Homeworld 2 Capture Ships

[Martin Glow]

Thereis a remastered version of both Homeworld games and it seems like there have been some changes. If I remember correctly, very few enemy ship types could be captured using Marine Frigates in the original Homeworld 2. I'm now replaying the Remastered version and having trouble capturing a Vaygr Carrier in mission 3. Posts on the internet confirm this is not just me. Before I invest in Marine Frigates, which ships are known to be capturable, and which are not?

In the HW2:RM (and original HW2) campaign, you can't capture enemy production units (carriers, facilities, motherships etc). Destroyers and hyperspace gates and I think resourcing units too are all fair game though. Also I don't think you can capture corvettes or smaller but I'm not 100% sure on that.

You can try in skirmish mode and you'll see.The only ships you can't capture are the ships that are smaller than marine frigate, you can send marine frigate to capture the mothership but it wont actually capture it as you already have one, instead it will disable it. It is possible since I have already managed to capture a enemy shipyard in skirmish mode.

In addition to that i would say that capture a shipyard is more interesting than capture a mother-ship. Due to the fact that, in a shipyard you can produce every scale of unit from probes to battle cruiser. And in a mother-ship you can't produce battle cruiser .

The main difficulty in capturing enemy ship is the number of frigate you have to use to capture the enemy ships. The more the ship is big, the more you'll need marine frigate to even try to board the enemy ships.

Many players at least become opportunistic salvagers, grabbing a few spare ships in each engagement. Some will adjust tactics to maximise salvaging, seeking to take as many warships as possible in each battle. Since your fleet is persistent from one level to the next, it can steadily expand with ranks of captured ships. In time, it becomes a patchwork armada. Some ships you built yourself of course, but half or more are in the yellow and black of the Taidani, your primary enemy. Lurking around the edges are random oddities taken from third parties, thrown in for good measure.

The setup was quite condusive to salvaging. The frigates were all widely spaced, that coming close to any one of them only put my ships within firing range of a couple others. I could easily dangle some distraction ships in front of a few, lure them out and send in the salvagers. Others tended to pursue, but, after a while would give up and return to formation in the big sphere.

Despite being a non-combat ship type, salvage corvettes are incredibly powerful ships in the fleet, because they are capable of capturing enemy vessels and expanding the fleet well beyond its normal limits (although some limitations apply). Captured ships are towed back to the Mothership and then retro-fitted with a brand new crew on the side of the capturer, allowing that fleet to gain access to specialised weapons systems and vessels that it would have been unable to build itself. However, the power of these ships makes them priority targets for enemy fleets: those who can detect these ships will almost certainly turn their weapons against these fragile ships and stop them from attempting a capture routine, which means they often need support to complete their operations. Employing Repair Corvettes, Support Frigates, Field Frigates and/or Defense Fighters can greatly increase their longevity. Oftentimes, the best way to protect salvage corvettes is to attack elsewhere, to divert attention and enemy fire.

A specific number of salvage corvettes must be used to capture enemy vessels. If too few are used to capture a ship, the enemy ship will still be able to fire weapons that might be able to damage the corvettes and cause them to relinquish control over them, although it won't be able to move until all the corvettes are destroyed. Larger ships require more salvagers:

Certain ships in the game cannot be captured, primarily due to them being unique vessels which would be too powerful for the players' arsenal. Motherships of any faction and all unique non-combat ships belonging to enemy factions (such as the Ghost Ship, Junkyard Dog, the Research Station and the Field Generator) are examples of vessels that are not able to be captured.

In the original Homeworld, fighters and corvettes were able to be captured with some difficulty, often relying upon the need to use the kamikaze function on salvage corvettes to get them close enough to latch on. This made it possible to capture ships such as Standard Corvettes, Missile Corvettes and even Swarmers. The ability to capture enemy strike craft was added in Homeworld Remastered in a later version.

Tactically indespensible, salvage corvettes -- in sufficient numbers -- could incapacitate and move almost any enemy vessel to the Mothership or a carrier to be taken over for use within the fleet. Capable of taking ships many times its size when operating in packs (such as carriers or heavy cruisers), enough of them could neutralize entire groups of frigates, destroyers, and cruisers, with the desirable effect of bringing the target vessels under their fleet's control.

It was decided to convert many of the heavy tugs used in the construction of the Kushan Mothership into the new heavily armored, battle-capable vessels that would be able to survive combat and dock with an enemy vessel, gain important information from it and finally tow it back to the Mothership for capture. The Porter, as this particular tug was known to the Kushan, was pulled back to the Mothership and the Scaffold for refitting and it became the basis for the corvette design used for combat corvettes such as the Light Corvette and Heavy Corvette.

Salvage corvettes operate alone, as to draw little attention, and only on rare occasions will carry even a scout escort. A tour of duty aboard these vessels is hence, much like in the case of the Taiidan equivalent, considered disciplinary duty in most cases.

The use of a dedicated salvage corvette fell out of fashion by the time of the Beast War, where Workers combined the attributes of resourcing, repairing and salvaging into a single-multi purpose ship. By the time of the Vaygr War, the corvette had been replaced by the Marine Frigate, which boarded vessels in place, rather than dragging them back to a Mothership to be retro-fitted with new crews.

Capturing ships is an action that can be completed by various ships in Homeworld 3.In War Games, capturing a ship will be a recurring main objective players will need to complete in order to finish an area and move on.

While it will sometimes be a main objective, capturing enemy ships in battle is also possible and can be an easy way for players to obtain new ships or unique ones not made by their faction. While fully capturing a ship is a long process, knowing what to do can make the whole process a lot smoother.

Capturing Ships is done by Resource Collectors in the Hiigaran Faction, with the Capture ability first needing to be researched, with the Incarnate Faction instead using Capture Corvettes. Despite being done by different ships, the process of capturing is the same. With the ship that can capture another ship selected, use the "Capture" command either in the bottom right of the screen or hotkeyed to "U". Ships that can be captured include Frigates, Corvettes, and Strikecraft.

With the Capture command active, find and select an enemy ship you wish to capture. Your ship will then fly to the selected ship, lock them up, and begin carrying them back to your Mothership. During this time, the enemy ship won't be able to fight, but your ship can be targeted by other enemy ships and be destroyed. The only way to free a ship that is being captured is to completely destroy the ship capturing it.

After a captured ship is returned to your Mothership, it will forcefully dock and undock a few moments later. At this time, your captured ship will be free to leave and do something else, with the once enemy ship now being completely your own.

There is no timer or limitation after a ship is captured, with enemies either needing to capture it back or destroy it. Capturing enemy ships is a great way to deal with powerful Frigates and turn the tide of battle, but it can also give players access to faction-specific ships despite not playing as that faction. Both factions can only have up to eight ships active that can capture, with the Incarnate getting access to the ability sooner in a game if the right ship research path is followed.

Capturing antarans in later game:2 death rays (No HV. with HV you could easily kill opponent)

5 tractor beams

stasis fieldstime warp

sub space teleporter

augmented enginesJust fly next to opponent and shoot it with death ray and board with one

marine. Use stasis fields to put rest of the fleet waiting to next

capture.

>Also, the BEST weapon in the game is the disrupter. It can give up to 500

>damage per shot, with about 50 being able to fit on a Doom Star (as oposed

>to maybe 2 Stellar Converters doing 400 damage):

Doesn't the above calculation assume no blockage by shields? All 540 from

the disruptor will hit one shield -- the plasma will spread over all four.

Also, won't the plasma's damage get blocked at each shield facing? Of course,

the AF disruptor will get blocked on each pulse, too...I use plasmas a lot myself, but they aren't without disadvantages.Matt Wigdahl -- Athame Software

mwig...@sound.net

Neither of you two guys are considering range dissipation. If I

remember correctly, the disruptor doesn't have any. It also depends

upos the enemies technology. I am currently playing a game where my

disruptor equiped ships consistently outperform my plasma cannon equiped

ships (they are the same exept for weapons loadout). This is however

the first time I have had a game last as long as this one has. Usually,

the advent of plasma cannons markes the death of the computer's races.chuck

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