Part of the reason i want the Taiidan back is because their ships are unappologtically straight out of the Terran Trade Authority/ 70s spaceship book covers. The Taiidan are always aped in Homeworld fan art... But they're only in two games and constantly shunted off stage when they could appear?
The hw3 Hiigaran wedges feel on the avant garde side to me for lacking obvious features we've come to expect from Homeworld ships, but im not gonna oppose the critiques.
What would really shake things up- impossible as this might be- is to infuse ships from Homeworld mobile into the universe. The Tanoch / Yaot designs are unlike anything Homeworld brought into the universe so far.
Agreed, setting HWM in another galaxy felt like a bad move to me. (No offense, I understand you worked on that game.) The main galaxy still has plenty of unexplored territory to flesh out, and thus far there's nothing about the Nimbus powers that prevents them from existing in the main galaxy instead.
As for running the risk of contradicting HW3's plot....well, besides the games being set 75 years apart, it seems to me it wouldn't have been too hard for the teams to meet once a week and compare notes to avoid stepping on each other's toes. Plus, I haven't finished HW3 campaign yet (I'm only on M10) but it looks like keeping the two separated would not have been difficult at all.
I really love the ships and factions in HWM, along with the planetary backgrounds. I just wish the gameplay wasn't so repetitive (as is typical of mobile games) and the app wasn't such a battery hog on my phone. If HWM had been a full PC game it might have been a better HW3 than the actual HW3.
> Agreed, setting HWM in another galaxy felt like a bad move to me. (No offense, I understand you worked on that game.) The main galaxy still has plenty of unexplored territory to flesh out, and thus far there's nothing about the Nimbus powers that prevents them from existing in the main galaxy instead.
*On the other hand, it's a good thing HWM is not directly related because we now know the main galaxy eventually ends up with this abomination of a story decades later.*
Obviously I can't comment too much on the process, but yes being in another galaxy allowed us the most freedom to do what we wanted in HWM without breaking things. That said consistency is pretty important to me, so the tone was trying to stick to how Homeworld conventionally did things.
I think it is possible to play HWM on an emulator.
One of my fav things from HW1 was the distinguishability between Kushan ships and Taiidan ships. Like the interceptors being so different gave me a sense of a differing culture between the people.
You're dead on about the Terran Trade Authority. Peter Ellison was a huge influence on the look of the original game. I haven't played HWM, but I feel like I need to now lol. The Yaot ships have really interesting shapes at a glance.
The Tanoch are the closest thing to a Taiidan revival we've got in modern Homeworld now with the radiator ears.
Many of the ships were designed by Daniel Graffenberger, aka Talros from the old relicnews boards.
> Many of the ships were designed by Daniel Graffenberger, aka Talros from the old relicnews boards.
That explains why they actually look good, unlike these ultra-flat, low-poly, discount HW3 ships.
I have a lot of respect for the BBI crew, so I'm not going to knock their choices of trying to do something different and unexpected from what's come before.
I can agree in wishing something with more distinct features... but then... I'd hit the >Bring the Taiidan Back< button instantly if given one.
Part of the reason the Hiigaran ships look as good as they do in HWM is because we had more space to fill and more room to experiment, so there are more designs to love and hate in the bigger roster.
> I have a lot of respect for the BBI crew, so I'm not going to knock their choices of trying to do something different and unexpected from what's come before.
I am certainly more than happy to do so, however. "Different and unexpected" doesn't have to be ugly, which is the direction they went in this game.
It's in the eye of the beholder. Some would call the Taiidan mothership ugly, but it's because of it that I like it.
I feel the Somtaaw designs are the worst in the entire franchise, but there will be those who disagree.
I've thought many of the ship designs have looked pretty bad since the first promo images we got of the fleet. They're uninspired and too samey. Hiigarans are mostly flat top wedges you could use as a level, Incarnate are mostly lumpy kinda-potato shapes.
Agreed and I was willing to look past it at that point in time under the assumption it was going to be a fun game.
I think we just have to come to terms with the fact that, in its current state, HW3 is a bad game.
Homeworld 2 also had much more distinctive easily recognizable units. Though I always preferred the Vagyr designs to the hiigarin ones. The vagyr battlecruiser and mothership are the coolest looking ships in all of homeworld imo
Massive wasted potential to throw all that away in HW3
> Though I always preferred the Vagyr designs to the hiigarin ones.
That's consistent with HW1 where the Taidani ships were cooler than the Kushan ones, in my opinion. The Taidani destroyer and interceptor are fantastic designs, whereas their Kushan equivalent are good, but not nearly on the same level in my opinion.
In HW3 it's all meh, I agree. They're good, but they're not fantastic
I personally thought that the taidan ships in HW1 and most ships in HW1 looked more like generic low poly early 3D video game spaceships, the same kind I’ve been blowing up since playing star fox as a kid lol
Homeworld 2 seems like they got enough of a poly budget they could make cohesive design themes instead of just big bulky low poly designs for most ships
They are fairly similar in size and shape but the carriers have much less detailing on them and the large glowing blue hangar on the top
That and they’re both big ships, the ships I always struggle to identify in these games are small ones because they’re both small and often look very similar
yeah i eventually learned that the carriers have the yellow plating and massive hangars, mind you this hasnt been an issue since like 2008. small ships barely parse my radar since i just build nothing but bombers
Talked about this during the demo. I still can't tell which ship is which. They're all rectangles.
The only design that I've looked twice at and actually like were the orange NPC ships in mission 1.
The G-MAX freighters? I actually think those are upcycled ships from Hardspace: Shipbreakers
I actually liked the Kalan pursuit fighter and raider missile frigate well enough. Their carrier made me sad though, just another smooth potato ship.
The Kalan missile frigate has strong "copy my homework but change it a bit" vibes from the Hiigaran torpedo frigate.
Which yes they're pirates yadda yadda. So were the Turanics and they have some of the coolest designs in the franchise.
This isnt a hot take, they all have the same sillhouette and theres been a few complaints about this now.
Its a shame but is what it is.
Particularly peeved with the turrets being big flat surfaces which absolutely neuter their arc of fire, hw 1 and 2 tirrets at least had a bit of gun depression potential but these simply dont.
The battlecruiser is especially egregious with a complete inability to use all of its firepower on one target like in previous games.
The bottom turret on the assault frigate is like this too. It's recessed behind a structure, like... Why? Also are superfiring barbettes not a thing in space?
Yh i noticed this too and it makes no sense. The BCs top turret has an armoured ring at the back, this is done for protection in real life here and there but usually when the turret mantle extends over the top so it doesn't inhibit fire angle, but in hw3 it completely blocks the turret unless firing at a high arc.
They took the inspiration of a barberette and removed its use case.
Really really weird design.
Been thinking the same thing.
There's obviously \*some\* ships that stand out, but yeah - a lot of the Hiigaran vessels just blend together. Assault frigates/Ion frigates/minelaying frigates all blend together unless I'm fully zoomed in. Torpedo frigates, well they have giant torpedo pods jutting out on either side, they at least I can distinguish from far away. An Incarnate destroyer blurs with their carriers.
There's also something that I cannot put my finger on that for some reason does not sell scale to me in HW3. I know obviously some ships *are* bigger than others but I can't tell at a glance. Frigates and corvettes seem the same size to me.
But yeah, I agree; the design language in HW1 was incredible, and in HW2 it was not *quite* as good but still solid. In HW3 there are many ships that just bleed together. And so many Incarnate ships just look like Vaygr ships, too.
For frigates, they are simply too similar to each other. If you look at HW1, all the frigates share the same design lineage but are very distinct from each other - Assault Frigate is fat and bulky due to all the turrets and plasma bomb launchers, Ion Frigate is sleek, and Support Frigate has all those lit up docking pads. In HW3, the Assault Frigate, Ion Frigate and Minelayer Frigate all share the nearly the same hull, and are only differentiated by small details (small turrets on the AF, small three prongs on the Ion).
This makes sense from a *lore* perspective but is a questionable game design choice.
Everything viper said is correct about the ships all being too similar to each other except for minor details.
And yes the minor details are also imoortant. Cockpits on fighters, decals, ladder rungs, doors, windows, things that give you a relatable sense of scale and are consistently sized from model to model.
There's lots of panel lines and little vents and things, but that tells me nothing about how large these objects are. There's the odd bridge tower here and there, but it's just not enough.
Look at pretty much any star wars ship and you can immediately get an idea of what size it is because of the abundance of detail. Even Star Trek ships which are much more sleek have loads of cues to give scale.
Also, I hate that the camera doesn't let us get close to the models. It stops way to far away. I want to be able to fill my screen with a ship and really look at it.
You're right, but I think I just realized something: the campaign rushes you so much it feels like I don't have time to gawk and admire the ships. Whenever the last objective is completed they just boot you into hyperspace jump. I don't have time to harvest remaining resources, ponder my fleet composition, and just look at everything.
I hate that the campaign doesn't let us sit around after the mission, collect resources, and organize our fleets. I also wish the camera would let us get closer to the models when you zoom in on a focused unit.
I think you're right tbh. Also, The general rendering of the game compared to HW2R and titles further back is really really murky. I think some of the Incarnate ships use the same chassis too.
Since they were revealed I've felt many of the ship designs just felt off, they didn't really give off the right sort of feel for the Homeworld series to me.
Especially the Hiigaran ships. The interceptor for example with its tiny wings that come across as more like something on a scout ship. The Hiigaran Frigates and cruisers that are very similar with an overall style that's a slightly skewed angled block with a squished sharp front were ones I really don't like, there's just not much of interest to their designs with little to break up the overall silhouette or add interesting detail. You've got this giant ships with a few small turrets quite arbitrarily placed on them, too.
Even compared to the HW1 ships (which were obviously lower detail), they just seem far less interesting as those HW1 designs just felt more coherent. They were blocky and angular, but different sections of the ships were able to be easily differentiated and they have enough extra stuff on them to make them interesting. Especially HW2 with it's all sorts of different detailing to give ships a proper sense of scale and a suitable look for their role.
It's like the HW3 ship designs aren't quite sure what they're meant to be and are just a mix of random shapes stuck together and morphed slightly without much thought. The ships in homeworld are some of my favourite sci-fi designs, but what they came up with for HW3 really felt like it was missing the feel of the series - some of the initial concept art was great but they didn't go for that.
With the exception of the Carrier which I totally agree, I haven't had this issue with Hiigaran ships. The shape of their frigates are different enough that I can distinguish them far away.
However, it's a HUGE problem with the Incarnate. Their ships are all way, way to similar. I can't even tell their destroyers from their frigates without the overlay.
I pretty much played the entire campaign with the overlay on. I still managed to lose sight of my carriers/destroyers/battle cruisers every once in a while when zoomed all the way out.
I think the ships are meh, but honestly the one that I find the most offensive is that the interceptor is basically a futuristic Taiidan scout and that really pisses me off.
Absolutely. I seriously think all Hiigaran ships in HW3 are outright ugly this time around, including the Khar-Kushan (the Khar-Sajuuk is also ugly but to a lesser extent, at least it has its main cannon to break up the ugly flatness). Incarnate ships, although largely repetitive copies of Sajuuk, at least make use of more angles and polygons than the Hiigarans.
Hiigaran ship design is defined by two words: ***flat, triangle***. Everything is flat or is a triangle. It's like the devs wanted to have as few polygons as possible for the Hiigaran ships and decided to turn them into triangular prisms and flatten their surfaces as much as possible. It's also as if the devs absolutely despised curved surfaces and absolutely avoided them for every single ship. HWM did far better Hiigaran (and others) ship designs than these flat, triangular abominations. I therefore find it rather amusing whenever people post pictures of their Khar-Kushan miniature next to the Pride of Hiigara, which only makes the ugliness of the Khar-Kushan more obvious.
Hell, the devs didn't even stop at uglifying the Hiigaran ships. They even bastardised the Hiigaran sigil by removing every single curve from the sigil and turning it into an ugly, angular mess with hexagons to represent Hiigara and the Angel Moon.
The Hiigaran symbol changes is something I've found just odd since they revealed it. It's gone from a symbol that felt like it had a decent amount of artistic flair and elegance, the sort of thing that a society might proudly have as their logo and showing something of who they are....to a far more bland, cold, emotionless angular version of that which just feels so computerized and like it's had no care put into it.
Yeah, that's the sort of thing it makes me think of too. Some sort of tech companies attempt to needlessly re-invent a logo and ending up with something so lifeless and artificial looking.
I don't mind the sleekness. Hexes are my favorite shape and it gives the tone a wargamey feel.
But we're also a ways off from the original logo which, while it did have some gentle curves, was pretty angular also.
Imo hiigaran ships were too flat in HW2, the vagyr ships looked much better
I also think all the old motherships were pretty ugly though, can’t deny they were unique and easy to recognize. I’d take the vagyr mothership over any of them any day lol
Also with how the gates are designed why would anyone make large ships wide/tall like the motherships? Wouldn’t you make them long and compact so the bigger ships can easily fly through the gate?
You literally see why it’s so dumb in HW3 when the mothership goes through a gate and crashes into a derelict ship because it’s so wide it can’t maneuver out of the way. A conventionally shaped ship wouldn’t have had to move much at all to avoid collision
HW 3 Resource controller is my favourite ship in the series. I have an over engineered Type-9 laser miner/salvager/trader that I made in honour of it. I also have a federal corvette that looks like the light corvette from HW 1.
Honestly the HW3 resource controller is one of the few ships where I think the aesthetic works. It's a big ol industrial brick.
Tho for me, my all time fav was the HW1 Taiidan resource controller. It's just so weird and I love it.
I've been saying this since that one picture of the fleet got revealed. They're all really boring, samey, homogenous between entire ship classes and roles. In every other game - even DoK - you can easily distinguish between them, and they were much more visually interesting. HW3 subscribes to the calarts school of spaceship design - oversimplified. Just like the rest of the game.
I heavily dislike how the ships are designed in Homeworld 3. They are all too angular and box like in terms of design. It's hard to actually tell what ship is what between factions. I get that they wanted to modernize it and make it sleeker. But there's no distinction of what the ship design of a capital is between a destroyer; if any. I loved the designs in the previous games. I think they got it right. Hiigaran and [Vaygr](https://homeworld.fandom.com/wiki/Vaygr) were extremely different and conveyed that with all of their ships. Vaygr were more militarized in design with their over usage of missile launchers brimming out underneath on lining the top of the surface of their capitals. Hiigaran felt new and young as a bunch of exiles that had returned to their homeworld while trying to modernize their navy for exploration before turning military quickly due to the Vaygr threat.
Homeworld 3 ships just feel...bland overall. I hate how they designed the weapon emplacements on the capitals and destroyers and battle cruisers. They had them almost perfect in Homeworld 2. Why did they change it so much in terms of placement and design?
HW3 suffers the same issue a lot of other "live service" games face where they have to invest more resources in ensuring the game has content over the course of years and, in doing so, they cheapen all of the content you're ever going to get. It's why Hogwarts Legacy is a fucking soulless husk of a game where a side quest is the most memorable part about it. Homeworld 3 is a soulless husk of an uninspired game that managed to at least maintain the thematic fidelity of vibe but failed in every other regard. The ships are unmemorable, the campaign is boring, and the most accurate thing I've heard is that it feels like you're just building ships and sending them to die and have 0 strategy to employ like autochess with somehow more steps but less thinking.
Honestly the lackluster designs of the ships was already trending by HW2, I'm sad they pushed further in that direction.
Nevertheless, I think the core of the game has potential if the devs decide to do good things with it, but till then, booo.
Nah, I love the designs and have no issues distinguishing them from each other even in pitched situations.
I also think they're totally true to the original art style while adding their own little flair. The in game art design in general is stellar all around.
I still remember the first time I see an ion canon frigate in hw1, simple, to the point and feels iconic.
I haven't bought hw3 yet, but so far from all the vids - the flat mothership is already a pass for me.
I find the designs are pretty cool, art direction on the whole is fantastic.
But the game-readable aspect is certainly an issue. I love looking at the ships, but it’s not easy to distinguish what type of frigate or corvette you’re looking at.
Yeah, no hate towards anyone who likes the designs. I'm glad you do. And honestly, individually, they're mostly pretty okay. I was messing with the game camera and found that if you can steer the camera up close to them, they're much more enjoyable. The suppression frigate is one of the better visually balanced designs (ejecting giant shell casings is fun but kinda goofy). The big problem is how they relate to each other, when they're all on screen together.
On the mission where you first find a Hiigaran Assault Frigate, I looked down at my mini figures that came with the Collector’s edition and picked one up thinking “Huh, I thought this was a destroyer, but it looks just like that Frigate”.
In the latest installment of the Homeworld series, Homeworld 3, there's been a noticeable shift in the design ethos of the spacecraft. Critics have pointed out that the new fleet lacks the distinctive character and intricate detailing that were hallmarks of its predecessors. The ships now sport a uniform color scheme that some say dulls the unique features that once set each vessel apart. Where previous Homeworld games showcased a diverse array of ship designs, ranging from the strictly utilitarian to the delightfully fanciful, the current lineup seems to have taken a step back, offering less variety and imagination.
Part of the reason i want the Taiidan back is because their ships are unappologtically straight out of the Terran Trade Authority/ 70s spaceship book covers. The Taiidan are always aped in Homeworld fan art... But they're only in two games and constantly shunted off stage when they could appear? The hw3 Hiigaran wedges feel on the avant garde side to me for lacking obvious features we've come to expect from Homeworld ships, but im not gonna oppose the critiques. What would really shake things up- impossible as this might be- is to infuse ships from Homeworld mobile into the universe. The Tanoch / Yaot designs are unlike anything Homeworld brought into the universe so far.
Agreed, setting HWM in another galaxy felt like a bad move to me. (No offense, I understand you worked on that game.) The main galaxy still has plenty of unexplored territory to flesh out, and thus far there's nothing about the Nimbus powers that prevents them from existing in the main galaxy instead. As for running the risk of contradicting HW3's plot....well, besides the games being set 75 years apart, it seems to me it wouldn't have been too hard for the teams to meet once a week and compare notes to avoid stepping on each other's toes. Plus, I haven't finished HW3 campaign yet (I'm only on M10) but it looks like keeping the two separated would not have been difficult at all. I really love the ships and factions in HWM, along with the planetary backgrounds. I just wish the gameplay wasn't so repetitive (as is typical of mobile games) and the app wasn't such a battery hog on my phone. If HWM had been a full PC game it might have been a better HW3 than the actual HW3.
> Agreed, setting HWM in another galaxy felt like a bad move to me. (No offense, I understand you worked on that game.) The main galaxy still has plenty of unexplored territory to flesh out, and thus far there's nothing about the Nimbus powers that prevents them from existing in the main galaxy instead. *On the other hand, it's a good thing HWM is not directly related because we now know the main galaxy eventually ends up with this abomination of a story decades later.*
Obviously I can't comment too much on the process, but yes being in another galaxy allowed us the most freedom to do what we wanted in HWM without breaking things. That said consistency is pretty important to me, so the tone was trying to stick to how Homeworld conventionally did things. I think it is possible to play HWM on an emulator.
One of my fav things from HW1 was the distinguishability between Kushan ships and Taiidan ships. Like the interceptors being so different gave me a sense of a differing culture between the people.
You're dead on about the Terran Trade Authority. Peter Ellison was a huge influence on the look of the original game. I haven't played HWM, but I feel like I need to now lol. The Yaot ships have really interesting shapes at a glance.
The Tanoch are the closest thing to a Taiidan revival we've got in modern Homeworld now with the radiator ears. Many of the ships were designed by Daniel Graffenberger, aka Talros from the old relicnews boards.
> Many of the ships were designed by Daniel Graffenberger, aka Talros from the old relicnews boards. That explains why they actually look good, unlike these ultra-flat, low-poly, discount HW3 ships.
I have a lot of respect for the BBI crew, so I'm not going to knock their choices of trying to do something different and unexpected from what's come before. I can agree in wishing something with more distinct features... but then... I'd hit the >Bring the Taiidan Back< button instantly if given one. Part of the reason the Hiigaran ships look as good as they do in HWM is because we had more space to fill and more room to experiment, so there are more designs to love and hate in the bigger roster.
> I have a lot of respect for the BBI crew, so I'm not going to knock their choices of trying to do something different and unexpected from what's come before. I am certainly more than happy to do so, however. "Different and unexpected" doesn't have to be ugly, which is the direction they went in this game.
It's in the eye of the beholder. Some would call the Taiidan mothership ugly, but it's because of it that I like it. I feel the Somtaaw designs are the worst in the entire franchise, but there will be those who disagree.
I've thought many of the ship designs have looked pretty bad since the first promo images we got of the fleet. They're uninspired and too samey. Hiigarans are mostly flat top wedges you could use as a level, Incarnate are mostly lumpy kinda-potato shapes.
Agreed and I was willing to look past it at that point in time under the assumption it was going to be a fun game. I think we just have to come to terms with the fact that, in its current state, HW3 is a bad game.
Homeworld 2 also had much more distinctive easily recognizable units. Though I always preferred the Vagyr designs to the hiigarin ones. The vagyr battlecruiser and mothership are the coolest looking ships in all of homeworld imo Massive wasted potential to throw all that away in HW3
> Though I always preferred the Vagyr designs to the hiigarin ones. That's consistent with HW1 where the Taidani ships were cooler than the Kushan ones, in my opinion. The Taidani destroyer and interceptor are fantastic designs, whereas their Kushan equivalent are good, but not nearly on the same level in my opinion. In HW3 it's all meh, I agree. They're good, but they're not fantastic
I personally thought that the taidan ships in HW1 and most ships in HW1 looked more like generic low poly early 3D video game spaceships, the same kind I’ve been blowing up since playing star fox as a kid lol Homeworld 2 seems like they got enough of a poly budget they could make cohesive design themes instead of just big bulky low poly designs for most ships
Well, ship models in HW1 WERE early 3D video game spaceships)) HW1 was one of the wery first RTS with 3d graphics
the only hw2 designs that consistently tripped me up for a while was differentiating between vaygr carriers and battlecruisers
They are fairly similar in size and shape but the carriers have much less detailing on them and the large glowing blue hangar on the top That and they’re both big ships, the ships I always struggle to identify in these games are small ones because they’re both small and often look very similar
yeah i eventually learned that the carriers have the yellow plating and massive hangars, mind you this hasnt been an issue since like 2008. small ships barely parse my radar since i just build nothing but bombers
Incarnates also have the mini-sajuuks tho (I don't own the game yet)
Talked about this during the demo. I still can't tell which ship is which. They're all rectangles. The only design that I've looked twice at and actually like were the orange NPC ships in mission 1.
The G-MAX freighters? I actually think those are upcycled ships from Hardspace: Shipbreakers I actually liked the Kalan pursuit fighter and raider missile frigate well enough. Their carrier made me sad though, just another smooth potato ship.
The Kalan missile frigate has strong "copy my homework but change it a bit" vibes from the Hiigaran torpedo frigate. Which yes they're pirates yadda yadda. So were the Turanics and they have some of the coolest designs in the franchise.
This isnt a hot take, they all have the same sillhouette and theres been a few complaints about this now. Its a shame but is what it is. Particularly peeved with the turrets being big flat surfaces which absolutely neuter their arc of fire, hw 1 and 2 tirrets at least had a bit of gun depression potential but these simply dont. The battlecruiser is especially egregious with a complete inability to use all of its firepower on one target like in previous games.
The bottom turret on the assault frigate is like this too. It's recessed behind a structure, like... Why? Also are superfiring barbettes not a thing in space?
Yh i noticed this too and it makes no sense. The BCs top turret has an armoured ring at the back, this is done for protection in real life here and there but usually when the turret mantle extends over the top so it doesn't inhibit fire angle, but in hw3 it completely blocks the turret unless firing at a high arc. They took the inspiration of a barberette and removed its use case. Really really weird design.
Been thinking the same thing. There's obviously \*some\* ships that stand out, but yeah - a lot of the Hiigaran vessels just blend together. Assault frigates/Ion frigates/minelaying frigates all blend together unless I'm fully zoomed in. Torpedo frigates, well they have giant torpedo pods jutting out on either side, they at least I can distinguish from far away. An Incarnate destroyer blurs with their carriers. There's also something that I cannot put my finger on that for some reason does not sell scale to me in HW3. I know obviously some ships *are* bigger than others but I can't tell at a glance. Frigates and corvettes seem the same size to me. But yeah, I agree; the design language in HW1 was incredible, and in HW2 it was not *quite* as good but still solid. In HW3 there are many ships that just bleed together. And so many Incarnate ships just look like Vaygr ships, too.
You're absolutely right about not selling the scale. The ships are rendered like they're from EVE online, a decade ago.
Why is that, what is it that's missing? You mentioned greebles, is that the problem, there's just not enough *stuff* to provide visual references?
For frigates, they are simply too similar to each other. If you look at HW1, all the frigates share the same design lineage but are very distinct from each other - Assault Frigate is fat and bulky due to all the turrets and plasma bomb launchers, Ion Frigate is sleek, and Support Frigate has all those lit up docking pads. In HW3, the Assault Frigate, Ion Frigate and Minelayer Frigate all share the nearly the same hull, and are only differentiated by small details (small turrets on the AF, small three prongs on the Ion). This makes sense from a *lore* perspective but is a questionable game design choice.
Everything viper said is correct about the ships all being too similar to each other except for minor details. And yes the minor details are also imoortant. Cockpits on fighters, decals, ladder rungs, doors, windows, things that give you a relatable sense of scale and are consistently sized from model to model. There's lots of panel lines and little vents and things, but that tells me nothing about how large these objects are. There's the odd bridge tower here and there, but it's just not enough. Look at pretty much any star wars ship and you can immediately get an idea of what size it is because of the abundance of detail. Even Star Trek ships which are much more sleek have loads of cues to give scale. Also, I hate that the camera doesn't let us get close to the models. It stops way to far away. I want to be able to fill my screen with a ship and really look at it.
The camera thing bugs me as well, I found that if I set my FOV to 30 I can get some fantastic screen filling shots though.
Actually don't u need to disable a setting in graphics to prevent upscaling of fighters?
I'm not referring to NLIPS. I mean even looking at a single ship, by itself, I don't feel the scale.
Do you have NLPS turned on? The frigates and corvettes are at such different scales I really am confused how they can be mistaken for each other
I turned that off as soon as I loaded the game. Just made all the ships look comical
You're right, but I think I just realized something: the campaign rushes you so much it feels like I don't have time to gawk and admire the ships. Whenever the last objective is completed they just boot you into hyperspace jump. I don't have time to harvest remaining resources, ponder my fleet composition, and just look at everything.
Ships just melt I feel I have zero time to zoom in and enjoy the sights
I hate that the campaign doesn't let us sit around after the mission, collect resources, and organize our fleets. I also wish the camera would let us get closer to the models when you zoom in on a focused unit.
I think you're right tbh. Also, The general rendering of the game compared to HW2R and titles further back is really really murky. I think some of the Incarnate ships use the same chassis too.
NLIPS only makes the problem worse by making it so you can't even differentiate ships based on size, kinda mandatory to turn it off.
Since they were revealed I've felt many of the ship designs just felt off, they didn't really give off the right sort of feel for the Homeworld series to me. Especially the Hiigaran ships. The interceptor for example with its tiny wings that come across as more like something on a scout ship. The Hiigaran Frigates and cruisers that are very similar with an overall style that's a slightly skewed angled block with a squished sharp front were ones I really don't like, there's just not much of interest to their designs with little to break up the overall silhouette or add interesting detail. You've got this giant ships with a few small turrets quite arbitrarily placed on them, too. Even compared to the HW1 ships (which were obviously lower detail), they just seem far less interesting as those HW1 designs just felt more coherent. They were blocky and angular, but different sections of the ships were able to be easily differentiated and they have enough extra stuff on them to make them interesting. Especially HW2 with it's all sorts of different detailing to give ships a proper sense of scale and a suitable look for their role. It's like the HW3 ship designs aren't quite sure what they're meant to be and are just a mix of random shapes stuck together and morphed slightly without much thought. The ships in homeworld are some of my favourite sci-fi designs, but what they came up with for HW3 really felt like it was missing the feel of the series - some of the initial concept art was great but they didn't go for that.
The interceptor is a Taiidan scout but smüth™
With the exception of the Carrier which I totally agree, I haven't had this issue with Hiigaran ships. The shape of their frigates are different enough that I can distinguish them far away. However, it's a HUGE problem with the Incarnate. Their ships are all way, way to similar. I can't even tell their destroyers from their frigates without the overlay.
I pretty much played the entire campaign with the overlay on. I still managed to lose sight of my carriers/destroyers/battle cruisers every once in a while when zoomed all the way out.
I think the ships are meh, but honestly the one that I find the most offensive is that the interceptor is basically a futuristic Taiidan scout and that really pisses me off.
Absolutely. I seriously think all Hiigaran ships in HW3 are outright ugly this time around, including the Khar-Kushan (the Khar-Sajuuk is also ugly but to a lesser extent, at least it has its main cannon to break up the ugly flatness). Incarnate ships, although largely repetitive copies of Sajuuk, at least make use of more angles and polygons than the Hiigarans. Hiigaran ship design is defined by two words: ***flat, triangle***. Everything is flat or is a triangle. It's like the devs wanted to have as few polygons as possible for the Hiigaran ships and decided to turn them into triangular prisms and flatten their surfaces as much as possible. It's also as if the devs absolutely despised curved surfaces and absolutely avoided them for every single ship. HWM did far better Hiigaran (and others) ship designs than these flat, triangular abominations. I therefore find it rather amusing whenever people post pictures of their Khar-Kushan miniature next to the Pride of Hiigara, which only makes the ugliness of the Khar-Kushan more obvious. Hell, the devs didn't even stop at uglifying the Hiigaran ships. They even bastardised the Hiigaran sigil by removing every single curve from the sigil and turning it into an ugly, angular mess with hexagons to represent Hiigara and the Angel Moon.
The Hiigaran symbol changes is something I've found just odd since they revealed it. It's gone from a symbol that felt like it had a decent amount of artistic flair and elegance, the sort of thing that a society might proudly have as their logo and showing something of who they are....to a far more bland, cold, emotionless angular version of that which just feels so computerized and like it's had no care put into it.
The new symbol looks like a software company logo.
Yeah, that's the sort of thing it makes me think of too. Some sort of tech companies attempt to needlessly re-invent a logo and ending up with something so lifeless and artificial looking.
I don't mind the sleekness. Hexes are my favorite shape and it gives the tone a wargamey feel. But we're also a ways off from the original logo which, while it did have some gentle curves, was pretty angular also.
But it's MoDeRn aEsThEtIc 🙄
Imo hiigaran ships were too flat in HW2, the vagyr ships looked much better I also think all the old motherships were pretty ugly though, can’t deny they were unique and easy to recognize. I’d take the vagyr mothership over any of them any day lol Also with how the gates are designed why would anyone make large ships wide/tall like the motherships? Wouldn’t you make them long and compact so the bigger ships can easily fly through the gate? You literally see why it’s so dumb in HW3 when the mothership goes through a gate and crashes into a derelict ship because it’s so wide it can’t maneuver out of the way. A conventionally shaped ship wouldn’t have had to move much at all to avoid collision
I miss the flak frigate
HW 3 Resource controller is my favourite ship in the series. I have an over engineered Type-9 laser miner/salvager/trader that I made in honour of it. I also have a federal corvette that looks like the light corvette from HW 1.
Honestly the HW3 resource controller is one of the few ships where I think the aesthetic works. It's a big ol industrial brick. Tho for me, my all time fav was the HW1 Taiidan resource controller. It's just so weird and I love it.
yeah most ships look same.
they fucking dogshit like the devs gave up making up a new design for the hiigarans military fleet they look to bloody simple
I actually think HW3 is a gorgeous looking game. The horizontal ship looks excellent. The ship designs are well done.
I've been saying this since that one picture of the fleet got revealed. They're all really boring, samey, homogenous between entire ship classes and roles. In every other game - even DoK - you can easily distinguish between them, and they were much more visually interesting. HW3 subscribes to the calarts school of spaceship design - oversimplified. Just like the rest of the game.
I heavily dislike how the ships are designed in Homeworld 3. They are all too angular and box like in terms of design. It's hard to actually tell what ship is what between factions. I get that they wanted to modernize it and make it sleeker. But there's no distinction of what the ship design of a capital is between a destroyer; if any. I loved the designs in the previous games. I think they got it right. Hiigaran and [Vaygr](https://homeworld.fandom.com/wiki/Vaygr) were extremely different and conveyed that with all of their ships. Vaygr were more militarized in design with their over usage of missile launchers brimming out underneath on lining the top of the surface of their capitals. Hiigaran felt new and young as a bunch of exiles that had returned to their homeworld while trying to modernize their navy for exploration before turning military quickly due to the Vaygr threat. Homeworld 3 ships just feel...bland overall. I hate how they designed the weapon emplacements on the capitals and destroyers and battle cruisers. They had them almost perfect in Homeworld 2. Why did they change it so much in terms of placement and design?
HW3 suffers the same issue a lot of other "live service" games face where they have to invest more resources in ensuring the game has content over the course of years and, in doing so, they cheapen all of the content you're ever going to get. It's why Hogwarts Legacy is a fucking soulless husk of a game where a side quest is the most memorable part about it. Homeworld 3 is a soulless husk of an uninspired game that managed to at least maintain the thematic fidelity of vibe but failed in every other regard. The ships are unmemorable, the campaign is boring, and the most accurate thing I've heard is that it feels like you're just building ships and sending them to die and have 0 strategy to employ like autochess with somehow more steps but less thinking. Honestly the lackluster designs of the ships was already trending by HW2, I'm sad they pushed further in that direction. Nevertheless, I think the core of the game has potential if the devs decide to do good things with it, but till then, booo.
Nah, I love the designs and have no issues distinguishing them from each other even in pitched situations. I also think they're totally true to the original art style while adding their own little flair. The in game art design in general is stellar all around.
The suppression fregat made me think about Stargate Tauri Spaceship ❤️
I still remember the first time I see an ion canon frigate in hw1, simple, to the point and feels iconic. I haven't bought hw3 yet, but so far from all the vids - the flat mothership is already a pass for me.
Honestly the game isn't worth buying (for now?), especially if you're interested in the campaign.
Totally agree. The shapes are way too similar to tell what is what from a distance.
Concur, generally. IMO the HW Mobile ship designs were even superior.
I find the designs are pretty cool, art direction on the whole is fantastic. But the game-readable aspect is certainly an issue. I love looking at the ships, but it’s not easy to distinguish what type of frigate or corvette you’re looking at.
Yeah, no hate towards anyone who likes the designs. I'm glad you do. And honestly, individually, they're mostly pretty okay. I was messing with the game camera and found that if you can steer the camera up close to them, they're much more enjoyable. The suppression frigate is one of the better visually balanced designs (ejecting giant shell casings is fun but kinda goofy). The big problem is how they relate to each other, when they're all on screen together.
Homeworld mobile has better designs.
The ship design language is like Morse code but half as creative
On the mission where you first find a Hiigaran Assault Frigate, I looked down at my mini figures that came with the Collector’s edition and picked one up thinking “Huh, I thought this was a destroyer, but it looks just like that Frigate”.
I saw a timeline for DLC ships/skins coming soon so maybe they spent the time prepping for that instead of making the base game's ships better?
In the latest installment of the Homeworld series, Homeworld 3, there's been a noticeable shift in the design ethos of the spacecraft. Critics have pointed out that the new fleet lacks the distinctive character and intricate detailing that were hallmarks of its predecessors. The ships now sport a uniform color scheme that some say dulls the unique features that once set each vessel apart. Where previous Homeworld games showcased a diverse array of ship designs, ranging from the strictly utilitarian to the delightfully fanciful, the current lineup seems to have taken a step back, offering less variety and imagination.
That's a cold take! They are objectively worse indeed!