Homeworld

For other uses, see Homeworld (disambiguation).

Homeworld
Homeworld box art
Developer(s)	Relic Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Sierra Entertainment
Composer(s)	Paul Ruskay
Engine	Homeworld engine
Platforms	Microsoft Windows Mac OS X
Release date(s)	Windows September 28, 1999 Remastered Windows February 25, 2015 OS X August 6, 2015
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy Real-time tactics Space simulation
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Homeworld is a real-time strategy computer game released on September 28, 1999, developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment. It was the first fully three-dimensional real-time strategy (RTS) game. Homeworld was the beginning of a series, followed by Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000) and Homeworld 2 (2003). In 2014 Homeworld: Remastered (Homeworld HD and Homeworld 2 HD remakes) were announced by the new intellectual property (IP) holder, Gearbox Software. The remakes were released on February 25, 2015. An upcoming game, titled Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak (formerly Homeworld: Shipbreakers), is currently being developed by Blackbird Interactive, scheduled for a January 2016 release.

Development history

Homeworld was developed by Relic Entertainment and published by Sierra Entertainment in 1999. Author Arinn Dembo wrote under the pseudonym “Marcus Skyler” some of the game's background descriptions. Writer David J. Williams is credited with story concept. Sierra/Vivendi maintained ownership of the Homeworld IP.

Sound engine

There were five hours of audio developed and included for the final Homeworld version. Due to the limited computing power at the time (e.g. Pentium MMX CPUs) and the limited delivery medium (650 MB CD-ROM) the developers had to write their own data compression routines. While the resulting product did not carry the Dolby Surround logo it would use the rear speaker if the PC was connected to a Dolby-2 surround sound processor.

Sequels

In September 2000, Barking Dog Studios released a stand-alone expansion, Homeworld: Cataclysm, based on the Homeworld engine. Taking place 15 years after the events of Homeworld, the story centers on Kiith Somtaaw (a Hiigaran tribe) and its struggles to protect Hiigara from a parasitic entity known as the Beast. A full sequel, Homeworld 2, was released in late 2003. The game pits the Hiigarans against a powerful, nomadic raider race called the Vaygr.

Support legacy

Despite the end of support in 2000 by Relic and Sierra with patch 1.05, Homeworld remained mostly compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP, Vista, and 7. Graphical glitches may occur when not using the software renderer. OpenGL may be enabled by running the game in compatibility mode of Windows NT 4.0 (Service Pack 5). As the game is locked at a 4:3 aspect ratio, widescreen resolutions may be applied by editing the registry or by applying an unofficial patch with further fixes.

Source code release

In 2003, Relic released the source code for Homeworld to the game community; to work with the code one must sign a license agreement and become part of the Relic Developer Network. The source code became the base of several source ports to alternative platforms, like Mac, Linux, Pandora, Maemo/N900, or Android using the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) cross-platform multimedia library. As the source code's license requirements limits further development significantly the game's community aims for a re-licensing with the new IP holder Gearbox. In September 2013 Gearbox responded positively to the idea for a re-licensing of the already published source code, noting their efforts in supporting the modding community.

Relic and Homeworld franchise went to THQ

When Relic was bought in 2004, the future of the franchise was unknown. In September 2007, THQ announced it was in talks with Sierra/Vivendi to acquire the rights to the series. These talks are reported to have finalised sometime in November 2007 with the title's trademark being updated to indicate THQ's ownership. After the acquisition, several Relic Entertainment founders and Homeworld developers left Relic Entertainment and founded Blackbird Interactive in 2007, to produce a space RTS without the Homeworld name and franchise license.

Gearbox purchases Homeworld IP

THQ went bankrupt 2013 and the rights to their games were auctioned on April 15, 2013. A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to acquire the Homeworld franchise by the independent development studio, Team Pixel, finished with approximately $70.000, but was not the highest bidder in the auction.

On April 22, 2013 it was announced that Gearbox Software acquired the rights to the Homeworld franchise as the highest bidder in THQ's auction, with $1.35 million. On July 19, 2013 Gearbox announced the release of Homeworld HD and Homeworld 2 HD remakes, along with the original versions of the games, for 2014. The stand-alone expansion Homeworld: Cataclysm was not announced for a remake, despite the outspoken interest of Gearbox, as it has been reported that the source code for this game has been lost while others report that potentially former developers have a backup and that the audio assets are available.

Additionally, Gearbox has granted Blackbird Interactive, a studio employing members of the original Homeworld development team, permission to use the Homeworld IP. Blackbird will restructure its upcoming game Hardware: Shipbreakers as Homeworld: Shipbreakers. The project was renamed Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, with a trailer released in December 2015. The game has a release date of January 20, 2016.

Homeworld Remastered

Homeworld HD was renamed to Homeworld Remastered Collection on March 6, 2014. After missing the original deadline in 2014, Homeworld Remastered Collection was released on February 25, 2015. The collection is released exclusively on the digital distributor Steam despite an announcement for multiple platforms. Also available for preorder was a physical boxed collector's edition which included a Mothership model, but not physical software, only a Steam redeem code. The standard collection includes the original and remastered versions of Homeworld and Homeworld 2. Both original versions, dubbed "Classic", are recompilations of the original source code with some compatibility fixes, while the "Remastered" versions are both built on an updated HW2 engine. The remastered versions have high resolution textures and models, new graphical effects, remastered audio, recreated cinematic scenes and support for HD, Ultra HD and 4K resolutions. Multiplayer for both games is combined into one centralised mode. Apart from the graphical updates, other game aspects were changed: for instance in "HW1 Remastered" as also "HW1 Classic" the end-track by "Yes" is missing due to licensing problems, and from the "Classic" versions the LAN multiplayer mode was removed. "HW1 Remastered" changed the game mechanic noticeably as several features of the original HW1 engine got dropped due to the transfer to the HW2 engine: for instance the fuel system, ballistic projectile simulation, and tactical formations are missing or ineffective. The game's community tries to fix these shortcomings themselves via mods, for instance by emulating the original ballistics system via the limited modding API's possibilities. A retail version with an installation disc but requiring activation via Steam was published by Ubisoft and released on May 7, 2015. As of May 18, 2015, Steam Spy guesses by freely available Steam web API data that around 220,000 copies of the Remastered Edition were sold by Steam. Aspyr Media released the Homeworld Remastered Collection for OS X via the Mac App store on August 6, 2015.

Plot

For thousands of years, the Kushan survived on the arid planet Kharak, corralled into the temperate geographical poles by a vast hot desert. Scarcity of arable land and natural resources had colored Kushan history with near constant warfare between the many clans. One day, however, everything changed: A satellite detected a huge spaceship under the sands of the Great Desert. It carried advanced spaceflight technologies. More importantly, a stone with a galactic map bearing two coordinates was found: One, located at the outer rim of the galaxy, was Kharak. The other, located near the center, bore a name so ancient it was common across all their languages and dialects: Hiigara, "Home".

The discovery united the clans of Kharak. They worked for nearly a century on building the "Mothership", a vast ship that would bear 600,000 of them to their destination. Technologies that never existed before were developed. Central to the Mothership was Karan S'jet, the scientist who integrated the Mothership's control system into her own nervous system. She became the core of the Mothership and was known as Fleet Command.

The maiden voyage of the Mothership turned into a tragedy: As scheduled, the Mothership performed its first hyperspace jump, disappearing from its location near planet Kharak and appearing outside the Kharak solar system where it expected an engineering crew on board a support ship, the Khar-Selim. Instead, it found a hostile alien fleet that had destroyed the Khar-Selim. The Kushan managed to defeat the raiders and return to Kharak, only to find it in flames. Those left on Kharak were all dead. The chosen 600,000, in suspended animation, were the last remnants of their people and were under attack by hostile assault frigates. Once the cryotrays with the sleeping people were loaded aboard, the Mothership left Kharak behind for good.

The Kushan began their journey with an act of revenge on the fleet that had destroyed Kharak. Having captured an enemy frigate, they learned that the ships that had destroyed the Khar-Selim and attacked the Mothership, the Turanic Raiders, were mercenaries in the service of the Taiidan, rulers of a tyrannical interstellar empire. The Taiidan Emperor had ordered the destruction of Kharak merely because the Kushan's development of a faster-than-light drive was a violation of a treaty signed four thousand years before — a time that predated Kharak's known history.

The Kushan became aware of well-fortified Taiidan outposts along their way and set out to circumvent them. Their course took them through many hazards — a dangerous asteroid field, a turbulent nebula known as the Garden of Kadesh, in which a huge fleet of zealous adversaries lay in ambush, and a mysterious ship that took possession of whatever capital ship approached it. Occasionally, they were visited by the Bentusi, a benevolent race of space traders who sold them advanced military technology.

Concerned that the Bentusi were giving aid to "the Exiles", the Taiidan Emperor orders their destruction; the Kushan fleet engaged the Taiidan and defended the Bentusi. The Bentusi revealed that the Kushan had once ruled their own empire long ago and were defeated in a great war, exiled from their homeworld and left to settle on Kharak. In gratitude for the Kushan protecting their tradeships, the Bentusi promise to summon the Galactic Council to consider the Kushans' claim to Hiigara.

The Kushan later gave sanctuary to a defecting Taiidan rebel, Captain Elson of the destroyer Kapella, who rallied others to his cause. With the help of Captain Elson and his rebellion, they penetrated the Hiigaran system blockade and engaged the massive Taiidan fleet, commanded by the Emperor himself, in one last epic battle. The Emperor mysteriously lashed out at Karan and put her into a coma, leaving the Mothership paralyzed. But despite the loss of their Fleet Command, and the superior numbers and strategies of the Taiidan fleet, the Kushan managed to destroy the Emperor and emerge victorious. The Galactic Council arrived shortly thereafter and approved the Kushan's claim to Hiigara, which turned out to be a beautiful lush world. Karan S'jet, who awakened from her coma after the Emperor's death, survived the extraction from the Mothership, and was the last person to set foot on Hiigara.

Characters

In Homeworld's story, individual characters have very little significance; rather, it is the races or organizations around which the story takes shape, supplemented by the context-sensitive game music and the narrations given between missions. When there is a need for a race to speak, an unseen and usually unnamed spokesperson does so. Overall, there are only four individuals in the game that have some form of personality.

Karan S'jet

Also referred to as Fleet Command, Karan was a neuroscientist who gave birth to the technology of integrating a person's neural system into a starship's control systems, thus enabling very close interaction with the machine and eliminating the need of a forbiddingly huge crew. Using this technology, she was integrated into the Mothership and thus became the leader of the Kushan fleet. Karan is heard frequently but is not seen except in cut-scenes at the beginning and the end of the game. She is a slender middle-aged woman. During the game, she alerts the player of important events in the game. Her voice actor is Heidi Ernest.

Fleet Intelligence

A male character in charge of analyzing sensor data and generating mission objectives in the single player campaign. Unlike Fleet Command, he is quite formal and his voice is often emotionally level. He is not heard in multiplayer games. His voice actor is Michael Sunczyk.

Captain Elson

Commander of the Taiidani destroyer–class ship Kapella and the leader of the Taiidan revolution against the Emperor. He appears in missions 12, 13 and 16. He and the other revolutionaries believe that the Taiidan Empire has grown corrupt over the centuries, and wish to overthrow the current regime in favor of a republic.

The Taiidan Emperor

A paranoid and ruthless dictator, he commands the Taiidan flagship in the final mission of the game, during the battle for Hiigara. Known only as "the Emperor" in Homeworld, he was identified as Riesstiu IV the Second in the manual for Homeworld: Cataclysm. The appellation "the Second" is so added because the Emperor was in fact a clone of the original Emperor Riesstiu IV, who had killed any potential heirs for fear of assassination. Cataclysm's manual further describes his reign as having lasted nearly four centuries by the time of Homeworld, and was marked by pogroms against "enemies of the state" and high taxation to maintain an overly large military. The final straw came when Kharak's destruction was broadcast as Imperial propaganda displaying the Emperor's power; rather than serve as an inspiring victory over supposed enemies of the Empire, watching three hundred million people die merely to prove a point was the catalyst for the people to rise in rebellion.

Races

Kushan

The primary protagonists of the game. Four thousand years before the events of the game, they were defeated in a galactic war and were sent into exile as punishment. The convoy of prison ships traveled the void for centuries using conventional drives, though of the many vessels only five eventually made it to Kharak, some ships being destroyed by malfunctions and others breaking off from the main group. The Exiles who settled on Kharak eventually forgot their history, holding onto only a few vague myths and legends and forgetting a treaty never to redevelop hyperspace technology. The Kushan are one of the two teams available in multiplayer games.

Taiidan

An interstellar empire that rules much of the galaxy in which the game's story takes place. The empire is ruled by a ruthless and mad emperor, against whom a rebellion has risen. The Taiidan are the primary antagonist of the game and one of the two playable teams in multiplayer games. Though they are designed quite differently, the vast majority of Taiidan ships are mostly functionally identical to their Kushan counterparts.

Bentusi

A peaceful space-faring race of traders. The Bentusi are an enigmatic race, speaking in a poetic and guarded fashion, though they are friendly and only attack those who unwisely provoke them. In mission 11, a member of the Bentusi breaks their silence regarding the larger events of the galaxy and tells the Kushan the story of their ancient exile. This particular individual is voiced by Campbell Lane, who also narrates the game.

Kadeshi

A race seen only in missions 7 and 8, they are descendants of the Exiles who never reached Kharak. Instead, they entered a high energy plasma charged nebula that hid them from detection by any outside sensors. This nebula, christened the Gardens of Kadesh, eventually became the center of their existence and religion. Their needle-shaped motherships can prevent enemy vessels from performing a hyperspace jump, allowing them to ensnare any who wander into their home and present them with an ultimatum: join them or die. Their unforgiving approach to intruders meant that prior to the Kushan, no-one who entered the Gardens would ever leave again, making the nebula feared by the rest of the galaxy.

Turanic Raiders

A race of marauding space pirates who were at the time of the game employed by the Taiidan Empire to help attack Kharak. They were not seen since mission 5, although two ion array frigates show up in Mission 9: Deep Space - Sea of Lost Souls and a single Turanic Raider fighter can be found in the final level.

The Galactic Council

A deus ex machina device, no detail is given about this race or organization, except that even the Taiidan are answerable to this council. They arrive at the end of the game to approve the Kushan's claim on Hiigara.

Gameplay

The game takes place in outer space where there is little gravity and ships may travel in any direction in the three dimensions. A few elements, such as asteroids, dust clouds and intense radiation may impair ship movements.

The player may choose to play as either the Kushan or Taiidan, both online and in the single-player campaign. While each unit serves a particular function and represents a tradeoff in strength, offensive power, speed and cost, the differences between the two factions are mostly in cosmetic ship design. Parallel ships (e.g. the Kushan Assault Frigate versus the Taiidan Assault Frigate) look different but have identical vital statistics and functionality. However, each race features two unique units: The Kushan possesses Cloaking Fighter and Drone Frigate, while the Taiidan produces Defense Fighter and Defense Field Frigate.

Resources are gathered by harvesting dust clouds and mineral-rich asteroids using special resource collector ships. Resource collectors may return their harvest either to a mothership, carrier or a resource controller ship.

The user interface is minimalistic: The toolbar appears only when the cursor is moved to the bottom of the screen. Orders such as moving or assuming certain formations are given either from a context menu (invoked by right-click) or via hotkeys.

The inclusion of unrestricted unit movement in all three dimensions adds a tactical dynamic not encountered in typical ground based real time strategy games where movement is on a two dimensional plane. Since the area of play is generally void of significant obstacles to create "terrain", there is little emphasis on the control of a certain choke point in order to establish defensive perimeters, although minelayer corvettes can be used to create them. Despite this, the area of play is still limited to a 3 dimensional box or cube.

Single-player

The outro of Homeworld: Fleet Command survived the extraction from the mothership and insisted to be the last to set foot on Hiigara.

The single-player campaign includes 16 missions, and focuses on a persistent fleet concept: All ships that survive a mission as well as all the resources possessed are carried over to the next. The ultimate goal of the single player mode is to find Hiigara, the homeworld of the Kushan.

At the beginning of each mission, as well as the end of the last mission, a cutscene is played that helps develop the story. The cutscenes are black-and-white and hand-drawn. The game story is developed with aid of narrative voiceovers usually given by Fleet Intelligence and Fleet Command both on cutscenes and within missions.

In each mission, the player must accomplish a number of primary objectives to end the mission along with the occasional optional objectives which a player can choose to or attempt to complete. Once all the objectives are completed, the player is given the option of pressing the Hyperspace Jump button, thus ending the mission by having his fleet travel to the next mission location. The player may postpone this for as long as they wish. Any resources still available for collection in the current area when ending the mission are lost.

Each mission pits the player against challenges including but not limited to fighting the Taiidan empire. For instance in mission six, the Kushan fleet exits hyperspace to discover itself in the middle an asteroid field, some of which are on collision course with the mothership, which is unable to move during the single player campaign. The player may unlock new technology or weaponry in each mission, usually earning them as a part of the story or by trading with the Bentusi for resources already collected.

The player may choose to play with Taiidan instead of Kushan, but the story remains unchanged.

Multiplayer

Homeworld can also be played in a deathmatch mode where the player can choose the number of opponents, the map, enabling or disabling researching and fuel consumption. These games can be played with up to seven computer-controlled opponents, which have an adjustable difficulty setting and a setting that allows you to determine whether they attack the human player or other computers more often.

To play online the player needed to create an account on the Homeworld lobby service called WON and download the latest patch (or version). WON was closed in October 2008.

The multiplayer community for Homeworld was large from its very beginnings in 1999. At its peak in 2000 and 2001 there were more than 18,000 players registered to the Ladder, with several dozen clans active. Since its release more than one hundred individual clans have been founded. There are still hundreds of active players and a handful of large clans. Today the original community of dedicated players still survives at the community operated RelicNews forums, the publishers official forum for the game, and on IRC.

Design

In Homeworld there are five classes of combat ships in the following order by size, armor, speed and maneuverability: Fighter, corvette, frigate, destroyer and heavy cruiser. Fighters are the smallest, fastest, weakest and most maneuverable ships. Heavy cruisers are the largest, slowest, toughest and least maneuverable combat ships. Apart from combat ships there are several non-combat vessels, including the mothership, carriers, resource collectors, research and sensor class ships.

Fighters and corvettes are small craft. They run on conventional propulsion and have limited fuel. They must "dock with" (enter or attach to) a mothership, carrier, resource controller or support frigate to refuel, receive repairs or travel long distances. Whereas fighters are equipped with fixed guns, corvettes have one or more rotating turrets. In addition not all the corvettes are armed: Salvage Corvettes (which can capture other ships)do not have any weapons.

Frigates, destroyers and heavy cruisers are all heavily armed. They are also equipped with their own power generators and hyperspace engines; therefore, they can enter hyperspace independently. All three can move while attacking. While most frigates have only one type of weapon, destroyers and heavy cruisers are equipped with both guns and ion cannons. Guided missile destroyers are also available, which feature marginally heavier armor than the standard destroyer, as well as a regenerating magazine of 32 homing missiles. Each player may have no more than a total of five destroyers (regular and guided missile combined) and three heavy cruisers, unless more are obtained through capture.

Mothership is the largest, slowest, toughest and least maneuverable class of all ships. Each player has only one irreplaceable mothership. With the exception of the Bentusi's and the Kadeshi's, motherships are lightly armed. The mothership can produce all other ships. Fighters and corvettes may enter and dock with their mothership, while resource collectors can drop gathered resources as well.

Carriers are smaller versions of motherships. They have fewer dock sites for ships or resource collectors and cannot produce destroyers, heavy cruisers or other carriers. They are also not as tough as a mothership but they are faster and more maneuverable. In the event that a player's mothership is lost in a multiplayer game after building at least one existing carrier, that player will be able to continue the game, unless otherwise precluded by the match's victory conditions.

The spaceship designs in this game bear a strong resemblance to the designs popularized by illustrators Chris Foss and Peter Elson, who are both mentioned in the special thanks section of the game's credits, and the latter being referenced in game by the leader of the Taiidan rebellion during the Homeworld War.

Musical score

File:Homeworld music cd.jpg

The soundtrack CD-ROM

With the exception of a song by the rock group Yes entitled "Homeworld (The Ladder)" (from their 1999 CD The Ladder), most of the music in the game is ambient. It includes Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, the choral version of his Adagio for Strings, performed by Santa Barbara's Quire of Voyces. A 13-track CD soundtrack was bundled with the Game of the Year Edition of Homeworld and features the original soundtrack by Paul Ruskay. The re-released stripe marked "Best Seller Series" version of the "Game of the Year Edition" doesn't contain this soundtrack. The 2015 released "Remastered Edition" doesn't contain the end-track by Yes due to licensing problems. Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei is not included too, for unknown reason.

Paul Ruskay won the Best Score Award for the Homeworld Soundtrack at the Gaming Globes 2000.

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score AllGame GameSpot 9.0/10

Homeworld was given high marks by most of the gaming community, and earned numerous awards, including both PC Gamer's and IGN's game of the year award for 1999. The game was praised for its eye-catching, movie-like graphics engine, large battles, appropriate soundtrack, compelling storyline, and revolutionary 3D interface.

Awards

• E3 1999 - Game Critics Awards: Best Strategy Games
• IGN 1999 - Game of the Year
• PC Gamer 1999 - Game of the Year
• Well-Rounded Entertainment 1999 - Game of the Year
• Gaming Globes 1999 - Best Original Score: Paul Ruskay and for Homeworld
• Metacritic - Best and Worst Computer Strategy Games, Top 10: Position 3 (2010)

Notes

A. ^ The size of the Kushan mother ship is not given; however, page 6 of Historical and Tactical Briefing (one of the Homeworld manuals) places the mothership's scaffold's length at 25.6 kilometers. Kushan mothership is slightly shorter.

External links

• Official website of Relic
• Official website for Homeworld Remastered Collection of Gearbox
• Homeworld at MobyGames