I was able to capture EVERYTHING short of enemy motherships in HW1…IMO thats how it should be. These limitations in HW2 are irritating, and I felt like I was being herded along that stupid storyline. But…
…whatever. I just played my first Player vs CPU deathmatch since I quit HW2. Holy crap is it awesome. HW1 mechanics with super-sweet graphics. Battlecruisers are badass and useful. Everything is useful really. I am not fenced in with what kind of tactics I can use and my resource collectors can actually take a beating.
Once I get really comfortable I look forward to graduating to Player vs Player battles. I made the mistake of jumping into that too early when I tried it years ago, and got my ass handed to me by opponents exploiting zerg rush tactics. I am going to be prepared
this time.
See for me HW2 is WAY easier if you prepare your fleet to deal with anything.
I;d have so many RUs that when I was waiting for the Mothership while attacked by movers I’d just max my unit cap with gun platforms. Then when she’'d hyperspace I’d scuttle them and do it again.
I did the same for the Keeper, the dreadnaught repair defense, and the second bit of keepers. I’d have such a surplus of RUs that I never even used my collectors after mission 6 or so and from then on kept all my carriers on queue with like 20 of them so they’d be replaced as soon as they died and use all of them for healing only.
The collectors were kept on group 10 and as new ones were built I’d double click the ones in the area, shift click in the rest of group 10 off screen, and add them back up. They were kept on repair duty from the get go so they’d start healing as soon as anything happened.
As a heads up I had a Taiidan vs Taiidan game today. We were on a HW1 map where we spawned fairly close together. I sent a probe at him and saw the was focusing hard on economy by making twice as many collectors. I built about 40 interceptors in no time and killed his research ship. When he realized what I was doing eh spammed scouts, clearly having skipped the fighter research in favor of capitals. After I killed his research ship a second time he scuttled everything.
So keep that in mind.
Also if anyone spams fighters defenders are your best bet. Not sure how to counter corvettes yet cause HW1 corvs suck atm and pulsars will ■■■■ assault frigs over time.
Keep an eye on HW2 factions. They can tech to frigates REALLY fast and can really tear you up with a torpedo and flak frigate combo. In which case get your own ions ASAP and destroyers after that. Bombers MIGHT work but they pale in comparison to HW2 bombers’ effectiveness.
IMO HW2 represented a complete dumbing down of gameplay from HW1.
I think it’ may have had something to do with Alex Garden leaving Relic between the release of the 2 titles. (This is a memory, not backed up by research!)