Update 1.5:

1- "Dreadnaughts and Battlecruisers getting’ you down? Unstoppable battleships f-ing up your game? Then try Crazy Larry’s new Singularity Bombs, and watch your problems just melt away…"

Weapon upgrades for fighters are here!

All bombers start off with the anti-subsystem bombs from before, and then with a wildly expensive upgrade, you too can transform your bombers from a mild nuisance into hull-smashing black-hole-dropping death machines!

2- "Upgraded bombers turning your mighty warships into smoking piles of space junk? Don’t worry, Crazy Larry’s got something for you too! Introducing… The Microwave Beam Emitter! Cook those bomber pilots up like lobsters in their shell. Don’t worry, those pilots don’t feel a thing… All that screaming is just the sound of the air escaping their lungs."

Interceptors can be upgraded with microwave beams to take down bombers and other strike craft before they have a chance to deploy their weapons. But plan your attacks carefully. The Microwave Beam Emitter has little effect on ships with thicker hulls and takes a long time to recharge.

3. The problem with not being able to build Makaan’s Revenge from Update 1.4 is fixed. It was caused by the unit caps that excluded it. There is a separate selector to include or exclude Makaan’s Revenge in the game setup now.

4. The self-repair times of the battlecruisers has been increased. You could watch them slowly tick back up before.

5. The AI should build more fighters throughout the course of the game now in order to make use of the Microwave Beam Emitter.

6. Makaan’s Revenge does less damage when it explodes. It usually ended up doing more damage to its own fleet than the enemy’s. However setting its massive core to self-destruct has the same effect as before. Makaan shall have his revenge…

7. The shield frigates are back to normal. My computer was having problems displaying the larger shield bubbles, and I figure I’m not the only one, so I put them back to how they normally are. We’ll do some experimentation later to see if the idea causes problems, but we wanted to make an upgrade to give ALL the frigates shields. I have the feeling that unless you have a really good computer, the shields won’t get displayed, and people will just think the mod is messed up. So unfortunately, I think that idea is gonna get put on ice for now. :(

8. There’s a selector for Advanced Armor Upgrades in the game setup, but it doesn’t do anything yet. That’s coming in the next update now, but I wanted to get this one out to fix the problem with Makaan’s Revenge.

9. There’s also a switch to turn the fighter weapon upgrades off in case you don’t like them.

This was kind of rushed to fix the aforementioned problem. The next update will probably be pretty soon too, but if you find anything wrong, please let us know so we can fix it for the next one. Thanks!

Have Fun! And would it kill you to give us a thumbs-up, you freakin' cheapskate? You know who you are… =D

Update 1.4:

HO HO HO! Here’s an update for the holidays that more or less hasn’t been tested at all! Merry Christmas, Lab Rats! =D

Here are the changes:

1- Hardpert is replaced with Fuddy-Duddy, which should be pretty close to the normal difficulty setting of the original game. So stop giving us thumbs downs, and start practicing. (sheesh.)

2- In the unit cap settings with no Makaan’s Revenge, you can’t research it anymore either.

3- ‘I dun done it now bois’ gave us some good ideas in the discussion section and we’ve ripped them off in this update. Oh - I mean ‘implemented’! =D Thanks again! They are:

a- In the game settings, there are different starting fleets to choose from, like everybody starts with a Dreadnaught or a full fleet of different unit caps. Try them all! They should really change the gameplay. If anybody has one they want us to put in, just let us know and we’ll put it in the next update. They’re pretty easy to make.

b- In the unit cap menu, they’re a setting called ‘No Reinforcements’ in which you can only build non-combat units. So in combination with the new starting units, you can set up some pretty cool new game types.

4- There’s a new unit cap called ‘Multi-Player +’. This is the ‘huge’ frigates and cap ships with the fighters and corvettes from the ‘default’ setting. Cram and I both have pretty good internet connections, and we’ll keep adjusting this unit cap setting until we get a good number for fast internet connections. It seems like the game handles the big units fine, and starts to chug along once there starts to get to be too much small stuff.

5- While I was messing with the fighter missiles, I noticed that the buttons don’t really work for the burst fire and missile destroyer volley. It totally seemed like the CPU Missile Destroyers were cleaning house and yours were just stinking the place up, right? Well, turns out they were really better. The AI has it set up to use those functions all the time as fast as they recharge, and now it’s set up like that for players too. So the Missile Destroyers and Heavy Corvettes should be a lot more effective than before.

6- The range of the Heavy Destroyer has been increased a little bit.

7- The shields of the Taiidan Field Frigate and the Hiigaran Defense Field frigate are both on all the time now. They’re also bigger, so they’re not quite as useless as before, and the ship costs a little more to balance it out. They stop the weapons of their arch-enemy: so the Hiigaran one stops 95% of missiles and bullets, and 25% of beams. The Taiidan one stops 95% of beams and bullets, and 25% of missiles. I know what you’re thinking: ‘Who gives a crap about shield frigates? Get to work on something important, Dummy!’ Don’t worry, this was for a good cause… you’ll see… ;)

If you like the Mod, give us a thumbs up! (You guys are SOOO thumbs-up-cheap. Totally seriously…)

Did you know that you can add or subtract 5 units for the queue at a time by holding the shift key? I just found out a little while ago. It’s totally useful for playing the HW1 guys.

The fighter missiles I promised in the discussion were WAY too overpowered. They had the ability to give your opponent’s computer a blue-screen error AND reset his internet connection. When I kind of think one of those effects would’ve been enough. :D They looked killer, but totally crashed the game. Gonna keep working on them, or give the fighters something else, like a high-powered laser with a long recharge time. Something like that. Then the bombers are gonna need an upgrade too, so the fighters have something deadly to shoot at.

Cram and I have the next two weeks pretty much off, so if you find something wrong or have any requests let us know. We’ll probably end up releasing another update next over the break.

Update 1.3:

1- The HW1 shipyards now require a carrier unit slot, but the unit caps for carriers are back up to where they used to be. That way, you have the flexibility to build more carriers or shipyards, but not both. if you want to do a rush, you can still build four carriers and overwhelm your mincing opponent with a mighty fleet of proud frigates as he struggles with the game controls and tries not to wet his diaper.

2- To clarify the unit caps: the HW1 motherships count as shipyards. This might seem stupid at first, but the building slots for big stuff match between the races: The HW2 guys can build big stuff out of the mothership and two shipyards, so three slots. The HW1 guys have two slots from the mothership and one from a shipyard, so also three slots. It’s set up like that so in case a HW1 player loses his mothership, then he can build a second shipyard to try and recover.

3- The build descriptions of the Heavy Destroyer and the Dreadnaughts are clarified so you know what to research if you haven’t played the mod before.

4- There are two more unit cap limits to choose from: Low and Default with no Makaan’s Revenge. The thinking is, if you build a Makaan’s Revenge in a game with the smaller unit caps, your opponents might not be able to build enough stuff to kill it. In order to even out the other races having dreadnaughts, but not the Vaygr, they get two more battlecruisers and two more destroyers, which should be about even to a Hiigaran Dreadnaught.

Of course, if you’re some kind of sick sadist who likes to beat up defenseless opponents, then we left the old unit caps in too.

5- The Sub-Space Scouts can ping now in order to offset their high research and build costs. The ping also lasts for 15 seconds instead of 10.

This one had a little boo-boo.

Update 1.2:

1- The CPU difficulty settings have been changed so that the easiest one is on par with the ones from the original game. (See Description point 2)

The mod only has 10 ratings so far, and some doofus already gave us a thumbs down! At first I thought it was the internet being its usual trolly self, but then I could totally imagine someone getting his captain’s quarters generously kicked by the CPU and going straight back to Steam: “thumbs DOWN, suckahs!” =D Anyway, here’s an easier setting. (It’s hard-coded that the game can only have four difficulty settings, otherwise I would just put like 10 in, and everybody would be happy, but we can’t.) Thumbs down? …come on, man. This mod is freaking FANTASTIC! ;-D

2- The game settings for resources and bounties can now be set so high, that’s it’s like playing the game in a mode with no harvesting at all. Build whatever you want and still become a Homeworld millionaire!

3- In the map ‘GOLIATH - Return to Sarum’, everyone starts with a gravwell now. The dreadnaughts you start with at the beginning of the game can hyperspace, so the gravwells are there to prevent dreadnaught-rushing.

4- The dreadnaughts are a little more powerful. It takes three fully upgraded Battlecruisers attacking simultaneously to take down the Hiigaran dreadnaught, and the Taiidan dreadnaught should get decisively beaten by two. Of course as before, if any frigates should be foolish enough to take on the Multi-Beam Dreadnaught and its Cyclone Ionizer from the front, an honorable death shall be bestowed upon them sooner than they would perhaps like.

5- Makaan’s Revenge has more health in order to stand up to the stronger dreadnaughts. Three Hiigaran dreadnaughts attacking simultaneously should beat it, or about six fully upgraded battlecruisers.

Update 1.1:

1- Fixed the research descriptions and progression for the Hiigarans.

2- Sub-Space Breach is now a prerequisite for Neutron Torpedoes research. It doesn’t really make sense as far as the description story goes, but we think it clarifies the research progression for new players and doesn’t really change anything because you need Sub-Space Breach to build Insurrection Frigates anyway.

3- The CPU difficulty levels ‘voll Ultra’ and ‘Bloodlust Bonanza’ no longer start with some research completed. Starting research levels can be set up individually based on the starting slot anyway, so it was a little redundant except for if you wanted to use random staring locations. Also, it makes more difficulty levels possible if the starting research is completely separate from the difficulty.

4- The health of Makaan’s Revenge has been lowered, but the firepower has been increased. Missiles!! Lots of ‘em!!! I don’t know what we were even thinking: how is the heck is Makaan supposed to get his revenge without any missiles… stupid. =D The health was lowered because in a match against the CPU, Makaan’s Revenge was a game-ender. If you could built it, you more or less just won.

5- Clarified the unit cap requirements for Makaan’s Revenge: You need at least one Dreadnaught slot and one Frigate slot in order to build it. After it’s out, you won’t be able to build anything larger than a corvette until it’s destroyed, so plan the timing of its completion carefully. ;-) This is also explained in the unit build description.

0.4