Changes:
* Added Homeworld races, with unique shipsets and racial techs:
Hiigaran, Vaygr, Taiidan, Kushan, Kadesh, Somtaaw, Beast, Bentusi, Turanic Raiders, Keepers
Also added one "easter egg" race with distinct game mechanics from another space strategy series that has fallen on hard times lately...
Vanilla races are still in the game, but with mostly different shipsets and race images
* Changes to tech tree and components: Tech tree reorganized to reduce retrofitting. Major changes to the weapons tech tree so that it more closely resembles that of the homeworld games, including incorporating the "ship size limit" tech into the weapons tree. Added new weapons components, balanced for similar damage/second/size and damage/second/cost.
* Changes to combat: railguns and armor removed. Shields have low regeneration and are meant to represent armor. Default ship designs have fewer weapons and are designed to roughly match homeworld 1 ships in terms of firepower/durability for each class. Generally, combat is slower, unless you catch recently built ships that haven't fully generated their shields. These changes weaken pirates somewhat, so you may want to turn up that slider...
* Changes to economy: there are only two strategic resources, "resources" (steel) for building ships and "fuel" (caslon). However, you still need other resources for colony development. This seems to increase income somewhat, which allows for large fleets to counteract the slower combat.
* Cosmetic changes: a LOT of weapon effects, UI elements, sounds, music, and game text have been replaced with homeworld or homeworld-esque equivalents. Random characters with homeworld names have been added to the new races. If you don't like the galaxy backdrop, the original and some alternatives are backed up in the relevant subfolder in the mod files.
Credit where credit is due:
* Homeworld series for ship images and inspiration, DeadlyShoe's 5 Homeworld Shipsets, and Kalthaniell's Shipyards for ship images
* Icemania's AI Improvement Mod used to some extent for ship and base templates
* fruitgnome's No annoying ship symbols mod incorporated
* some UI and environmental assets borrowed from KEBW1144's Stuff & Bits UI mod and Martian's Graphics Enhancement Mod v2.4
* character images adapted from work on Deviant Art by 88grzes, shiramune, robshields, fatmarco, shimmeringsword, victorbang, jesperloveus, kailyzeguesscui, and black_rose_chain, I recommend checking them out
* other character and race images adapted from Endless Legends, Endless Space, Sword of the Stars--all great grand strategy games. Also from Halo, Predestination, and Starcraft II.
Disclaimer: This is a beta I made mainly for my enjoyment. If you hate the gameplay changes but like the cosmetic changes, it shouldn't be too hard to delete the stuff you don't like and keep the rest, though bear in mind that the tech tree, components, and weapon effects are all linked, so deleting any one of those will break the others. If you don't like the selected tracks, the full soundtracks for all three games are on youtube and the high quality Homeworld Remastered soundtrack is $8 on steam.
The mod is not fully balanced and the tech tree is somewhat bare-bones, there are a few duplicate techs where I removed fighter designs that weren't working well. I'm not planning to update it on a very frequent basis, though I'll look into any outright crashes or download issues if I can, but feel free to modify it and post your own version, patch, or mini-mod as long as you give credit. This would work really well with a custom map based on the series, but I don't have time for that, just saying 8)
