Hiigara or Bust - Let's Play Homeworld - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Hiigara or Bust - Let's Play Homeworld

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Michaellaneous posted:

Oh god, I am sure I will cry a bit again when the third mission comes up.

The story in this game is so good that is basically ruined RTS stories for me forever.

As far as I've seen, no RTS even comes close to being as good as this one story-wise. Even though the graphics look dated nowadays, they're still gorgeous. The ship designs are easy to identify despite the low poly-count and there's enough contrast in the textures to make out little greebly details on parts of the ships, especially around the bridges of starships. The starship designs have had a heavy influence on my Lego creations, in fact. The backgrounds, too, are simply amazing. Most of the skybox (spacebox?) is just gradients blended between points, but it works perfectly for nebulae and the other fantastic things you see in deep space.

I'll be following this LP closely, and I'll be particularly interested to see how you handle some later missions!

Edit: Is it just me, or is the introductory cutscene suffering from some volume clipping?

Edit Part 2: Naw it's the whole thing. Don't know if anyone else pointed it out, but you may wish to fix that in future videos!

Neurion fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Oct 3, 2014

# ¿ Oct 3, 2014 18:15

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:49

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I once played through the game attempting a capture-only run, which is not that difficult, but I tried to see if I could save all six cryotrays AND capture all the assault frigates. Turns out it was entirely possible, though it needed prepwork in Mission 2 in the way of constructing all the salvage corvettes I'd need to complete the task. While it takes 2 corvettes to salvage a frigate, latching on with just a single one will severely hamper its ability to maneuver and get clean shots on anything. While I worked on capturing one frigate at a time, the other corvettes were assigned to keep the frigates occupied and make it harder for them to line up shots against my salvage team.

No matter how many times I've played through the campaign, I still get chills from this mission :ohdear:

Neurion fucked around with this message at 04:05 on Oct 4, 2014

# ¿ Oct 4, 2014 03:54

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Jobbo_Fett posted:

Also, Imperials were better solely because assassination missions.

Also, the Imperial protocol droid was much cooler than 3PO.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2014 14:10

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Boogle posted:

If you're doing a salvage run and capture the entire reprisal fleet in mission 5, which includes a carrier and a pair of destroyers just imagine what they do with the crews of those capital ships.

There's a lot of disturbing subtext in this game.

I forget how far in the campaign, but once word gets back to the general populace of the Taiidan empire about the atrocity the Emperor ordered to be committed upon Kharak, he loses a lot of popular support and it sparks a civil war. So I always figured that the Kushan gave the captured crews the choice to join their cause, and any positions that needed to be filled would be recruited from the ranks of the cryo-frozen Kushan.

I think it would've been an interesting and somewhat compelling mechanic if the game tracked how much of your race perished on the way to Hiigara, and if it somehow affected your unit caps or the efficiency of your ships (from awakening people who were less and less qualified or capable to operate starships). Save only one cryo-tray? Welcome to Hard Mode, Space Hitler.

Michaellaneous posted:

They just had to pick up 600.000 of their own people on a ship that was probably not designed for such an amount of people.

They will need every bit of space to accomodate them. I am sure they just slaughter the enemy crews and throw them out of the ship.

The Mothership was designed from the get-go as a sleeper ship to carry the cryo'd people to Hiigara, and IIRC from the manual, the process of preparing individual people for the cryo-journey took around 10 years. They definitely expected to shove a whole bunch of people into their mothership, in a cryogenic state at the very least. I wonder if they even intended to have more than six cryotrays.

Edit: Obligatory anime mecha-musume Homeworld fanart I found:

Yeah, I know it's from Homeworld 2, and its anime, but I find it adorable :kimchi:

Neurion fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Oct 4, 2014

# ¿ Oct 4, 2014 22:33

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I regret nothing :arghfist:

# ¿ Oct 4, 2014 22:45

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

OtherworldlyInvader posted:

The Bentusi really know how to have a good time.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2014 15:45

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

PurpleXVI posted:

It's also worth noting that the game is VERY moddable, because all of the ship stats are in plaintext.

I wish I'd known this before I spent a week poring through the game's source code (which was released several years ago) to figure out the size and format of the unit structures in order to write my own 'infinite HP and fuel' script. Ah, well. It was a good exercise in programming and pointers and poo poo.

Incidentally, if anyone wants the source for that script, it's right here.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 00:00

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Steak Flavored Gum posted:

Where on Earth did you learn C?

It looks like poo poo because it's a strange C-like script used in M. Spiro's Memory Hacking Software. Because of the way it interacts with the target process, I wind up using lots of ints rather than proper pointers.

The line

code:

extern int firstNodePtr = { "",  shipListPtr };

(specifically the extern keyword) defines firstNodePtr as in int located in the target process (Homeworld.exe), starting at the offset stored in shipListPtr. If you modify one of these external defines, MHS will write the new value to the process.

Also by the time I got the bloody thing working I didn't feel like tidying anything up. Looking at it now, I can see some stuff I could've done without and made it a bit more elegant, but gently caress it. It works.

Steak Flavored Gum posted:

I really want to know how many warnings the compiler threw.

It never tells you. All it does is accept the code if it compiles or rejects it entirely if there's an error, without telling you on what line it is :suicide:

Neurion fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Oct 6, 2014

# ¿ Oct 6, 2014 04:27

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I believe that's correct.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2014 18:53

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

berryjon posted:

I've been taking notes from what you guys have been talking about, and planning on adding them to future videos.

So if you feel there's something I should bring up in the future, let me know.

I'm kind of surprised you were still using the context menu to set tactics and formations all the way into the third mission. By then I'd assumed you'd shown it off/discussed it enough.

The urge for me to right click and look around the battlefield is incredibly strong, so zooming in on the action a bit more often would be nice, too.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2014 18:04

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I always liked the design of the Ion Array Frigate, and I'm disappointed to know they're actually not as good as their Kushan or Taiidani counterparts (you said Turanic in the video). They're a bit annoying to herd, though, as they have pretty big bounding boxes for collision avoidance.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2014 20:48

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

cokerpilot posted:

Ah the Bentusi. Also I recommend every go back and look at just how fast that ship was moving on the sensor screen then look at it's size.

The Bentusi are just awesome and I will never not love them :allears:

My first ever piece of game fanart was a Bentusi harborship. Pity about what Homeworld 2 did to them.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2014 00:55

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Tanith posted:

I still keep meaning to make a T-shirt with a trade ship and "GET BENT" on it.

I would buy that in a heartbeat.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2014 04:36

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Wow, I really gotta hand it to ya, that's pretty sneaky!

# ¿ Oct 11, 2014 18:54

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I really like how the support frigates resemble mobile gas stations with part of their design aesthetic. The Taiidan one's got parking for fighters up top, kind of like the diner from Space Balls, and the Kushan (which we've not seen yet) has a sort of 'roof' or eaves over the refueling sections on either side.

One thing that occurred to me is they have a pretty powerful potential weapon in the Phased Disassembler Array, the technology that resource collectors use to vaporize asteroids and nebulae and suck up the materials. We don't see it as an official weapon or offensive tactic in Homeworld, though we do see it in Cataclysm with the Leech unit and the NAGGAROK. I have, however, heard it said that sometimes collectors idling in Aggressive tactics will defend themselves from larger threats by turning their PDA on enemy ships, sapping their health but gaining no RUs for the effort. If you can find a way to trigger this, berryjon, even in a bonus video, I'd be glad to see it.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2014 18:41

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Haerc posted:

I'm pretty sure they salvaged a hyperspace core from the wreck in the desert, they didn't build it. It's a major plotpoint of HW2. I'm pretty sure you can salvage ships that have been destroyed in HW2 as well.

In Homeworld 1 they reverse-engineered the hyperspace core and made a functional copy, but they don't actually know HOW it works. I believe it's stated in the manual that they have a hard time making very precise jumps, and their method of getting to a specific place is to turn on the hypderdrive for a certain period of time and then shut it off when they think they've traveled far enough to reach their target. Homeworld 2 retcons the Khar-Toba hyperdrive core by making it one of three Far Jump cores -- artifacts left over from the Progenitor civilization. Smaller hyperdrives have been made by the other races, but none of them are as powerful as the Far Jump cores.

Yeah, in Homeworld 2, ships of frigate size or larger will leave behind bits of wreckage that can be salvaged for RUs.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2014 21:12

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Veloxyll posted:

Blocktext still neglects the bit in the manual which says the Mothership isn't using the Khar-Toba's core, and is using one upscaled to work for a ship as large as the Mothership.

Os a shame the enemy doesn't drop RUs in HW1

Yeah, I forgot to say that in HW1 the Mothership's core is the upscaled one they made, but in HW2 the backstory, which is not in the bloody game but in the freaking Prima strategy guide, says before/just after their complete beatdown by the Bentusi, the Hiigarans hid the Far Jump core on their moon, and sort of smuggled it with them to Kharak. They retcon it to say this core is the one they took back to Hiigara.

Edit: Wow okay, I forgot to hit Submit Reply last night before I went to bed. Boy do I feel like the fool.

# ¿ Oct 20, 2014 20:21

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I always liked how when a target was destroyed early in an ion cannon blast, the beam doesn't automatically shut off and will trace across the battlefield as the ship turns to bring the cannon to bear on the next target.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2014 23:59

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

From the way the cutscene works it doesn't seem like it'd be a ram so much as a telefrag.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2014 02:46

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

berryjon posted:

As a note, even now I find the actions of the Kadeshii Swarmer when 'talking' to the Kushan ambassador to be an extremely intimidating moment. Because you don't see any people, just the ships.

It's a very predator-prey kind of moment, with the Kadeshi Swarmer slowly circling around the ambassador's corvette, while the corvette just sits there in a sort of stunned deer-in-headlights fashion. The voice actor for the Kadeshi really hits it out of the ballpark, too, making them sound exactly like isolationist religious zealots.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2014 20:02

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

berryjon posted:

Oh, and the Khar-Selim is still in pretty much one piece. Which means they didn't have to salvage their own ship first, they started with other vessels.

If you're referring to the ship we found in the nebula, that's not the Khar-Selim. The Khar-Selim was the ship sent to the edge of the Kharak system for the hyperdrive test. The ship in the nebula is unnamed, though they refer to it as the Khar-Toba (the same name as the one they found buried in the sands of Kharak.)

# ¿ Nov 10, 2014 02:09

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Mikl posted:

Gotta love the Bentusi.

First time you meet them: "We are peaceful traders, here have some ion cannons. Bye. _{_{Please don't tell the Taiidan you met us, tyvm.}}"
Second time: "Oh you're about to head into a place where There Be Dragons? It's dangerous to go alone, take these attack drones."
Third time: "Conflict is not our way. Here are the plans to build a big-rear end warship. Gonna tell the space-UN about your plight, see ya!"

They can kick rear end and take names, but only as a lasty-lastington resort. I can totally see information on weapons tech being a valuable trade good to the Bentusi's trade partners.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2014 20:39

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I really like the ambient music for this mission. Some of the sounds give the feel of a massive underwater wreck, creaking and groaning as the stress and strain of eons of decay eat away at it.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 05:41

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Full length with co-commentators might be fun. And I would be happy to volunteer for that.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2014 07:43

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I'd be up for it, also depending on time zone and schedule.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 05:10

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Zebrin posted:

Anything we can identify you with other than that? Cause when I searched for that I got something like 30 jon berrys But no berryjons.

The first entry should always be the one that matches the user ID, I think.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2014 09:04

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

PurpleXVI posted:

And now, filler past, time to get back into the plot!

Also, it seemed like the "broken" missile cruiser was drifting away from the Mothership as it got pummeled by the bombers. Do weapons impart force/momentum on hit? Or was it just my imagination?

Yep, weapons impart a small amount of force. It's not readily apparent most of the time, but ships that are not going anywhere make it obvious.

# ¿ Nov 21, 2014 20:05

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Loxbourne posted:

Something we haven't seen in the videos is the missile destroyer's z-attack, which dumps its entire missile load in a single volley (with an amusing cry of "Dump tubes! DUMP TUBES!" from the crew).

This is a spectacular alpha-strike - and since missiles in HW1 will track independently and chase another target if their first is destroyed, it will annihilate a strike craft wave or a mine wall in an instant.

We'll be seeing that soon enough!

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 04:14

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

anilEhilated posted:

Why do I feel I posted this exact same thing about three times by now?

Dabir posted:

Here's a fun fact, I've probably said this already, but in the code, the function for a mine locking onto its target is YoureMeat()

You've both said these things already, but that doesn't stop them from being fun to hear.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2014 23:52

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

The Protagonist posted:

Ughhhhhh I hate to be this guy but 'warp drives' don't accelerate they just displace space.

Explain Warp 10, then :colbert:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2014 04:30

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

berryjon posted:

In case the previous hint wasn't enough: That's enough of a tangent, everyone.

Actually, it's technically Wednesday anyways, so here's the Bonus Video!

Skirmish 02 - Mothership, Average AI, Co-Commentated.

Thanks to those nice chaps who chatted with me. The 40 minutes went by in a flash!

Nice, I actually don't sound as bad as I thought I would :v:

# ¿ Nov 26, 2014 08:55

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

berryjon posted:

I am currently capturing the Big Ball. See you in a couple hours.

You're doing Sajuuk's work, my friend. Godspeed and good luck.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2014 05:38

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I really like the design of the Junkyard Dog, with its large ship-grabbing pincers and all. Prior to Homeworld 2 (is there an echo in here?), I thought that the Dog was an automated defense or maintenance vehicle left behind by whoever was building the Dyson sphere, and it inspired a sense of wonder. Then that went down the toilet when Homeworld 2 came along and well, we'll discuss it when we get there I guess.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2014 06:30

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Captain Bravo posted:

Something I was wondering, you can force your resource collectors to "attack" things, right? And they'll suck up minute amounts of resources from the things they beam to death... so can you force your resourcers to collect from the ship scraps floating around, and spend a couple hours building up a massive stockpile of RU's by drips and drabs?

There is a much better way to waste many hours building up a massive stockpile of RUs and you will learn about it very soon.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2014 06:52

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Aumanor posted:

First of all, the ships were in a completely different place than the one indicated by berryjohn.

IIRC the Dog has more than one 'nest' it drags ships off to.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2014 22:15

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

Or if you could animate the pincers opening and snapping shut threateningly that'd be even better.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2014 18:08

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 00:49

Neurion: Jun 3, 2013; The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you hoot

I once endeavored to capture every single ICF in this mission without triggering the Inhibitor cutscene and confusing the Ball. It took a very VERY long time, micromanaging three carriers and capture groups. The hardest part were the ICFs at the far side of the ball, as they're very close to the map boundary. What took even longer was retiring all of those ion frigates. I'm not sure if it was due to the large number of ships all waiting to retire or what, but it messed with the ship movement AI, resulting in them chugging along at a snail's pace. I had to leave Homeworld running in the background for over 50 hours for them all to retire.

# ¿ Dec 21, 2014 05:29

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