Matrix Games Forums

I just stumbled into this forum and it's the first time I've ever heard of this game. Since I am a big fan of similar games, I'm thinking about trying it out. It seems to me that it has the potential to be everything that the Homeworld pretended to be but never really was.

So I am briefly going to explain what I am looking for in this game, and then maybe someone could tell me if I found it or should keep looking.

Essentially, I want a 'Harpoon in space' type strategy game. Flying around in individual fighter crafts is not so interesting to me (I play IL-2 Sturmovik for that experience). What I want is to be able to control not individual fighters or even capital ships, but entire Task Forces comprised of various types of vessels. The distance at which combat occurs should be long, very long, beyond visual range (think contemporary ship combat with anti-ship missles, or WW2 aircraft carrier battles). The thing I hate the most in every space combat sim is that combat takes place at ranges that even today tank crews would consider 'too close', let alone spaceships thousands of years in the future (I think that the max range at which you could shoot in Homeworld was 8000 meters, phew, planes today have the capability to fire missles at over 200 km range). Important part of the fighting should be finding your enemy in the vast reaches of space, and at the same time remain unseen. Electronic warfare, radar contacs, decoys and countermeasures, he who shoots first kills first, and lives to tell the tale. Every time you turn on a radar, you have a chance of finding the enemy, but risk exposing yourself. So hide and seek is the order of the day. Carriers launch recon flights, early warning radarcrafts and sensor packed platforms etc. And once you locate the enemy ships, you launch a salvo of long range missles guided at extreme range, thousands of kilometers away, or send in an air strike of individual crafts, bombers protected by fighters... All the time the bulk of your fleetz staying safely hidden behind a planet or an asteroid, outside of the line of sight, monitoring the situation via comm links to observation pods and platforms and recon flights...

Harpoon in space... Well, is it?


As I understand it, there are individual campaigns and by completing missions you advance in rank. Does that mean that I have to start as an ordinary fighter pilot or can I immediately choose the rank of admiral or whatever and play through the entire campaign as a task force commander?

Sorry if I went on a bit too long, but I want to find out if this game is worth my money, and more importantly, time. In other words, is it what I'm looking for.

I too search for "Harpoon in space" [:)]
This is a great game but its not that[:(]

Main thing IMHO is the sensor/detection mechanics just aren't deep enough

Agreed on that P10ppy,
The one thing I like about the original homeworld and HW cataclysm is how large the maps can be...You get a sense of the vastness of space. HW2 multiplayer feels like a boxing ring. Starshatter does allow you to quantum out to different areas and that does help a bit

ORIGINAL: Yggdrasill

Harpoon in space... Well, is it?

That's a game I've wanted for 20 years... but Sharshatter isn't it.

I'd still highly recommend Starshatter though, but it's a space combat game with a level of fleet tactical control, not a deep strategy game. I suspect it's long-term importance will be as a mod platform, for which it is ideally suited.

I've been looking for a "Harpoon in space", or better yet a "688i Attack Sub in space", for a very long time. Decades, not years. So I feel for you- I am a hard SF snob, too.

The game just doesn't exist, though. It probably never will.

The physics would be demanding on the player- working out real orbits, etc Well, maybe THAT could be made easier with reactionless drives and a little help from a computer. But you wouldn't necessarily have to be firing missles around planets, though. Objects in orbit are damned hard to spot without radar, especially if they have low albedos. Imagine trying to spot a ship the size of a modern destroyer in orbit if it were painted black- with a telescope for instance, or other passive measures. Difficult. Maybe a little easier with other passive sensors, like IR or something. Of course firing up the radar lights you up like a beacon, and antiradiation missiles are screaming toward you... But still, engagement ranges in the hundreds to thousands of kilometers would be reasonable, and with sensor platforms (drones) to find farther targets you could still fire around planets.

I imagine a fleet composed of a command and control ship, some point-defense ships, and several arsenal ships that are nothing but a hold full of torpedoes. Most smaller ships would be unmanned drones since, in this model where they act as active sensor platforms and are used to recon for the enemy, they would generally have short lifespans.

Your average beer-swilling Nintendo junkie would never buy it, so it is probably unmarketable. Pity. Does anyone think Starshatter could be modded into this format? I know I don't have the skills to do it, but perhaps there is someone out there (a fellow dreamer to prefers '2001:A Space Odyssey' to 'Star Wars') who can?