Homeworld:@ 0.2.0.0 released news

Someone wrote:

It has been a while, and we have not been idle. Four new finished ships, new effects, gobs of new placeholders in varying states, and a new game mode that has been quite occupying us, both in development and in playing it. If you want to cut to the chase, the files are available on our moddb downloads page as soon as the files clear approval.

New Ships
The talented Dark Sentinel has been quite busy, offering his own ships, helping realize our designs, and spiffing up an old favorite. Full backstory for each ship is available in the readme.

The Taiidani presence has been felt before, in the republic scout and interceptor. These frigates represent the Taiidani confederacy, a nation risen in recent decades from the ashes of the empire that never bowed to the Republic. They proudly wear the red and yellow of old. In addition to their obvious armament both mount small antifighter cannons, giving strike craft pause.

The Gunship may have given you a taste of our plans, but the assault frigate is a radical enough departure from the expected that it presents a good chance to talk about the Vaygr. Homeworld:@ is and always has been a rebuilding of HW2 from the ground up, and so it is with the Vaygr. The Vaygr are unknowns on the galactic scene, nomads from beyond the borders of any civilization that anyone considers important.

Their technology didn't get boosts from found starships, captured imperial warships, or bentusi charity, and their ships reflect that. The assault frigate's cannons are geared for anti-strikecraft warfare, and it mounts a heavy spinal projectile cannon. The Vaygr consider it a masterpiece of warfare, and shipyards throughout the reaches produce it with only moderate regional variations.

I don't think this one needs too much explanation.

In addition the placeholder UNH cruiser now has finished energy turrets courtesy of ericrajuin, and untextured turrets of my creation

Schwartz and MachinesInMotion, and myself all worked on the Vaygr destroyer model that you will probably be seeing quite a bit off.

Effects
Avatar has been going nuts with effects, and to be honest I have somewhat lost track of the cool things that have gone in. Here, have a picture of some beams.

Game Mode
I'd like to introduce you to my own pride and joy, Survival Mode. It can be found under Player vs CPU as its own gametype. You will find a number of maps you can choose from, but the basics are the same from each. You have an amount of starting RUs, and you can spend it on new ships as fast as you can click. As soon as you build a ship, the attacks begin, coming in successive waves. They will attack without mercy or heed for sensor range. Once you destroy the first wave, another will replace it, each bigger than the last. If you fail to kill a wave within two minutes, the next one will get impatient and come for you. When you run out of ships, the game ends.

Obviously you're going to need to build up your fleet and replace losses if you want to survive long, and to do that you'll need resources. There are two ways to get them! Firstly, there are bounties. For every ship you kill, you get 40% of its value added to your assets. Secondly, you get money for surviving every fifth wave. There is a catch, however. Every fifth wave is specially tailored to contain either ship mixes that are uniquely difficult to deal with, or ships that are themselves uniquely powerful. These boss waves must be defeated, subsequent waves will wait for them to be dealt with.

Be advised, the fighter swarms that you can see get quite large. The attackers are not constrained to unit caps. In part to limit the potential for computer crushing attacks, the boss waves from wave 15 onward are extremely unfair, and getting past them is a rare achievement.

Eventually, you'll die. When you do, a record of your achievements will be recorded. Inside Homeworld2\Bin\Release\ you'll find a HWAT_SURVIVAL_SCORES.TXT, and inside is information on how well you did. I've had a lot of fun playing this mode, and I hope you do too.

Maps

The thick dust clouds of the globule has prevented any long range reconnaissance, and makes the perfect mask for a potential enemy staging ground. Establish and defend a beachhead, but be advised. The enemy could surround your position without any warning.

Traffic through the kelym pass is crucial to local logistics, which means that eventually it will come under attack. You are in charge of its defense.

What the enemy is doing in the dunas expanse is unknown, but we can't allow them to occupy this region unopposed. Drive them out.

Access to and from the Higaara system is controlled by a network of massive hyperspace inhibitor stations, making attacks impractically slow without going through one of these bridges. In the old days each was protected by massive fleets, but in modern time no nation can afford such a standing navy. We have intelligence on an inbound attack, and you are in charge of the defense.

Beware, crews are not trained to deal with the kind of environmental threat posed by the gargantuan moving inhibitor stations. It falls to you to ensure that your ships don't stray into their path, even a mighty cruiser will be instantly crushed.