Homeworld - Gameplay

Gameplay

The game takes place in outer space where there is no gravity and ships may travel in any direction in the three dimensions. Few elements, such as asteroids, dust clouds and intense radiation may impair ship movements.

The player may choose to play as either the Kushan or Taiidan, both online and in the single-player campaign. While each unit serves a particular function and represents a tradeoff in strength, offensive power, speed, and cost, the differences between the two factions are mostly in cosmetic ship design. Parallel ships (e.g. the Kushan Assault Frigate versus the Taiidan Assault Frigate) look different but have identical vital statistics and functionality. However, each race features two unique units: The Kushan possesses Cloaking Fighter and Drone Frigate, while the Taiidan produces Defense Fighter and Defense Field Frigate.

Resources are gathered by harvesting dust clouds and mineral-rich asteroids using special resource collector ships. Resource collectors may return their harvest either to a mothership or a resource controller ship.

The user interface is minimalistic: The only toolbar appears only when the cursor is moved to the bottom of the screen. Orders such as moving or assuming certain formations are given either from a context menu (invoked by right-click) or via hotkeys.

The inclusion of unrestricted unit movement in all three dimensions adds a tactical dynamic not encountered in typical ground based real time strategy games where movement is on a two dimensional plane. Since the area of play is generally void of significant obstacles to create "terrain", there is little emphasis on the control of a certain choke point in order to establish defensive perimeters, although minelayer corvettes can be used to create them.

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