS-LOCK, it ain't big!).  A field frigate may increase the 
lifespan of one or two destroyers vs enemy strike craft, but won't help much in 
a cap vs cap battle."
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General Tactics (or; Mutually Assured Destruction for Dummies)

Before going on, realize these tactics are extremely blunt. I'm not the person 
to ask for when you want a graceful, tactical domination. I follow the Zapp 
Branagin method of combat: When confronted with a hoard of rampaging killbots, 
send wave after wave of men until they reach their kill limit.

That said, for the first half of the game my attack force was pretty much 
consisted of twenty interceptors and twenty bombers, with needed support. Though 
it seems relatively base, having your interceptors intercept and your attack 
bombers attack really does work. Heavy Corvettes are suitable replacements for 
bombers in the early levels.

Since the Mothership tends to attract enemy capital ships like a hick to a 
broken down car, I keep most of my heavy hitters with her until such time as I 
need them. I've found that the times the Mothership has been swarmed with 
fighters, my interceptors were close enough in hand to act as a mob up squad.

Once you get the destroyer, you can start actually orchestrating cap ship 
battles that don't end in costly replacements. Even better is your Gravity Well 
generator. So long as you keep a carrier close by to buy you replacements, 
you'll never have to worry about a squadron of annoying flies bugging your 
beautiful things anymore.

Most of the time in Homeworld, a offensive shield is your best defense. If your 
opponent is busy trying to stave away your thrust, they won't have time to do 
one of their own. However, certain scripted events cause this to go flat (level 
4 comes to mind in sharp, bitter detail).

Remember that you can repair cap ships with a support frigate. Even in combat. 
Also remember that most ships will gun after the biggest ship present in the 
melee. This makes bringing along your carrier, with three green-beam spouting 
support frigates in tow, a interesting bait.

The most important tactic I can give you, though, is to keep your liquid 
resources high. Each situation is different, and will require different ships 
and means. This isn't to even mention the embarrassment of not being able to pay 
for a Bentusi tech advance. Some levels you'll desperately need that fourth 
destroyer, other times having anything larger then a corvette in the air is 
anathema. Be prepared to change tactics, and keep your 'core fleet' (the group 
you always have with you) light and diverse.

There are also two exploitable bugs in the game that you can use if you feel 
particularly sneaky. Both of these happened in my version (1.0), and are not 
guranteed to work, as I can not be sure what celestral alingment causes them to 
always work;

A- The AI tailors your opponent to your level. "Return to Kharak" is the best 
way to test this. Jump in with a small fleet, and you'll only face two frigates. 
Jump in with a armada, and you'll face four. Note that I believe this only goes 
by your fleet size, not your RUs.

B- Mines seem to be lost in save games. If your stuck trying to go through an 
inpenterable mine field, save and reload. The minelayer corvette (if it's still 
there) should be sitting in a void.

Warith has a large group of opinions about the use of strike craft. In order to 
preserve sanity, I present the entire below, no trimming down:

The best formation for strike craft in general melee dogfighting is the X-
formation, this allows both for concentrated firepower and maneuverability.  I 
also usually go for evasive tactics in a dogfight, as your fighters will split 
into two-man teams, which allows them to deftly weave and dodge through capital 
ship fire like nobody's business.

The best strike craft assault formation (for taking out a single target) is the 
Claw, with Aggressive tactics.  This makes a deadly cone-shaped kill zone in 
front of your group, which focuses on your target.  Don't use more than about 30 
fighters in this form though or it becomes too enlongated to be effective.

My favourite strike force is a carrier with a sphere of proximity sensors, with 
the carrier set to guard my wall formation of capital ships.  I like to keep a 
half dozen repair corvettes docked inside my carrier.  Any of your capital ships 
get in the yellow, pull them back to your carrier, release the RCs and let em 
loose.  As soon as I get missile destroyers, I completely dispense with fighters 
except for special high-speed hit and fade attacks.
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Level specific tactics (or; From Here to Hiigara)

My rants, thoughts, and advise pertaining to each level. Spoiler alert, kiddies. 
For my own ease of writing, I will fail to do any alerts and such if it helps 
get a point across. Don't read beyond what you think you need.



Kharak System:
Nice enough introduction sequence, though the starting fleet is ghastly small. 
Do everything Fleet Intel tells you, and you'll do peachy. One word of advise, 
however; don't use 'Aggressive' when testing tactics. For some reason the scout 
pilots have a tendency to slam into the drones when they're blood lusting. 
(Note- Replaying through this level a few times, using 'Agressive' on all of 
them, I didn't suffer any Scout losses these times. Anyone want to take a swing 
at why it happened?)



Outskirts of Kharak System:
This is a fun level. If you do it correctly, you can more then triple your 
current fleet and suffer the loss of only 2 craft, given probability is on your 
side.

Get your harvester harvesting, and scrap your scouts. Do not send a probe to the 
Khar-Selim. Eventually, your harvesters will trigger the event, and by that time 
you'll have built up a fleet to your desires.

Given my pro-fighter outlook on life, I quickly constructed my wing of twenty 
interceptors. Grab a second harvester, and a few more salvage corvettes while 
you're at it, and wait.

Fleet Intel is not kidding when he says that the raiders are inferior to your 
craft. Given that, their small numbers, and the fact that most of the mission 
they're focusing on craft other then your strike craft, you should be able to 
mop the floor with very few casualties.

Despite what Fleet Intel says, the cap ship here is a Mothership, not a Carrier, 
thus can not be captured (though it says 'insufficent craft' when attempted, 
makes one wonder...). Nor should you try to blow it up, it's simply way to big 
at this point. Be content with destroying the ones arrogantly try to blast your 
salvage corvettes.

Warith advises a more econmical way to start the level: "Build a bunch of 
interceptors to complement your scouts.  I never retire anything unless 
desperate for cash because the money you get from retiring your scouts won't 
give you enough money to build enough interceptors to replace the collective 
firepower of the scouts."



Return to Kharak:
Double-fun. Actually, I think the entire moment would have been better if Fleet 
Intel yelled out the obvious in his rather aggressive voice instead of Fleet 
Command's annoyingly apathic voice. Anywho, you have a few hundred thousand 
Kushan frozen-treats to save.

Immediately scramble your fighters to engage the Taiidan. Chances are you won't 
save all 600,000, though I'm fairly sure a good player should be able to score 
500,000 living and freezer-burned Kushans (just noticed...kushan...cushion?). 
Get cranking on another salvage corvette and a few light corvettes if you've 
been procrastinating. Chances are your fighters themselves will not be able to 
down the attackers.

Just like last level, when your salvagers make the grab, keep up enough pressure 
to let them get home. This time it might be harder, since his friends are so 
close in hand.

Sclover shows that you can save all the frost bitten Kushans: "I managed to save 
every one of the cryo trays (6) by sending my force immediately out to the trays 
as soon as they started launching (while the briefing was running), and 
immediately attacking the middle of the three frigates (that was the one that 
would always pull off to engage us).  I had also moved my two SCs out near the 
trays, but just far enough that they wouldn't get fired upon.  My force of 
scouts and corvettes destroyed the first frigate pretty quickly, and while they 
were fighting the next one, my two SCs came in and grabbed the last frigate.  
The SCs had him about halfway back to the mothership before my force destroyed 
the last one.  The tray that they had been firing on was smoking after all was 
said and done, but I still got it."



Great Wastelands: 
Kushans, meet the Bentusi, the most highly advanced cowards in the galaxy. Take 
Intelligence's advise; create a controller, and ship it off to the center of the 
minable resources. Have fun. Bring some back up, just in case...

Whoops. Once the attack comes (from on top of you, not to the 'north', for those 
still getting used to the sensors), keep your interceptors intercepting. But 
start cranking out one or two heavy hitters. You know, just in case...

Whoops. The Mothership won't go down easily, but unless you have something to 
take down those ion cannons, it will go down eventually. Once you've taken a 
chunk out of the ion frigates, go for their carrier. Am I the only one that saw 
that, despite this mission being there to 'gather a fleet', I ended up losing 
more craft then I made?

Many people (Koensayr, Zack Parfile, ZooL) recommended the following alternate 
way to finish up the level: Use your salvage corvettes to capture as many of the 
attacking frigates, then use those to destroy the carrier. Not only killing two 
birds in one stone, but also collecting more hardware for the fleet. 

Warith found a interesting loophole in this mission's script: "The raider attack 
won't come until you trade with the Bentusi.  Use this to your advantage by 
delaying the trade until they're about to leave.  This will allow you more time 
to mine and build up your fleet."



Great Wastelands (prt2?):
This level, when done correctly, is pretty much nothing more then a series of 
ever-increasing brawls. When done incorrectly, you end up bull-baiting an entire 
Taiidan fleet into attacking the Mothership in unison. Tread carefully in the 
resource branches.

Do as Fleet Intell says and launch the probe. Send harvesters out if you wish, 
but make sure you have some strike craft going along as escorts if you do. If 
you can stand the boredom level, it's safer to simply wait untill mission end to 
harvest here.

If you nuke the Taiidan harvesters as soon as you can, you'll have virtually the 
entire level's resources to yourself. This be the great west, greenhorn, we're 
talking nearly 10k RUs that is all yours. Chances are even if your entire fleet 
is destroyed, you could replace it with much change to spare.

Chances are nuking the harvesters has resulted in one or two wings of Taiidan 
frigates to notice you. Unless you want to face off against the entire Taiidan 
fleet right now, your best bet is to flee back to the Mothership. The frigates 
will (slowly) follow you. Destroy them at your convience once you're sure the 
battle won't spill over to the Cruisers.

Once almost every Taiidan has became a attractive debris ring, the Cruiser with 
Destroyer escort will attack you directly. You should pretty much know what to 
do from here.  

Sablotnik recommends going the next step further and stealing the entire basket: 
"If you have taken away the enemy´s collectors, start stripping him from 
fighters. If you work carefully, it can be done step by step, attack by attack. 
He will end up with no fighters and no resources to build new ones. Then start 
taking away the frigates. You have heard all this before, yes. But why use these 
frigates to destroy the carrier? Try to keep the carrier busy with evasive 
fighters and meanwhile salvage him. It takes five salvage corvettes to move the 
carrier,so better have six ones at hand if one get´s lost."

Warith recommends: "Immediately send a fighter wing out at about 2 o'clock from 
your mothership so you're within striking distance of that mineral vein, so as 
soon as you're told they have a resource collector, you can smoke it, which 
means more resources for you at the end of the level. What I generally did on 
this level was patrolled with my fighter wing, engaging small targets, and 
drawing larger targets back to the mothership to get smoked by the small fleet 
of Ion Frigates I am building up.  Eventually though, they stop coming to you, 
so when this happens gather your whole fleet and whallop any targets left." 
(Note that as I wrote above, I've always had every target come at me once a 
certain number of Taiidan had been nuked. As Warith's tale shows, your milage 
may vary)



Diamond Shoals:
My tip for this level. Can every cap ship you have on you before hyper spacing 
to this level. You'll thank me for it.

Beyond that, I don't really have much advise. Thanks to the 3D space, it's hard 
to tell just what astroid is going to pass through where. Interceptors are a 
gold mine here, defenders will get crushed just as easily as your cap ships 
would. Don't let any ship 'assume holding pattern' here, unless you want to 
build more of them.

Zack Parfile suggests a similar, but completely opposite tactic: "Keep your 
caps, anything behind the MS is safe, or if you've been collecting Ion Arrays 
just drop them below and in front of the MS to take out asteroids. Concentrate 
their fire and they knock the asteroids out quickly. Fly your frigs straight up 
or straight down and they'll be safe above the asteroid corridor. I kept all my 
fighters docked until I was clear, didn't lose anything."

Sclover expands and collaborates on that tactic: "If I remember right, I had 
something like 1 destroyer (5 finger discount from Great Wastelands), 4 assault 
frigates, 9 ion frigates, and 1 support frigate all grouped in wall formation, 
and then some fighters and heavy and light corvettes.  I grouped all those guys 
together and had them all basically hit one asteroid at a time, which they would 
rapidly blow to space dust for my resource collectors to gobble up. The only 
thing I lost on that mission was the support frigate that I stole from Great 
Wastelands, which I should have just parked behind the mothership.  I honestly 
don't think even one rock hit the mothership the whole time.  Other people I 
know just squeeked by with their mothership smoking...  I think that destroyer 
really helped, but the ion frigates were really putting out some juice."

Sablotnik goes into detail about harvesting in this level: "If you have 
firepower to spare, try to destroy every asteroid you can (if you salvaged them 
before, destroyers are mighty welcome in this mission, due to their greater 
firepower and higher speed, compared to the frigates) and let the resource 
collector get it. Second: if you do so, remember: the asteroid field is moving 
away from you and soon after you are clear of the asteroids, you will get out of 
range, which means your destroyers won´t go for too distant targets and your 
collector refuses to collect them. So, to get more resources in this mission, a
second collector may be helpfull, if you manage to destroy more asteroids than 
only those which are in your way - during the passage through the field as well 
as afterwards (start at least as soon as you have received clearance and try as 
long as your collector goes for the goodies)."



The Gardens of Kadesh:
I find this level fun. Get your interceptors and bombers ready, forget about 
building any of your new toys (destroyers) yet. Start collecting resources, look 
completely innocent, and wait.

Now, while you're pondering why the Super Zealot Flower Hippies didn't blow the 
Ambassador straight to the Great Nebula's Hell-equivalent, get cranking. Capital 
ships are almost useless here, due to the large fighter concentration. Stop 
harvesting for a bit, and bring the collectors back to base, and most of all 
keep your fighters moving.

Due to the scripted events, I'm not sure if you can succeed early by causing the 
zealot's mothership to go bye-bye, or if you have to meet the Inhibitor. If it's 
a requirement, it's also the most dangerous point in the level. Expect a fair 
number of your strike craft to get nuked while you're getting them out again. 
Target their mothership for termination afterward.

Once everything is clear, send out your collectors to finish your glorious 
defiling of the nebula, and rebuild your fleet. Next step is a harsh one.

Warith reveals that you can't bypass the script here: "The first time I played 
this I made the mistake of nuking the hippy mothership before the 8 minute 
hyper-drive countdown was up. The mothership retreated, then a minute later a 
fresh one popped into existence and I had to kill it all over again."

The Cathedral of Kadesh:
The most defensive oriented level I've yet played, you jump into the heart of 
the nebula, and are about to get attacked three different ways before your 
fighters have even totally lined up.

For this critical moment, keeping your head clear is the major thing. Keep your 
bombers bombing big targets, your interceptors intercepting. So long as you keep 
everything busy, you should win the war o' attrition.

Striking back at the three Hippy Motherships can be hard, since it's rare to 
find a time when your Mothership isn't being attacked. However, generally the 
tides of battle will shift your squadrons towards one. When it's in sight, nuke 
it.

You could try using destroyers to help destroy the Motherships, however it is 
not advised. The cannons on the Hippy Ships are designed to bust capital ships, 
and can barely scratch a fighter. So long as you have time, a force of twenty 
interceptors and twenty bombers can down a Mothership, by themselves, with only 
one bomber lost.

Once you managed to down two of the Motherships, you get a breather. Send a 
force /w support frigate to clear out the large concentration of resources, then 
have your collectors go wild. This is one of the richest places you've seen.

Before you can say "Luke, I am your father!", Fleet Intel's theory about the 
Kadesh is confirmed. Don't let that stop you from killing them to a man, 
however. You're the space hero guys, remember?

Webrunner proposes a much easier, profitable, and sneakier way to deal with the 
Motherships: "Capture the Multibeam Frigates. That's all there is too it.  Don't 
destroy them capture them. It takes two volleys from six of them to kill a 
Protector mothership.. by the end of the level I had *ten*."

Zack Parfile adds also: "Destroy or salvage the fuel pods to leave the little 
swarms of fighters high and dry, they seem to need to refuel after every other 
attack run. The Fuel Pods are worth RU's to retire, useless to keep."



Sea of Lost Souls:
If someone didn't comment on my glaring lack of brains on salvage corvettes, 
they gave some advise on this level. Since most of them are much better then 
what I offered, I'll let them have the show.

Zack Parfile recommends: "Don't bother giving a cap ship to the Ghost, just 
swarm it with fighters and bombers. MGC's on evasive can be brought in to circle 
it once the other ships are distracted trying to nail the fighters. Defenders 
can be useful here as well since they seem to have better range than the 
fighters. I had a small group just sitting there peppering the Ghost with fire 
and they were completely ignored by the enemy ships."

Zareh Aratoon gave this story and strategy: "I had 1 Destroyer, 7 ION Cannon 
Frigates, 7 Attack Bombers and 10 Interceptors at the beginning of the scenario. 
The first thing I did was to send in a probe, as I was following the probe I 
noticed among the ships a Missile Destroyer. I grouped my Destroyer with the ION 
Cannon Frigates, and moved towards the ghost ship. My first target was the 
Missile Destroyer, because the Missile Destroyer would render my Attack bombers 
and Interceptors useless.

I quickly destroyed the Missile Destroyer with my attack group, but suddenly I 
lost control of my Destroyer and 2 ION Cannon Frigates! I realized what was 
going on and quickly retreated with my remaining 5 ION Cannon Frigates back to 
the Mother Ship using evasive tactics.

Since I had eliminated the Missile Destroyer, I could easily use my Strike Craft 
now. I quickly built up my Attack Bombers until I had 30. I began to move 
towards the Ghost Ship, I noticed that all of the possessed ships were right 
below the Ghost Ship, so I decided to attack it from above with my 30 Attack 
Bombers, by the time the slow moving capital ships got moving it was too late. 
The fight took 15 seconds, I lost 2 Attack Bombers."

Willis Yonker offers yet another strategy for this level: "I had a bunch (you 
could do it with 1 if you have the patience) ion frigate.  Keep it just out of 
range of the ghost ship (this will take trial and error) and target the 
derelicts.  You can take them all out without loosing a ship.  Then send in a 
group of fighters to take out the Ghost ship.  I did it with a few scouts and a 
couple of hours at the movies. Zero loss but zero gains also."



Super Nova Station:
Is it just me, or is it nearly impossible to keep to the 'safe paths', 
especially near the station itself? Since the long-range sensor screen is 
overlaid on your normal screen, the obnoxiously bright super-nova is still 
there, making it hard to see where the dust clouds stop and end.

(Zack Parfile assured me it was just me, "It's just you. While I did have to 
keep moving the sensors view around and zooming in and out to keep track of the 
dust paths I was able to do it.")

This level is almost entirely about patients and trying out new toys and 
tactics. As much as it pains me to admit, the sending wave after wave of men 
tactic is no longer viable. It's time to embrace new technology. Build yourself 
a carrier, a handful of proximity sensors, a few gravity wells, and a decent 
force of Destroyer/missile destroyers.

The lovely thing about the carrier is that it can stand up to the radiation 
areas very easily. Have it blaze a trail to one of the two heavy resource 
concentrations, build and then cannibalize a collector after everything is 
gathered. If you do this to both areas, you should have more then enough 
resources to finish up.

Notice all the red dots on the map? You want to get rid of some of them. 
Specifically, the one closest to you, and the two closest to the objective area 
(and, eventually, the three in the objective area too, but let's not be picky). 
The others are mine layers, which can be taken out at your convenience.

The first dot is a squadron of fighters. Bad, bad Taiidan! You have two ways of 
dealing with them; clean and efficient, or sadistic and fun.

Clean: Bring in a gravity well and one missile destroyer. Disable the entire 
squadron, have fun.

Sadistic: Same as before, but forget the destroyer. Instead, use the gravity 
well generator to lure them out into the radiation, and keep them there while 
they blow up.

The best way I found of getting around the map is to use way-points, made by 
your proximity sensors. You can scout out your safe areas, then run your fleet 
from one sensor to the next safely. 

The second dot that I hit was a group of five assault frigates. Grouped together 
like this, they can be nasty. Keep a few support frigates on hand to repair 
whatever gets dented. Where they sat is a excellent place to muster the fleet 
for your next attack.

The third dot is the nastiest, aside from the station itself, a Heavy Cruiser 
(something you don't have) with two destroyer escorts. I was able to destroy 
them without losing a single destroyer, however. The key is to keep a wall 
formation, concentrate your fire, and love support frigates.

When assaulting the research station, watch out for the carrier. You do need to 
nuke it, and relatively quick. Other then that, it's cleanup.

Zack Parfile gives a much more simple and profitable solution: "I went towards 
the station with a carrier, 3 destroyers and the missile cruiser from Sea of 
Lost Souls. Smashed everything until I bumped into the HC and 2 destroyers, then 
I switched to evasive and kept most of my ships from firing while my cruiser 
spat out the dozen or so SC's it was carrying. In the end I blew up one of the 
destroyers and had captured the other along with the HC. The SC's had to run 
them all the way hell back to the MS which took a while, but they stayed in the 
dust path. I cranked out a couple of replacement SC's for the carrier, shot a 
probe towards the station then captured the escaping carrier when it came at me. 
Wiping out the station after that was cake. Missile cruiser to wipe out the 
defenders and the destroyers made short work of the station."

Warith's method: "If you take the left route from your mothership, you can 
completely avoid the minefields.  I have finished this level without ever seeing 
a single mine.  If you are going to plow through the minefields, I suggest 
taking along a few drone frigates with drone clouds deployed.. if you travel in 
a wall formation, the drones project just enough ahead of your fleet to attract 
the mines, sparing your expensive capital ships."

Mesh's method: "Instead of going the direct way you should go around and attack 
from behind the station. That way you can easily deal with the fleeing Carrier 
and then the station. Remember not to launch your SC's but have a Grav Well 
disable the enemy's SC's, you might need more than one Grav Well, and then use 
your Destroyers and Assult Frigats to take out his cap ships. You should have at 
least one Support Frigat for each Destroyer. Set the Support Frigat to guard a 
Destroyer and it will auto-heal it when it takes damage, nifty feature. Don't 
send in your Carrier, but have it stay a away from the battle, keep any extra 
Grav Well's at you Carrier and send them in as needed. Forget about using SC's 
here, their low armor ensures that they get toasted before doing any good, for 
some reason they won't always stay in the dust patch."

Warith also provides a more economically sound solution then the one I put up: 
"Mining on this board is a totally different operation than other boards.  The 
approach I used was have a carrier guard two resource collectors as they headed 
towards an asteroid cluster.  Whenever the RCs hit yellow, I had them dock with 
the carrier to repair before continuing.  This is longer and more tedious than 
building and retiring them on site, but saves money overall."



Tenhauser Gate:
More a show then a level, it's fairly easy to get through this without loss of a 
single ship, barring strike craft. On the flip side, this place is almost barren 
resource wise.

After watching the Bentusi get used as a punching bag, scramble your forces. 
Like the last level, you have the benefit of initiative here. And since they're 
concentrating on the Bentusi, they probably won't even start trying to zap you 
until after you're well into the fray. My only serious recommendation here is a 
reminder to keep your missile destroyers above or below the Bentusi ship. As 
always, missiles strike any craft it hits, and since most ships are on the other 
side of the Bentusi vessel, combined with the fact the Bentusi make a fairly 
large, fat target...

After you save them, you're treated to yet another long sequence, filling in a 
lot of plot. A tad sudden for my tastes, but it works. Your collectors should be 
done by now (only enough resources here for a little over 2 trips), so 
hyperspace out to greener pastures. 

Mark Harrison recommends grabbing another ship for the fleet here: "Open fire 
with the two cap-ship groups, targetting the destroyers/anything that comes 
near. Ignore the cruiser, it'll carry on firing on the Bentusi. Fly a carrier 
en-passant to the cruiser, and as it passes, scramble the salvage crvs - capture 
cruiser."



Galactic Core:
Or maybe not so greener pastures.

Like the last level, it's a fairly small area and a constant battle from the 
get-go. If you don't have any, get a few proximity sensors on the construction 
line, and have your cap ships target the grav well generators for destruction. 
Now you have a situation much like the Cathedral level, only a bit more nastier. 
After a little bit, you'll get the event trigger for the defector. To be honest, 
I'm not sure if you actually need to save him or not. Almost my entire fleet was 
off doing various things at the time I got this, with only a few frigates to 
spare. Yet he still survived despite my almost total non-intervention. 

This level's main difficultly seems to be the surprise element, one after 
another. Like most of the game, as long as you keep on the ball you shouldn't 
have any problems. The one other surprise that pulled me for a loop is the 
introduction of cloaked vessels. You'll need your proximity sensors to detect 
them. On a happy note, they know that too, and will do nothing else but attack 
proximity sensors if some are around. Having a small hoard of them circling the 
Mothership is a nice way to keep a cloaked frigate busy until you can whomp it.

Warith gives his general tactics for this level: "This level can get confusing 
and hectic.. make sure all your Ctrl-groups are organized.  You get rushed from 
two different angles with grav-well and cloaked ships, plus the idiot defecting 
captain you have to save all of a sudden.  I just used a fighter wing on evasive 
to harass the pursuing ships for a minute giving the defector a little bit of a 
gap... then it was a simple matter of slicing and dicing the pursuers when they 
got within range of my main battle group which was busy mopping the floor with a 
huge battle centred around the mothership.  This is definitely a close to home 
level."
----------------------------------

Contributing:

Have something to flame me about? Disagree with me? Have some pathological 
desire to add to this disgrace of a FAQ? You can mail me at 
[email protected] with your suggestions, ego strokes, and other assorted 
things. I will credit it to whatever name the mail is signed under, unless 
specifically asked otherwise. I will *not* give out email addresses, again 
unless asked to.

I keep all rights to decide what goes in and not, though chances are if it's 
coherent enough for text, it's good enough. Also note that I am trying to keep 
the vulgarity of this thing down to at least the level of 'Hell' and 'ass'. If 
you feel I have misquoted your email, or otherwise have a complaint with how I 
handled your suggestion, feel free to email me and it will be fixed ASAP.

A quick and dirty list of all contributors to this FAQ/play guide, and my 
heartfelt thanks to each:

Koensayr
Webrunner
Zack Parfile
ZooL
Zareh Aratoon
Willis Yonker
FuSchnick
Sablotnik
Mark Harrison
Sclover
Jon Lauridsen
Warith
Mesh
----------------------------------

Disclaimer:

This FAQ is a disgrace to FAQ-kind. It's intended that way. If anything has 
insulted you, your minority (autistic speech givers, unite!), or your sense of 
taste, my humble apologies. It proves you still have a normal sense of humor.

Do not distribute this FAQ without the writer's permission. This FAQ may not be 
used for promotional or money making purposes, and is copyright the author. The 
most current version of this FAQ can always be found at GameFAQs 
(http://www.gamefaqs.com/). "Homeworld" and any other trademark and copyright is 
hold by their respective holders. Used without permission. This should not be 
seen as a challenge to any said trademarks and copyrights. Aside from those, 
this FAQ is copyright is considered copyrighted by the writer.

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