Tips from the experts (i.e. PC Gamer). Homeworld has been featured in PC Gamer's January 2000 issue in their ultimate strategy guide. Here are the images of the pages, read on:
Take everything Fleet Command says with a grain of salt. If they tell you to do something, like send a probe, or investigate an area, you'd better think twice. Often, if you follow Fleet Command's directions, you'll end up in all kinds of trouble.
Before Hyperspacing to the next mission, it's usually a good idea to check "Remain Docked" in the Launch Manager. That way your strike craft won't come popping out until you want them to. There are a few occasions where you?ll lose your strike craft if they come out too soon.
Salvage, salvage, salvage. If you salvage (steal) every ship you can, you'll end up with a fleet twice as large as if you didn't. You'll also have ships that you can't build yourself. One place this is particularly important is in Mission 3.
Multiplayer
Strike craft have two major advantages over Capital Ships, Speed and Maneuverability. Keep your formations manageable in order to use these advantages. If your formation is too large (over 20, except for defenders?too slow) it will take more time to maneuver and you may lose your advantage.
Your mothership can move in multiplayer. Move towards resource pockets to increase harvesting efficiency.
Probes are very useful for gathering intelligence on what type of fleet the enemy is building and picking up crates (tiny red pinpoints in the sensor manager).
When searching for an enemy Carrier watch your probe as it moves. At the first glimpse of the carrier scuttle the probe. Odds are your enemy will not be watching his carrier, he/she will be at their Mothership or their fleet. When their Mothership is gone, you'll know where to send your fleet and they'll think they're safe? for awhile.
Strike craft have two major advantages over Capital Ships, Speed and Maneuverability. Keep your formations manageable in order to use these advantages. If your formation is too large (over 20, except for defenders?too slow) it will take more time to maneuver and you may lose your advantage.
Strike hard and strike early. One of the better strategies in a default game is to build an attack force immediately and select an opponent to neutralize. If you can take out someone's research ship and their harvesters early in the game, they will be hard-pressed to pose a threat while you continue to research better technology and build a more powerful fleet.
An excellent defense against enemy strikecraft is the missile destroyer and Gravwell generator combination. Have a Gravwell generator guarding a missile destroyer or two and when a group of enemy strikecraft approach, activate it. The strikecraft then become easy and harmless targets for your destroyer(s) to pick off.
Scuttle bomb- Use your Scouts as a smart bomb. Most effective against other Scouts. Tell them to attack a target, then scuttle them just as they reach the target. If you get the timing right, you can take out 2 scouts for every 1 of yours that blows up.
Defenders. A large group of these (40-50) in a wall formation can plow through anything but multigun corvettes and missile destroyers. If you research these first and build a group of them you have a quick and effective fighting force very early in the game.
If you are building Frigates from a Carrier, they won't pop out until the Carrier is stopped. You can use this to your advantage and have a whole fleet of Frigates waiting inside your Carrier. When someone comes to attack you, you just stop the Carrier, and the Frigates all pop out. It's all about surprise.
Keep Cloak Generators around your Mothership. They won't cloak the Mothership, but they will hide your fleet. Your enemies may overstep themselves and attack you with insufficient forces, thinking you're an easy kill. Imagine their dismay when Heavy Cruisers and Destroyers start popping up all over.
In games with Hyperspacing on, start building a Gravwell Generator, but pause it when there's about 1 RU left before it's completed. If someone Hyperspaces in, you can pop that Gravwell out in about 3 seconds, usually in time to catch your enemy as they're hyperspacing in. (Any smart enemy will send a probe before hyperspacing, to ensure there are no Gravwell Generators. This way they don't think you have one until it's too late.) This same idea can be applied to any ship that's too large to dock that you want to stay in your mothership.
