Homeworld 2 RM insanely difficult.

[TheDeeGee]

Even with the Player Patch Scaler at 0, the enemy spawns 5 times more than i can handle.

Homeworld 1 RM was way more casual friendly.

[Sabaithal]

Homeworld 2 works a little differently. Most of the missions will have you outnumbered. In homeworld 1 you were guiding the fleet you patched together through various hazards and were building it to survive. In homeworld 2 you are basically waging a war.

Instead of focusing on not taking losses, you should be focusing more on production. Past mission 5, the game starts throwing resources at your face in massive quantities. Use that. Carriers are basically mobile factories. Use them as such. Queue up more ships to build in the middle of a heated battle so that when some of your ships go down, that carrier immediately starts making replacements. You are going to lose ships. Accept that, they are expendable. Just keep building more.

Use group formations such as frigate line. I have found that the moment of engagement matters a lot more than you may think, and group formations ensure all of your ships engage at once. Though I would recommend using neutral stance so your ships break off and engage targets separately.

The first three missions of the game throw what may seem like overwhelming numbers at you, but the enemy fightercraft is quite weak compared to your own, and their bombers won't even try to fire back at you. Attack them with aggressive stances to do the most damage, and if you see a carrier, send bombers to take it out, starting with its production facility. When the enemy frigates show up in mission 2 DO NOT ENGAGE THEM! There is no point. Allied ships will show up and take care of them for you anyway, and you can avoid taking losses.

[TheDeeGee]

Well, i managed to progress and i'm now on the last mission i believe =]

[skylane733]

Homeworld1 RM. Hiigara What's up with Level 16? No matter how fortified I am, the mother ship gets destroyed before my ships can even get there to protect her. The support frigates don't seem to effective in repairing her. I can't seem to even first destroy the frigates before the capitol ships come from hyperspace and wreak havoc and destroy her. This has to be a glitch. Any answers?

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by skylane733:

Homeworld1 RM. Hiigara What's up with Level 16? No matter how fortified I am, the mother ship gets destroyed before my ships can even get there to protect her. The support frigates don't seem to effective in repairing her. I can't seem to even first destroy the frigates before the capitol ships come from hyperspace and wreak havoc and destroy her. This has to be a glitch. Any answers?

Its a scaling issue that's well known. Basically in the RM version they implemented enemy scaling like what the original HW2 had, where if the player is doing well enough (specifically the number of ships you have) the enemy forces will be scaled up as well. Problem being, the scaling is broken, you can experience it as early as mission 3 where 16 enemy frigates come out of hyperspace and destroy the cryotrays before the cutscene even ends.

We've told gearbox of this, show them numerous instances, and they gave us the answer "this is by design, will not fix". So you can blame them for that.

There is a mod on the workshop however that fixes this issue by removing scaling outright for HWR1, I'd recommend using it. Its not cheating, since HW1 originally had no scaling at all, so this is closer to what the game should actually be like.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=720150326

[Avalanche]

In my opinion, unless I am facing other players, i actively cheat in my games, but not excessively, like for example, if i am playing a 4X game like Master of Orion 2, i make sure to customise the most uber race possible, but not excessively uber, or if its Horizon Zero Dawn, i give myself skill points and just play the game, the same thing for Tomb Raider (modern versions) give myself skill points and just play the game as normal beyond that.

When it comes to scaling, i hate it when it makes it needlessly challenging, so i tend to turn the scaling off, since i play for the story and NOT the challenge.

[DreamScape]

This game and original require skill to beat. No easy mode. No real cheats.
This game requires you to care for units and keep them alive to over power enemies DPS.
Theres time trials theres covert moves in a full 3d environment.

This is a classic RTS before the broad dumbing down of StarCraft and Red Alert. The game is relentless and brutal. Think todays term is Nintendo hard.

So tough up creme puffs. Your in for an epic that makes anything star wars or star trek cant even come close to telling. The battles get bigger and meaner right up to the PLANET DEFENSE.

Last mission of HW2 you WILL have to fight in 3 different areas or your world dies. So get used to splitting your fleet to handle more than 1 task at a time.

HW1 is same on last mission. but its more forgiving than HW2 final mission.

Now after you defeat these games. and think your a tactical master... find a copy of HW Cataclysm and get re educated in how you dont know ♥♥♥♥ about real tactics. That game makes HW2 look easy.

[DreamScape]

For a clue to success. Set up fleets using the 1 - 10 fleet slots. 1 - 6 use combat ships. 7 - 0 set your support ships. Resourcers in HW2 have a repair option.

Now when you get in a fight. Have a repair team close. When the team gets to repairs. The enemy will target them. Tell team run away. This causes the enemy to turn to face them not your strike team. This allows you to hit sides not fronts. "Weak spots"

Ships take way more damage from sides than fronts. Use heal ships as decoys. Take way less damage.

[DreamScape]

For HW1 Have a heal team and a salvage team. You have a build limit in HW 1 but no salvage limit. Build max ships in first 3 missions. Steal everything else. There is no limit of stealables in HW1. Plus Taidan ships are way tankier than Kushan.

[Handsome Jack]

No aim assist?

[Boots of Doom]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Its not cheating

It's literally cheating.

[Nate]

I'm "necromancing" this thread because it should be pinned.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Attack them with aggressive stances to do the most damage, and if you see a carrier, send bombers to take it out, starting with its production facility.

I never really figured out proper unit compositions especially for the high volume missions where I'm constantly replacing everything. I think I used Ion Frigates for capital ships, Torpedo Frigates for other Frigates, Pulsar Gunships for other Corvettes and Interceptors for other Strikecraft?

[Sabaithal]

Originally posted by NateDogg:

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

Attack them with aggressive stances to do the most damage, and if you see a carrier, send bombers to take it out, starting with its production facility.

I never really figured out proper unit compositions especially for the high volume missions where I'm constantly replacing everything. I think I used Ion Frigates for capital ships, Torpedo Frigates for other Frigates, Pulsar Gunships for other Corvettes and Interceptors for other Strikecraft?

After a certain point it becomes an RTS with how constantly units need to be replaced, so you don't need to be too anal about it. In general, pulsar gunships are good, torpedo frigates mix 1:1 with ion frigates, and build only fighters instead of bombers after about mission 7 or so.

If you can, put everything in one of the "group" formation (frigate line, fighter screen, capital phalanx) before a battle starts on neutral (NOT aggressive) so they all engage simultaneously.

[Nate]

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

After a certain point it becomes an RTS with how constantly units need to be replaced, so you don't need to be too anal about it. In general, pulsar gunships are good, torpedo frigates mix 1:1 with ion frigates, and build only fighters instead of bombers after about mission 7 or so.

Mostly comparable to what I attempted on my previous run. Mission 7 was brutal and I eventually gave up on mission 14.

Originally posted by Sabaithal:

If you can, put everything in one of the "group" formation (frigate line, fighter screen, capital phalanx) before a battle starts on neutral (NOT aggressive) so they all engage simultaneously.

I did not make proper use of formations so I'll give this a try. It looks like "blobbing" which is often frowned upon by the RTS aficionados. More practically, you often have to divide your fleet to cover multiple fronts depending on the mission objectives (especially mission 9) the other problem being that the shipyard is ridiculously slow. But I can probably still make proper use of formations and just try to keep each control group evenly stocked. I suppose I could also have carriers following specific control groups but that requires more micromanagement of who's producing what and for which control group.

Small side note, I have yet to utilise the PP2.3 that everyone keeps talking about. I intend to implement it on my next run though I've heard it's unstable since the latest update, no idea if that's true or not.

[Sabaithal]

If you're trying to cover the shipyard in mission 9 I'd use platforms. More specifically build and send a bunch of ion platforms preamtively to where the shipyard will show up. Then just tell the shipyard to move closer to the mothership.

They won't kill everything but they will buy you some time. A column of 6-8 ion frigates, maybe with a fighter squad or two will be enough to finish off whatever gets past the platforms.