Homeworld: Shipbreakers

[Arioch]

Heh, it's fun to see Uberjumper (a.k.a. "InactiveJumper") is carrying the flag.

It's hard to make an unplanned prequel without a hefty amount of retconning, and so far it looks like they're slamming into it face-first.

[Karst45]

so they are still updating it? i tought that project was dead

[NOMAD]

Heh, it's fun to see Uberjumper (a.k.a. "InactiveJumper") is carrying the flag.

It's hard to make an unplanned prequel without a hefty amount of retconning, and so far it looks like they're slamming into it face-first.

I read the Reddit file, am I missing something obvious about any retcons. I checked the home world timeline and the references do make sense. Now, I don't know if their getting into a star wars prequel "bad story telling" scale. The small conflicts quote from the manuals would open the door to deserts of Khatak campaigne.

The HW1 manual history is sorta like a general history of the western world, with many of the details of the wars and space race left to the more significant moments (but for the home world area). Given this overall view of history I could see the road the discovery of khar toba would have had some conflicts, especially with the more religious kiths and desert wonders ( as hinted in the trailers). As for the tech level and vehicles, other than the HW cinematic, it not very well defined, but given the tech of the DoK timeline very possible ( as for the space weapon, maybe a very long ranger rail gun, designed to fire across continents).

On another notes, does anyone think DoK reminds them of relics Ground War games?

[Siber]

@NOMAD: The original printing of the HW1 backstory specifically said it had been 250 years since the last major conflict on Kharak, and the version printed by gearbox for the HWRC collector's edition changed this and some other passages as well.

[Arioch]

I don't know what the events of the new game are yet, but there appears to be some major conflict over the investigation of the Khar-toba that seems to involve spaceships (unless that element is a flashback). The minor problem is that there is no mention of such a conflict in the intro to Homeworld; rather, the discovery of the Guidestone is stated to have been a unifying event. This seems to be a thematic retcon if not necessarily a technical one. It's in a similar class to the appearance of the Emperor in Empire Strikes Back as a force user with Vader as second in command; sure, no one technically said this wasn't the case, but in the first movie it was strongly implied that the Emperor was not a force user (one of the Imperial officers openly mocks force use), and Vader was subordinate to a mere governor.

The bit about "our planet is dying" also rubs me the wrong way, since Kharak was (as far we know) always a barely-habitable desert wasteland from the moment that the exiles arrived.

I'll reserve judgment, but as I said, it's hard to do an unplanned prequel that has compelling action and story without taking significant liberties with the source material.

so they are still updating it? i tought that project was dead

The game is supposed to be released later this month.

It is nice that the pre-order in addition to being $10 off included the HW Remastered Edition for free.

[Roeben]

I think they meant the "Our World is Dying" thing more as to say that Kharak is nearing the end of its geological lifespan / the star it orbits is beginning its slow march to becoming a red giant. Whether or not it's in the last 100 or last 100,000 years, the planet is still "dying", though they leave it ambiguous as to how fast.

And though the discovery of the guide stone was said to be unifying, I'm going to guess the guide stone is discovered at the end of the final mission.

[NOMAD]

@siber. Oh ok I see that now, re the time and the history. I agree that the time line was always a little muddled although HW Cat had a final time that was iffy.

@Arioch, oh a see ur points, and I think I'll wait for the game too and see what happens.

@roeban. The world dying is more like its present, although the arioch does have a point. Kharak was always barely habitable. Even the hw1 manual said during the construction of the mothership, the effort stripped the fewer resources of planet away.

[Arioch]

The death of a star is not usually something that happens on a timescale that is relevant to human civilizations.

[Roeben]

It doesn't make it less true however. If we knew that the sun was going to destroy all life on earth in 100,000 years instead of 2 billion years, we'd probably look at interstellar colonization a little differently, even if it made no real difference. Keep in mind that the sun will sterilize all multicellular life 500 million years from now, and this process is likely already in a very advanced stage when the story picks up on Kharak.

I'd imagine there would be some sort of societal pressure on religion and society that isn't really influenced by the timeframes irrelevance to it's society, making the statement in the trailer accurate to the setting in my opinion.

[Arioch]

All stars are dying. It's not a meaningful thing to say.

[Siber]

I haven't gone back through and checked, but I'm reasonably sure it was a point made in a few places of the HW1 manual that the limited habitable region of Kharak was noticeably contracting, with technology struggling to slow it down. So it's maybe a bit cheesy to use as a motivating factor here, but not something I'm going to hold against them much

I really don't like all these starwars-esque hovercraft things I've seen though. I'd personally keep stuff like that out of even a hw2 era groundwar game.

[NOMAD]

I think the desert expanding is something that occurred throughout the Kharak history. I reread the Sjet history and it mentions even in the religious wars, the desert was expanding, even in the 300-400 KDS. Even the earliest history mentions natural disasters from 75-250, thus it may be easy to assume the planet was very sensitive to human activity (farming, very early industry) from the beginning.

As for hover vehicles, I snap know the tect of the space ships is well known. Ground vehicles not so much.

[Roeben]

It from the recent media blitz it appears that Kiith Gaalsien stumbled across Taiidan or Hiigaran technology in the desert and engineered their hover vehicles from the lost tech. It seems this is what gives them their edge in battle. It is not "normal" tech in the setting.

[Roeben]

So. Mission centric spoilers coming up. Don't click until you have passed mission 8.

SpoilerShow

In Tombs of The Ancients, it becomes clear that the reason there are so many wrecks hidden in the equator on Kharak is because of the Hyperspace core pirating nearby jump-capable ships and summoning them towards it, entombing the vessels in perfectly box-shaped tombs of rock, which may or may not come to the surface through erosion or geological event. I find this a cool plot-hole evading "loophole" in the general scheme of things.

[dragoongfa]

Total Biscuit did a WTF is... on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYRibkfPXM0

[Grayhome]

Oh boy, here we go.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUBbrX90gxk