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"One
of the ways in which we allow the player to make a series of
meaningful choices and to personalize their ships'
capabilities is through the use of subsystems. Subsystems
are unique ways in which a player can add abilities to a
ship. They only work on Capital Ships; strike craft wait for
research upgrades developed by the Mothership or a Carrier."
- Dan Irish, Executive Producer
"Subsystems
add an element of base building that Homeworld lacked
and that forms one of the cornerstones of the RTS genre.
This isn't to say that players will be building bases, but
they'll have the ability to customize their Capital Ships to
a degree, thereby increasing their strategic options. Where
customization comes in is in subsystems modules that grant
ships unique abilities like cloaking, improved firing
accuracy, repair abilities and so forth." - Josh Mosquiera, Lead Designer
"The introduction of subsystems adds new and interesting
tactical depth to Homeworld 2's research system. Players
will be able to build key modules to customize their larger
ships. Some sample subsystems include fighter production
bays, fire control towers, and cloaking generators. Of
course, players can target these subsystems, allowing them
to perform surgical strikes on their enemy's fleet. If your
opponent keeps building assault corvettes, take out his or
her corvette facilities to give your bombers free rein. When the
player starts a game, all of these slots will be empty, so
if a player wants to build fighters, he or she will have to
build a fighter subsystem. But
building isn't the only thing you can do with subsystems. So
if you wanted a cloak detecting sensor you can build that,
but again, you have a limited number of slots so you have to
be careful what you choose. If you have bunch of
fighters and bombers and your enemy has a bunch of
corvettes, you know they have a corvette facility. If you
manage to take that out, you've essentially hamstrung their
production efforts and kept them from building counters to
your units." - Josh Mosquiera, Lead Designer
"Knocking
out a ship's subsystems might cripple its corvette
production, making it vulnerable to Fighter and Bombers.
Likewise, the player must decide how to outfit their ships.
Do they choose a cloaking subsystem or a fire control tower
that increases its combat effectiveness? All these are
interesting choices in the middle of a multiplayer
match." - Dan Irish, Executive Producer
"Another
very, very important evolution that Relic has made with Homeworld
2 is the addition of subsystems. And this is on all
capital ships, including the Mothership. You’re now able
to have, for example on the Mothership, hardpoints that you
can customize, and you have a number of choices as to do
with these hardpoints; you can create research, you can
create ship production facilities, you can create additional
weapons systems, and because everybody has a Mothership and
they have the ability to customize these any way they want,
it lets you suit your ship to the style of player you are.
Maybe you’re the kind of player that rushes up the tech
tree, and so you want to take every available hardpoint and
devote it to research, so that you can get the higher-level ships first; you might be a player that
says, you know what? I don't care in the slightest about
research; I’m going to mob the other player as quickly as
possible. I’m going to increase my production capability,
and just make lots of little ships and take him out before
he finishes his research. You have the ability to attack
capital ships now, and they all have subsystems: they have
weapons, they have propulsion, and now you’re able to take
a small group of ships that would otherwise be completely
outmatched by such a ship, and you wouldn’t even bother
battling, because there’s no way that they could win;
well, they might not be able to win now, but if you can have
a small group of ships disable the weapons on a capital
ship, that becomes a worthwhile exchange. And while you may
be very confident about sending your capital ship into
battle before against such a force, now you understand that,
well, that’s all well and good, but if they cripple my
propulsion, and the Marine Frigates come in, and they can
capture my ship from me.
So again: more depth, more detail, and the ability to
really customize the gameplay to exactly the kind of player
that you are."
- Alex
Rodberg, Brand Manager (Sierra)
"But
the best thing about the larger ships is not their fearsome
firepower, but their customizability and consequent visual
differentiation. Add a bay for the Bomber production to your
mothership and a lovingly detailed module will be visibly
constructed on the behemoth’s hull. Add extra firepower
and the turrets are shown. You’ll have just as much fun
swooping the camera low over its laser-pitted hull as you
will unleashing the beast on your enemy."
- Ross Atherton, PCGamer
According
to IGN, there are three classes of subsystems: innate
subsystems (elements of an ordinary ship that can be
targeted or perhaps upgraded, such as engines), special-ability subsystems (such
as cloaking or cloak-detection sensors, or hyperspace
capability), and production
subsystems that build ships. The data given for the Hiigaran
Battlecruiser lists three types of innate subsystems:
command, propulsion and weapons, and notes that each is
targetable.
It's not understood
exactly which ships
will have what kinds of subsystems, but it does seem clear that
production-capable ships such as the Mothership, Carrier and
Shipyard, will have slots for production subsystems. While
it is said that the Mothership will have enough slots to build all
available subsystems, smaller vessels will have a limited
number, so the
player must choose which kind of production subsystems he
wants to build and invest in. Since individual
subsystems are targetable, the enemy can also focus on which
of your abilities he'd like to destroy. It appears that
production subsystems are represented on the ships by actual
geometry, so the enemy will be able to tell at a glance which systems you
have built, and which you haven't.
Here
are the currently known types of buildable subsystems and
their costs:
Corvette Facility
(RU 500)
Advanced Research Module (RU 1000)
Platform Controller (RU 500)
Hyperspace Module (RU 500)
Hyperspace Sensors (RU 1000)
Cloak Generator (RU 3000)
Fire Control Tower (RU 1500)
Hyperspace Inhibitor
Cloak Sensors (RU 1000)
Advanced Sensors Array (RU 1000)
Anti-Cloaking Sensors (RU 1000)
Gravity Well Generator (RU 750)
Capital Ship Facility
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