The 2K Summer Sale is officially live on Steam, and it’s the perfect excuse to find your next great escape. Summer is about having the time to truly immerse yourself, dive deep into a world, and remember exactly why you fell in love with gaming in the first place. Whether you’re
The 2K Summer Sale is officially live on Steam, and it’s the perfect excuse to find your next great escape. Summer is about having the time to truly immerse yourself, dive deep into a world, and remember exactly why you fell in love with gaming in the first place.
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Want to grab seven Steam games for less than twenty bucks? A new Humble bundle deal fronted by the spectacular Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and intergalactic RTS Homeworld 3 lets you do just that. The stylish spiritual successor to 2000 classic Jet Set Radio boasts an 'overwhelmingly posi
Want to grab seven Steam games for less than twenty bucks? A new Humble bundle deal fronted by the spectacular Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and intergalactic RTS Homeworld 3 lets you do just that. The stylish spiritual successor to 2000 classic Jet Set Radio boasts an 'overwhelmingly positive' Steam review score of 98%, but it deserves far more attention than it's had since its 2023 launch. Now, you can get it for a lower price than it's ever been sold on Steam, and snag six more games in the process.
Through April 10, during our Gearbox Software Sale on Steam, browse big discounts on a variety of Gearbox titles including the Borderlands series, Risk of Rain 2, Homeworld 3, Blanc, and more —then don't forget to wishlist Borderlands 4 on Steam while you're there! Not sure where
Through April 10, during our Gearbox Software Sale on Steam, browse big discounts on a variety of Gearbox titles including the Borderlands series, Risk of Rain 2, Homeworld 3, Blanc, and more —then don't forget to wishlist Borderlands 4 on Steam while you're there!
Not sure where to start shopping? Check out these bundles for some great deals on great Gearbox games!
This small update addresses an issue reported after the release of Update 1.3. Addresses an issue causing players equipped with Intel Arc GPUs to crash on boot.
This small update addresses an issue reported after the release of Update 1.3.
Addresses an issue causing players equipped with Intel Arc GPUs to crash on boot.
The next Homeworld 3 update, which overhauls combat and the pace of the campaign in the space RTS game, will also be the last, as developer Blackbird says it is time to "close this chapter." Originally released in May, Homeworld 3 revives the beloved strategy series, which once r
The next Homeworld 3 update, which overhauls combat and the pace of the campaign in the space RTS game, will also be the last, as developer Blackbird says it is time to "close this chapter." Originally released in May, Homeworld 3 revives the beloved strategy series, which once ranked alongside Total Annihilation and Command and Conquer as one of the best on PC. Currently, however, the game has 'mostly negative' reviews on Steam and an average concurrent player base of less than 50. Nevertheless, the upcoming 1.3 version will represent Homeworld 3's "last major content update."
Hi everyone, On November 21 , we are releasing a mothership-sized update for Homeworld 3 that contains a gargantuan number of improvements, fixes, and some entirely new features. We are grateful for your continued support and patience as we’ve worked to bring you this update! The
Hi everyone,
On November 21, we are releasing a mothership-sized update for Homeworld 3 that contains a gargantuan number of improvements, fixes, and some entirely new features. We are grateful for your continued support and patience as we’ve worked to bring you this update!
The full patch notes for Update 1.3 (spoiler alert: they’re big), released alongside this Dev Update, detail every change both big and small. But we’d like to provide our insight into Update 1.3’s biggest and most exciting gameplay improvements and new features. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so we’re going to divide this Dev Update into two major sections:
Combat and Balance Overhaul
Skirmish & War Games Changes, and Other Improvements
Lastly, at the end of this Dev Update, we will share an announcement about future support for Homeworld 3 and a special farewell message from the development team at Blackbird Interactive.
Combat and Balance Overhaul
With Homeworld 3, it was important to us that we evolved the series’ iconic space combat in exciting new directions. Our team has been working continuously to fine-tune that experience based on player feedback. Updates 1.1 and 1.2 introduced a ton of adjustments, but there was still more work to be done to bridge the gap between Homeworld 3’s combat and what you enjoyed about earlier Homeworld titles.
To that end, we’re very excited to reveal that Update 1.3 will introduce a near-total overhaul of combat. When we began this effort, our objectives were to:
Increase the importance of strategic decision making
Make those decisions more intuitive and relevant to the outcome of battles
Eliminate inconsistencies between how you’d expect units to react to orders and how they were actually behaving
Creating more strategic depth
In Update 1.3, we’ve completely redone how damage and armor works. This is a sweeping overhaul that is complemented by a comprehensive re-balancing of nearly every single unit in the game. All of this in service of giving each unit a meaningful niche to fill, with more clearly defined strengths and weaknesses.
The reworked armor system now groups ships into four varieties, each offering more overall damage mitigation.
Light Armor - 10% mitigation
Medium Armor - 20% mitigation
Heavy Armor - 30% mitigation
Mothership Armor - 50% mitigation
What’s more, we’ve reworked how directional damage is applied. Now, attacks that strike the aft of a ship grant a much more potent 2.5x multiplier. We’ve also removed the bonus multiplier for attacks that strike the side of a ship to better emphasize the advantage gained from clever positioning.
In order to ensure these balancing changes hit the mark, we’ve been working closely with a group of dedicated playtesters from our community. They’ve been instrumental in helping us tweak each and every unit in the game so they fill more distinct and satisfying niches — far too many changes to cover in this Dev Update. So, today, we’ll share just a few examples.
Since launch, we’ve heard from many of you that you’d like strike craft to be more survivable and formidable — especially the Hiigaran Bombers. Bombers now have more health, increased speed, a reduced attack cooldown, and increased missile damage and AoE.
What’s more, we’ve shortened the distance before strike craft will turn around to re-engage after making an attack run while also giving them more maneuverability. This means all your strike craft will spend much more time actively engaging hostiles.
We’ve also rebalanced ships that we felt were uncharacteristically effective against strike craft to give fighters more of a… fighting (sorry) chance. Hiigaran Torpedo Frigates, for example, are now less accurate against strike craft (and corvettes, too). Capital ships across the board will also be less effective at targeting strikecraft, and some frigates now have reduced rotation speed so they’ll struggle to keep fast-moving fighters in their sights as easily as they once did.
Be sure to check out the patch notes to see granular details of how we rebalanced each unit.
More intuitive ways to control your fleet
Homeworld has always been a very complex and demanding game. While we’re proud of the work we’ve done with Homeworld 3’s controls, we heard from many of you that there were some very specific pain points that you’d like to see addressed.
First, a simple one: We’ve added a Reinforce targeted ship ability to all ships — allowing you to seamlessly integrate new ships into existing formations. When instructing a unit to reinforce another ship, that unit will adopt the assigned formation, stance, and current target of the ship being reinforced. Do note, that you’ll still need to manually add units to control groups since that is a separate layer of controlling and organizing your fleets.
Somewhat related, another item of community feedback we’ve addressed is that ships will now automatically adopt the stance of the ship that produced them.
Now, let’s talk about bandbox attacking — or giving an attack order to a group by dragging a selection box around a group of enemies. In Update 1.3, we’ve implemented an entirely new logic for target selection and prioritization. Instead of a large formation focus-firing on a single ship, units given a bandbox attack command will now seamlessly split into smaller formations and spread fire more intelligently and evenly across the targeted units. Ships will also prioritize targets that they are most effective against. As a basic example, a group of Bombers will now prioritize frigates and capital ships when given a bandbox attack order against a mixed enemy fleet.
This last pillar of our combat overhaul is a sweeping number of smaller, individual adjustments that — on their own — might seem insignificant. But together, they dramatically improve how units respond to orders and behave in various combat scenarios.
For starters, we have revisited the retaliation range of all units in the game. Retaliation range is a key component of target acquisition and ship combat behavior. Now units will more consistently acquire new targets during combat, more consistently engage encroaching enemies when their stance is set to aggressive, and more consistently defend themselves when their stance is set to neutral.
How ships behave in combat is broadly defined by what we internally call “attack styles.” Think of this like the base personality of a ship — how does it juggle competing priorities like tracking targets, firing, avoiding incoming damage, and so on? In the case of ships like Battle Cruisers and Destroyers, their attack styles were a little too hyperactive. We’ve fine tuned them (among others), so they’ll spend less time maneuvering and more time punching enormous holes in enemy ships.
We have also made a number of other improvements to ship behavior to make ships feel more responsive to player commands and enable a greater level of tactical control in combat. This isn’t one single change, but rather a lot of edge-case bugs that sometimes resulted in player commands being overruled by various automatic ship behaviors. That is no longer the case, resulting in ships now being more reliable and consistent.
Skirmish, War Games, and Other Meaningful Improvements
Since launch, we’ve been hard at work making Skirmish a more rewarding and meaningful experience for players who love the thrill of fighting one another (or squaring off against computer opponents). We’ve already spoken about some of these changes, so we’ll focus more on stuff we haven’t revealed. But, just to close the loop, Update 1.3 introduces Hyperspace jumping in Skirmish, allowing you to quickly teleport your fleet around the map at the cost of RUs — just be wary of enemy ships with a Hyperspace Inhibitor as they’ll pull you out of Hyperspace early and into a potential ambush!
We also previously spoke about some changes that we were making to resourcing to heighten strategic decision making, particularly in Skirmish (do note, that some of these changes also are present in Campaign and War Games). At a glance, these changes include:
Lowering the rate at which resourcing units gather RUs by 10 percent.
Significantly lowering the default amount of starting RUs in Skirmish
Doubling the cost of Resource Controllers in Skirmish and Campaign
For Skirmish, these changes will emphasize the need for smart decision making — especially in the early minutes of a match — The classic RTS strategic decision trichotomy: do I invest more resources in developing my economy, building combat units to attack or defend, or in progressing my tech? Do I push heavily in one direction to try and gain an advantage over my enemy in the early, mid, or late game or do I take a more balanced approach?
Play some Skirmish matches and you’ll quickly notice we’ve entirely reworked the tech trees for both Hiigaran and Incarnate factions. Now, Research functions like a classic tech tree, where ships and abilities are spread across branches that you gradually unlock piece by piece. In addition to the Research Queue added in Update 1.2 (which made it so you can only research one upgrade at a time), you’ll now feel further empowered to make meaningful strategic decisions on how your fleet evolves over the course of a match.
Your mothership also comes with an apocalyptic new research option: The Fusion Missile. This endgame superweapon unleashes hell on a targeted ship and anything unfortunate to be close by, making it a thrilling (and terrifying) ace up the sleeve for endgame fleet battles.
Something else that we haven’t discussed: We’ve reconfigured the Standard and Hard AI difficulties so they’re much more capable of delivering a beating to unprepared players. What’s more, we’ve also added AI Personas that change the personality and unit preferences of AI opponents. These options exist separately from difficulty and bring even more variety to computer matchups. The Sentinel, for example, favors expensive, heavy-hitting ships while the Swarm persona prioritizes cheap, fast ships to overwhelm foes.
War Games tech tree revamps and new features
In Update 1.3, all players can enjoy several new features and meaningful updates to War Games aimed at addressing player feedback.
First, we’ve added 45 new Artifacts to obtain — including Ultimate Artifacts. These powerful new Artifacts only become available after you’ve collected the associated Pattern Artifact and one of each available Upgrade Artifact. Each one partially cancels out the negative effects of their requisite Artifacts, opening up new possibilities for ever-more powerful ships.
We’re also injecting some much-desired variety into War Games missions with Interstitials. These new “mini-missions” have a chance to appear between each of the traditional War Games maps and will throw some fun curveballs your way. The Shop, for example, will let you buy Artifacts at a steep price (hopefully you saved up your RUs!), while the Bombing Run interstitial rewards you for destroying enough targets within the allotted time.
Since we’ve rebalanced tech trees everywhere else, we didn’t want War Games’ fleets to feel left out. In particular, we heard from many of you that the Platform, Raider, and Remastered Fleets could use some work so we’ve restructured their tech trees entirely. Across all fleets, however, more ships and ship abilities now require you to first research them. This, in addition to the resourcing changes mentioned above, will inject some more challenge and strategy into the early minutes of War Games matches.
Other Improvements
One piece of feedback we have heard frequently and consistently since launch was that the pace of the Campaign was too fast. Players wanted the freedom to continue playing in a mission after the objectives were completed (similar to how many missions worked in earlier Homeworld games). Many players felt like there was no room to catch your breath, no opportunity to take your time to repair or rebuild your fleet, and no time to gather the remaining resource nodes or chunks of salvage scattered around a map after your hard-won battles.
We have gone back through the Campaign, and, where it made sense narratively, given you control over when you proceed to the next mission. There are some missions where we have not made this change as it didn’t make sense with the mission narrative. However, by and large, you will now have more control over when to move the Campaign forward after each mission.
It is also worth noting that many of the improvements in combat behavior, unit responsiveness and tactical decision making — along with balance tuning and resourcing changes — have directly benefited Campaign gameplay. While many of these changes have increased the overall difficulty of the Campaign (particularly on Hard), your ability to affect the outcomes of individual engagements through smart, tactical decision making is also improved.
Expanding the potential for modding
One last thing we’d like to mention: A number of improvements have also been made to the Homeworld 3 mod tools, such as the ability to inject custom Unreal Blueprints and the inclusion of Homeworld 3’s Campaign Blueprints. This should further empower the modding community to make more awesome creations. Be sure to check out the patch notes for more details!
Thank you to our community
This update marks the completion of the revised road map we announced back in September. We’d like to take this opportunity to share that Update 1.3 will be the last major content update for Homeworld 3.
To be clear, this means that while we won’t be expanding Homeworld 3 with more content, we still want to ensure a positive experience for players. Gearbox will be carefully monitoring incoming reports and will address any widespread critical issues that may arise in the wake of Update 1.3’s launch. Homeworld 3’s multiplayer functionality and mod support (including the in-game mod browser) will remain online.
We’re extremely grateful to the players who have accompanied us on this journey and hope that Update 1.3 delivers an even deeper, more satisfying Homeworld experience.
We’d now like to share a personal message from the development team at Blackbird Interactive:
“Blackbird Interactive was born from Homeworld and the enduring passion of its community. We dreamed of creating a spiritual successor which, by a twist of fate, became a reality when Gearbox Publishing acquired the rights to Homeworld and enlisted our help in continuing the franchise with both Deserts of Kharak and Homeworld 3. It was a dream come true.
But it is now time to close this chapter and begin a new one. Revisiting the Homeworld universe has had a profound impact on just about every person at Blackbird. To that end, we’d like to offer our heartfelt thanks to Gearbox Publishing for bringing us in to work on Homeworld with them. We wish them all the best.
We also want to thank you. The fans who, through your support and dedication, have helped Homeworld persevere across so many decades. It was an honor to contribute to this unfolding saga.
We’re deeply grateful for those of you who have supported us through launch and beyond, and who took the time to articulate thoughtful, constructive feedback. We read and listened to every word of it and everyone involved worked like hell to address as much of it as possible. Update 1.3 is the culmination of that effort, and we sincerely hope that you enjoy its many new features and refinements. They wouldn’t have been possible without you.
Until next time,
Blackbird Interactive”
We’re hopeful that these sweeping changes and updates will make Homeworld 3 a game you’ll return to — especially as the modding community only continues to grow in capability and ambition (seriously, if you haven’t checked out the modding section in the Homeworld Discord server, we urge you to take a look at all the exciting projects in the works)!
Thank you for taking the time to read this Dev Update. We’re very excited to deliver Update 1.3 later this week and to see your response to its many additions.
Homeworld 3 Patch 1.3 Update Notes Instructions on how to access the Patch Preview for 1.3 here: www.homeworlduniverse.com/how-to-access-the-1-3-patch-preview/ Important Disclaimer - Campaign Checkpoints Mid mission checkpoint saves (including autosaves) from Patch 1.22 and earli
Homeworld 3 Patch 1.3 Update Notes
Instructions on how to access the Patch Preview for 1.3 here: www.homeworlduniverse.com/how-to-access-the-1-3-patch-preview/
Important Disclaimer - Campaign Checkpoints
Mid mission checkpoint saves (including autosaves) from Patch 1.22 and earlier will not be compatible with Patch 1.3. Old mid mission saves will be visible in the save/load menu, but you will be unable to load them, and will need to restart the mission to continue your Campaign progress.
Campaign progression data is still compatible and is not invalidated (e.g. if you had reached Mission 07 in a previous playthrough, you will still be able to continue from the start of Mission 07)
Persistent fleet data is still compatible and is not invalidated
War Games progression data is still compatible and is not invalidated
Game settings & preferences is still compatible and is not invalidated
Game Patch Highlights
All Game Modes:
Extensive combat balance tuning:
Overhaul and tuning of armor and weapon classes
Reworked weapon penetration
Reworked directional damage bonus
Strengthening unit roles and identities (strengths, weaknesses, counters, etc.)
Balance Tuning
More!
Improvements to ship combat behavior and unit responsiveness
Tech tree balancing pass
Resourcing changes
New “Reinforce” ability added in all modes
War Games:
45 new artifacts
Ultimate Artifacts!
New Interstitials System
3 Interstitials encounters
9 New challenges
Updated Tech Trees for War Games Fleets
Skirmish:
Hyperspace & Hyperspace Inhibitor abilities added to Skirmish mode
Improved the pacing and flow between early game, midgame, and endgame play in Skirmish, with a focus on strategic decision making
Tactical Missile abilities added to both the Hiigaran Mothership and the Incarnate Titanship
New Skirmish Tech Tree
New AI player “Personas”
Heightened AI player difficulty
Campaign:
Pacing changes
Added “player controlled mission end” to more missions
New Paid DLC Content Highlights*
*See DLC store pages on November 21st for details
2 New War Games factions each with two War Games fleets
Somtaaw faction for War Games
2 new fleets
2 brand new units
The Acolyte, a versatile heavy fighter that packs a punch
The Storm Frigate, a short range heavy frigate with disabling attacks
32 new artifacts
10 new challenges
New emblem
Taiidan faction for War Games
2 new fleets
11 new (to Homeworld 3) units
52 new artifacts
10 new challenges
New emblem
Fixes, Changes and Additions
Gameplay
New “Reinforce” ability added - More information in the Dev Update
Bandbox attack orders have been reworked. Bandbox attacks now more intelligently divide their attacks amongst the available targets in response to community feedback. This will result in smaller formations upon initiation and completion of the Bandbox Attack command - More information in the Dev Update
Further improvements to the moving while attacking units losing their move commands issue. In particular when the formation leader was destroyed
Fixed units that were given move while attacking from overriding their secondary move destination when they re-engage enemies if their initial target was destroyed
Retaliation Range pass on all factions: Fixed many units whose retaliation ranges (used for acquiring targets in Aggressive and Neutral Stances) were significantly lower than their Weapon Range (e.g. Hiigaran Torpedo Frigate). These units should now meet player expectations more frequently in terms of when and how they pick new targets and engage enemies
Changed attack priorities on some units to prioritize attacks on Resource Controllers and Collectors more often
Single Capture Corvettes can now capture enemy ships on their own without needing a second Capture Corvette to help out (though a second one will expedite the process)
Newly-built ships now adopt the stance of the ship that produced them
Incarnate RCs can now successfully salvage or retire to the Titanship (Incarnate Mothership)
Rally no longer utilizes an offset parade formation for the rally destination. Units will now Rally directly to the rally location and group up tightly
Reworked the burstfire ability (Swarm Fighters & Railgun Corvettes) to trigger more consistently at all ranges
Increased targeted special weapon abilities reliability when targeting enemies behind terrain
Fixed lifetime of mines from the Kalan Raider’s Minelayer Corvette
Fixed a bug that would sometimes cause units to interrupt their firing cycle
Fixed an issue where a group of ships set to “None” formation will change to “Mixed” after giving them a move order
Fixed an issue where a small group of ships selected from a larger formation could lose their formation when given an attack order
Fixed a rare issue causing ships to forget orders if part of a controlled group which was engaged in combat
Fixed an issue causing Torpedo Frigates to sometimes turn backwards during and after attacking a target
Fixed an issue causing Assault Frigates weapons to stop tracking opponents when a move order was given mid firing cycle
Fixed an issue causing the Main Engine Maximum Speed stat value for all ships in the Compendium to be different than in the HUD
Fixed an issue causing the queued research costs to not be counted on the projected resource counter in the HUD
Fixed an issue causing the Heavy Suppression Frigate’s bottom weapon to sometimes shoot through the ship itself
Fixed an issue causing Torpedo Frigates to continue to act aggressively and fail to guard ships after changing their stance from Neutral to Aggressive and then back to Neutral
Fixed an issue causing capital ships to become unresponsive to move commands after finding a target using an Attack Move command
Fixed an issue causing attack orders to be canceled when setting a ship’s formation to “None”
Fixed an issue causing the Hiigaran Mothership to not move into range when using the Fusion Missile ability on an out of range enemy unit
Fixed an issue causing the Incarnate Destroyer weapon charging VFX playing on a loop when its target was out of range
Fixed an issue causing unit selection through tactical icons to stop functioning after deploying turrets
Fixed several occurrences of ships being able to shoot through terrain
Fixed an issue preventing research to be queued or canceled during tactical pause
Fixed an issue causing the camera to sometimes get stuck inside terrain when the “Camera Collision” option was enabled
Fixed an issue causing ships positioned directly underneath the Hiigaran Mothership to not receive any damage from its Point Defense Cannons
Fixed an issue causing certain Strikecraft to not show height lines on the movement plane when NLIPS was disabled
Fixed an issue causing the F1 shortcut (Select the Flagship) to focus on the mothership instead of just selecting it when a group including the mothership was selected
Balance tuning
NB: Most of these balancing changes were made in collaboration with a small group of dedicated community playtesters through daily feedback and iterations!
Re-designed Armor mitigation vs weapon families across the game
Light Armor - 10% mitigation
Medium Armor - 20% mitigation
Heavy Armor - 30% mitigation
Mothership Armor - 50% mitigation
Updated UI on unit info panel (weapons and armor info) to show relationships
Reworked armor penetration to work with the new armor system
Strikecraft
Tuned fighter vs frigate, capital, and turrets attack style - reducing the distance in which fighters run away and turn back to attack
Tweaked Strikecraft vs Frigate attack style - added more vertical turning and decreased break time
Hiigaran Interceptor
Retuned to better fulfill its role as a dominant anti-Strikecraft fighter
Decreased research and production cost
Decreased health
Significant increase in weapon damage
Hiigaran Recon
Retuned to reinforce its role as a low cost easily massable scouting and early game combat unit
Decreased production cost
Decreased health
Decreased weapon damage
Hiigaran Bomber
Overhauled to be much more effective against frigates and other larger slower moving targets, and less effective against smaller fast moving targets
Minor movement speed increase
Reduce attack cooldown
Increased weapon damage
Increased health
Fine-tuned weapon accuracy vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased research cost and time
Incarnate Dominance Fighter
Retuned to better fulfill its role as a dominant anti-Strikecraft fighter
Significant health increase
Increased weapon damage
Corvettes
Increased movement speed of all Corvettes
Hiigaran Railgun Corvette
Overhauled to make it broadly more effective, without making it oppressive versus Strikecraft
Increased range
Increased weapon damage
Change tech requirement, making it researchable at the start of skirmish matches
Decreased research cost and time
Decreased production cost
Fine-tuned weapon accuracy vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Incarnate Plasma Corvette
Reworked to be stronger versus frigates and at disrupting resource operations, but reducing its effectiveness against Strikecraft
Increased weapon damage
Fine-tuned weapon accuracy vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased research cost and time
Incarnate Assault Corvette
Increased Weapon Damage
Decreased production cost
Decreased research time
Incarnate Capture Corvette
Significantly decreased population cap in Skirmish
Frigates
Accuracy pass on all Frigates tuning effectiveness vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Hiigaran Assault Frigate
Overhauled to increase effectiveness against Strikecraft and Corvettes but be less effective in the late game vs more specialized frigates and capital ships, all while maintaining its effectiveness as a frontline combat unit and tank.
Increased health
Decreased research cost and time
Increased Ballistic Cannon firing duration
Increased Ballistic Cannon weapon cooldown
Increased Ballistic Cannon shots per burst
Decreased Ballistic Cannon weapon damage
Increased PDC weapon cooldown
Increased PDC shots per burst
Increased PDC weapon damage
Hiigaran Torpedo Frigate
Overhauled to greatly reduce its effectiveness against Strikecraft and Corvettes
Increased health
Decreased accuracy vs. Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased weapon AoE
Decreased weapon detonation range
Increased weapon damage
Decreased weapon cooldown
Hiigaran Suppression Frigate
Overhauled to better fulfill its role as a high DPS brawler
Increased weapon damage
Increased weapon wind-up time
Decreased weapon cooldown
Increased weapon firing duration
Increased turning rate
Decreased health
Increased production cost
Hiigaran Ion Frigate
Overhauled to better fulfill its role as a midgame high output, but fragile, damage dealer
Decreased production time and cost
Greatly decreased health
Decreased turning rate
Increased weapon damage
Increased weapon firing duration
Decreased weapon cooldown
Increased special weapon ability damage
Decreased research cost and time
Increased maximum firing angle of weapon
Incarnate Smart Missile Frigate
Overhauled to reduce its effectiveness against Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased accuracy vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased weapon AOE
Increased weapon damage
Increased detonation radius
Incarnate Attack Frigate
Overhauled to bring it more in line with the Hiigaran Assault Frigate
Updated attack style
Increased health
Increased Ballistic Cannon weapon damage
Increased Ballistic Cannon weapon cooldown
Increased Ballistic Cannon shots per burst
Decreased accuracy vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Incarnate Cluster Missile Frigate
Overhauled to better fulfill its role as an anti-Strikecraft Frigate and reduce its effectiveness against other Frigates.
Increased rotation speed and max rotation angle to be more effective against Strikecraft
Increased weapon accuracy vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased weapon damage
Increased weapon AoE
Increased weapon detonation range
Increased missiles spawn per volley
Decreased cluster spawn per missile
Tuned Volley Fire ability to match the above
Incarnate Railgun Transport
Reinforced its anti fighter role by greatly improving its target tracking
Reworked weapon turrets to be much better able to track targets on multiple axes
Capital Ships
Accuracy pass on all Frigates and Capital class ships; tuning their effectiveness vs Strikecraft and Corvettes
Rebalanced Battlecruisers and Destroyers to improve their effectiveness against Frigate, Capital and Mothership class ships
Carrier Research is now unlocked by Corvette tech in Skirmish
Hiigaran Carrier
Improved their ability to fulfill their role as forward production bases
Fixed weapon discrepancy between individual turrets (damage increase)
Decreased production time
Decreased research cost and time
Increased health
Kalan Raider Carrier
Significant weapon damage increase to bring it in line with other carriers
Incarnate Carrier
Improved their ability to fulfill their role as forward production bases
Decreased weapon damage to bring it in line with other carriers
Decreased production time
Decreased research cost and time
Increased health
Hiigaran Destroyer
Overhauled to be vastly more effective versus frigates and significantly less effective versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Significantly decreased Ballistic Cannon weapon accuracy versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Incarnate Destroyer
Overhauled to be vastly more effective versus large numbers of frigates and significantly less effective versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Overhauled attack style
Decreased production cost and time
Increased Ion Cannon range
Increased Ion Cannon firing duration
Significantly increased Ion Cannon weapon damage
Decreased Ion Cannon weapon cooldown
Increased Ballistic Cannon weapon damage
Significantly decreased Ballistic Cannon weapon accuracy versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Hiigaran Battlecruiser
Overhauled to be vastly more effective versus large numbers of frigates and significantly less effective versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Overhauled attack style
Decreased production time
Increased health
Increased Ballistic Cannon weapon damage
Increased Ballistic Cannon shots per burst
Significantly decreased Ballistic Cannon weapon accuracy versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Increased Ion Cannon weapon range
Increased Ion Cannon weapon damage
Decreased Ion Cannon weapon cooldown
Increased High Yield Torpedo weapon damage
Increased High Yield Torpedo weapon range
Decreased High Yield Torpedo weapon AoE
Incarnate Battlecruiser
Overhauled to be vastly more effective versus large numbers of frigates and significantly less effective versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Decreased health
Increased Ion Cannon weapon range
Increased Ion Cannon weapon firing duration
Significantly increased Ion Cannon weapon damage
Decreased Ion Cannon weapon cooldown
Increased Ballistic Cannon weapon damage
Significantly decreased Ballistic Cannon weapon accuracy versus Strikecraft and Corvettes
Increased High Yield Torpedo weapon damage
Increased High Yield Torpedo weapon cooldown
Hiigaran Mothership
Increased resource collector leashing distance on the Mothership in Skirmish
Increased Point Defence Cannon weapon damage
Incarnate Titanship (Mothership - Skirmish)
Increased Point Defence Cannon weapon damage
Platforms
Decreased health of all turrets
Incarnate Anti Capital Turret
Increased High Yield Torpedo weapon damage
Utility
Decreased Resource Controller population cap from 8 to 6 in Skirmish
Significantly increased Resource Controller production cost in Skirmish and Campaign (both factions)
Increased Resource Controller production time in Skirmish (both factions)
Multiplayer
Unlocked 30 new emblems
Hiigaran Mothership and Incarnate Titanship (Mothership) now both have access to the Fusion Missile Ability in Skirmish (unlocked through research) - More information in the Dev Update
Hyperspace Research and Abilities added to all Frigate class and larger ships (including Resource Controllers) in Skirmish for both factions in response to community feedback
Hyperspace Inhibitor Research and Abilities added to Hiigaran and Incarnate Carriers, the Hiigaran Support Frigate and the Incarnate Disruption Frigate in Skirmish mode
Resource tuning in Skirmish and War Games in response to community feedback - More information in the Dev Update
Default starting resources reduced significantly
Resourcing rate reduced (10% reduction)
Unit and research resource costs rebalanced
New Skirmish Tech Tree
Full rework of tech trees for both Hiigaran and Incarnate Skirmish factions in response to community feedback
Replaced the 3 tiers of Incarnate Strikecraft Hull Integrity research with 3 tiers of Corvette Hull Integrity research in Skirmish
Significantly increased the difficulty of Standard and Hard AI opponents in Skirmish in response to community feedback
War Games Tech Tree balancing in response to community feedback
More ship abilities now require research
Restructured Platform Fleet tech tree
Restructured Raider Fleet tech tree
Restructured Remastered Fleet tech tree
Skirmish lobby Map Resource Multiplier setting default changed from 150% to 300% in response to community feedback
Increased Hiigaran starting fleet combat units in Skirmish
Increased Incarnate starting fleet combat units in Skirmish
Increased camera bounds on the Deep Space Skirmish map in response to community feedback
Increased vertical bounds on the Naraka Skirmish map in response to community feedback
Increased the Carrier Assault Pattern initial damage increase from 50% to 200% in War Games in response to community feedback
User can now change their fleet customization in Quick Match
Added a notification in the gameplay events list when a player leaves a multiplayer match in
Pressing ESC will now close the Artifact choice window in War Games
Players will now see a notification informing them whether a lobby they are about to join is hosted by someone with mismatching mods, as joining a multiplayer match will likely result in a desync if all players in the match don’t have the same mods installed
AI bots are now visible in the pause menu (in addition to human players) during Skirmish
Full stats will be shown to allied AI players, while stats stay hidden for enemy AI players
Fixed unit death explosions sometimes throwing salvage objectives out of the map in War Games
Fixed an issue causing captured ships to sometimes receive commands not issued by the player during War Games
Fixed the Titanship Unit Info Panel not showing any weapons
Fixed an issue sometimes causing objective markers in War Games to detach from their intended location and move around the map
Fixed an issue causing turrets to be stacked on top of each other in the Buran map when the “Capture Data Spire held by hostile forces” objective was active in War Games
Fixed an issue causing turrets to be located inside the terrain in the Under The Ice map when the “Capture Data Spire held by hostile forces” objective was active in War Games
Fixed an issue causing allied bots in Skirmish on the same team as the player to build ships and send them to idle in places far from any battle or enemy ship
Fixed an issue causing the capture point, when the “Capture position to rescue civilians” objective was active in War Games, to sometimes spawn inside the environment
Fixed an issue causing the Artifact selection panel to sometimes open with no artifacts visible inside
Fixed an issue causing the Stinger - Barrage artifact to be unlocked by default instead of properly being unlocked by a challenge
Fixed an issue causing a Skirmish AI player’s customization to automatically change to being identical to the player’s after changing their fleet selection
Fixed an issue causing some War Games objectives to be impossible to complete if the player Carrier was on top of the objective at the moment it spawns
Fixed an issue causing the Capture Corvette’s Polarized Plating ability to be unlocked without having to research it first in several War Games fleets
Fixed an issue causing the Railgun Transport ships to appear under the “Capital” section in the Population menu in War Games
Fixed an issue causing the Kalan Assault Frigate research to display “Unlocks Destroyer” erroneously
Fixed an issue causing the Kalan Capture Frigate Ability research to display “Unlocks the Capture Corvette Capture Ability” erroneously
Fixed an issue causing the chat window to not automatically scroll to the bottom when the user sends messages in Lobby or In-Game
Fixed an issue causing the Suppression Frigate Artifacts to stop appearing after unlocking the Heavy Suppression Frigate when playing the Experimental Fleet in War Games
Fixed an issue causing the Beam Fighter to appear as Dominance Fighter in the Population tab in War Games
Fixed an issue causing newly built ships to not head to the designated rally point in War Games
Fixed an issue causing the Raider carrier to attempt to repair ships at full health in War Games
Fixed an issue causing the movement disc to reveal enemy AI height lines outside of the fog of war in Skirmish
Campaign
Added “player controlled mission end” to 5 additional missions - More information in the Dev Update
Mission 2 -Facility 315
Mission 3 - Kesura Minor
Mission 5 - Trinity Gate
Mission 9 - Warsage Citadel
Mission 12 - Noctua 27
Tweaked campaign difficulty, making Hard difficulty more challenging and making the mission to mission difficulty more consistent, in response to community feedback
Performance improvement : Optimized the Mothership VFX during Kala Terminus so as to stop causing significant FPS rate drops when looking at it
Incarnate Destroyers in Warsage Citadel will no longer spawn indefinitely
Fixed an issue causing the Capture UI elements for 2 of the 3 data spires in the Lament to not disappear after capture
Fixed an issue causing Strikecraft and Corvettes to ignore the enemy tactical missiles shot at the mothership during Noctuua-27
Tech / Performance
Performance improvement : Tactical Overlay amalgamations have been greatly optimized and should result in better performance.
Performance improvement : Height lines when using the movement plane have been optimized
Performance improvement : Beam weapons VFX have been optimized
Added setting to allow constraining in game UI to 16:9 centered
Affects base HUD panel, pause menu, campaign failed menu, and multiplayer end game menus
Menu backgrounds continue to occupy the full screen width regardless of whether the option is enabled, only content is constrained
Games that contain blocked users will no longer be visible/joinable
Fixed an issue causing the shadow quality to be abnormally high if the player had selected Low graphics settings. This will greatly improve performance in Low graphics settings
Fixed an issue causing FPS drops when power regulators are destroyed in Noctuaa-27
Fixed the “Enable Sensors Manager zoom-in/-out collision” camera option not working when “Modern camera controls” were turned off
Fixed an issue causing camera movements to sometimes cause small FPS drops when NLIPS was turned off
Art Updates
Improvements to the damage system visuals
Healing support added for dynamic damage
Add heat edge ring to Energy and Missile impacts for dynamic damage
Changed impact composting system to avoid overdriven visuals on dynamic damage.
Aligned visuals look between dynamic and procedural damage.
Reduced brightness of Strikecraft engine trails
Fixed many cases of weapons could situationally shoot through their ship’s hull
Numerous minor LOD improvements on ships
Fixed an issue causing the Incarnate Titanship and Hiigaran Mothership to not display the proper amount of dynamic damage on their hull
Fixed an issue causing dynamic damage on Frigates and Capital ships to not properly be displayed from Torpedo Frigate missile damage
Fixed an issue causing Suppression Frigates to not receive dynamic damage on their side from all weapon types other than small ballistic weapons
Fixed an issue causing the Hiigaran Battlecruiser’s sides to not display dynamic damage from non-ballistic weapons
Fixed an issue causing part or all of newly built ships to appear with the wrong texture or be invisible if produced while in the Sensors Manager
Fixed a small gap in the Hiigaran Torpedo Frigate’s model
Fixed the Dervish Ion Frigate’s thruster VFX being offset from the hull
Fixed the Railgun and Avenger Corvettes plasma beam VFX not making contact when attacking enemy ships
Fixed an issue causing the Pursuit Fighter’s Overburner ability VFX to appear on the body of the ship rather than its engines
Settings Updates
New Display selection reticle overlay option
New Constrain HUD aspect ratio option
New Input binding: “Hyperspace” unit ability hotkey (Default “J” in the Modern Experience Preset)
New Input binding: “Hyperspace Inhibitor” unit ability hotkey (Default “Ctrl+i” in the Modern Experience Preset)
New Input binding: “Reinforce” unit ability hotkey (Default “X” in the Modern Experience Preset)
Fixed an issue causing the 5120x1440 resolution to not be selectable
Audio Updates
Added audio feedback when clearing a control group
Fixed audio not being properly distorted while in Sensors Manager and in Occlusion view
Corrected Main Menu UI interaction SFX
Fixed mothership weapons fire persisting through the pause menu in multiplayer modes
Fixed the wrong VO playing when Swarm Fighters are built
Updated the Production Complete, Under Fire and Destroyed VO for Pursuit Fighters
Fixed the Production Complete, Under Fire and Destroyed VO for Smart Missile Frigates not playing correctly in War Games
Fixed the unit response VOs being attached to the Sound Effects volume slider rather than the Speech volume slider
Fixed an issue causing the VO for detecting enemy Strikecraft to play too frequently in Skirmish
Fixed an issue causing “Ship Captured” VO to be played when an enemy was salvaging debris from a player’s destroyed ship in Skirmish
Misc Updates
Moved ‘Enable Sensors Manager zoom-in/out collision’ settings into Camera Tuning / Modern setting category to clarify that they do not have any effect on classic camera controls by design
Using Backspace to hide the HUD/UI now also properly hides the “Contested”, “Capturing” and “Decapturing” UI elements
Fixed an issue causing the cursor to sometimes stay hidden after a cinematic
Fixed an issue causing the cursor to sometimes stay hidden after closing the Artifact selector in War Games
Fixed an issue causing the Sensors Manager to incorrectly function while viewing a replay in Free Camera mode
Fixed the Grand Armada achievement not progressing on EGS
Mod Tools & Editor
A new version of the Editor has been deployed on EGS
In order to avoid any compatibility issues, we highly recommend fully uninstalling the previous version of the editor before installing the new one
Updated the way mods were detected when displaying them in the lobby view
Correctly detects map mods, "other mods" and even side loaded mods
Added the ability to inject custom blueprints in mods
Stability fixes to greatly reduce the RHI crashes seen in earlier versions of the editor
Fixed several missing unit materials making ship creation easier
Added BBI's blueprint files for campaign missions, to use as a reference for Tiir scripting and mission creation
TiirSubsystems can now be defined as part of mod files, allowing blueprint to make simulation-side modifications for unique gameplay features in mods
Added a version of the game's Wwise project to allow for modder exploration into audio modding
Re-introduces the Play In Editor (PIE) button. This will allow testing of some mod content directly within the editor, speeding up iteration time, and giving modders access to BBI's internal debugging tools
This hotfix resolves an issue for some players experiencing desync errors in multiplayer following the deployment of a recent Windows update. If you experience any other issues with Homeworld 3, please reach out to support support.gearboxsoftware.com.
This hotfix resolves an issue for some players experiencing desync errors in multiplayer following the deployment of a recent Windows update. If you experience any other issues with Homeworld 3, please reach out to support support.gearboxsoftware.com.
Студия Blackbird Interactive объявила о пересмотре дорожной карты по пострелизной поддержке стратегии Homeworld 3 . Иначе как странным решение не назвать.
Студия Blackbird Interactive объявила о пересмотре дорожной карты по пострелизной поддержке стратегии Homeworld 3. Иначе как странным решение не назвать.
Two decades is a long time to wait for something, especially if it doesn't live up to expectations. As each day, week, month, and year passes your assumptions shift, and it can be hard for whatever you were waiting for to be as life-changing as you hoped. Earlier in 2024 Homeworl
Two decades is a long time to wait for something, especially if it doesn't live up to expectations. As each day, week, month, and year passes your assumptions shift, and it can be hard for whatever you were waiting for to be as life-changing as you hoped. Earlier in 2024 Homeworld 3 finally came out after 21 years, and it's safe to say it wasn't the game we space RTS fans were expecting. The post-launch roadmap still awaits, but now we're going to be getting everything at once, instead of it running into 2025.
What’s Next for Homeworld 3? Thanks to everyone who joined us for update 1.2 and the Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack. We want to take a moment to provide an update on what's next as we look ahead to the rest of the updates initially revealed in our Year One DLC Roadmap. An Updated Roadm
What’s Next for Homeworld 3?
Thanks to everyone who joined us for update 1.2 and the Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack. We want to take a moment to provide an update on what's next as we look ahead to the rest of the updates initially revealed in our Year One DLC Roadmap.
An Updated Roadmap:
Following the release of update 1.2, we made the decision to combine all remaining paid DLC and free content drops in the roadmap into one unified delivery in November. Combining the content into one beat will allow us to focus all our resources and provide you all with a higher-quality experience.
This change means that, come November, we’ll be releasing two content packs that were originally scheduled for 2025 with the objective of delivering the most complete Homeworld 3 experience, and many of your requested changes, sooner. In total, you can look forward to three (3) free updates and two (2) paid DLCs worth of content launching as one major update in November.
We’ve provided an updated roadmap below which outlines that content generally, but let's get into the specifics.
Note: "Campaign Missions" on the roadmap refers to the area of the game that will be updated with the player-controlled mission end. This will allow players to advance to the next mission in their own time after objectives have been completed. There will not be new or updated campaign missions in the November update.
Content Coming in November:
We’ve spent the last several months listening carefully to the feedback you’ve shared with us. We’ve also begun to work with members of our community to beta test some upcoming balance changes we intend to roll out in the Skirmish and War Games modes.
With the changes we’re making, we want to assure those of you who purchased the Year One Pass that you will be getting everything we’ve previously promised. Additionally, we've made modifications to our plans to include elements requested by the community.
Free Player-Requested Features Coming in Nov:
Highly requested features like Hyperspace Jumping in Skirmish mode and the ability to control when you move to the next mission in the campaign are both smart suggestions and elements of previous Homeworld titles that allow for more strategic gameplay.
You’ll be able to surprise your enemies with a rapid assault or zip away if your mothership becomes surrounded. Our goal with this feature was to have it feel similar to the experience in previous Homeworld titles, however, there are a few key differences. Hyperspace capabilities in Homeworld 3 are unlocked via individual ship-type research options. Each unit in the Frigate, Capital, and Mothership classes have a hyperspace core research option that is unlocked and then obtained like any other tech advancement in the game. Like previous Homeworld titles, each jump will cost RUs based on the length of the jump — requiring you to carefully weigh the decision to surprise your opponent.
To defend against these incursions, you can research Hyperspace Inhibitor abilities for the Hiigaran Support Frigate and Incarnate Disruption Corvette. The Hyperspace Inhibitor ability creates a protective sphere that blocks Hyperspace passage. When the Inhibitor ability is active, any ship making a Hyperspace Jump that flies through the inhibitor field will immediately be forced out of Hyperspace.
Another piece of feedback we heard loud in clear was that resourcing was just too efficient. Too often players weren’t required to make strategic decisions about which ships to research or build, because they had the resources to do everything. In Homeworld 3, we simplified resourcing by merging Resource Collectors and Controllers into a single unit, aiming to make macro-management more intuitive. However, this change unintentionally removed key strategic decisions related to economic development, present in previous titles, where players had to carefully balance resource investment with tech progression and defense. To restore this strategic depth, we made several adjustments: Resourcing rates are reduced by a meaningful amount, starting resources in Skirmish are lowered to drive early-game decision-making, and the cost of Resource Controllers is significantly increased to make them a riskier, more meaningful investment. These changes aim to reintroduce the tension and rewards of economic decision-making.
In update 1.2 we made a significant change in how we handled research in all game modes by introducing the queued system. No longer could you research everything simultaneously. However, this was just the first step in our tech tree changes. We have now added a more traditional RTS-style tech tree where units and research are unlocked more linearly, with unit and research unlocks being gated behind unlock requirements. This — in conjunction with queued research — has significantly improved the flow of Skirmish mode games while creating opportunities for meaningful strategic decisions. Alongside the changes to resourcing, we’re excited about how this new tech tree and queued research will reward tactical early-game decision making.
Additionally, you’ll now be able to explore the beautiful scenery in the campaign missions while collecting all those precious RUs to fuel even more powerful fleets before moving on to the next leg of your journey. Currently, many of you felt that there wasn’t enough time to catch your breath, make repairs, and generally get prepared for the battles ahead. With this in mind, select campaign missions, where the narrative permits, will allow you to choose when you are ready to advance.
Free Content:
The free updates described in the roadmap are also a big part of the path forward. For those who haven’t purchased the Year One Pass, we’ll be adding more than 40 Artifacts, and 9 Challenges for free to help shake up War Games for everyone. This includes the introduction of a new ‘Ultimate’ class of Artifacts that becomes available after collecting an Artifact Pattern and one of each of the upgrade Artifacts. Ultimate Artifacts partially cancel out many of the negative effects associated with traditional Artifacts, taking your ships to new heights of unmitigated power. It also increases the importance of Artifact selections: do you broaden your picks in the pursuit of collecting the Ultimate Artifacts’ required upgrades or do you stack identical Artifacts to push your units into a specific niche?
New Paid DLC:
New factions for the War Games mode will enter the fray with our paid DLC packs. These franchise favorites introduce exciting new ships and strategies for players to explore. Each new War Games faction comes with two unique fleets, new ships, dozens of new Artifacts, and 10 new Challenges to test your skills as a commander.
Little information is available about the history of the Taiidan after the fall of the Taiidan Empire or during the subsequent rise of the Taiidan Republic and through the Vagyr War. However, it is widely believed that during the Age of S’jet, the Taiidan took their place alongside the Hiigarans in the new system of representation that formed during this time of prosperity. Thus, it comes as no surprise that the Taiidan forces would find a place in the Hiigaran Naval Combat School’s War Games.
The Taiidan now join Homeworld 3’s War Games mode with two brand new fleets. The ships in these fleets should feel instantly recognizable to anyone who has played Homeworld 1. The fleets consist of classically-inspired Taiidan ships, with some modern tweaks thrown into the mix.
These new Taiidan fleets will add a new depth to the War Games experience as they defy norms established by all other War Games fleets, such as relying on the Carrier and its Resource Collectors for harvesting resources and the ability to deploy a capital class ship, the Taiidan Missile Destroyer.
On Kharak, Kiith Somtaaw was a major religious and mining Kiith. After Kharak burned (spoiler!) and the Kushan people crossed the galaxy returning to their homeworld (Hiigara), the Somtaaw continued their mastery of mining, only this time in the vast reaches of space. Some rumors say they honed their combat skills by defeating a mysterious evil, others say they developed their skills with countless years of target practice smashing asteroids. These hardened Somtaaw warriors now join Homeworld 3’s War Games mode with two new units and two new fleets.
As a Hiigaran sub-faction, in addition to two brand new ships, you will notice several familiar ships forming the basis of these Somtaaw fleets. However, on closer inspection, you will see a few variations that speak to their mining heritage and the need for extra survivability in regions not protected by the core Hiigaran Navy. For example, they armed Resource Controllers and their heavy-hitting Carrier with Ion Beam turrets.
We thank you for your patience as we work to deliver our post-launch vision for Homeworld 3 in November. Many other elements are coming beyond what we unpacked above including new gameplay mechanics, optimizations to existing features, as well as bug fixes and performance improvements. Many of these were developed or solved through insights provided by the amazing Homeworld community. We’ll be sure to include detailed patch notes ahead of launch for your review.
We just released a hotfix for Homeworld 3 . This hotfix reduces friction caused by the “mod mismatch” error when joining multiplayer lobbies. In an effort to avoid multiplayer match desyncs caused by mismatched mods between players, this pop-up was added. This hotfix changes the
We just released a hotfix for Homeworld 3. This hotfix reduces friction caused by the “mod mismatch” error when joining multiplayer lobbies.
In an effort to avoid multiplayer match desyncs caused by mismatched mods between players, this pop-up was added. This hotfix changes the behavior of that mod mismatch verification to only affect modded skirmish maps selected in the lobby. Players will still see the error upon trying to join a lobby where the map selected is a modded map that they do not have installed. They will also see the error when the lobby host changes the map selection to a map that the client does not have installed.
Manually installed mods (in the pak folder) are no longer detected by this system and so multiplayer match desyncs might still happen due to mods creating an imbalance, but now you will be able to enter lobbies and discuss with other players if needed.
Hello, Commanders! Today we are releasing Update 1.2 for Homeworld 3 . This update includes a host of gameplay improvements and bug fixes — some of which are a result of invaluable community feedback. This includes several improvements to Frigates and Capital Ships to make them m
Hello, Commanders!
Today we are releasing Update 1.2 for Homeworld 3. This update includes a host of gameplay improvements and bug fixes — some of which are a result of invaluable community feedback. This includes several improvements to Frigates and Capital Ships to make them more reliable and powerful, various UI improvements, and optimizations that can significantly increase performance for some users.
Update 1.2 also introduces two, entirely new Skirmish maps for all players.
This patch also includes support for the Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack DLC for War Games, available for individual purchase or for those who purchased the Year One Pass. This DLC introduces two new fleets, a variety of new ships, new challenges, artifacts, and a new skin.
We’re eternally grateful for players who have left us respectful, thoughtful feedback in the months since launch. Our work to respond to that feedback continues. In particular, we’d like to acknowledge three common requests that we are seeing more recently:
Increase Strikecraft survivability, especially when they’re taking fire from larger ship classes
More granular control over unit combat behaviors and rules of engagement
More intuitive attack priority when using the bandbox to attack groups of enemy ships
As these are broad, complex topics that influence nearly every game mode and unit, it is imperative that we investigate these requests and potential solutions carefully. But it is important to us to let you know that these topics remain a top priority for us. If we’re able to implement a viable plan of action to address these requests, we’ll be sure to let you know.
Homeworld 3 Update 1.2 Notes
New Content for Multiplayer
Added two new maps to Skirmish!
Tears in Rain
Expanding further on the open-style map first introduced in Karos Graveyard, Tears in Rain provides a similar open battlefield for skirmish combat with a refined focus on providing a minimal amount of scattered terrain pieces to serve as additional tactical options, ideal for certain playstyles and fleet compositions. With resource distribution tending either towards the perimeter or centralized, ventures across open space to strike your enemies are a gamble.
Arran Perimeter
In the Arran Perimeter, a fragmented piece of very large terrain is the foundation that leads players into making high-level decisions that can lead to victory or failure. The large vertical pieces and symmetrical arrangement are populated with resources and surrounded by open space, offering more than just a backdrop for fleets to clash.
Updates
In this update, we have addressed the following based on community feedback:
Repositioned and reduced the size of the Hyperspace button to better allow players to continue playing after it appeared
Added retiring and scuttling to the command panel
Increased weapon damage for capital ships of all factions
Updated special attack feedback to indicate ability range
Limited research to one at a time to increase the importance of strategic choices
Updated the “Taiidan” fleet customization preset’s inverted colors
Corrected splat damage texture improperly appearing on capital ships after completing a mission and loading a new one
Added a rebindable hotkey to select all undamaged ships to complement the hotkey for selecting all damaged ships
In addition, we’ve also addressed the following reported concerns from players:
Mod Tools & Editor
A new version of the Editor has been deployed on EGS.
In order to avoid any compatibility issues, we highly recommend fully uninstalling the previous version of the editor before installing the new one.
Gameplay
Frigates could occasionally back away further than required from approaching targets
Battlecruisers in a group would sometimes not move or attack when ordered to attack a group of ships
Erratic or unintended frigate movements could occur when trying to acquire line-of-sight and/or get in range after receiving and order to attack a new target
Non-leader frigate in formation would occasionally try to get back into formation position instead of attacking
Incarnate Smart Missile Frigates could occasionally not track their targets properly, causing them to miss if the target was moving
Hiigaran destroyers would sometimes not attempt to target enemies horizontally, which resulted in their turrets remaining mostly idle
Ion Cannon frigates would sometimes turn backward during and after attacking a target
Increased the damage of the Barrage frigates ability
Recon ships set to Aggressive stance and Guarding a ship would occasionally change command on their own to Attack and would not return to Guard after the target was destroyed
Multiplayer
Host migration could fail in some instances in matches of three or more players
In two-player War Games matches, one player leaving could occasionally result in the remaining player not loading to the next stage
Matches could receive a desync error after hyperspacing to the second stage in War Games
Incursion points in War Game Production Bay map sometimes ceased to function based on the player’s location
Objective markers were not consistently localized in Production Bay and New Galaxy War Games maps
Added an error message informing a player if they cannot join a lobby due to a mod mismatch between players and the lobby host
The “Move Carrier to location” objective marker could sometimes detach from its location and move erratically through the map
Enemy probes could stop kiting away when their faction’s Mothership was destroyed, causing long probe hunts in “Destroy All Ships” Skirmish matches
Carrier would sometimes not be centered in its hyperspace window when moving between stages in War Games
The Incarnate AI would sometimes not use the Smart Missile frigates in Skirmish, leaving them inactive at the side of the Titanship
Tech / Performance
Addressed a few crashes observed through user reports
A new round of optimizations have been done to significantly increase framerate in many situations around combat
Further improvements to Dynamic Splat Damage system for increased readability and performance
Steam Deck users are no longer in a separate multiplayer pool and are able to create and join multiplayer matches with PC players
Resolved the framerate hitch that happened after completing a War Games challenge on EGS
Implemented improvements to the Experimental Camera Collision feature. There is still more work planned for upcoming patches
Benchmark level seed was adjusted to make results more consistent
An issue could occasionally cause the game to crash when trying to load replays from previous versions of the game. This adjustment has invalidated all previous existing replays but prevented new replays from becoming corrupted from future patches
Fixed an issue causing contextual movement orders to behave incorrectly in modded Skirmish maps created with the Homeworld 3 Mod Tools & Editor
New maps created with the new version of the editor will not contain this bug anymore
Existing mods will need to be manually fixed by changing the Collision Presets in the SimUniverseBoundsVolume from “overlapAll” to “NoCollision”.
Art Updates
Bukhari Support Ships lights that were unusually bright in War Games
Audio Updates
The “Battlecruiser lost” voiceline would sometimes play when an enemy battlecruiser was destroyed.
Some SFX feedback was missing when performing various ship actions
Kalan Raiders Fleet DLC Content
Added support for new War Games content for those that own the Kalan Raiders Faction DLC
Two new War Games fleets
Raider Fleet: This fleet has extensively raided Hiigaran space, and can produce a mix of Hiigaran and Kalan ships
Capture Fleet: This fleet specializes in capturing enemy units, and can produce a mix of Incarnate and Kalan vessels
Both fleets include Kalan Raider ships seen in the campaign, as well as 3 brand new ships
From the campaign:
Command Carrier
Barrage Frigate
Pursuit Fighter
New Kalan ships:
Swarm Fighter
Mine Launcher Corvette
Capture Frigate
11 NEW Challenges specific to the Kalan faction
40 NEW Artifacts specific to the Kalan faction
New Kalan Raiders emblem and fleet customization preset featuring unique color pattern & emblem
Fleet customization emblem and preset usable in War Games & Skirmish
Hello, Commanders! We’re excited to announce that Update 1.2 — which includes a host of gameplay improvements, bug fixes, free Skirmish maps, and support for the Kalan Raiders War Games DLC — will arrive on August 15 ! The Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack is Homeworld 3's first paid DLC
Hello, Commanders!
We’re excited to announce that Update 1.2 — which includes a host of gameplay improvements, bug fixes, free Skirmish maps, and support for the Kalan Raiders War Games DLC — will arrive on August 15!
The Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack is Homeworld 3's first paid DLC (included as part of the Year One Pass). Take command of these ruthless brigands in War Games, where you can wield their unique fleet compositions to explore powerful new strategic options.
Today, we are also implementing a Patch Preview, so that the community of modders can get a headstart on evaluating if their mods need additional updates to work in Update 1.2.
NEW DLC: Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack
Included in the Year One Pass and available as a standalone purchase, the Kalan Raiders Fleet Pack brings two new playable fleets to War Games. Plunder and capture your way through battle. In addition to all of the Kalan Raider ships from the campaign becoming playable for the first time, three all new ships like the Swarm Fighter, Mine Launcher Corvette, and Capture Frigate join the fray.
Raider Fleet
The Raider Fleet has extensively raided Hiigaran space, resulting in a mix of Hiigaran and Kalan ships to make up its tactical forces. This fleet will power ahead to be a formidable force for the enemies you take on.
Capture Fleet
The Capture Fleet specializes in capturing enemy units. You’ll see a mix of Incarnate and Kalan vessels making up this fleet.
Additional War Games Content
Players will see 11 new challenges and 40 Artifacts for War Games specific to the Kalan Raiders faction included with this DLC.
Additionally, a new customization preset that features a unique color pattern and emblem.
We’re very excited for players to engage their enemies with the Kalan Raider faction on August 15!
Finally, check out our full key art for the Kalan Raiders from Paul Chadeisson!
1.2 Patch Preview
The 1.2 Patch Preview will be deployed Tuesday, August 13 on Steam.
We’re releasing the Patch Preview early to allow modders to evaluate whether their mods will require any updates ahead of the official patch release. A “preview” version of the UGC editor will also be released at the same time on EGS.
Need-to-know on the Patch Preview:
Warning: Save games are only “forward compatible”, which means that frequent switching between the main branch of Homeworld 3 and the preview branch could cause your save game to not function as intended.
We suggest that players using the preview branch stay on it until the 1.2 patch official releases before moving back to the main branch.
Alternatively, if you intend on switching between the two, make sure to back up your “version 1.11” save game folder before switching to the preview branch.
Multiplayer: Multiplayer requires that all players be on the same game version. Players playing on the preview branch will only be able to match with others on the preview branch.
Everything in the 1.2 Patch Preview branch will be present in the official 1.2 Patch releasing on August 15. There’s no additional debugging or content in the preview branch compared to the official patch.
How to access the preview branch:
To access the 1.2 Patch Preview branch in Homeworld 3 on Steam:
In Steam, right click on the Homeworld 3 App and select Properties
In the Betas section, enter the beta access code “Homeworld3Preview” and click “Check Code”
You will see a “Success! Beta unlocked.” message and be given the ability to opt in.
If you do, Steam will queue a game update for you to download the contents of the preview branch, same as a patch.
Switching back to the official branch of the game is easy, in the same “Betas” section, choose “None” in the “Beta Participation” dropdown
To access the 1.2 Patch Preview branch in Homeworld 3 on EGS:
Hello Commanders, Today we are releasing a hotfix (1.11) for Homeworld 3 that addresses some issues that we’ve seen reported by players, including several small issues relating to War Games. We’ve also added a toggle to enable an experimental camera mode that collides with level
Hello Commanders,
Today we are releasing a hotfix (1.11) for Homeworld 3 that addresses some issues that we’ve seen reported by players, including several small issues relating to War Games. We’ve also added a toggle to enable an experimental camera mode that collides with level geometry and ships. We’ll continue to iterate on this new camera mode with the hope that it provides an intuitive way to manipulate the camera on maps with lots of terrain features.
Hotfix update 1.11 addresses the following:
Additional improvements to Homeworld 3’s Chinese localization (further improvements to Chinese localization will arrive in future updates)
Added a menu option to toggle an experimental camera mode that causes it to collide with terrain and ships
This new toggle will now allow players to enable camera collisions if they choose, with the default setting being turned to off (allowing the camera to float through objects)
This feature is experimental and we will continue to iterate on it in future updates. We welcome feedback from players to help us improve this new collision-enabled camera
Motion blur sometimes worked incorrectly after using Tactical Pause on the Kesura Minor map in solo Skirmish and War Games modes
Effects of 7 new artifacts introduced in Update 1.1 would stack additively instead of multiplicatively, causing unintentional ship behavior
The 5120x1440 screen resolution was not selectable in the settings menu in some cases
Data Spires were sometimes destructible or would spawn in the wrong location or not at all in War Games
We’re excited to share that modders can now download the Homeworld 3 Mod Tools & Editor to create and distribute mods via mod.io ! Players can easily download user created Skirmish maps to Homeworld 3 through the integrated mod.io menu! For modders: This editor is separate fr
We’re excited to share that modders can now download the Homeworld 3 Mod Tools & Editor to create and distribute mods via mod.io! Players can easily download user created Skirmish maps to Homeworld 3 through the integrated mod.io menu!
For modders:
This editor is separate from Homeworld 3 and allows you to create content specifically for the game. It includes elements that can be used to create Skirmish maps and the packaging tool for exporting those maps for testing and uploading to mod.io.
Once you have downloaded the Editor you will be able to start creating content!
Not sure where to get started?
We’ve worked with our partners at mod.io and a select group of modders to provide documentation to help you begin making mods for Homeworld 3! Most of this documentation will be focused on creating and uploading Skirmish maps.
Modding: Unreal Engine – This guide covers the essential features and functions of the Unreal Engine 4 Editor, providing instructions and tips to help beginners navigate and use the tools effectively.
Modding: Create a Skirmish Map – Your first steps in creating your Skirmish Level, giving an overview on how to get started and references for the various sub-levels.
You are now able to download mods for Skirmish maps from the in-game Homeworld 3 mod menu.
From the Mods menu, you’ll be able to browse and search for specific mods. Only Skirmish Maps can be downloaded and run in the game without additional steps. For these mods, select “Subscribe and Install” to add them to your game.
Some mods will have a “Manual Install” tag applied to them. While these can be downloaded from the game client, you will need to perform additional steps to run them. Select “More Info” in the mod’s selection pop up to open a browser window that takes you to the mod.io page where you can see details about the mod and how to fully install it.
Enjoying a created mod?
Show support for your favorite mods and modders by giving their mods a “👍”! Rate mods through mod.io. If you’re in-game, selecting “More Info” in the mod’s selection pop up and pressing 👍 on the mod page. Higher rated mods will appear first when sorted by Rating and will be more easily discoverable for other players.
We’re looking forward to seeing the maps and other creative ways that you’ll experience Homeworld 3 with the custom editor! Even more excited to play with you in multiplayer on your own maps!
Hello Commanders, Today’s Update 1.1 brings new Multiplayer content (including a powerful new ship variant for War Games) and over 100 bug fixes and gameplay improvements. At the end of this post you’ll find the full, itemized patch notes, but if you want the high-level overview,
Hello Commanders,
Today’s Update 1.1 brings new Multiplayer content (including a powerful new ship variant for War Games) and over 100 bug fixes and gameplay improvements. At the end of this post you’ll find the full, itemized patch notes, but if you want the high-level overview, the next section outlines the most notable additions and changes.
First, we want to reiterate our appreciation for those of you who have taken the time to respectfully share your feedback. While this patch does address a few widespread topics, we’re still investigating a variety of feedback and requests not included here. We are grateful for your understanding and patience. Homeworld 3 wouldn’t exist without this community and we’re determined to keep incorporating your feedback and suggestions as we are able.
New Free Content for War Games and Skirmish!
Meet the Heavy Suppression Frigate, a powerful upgrade over the standard Suppression Frigate and is available immediately (assuming you’re lucky enough to receive the requisite Artifact during a run). What sets the Heavy Suppression Frigate apart from its base version is the addition of a pair of Dual Heavy Mag Cannons mounted on top and Pad Mk. 2 Light Rapid Fire Railguns along the bottom hull. That’s a lot of extra firepower, but the Heavy Suppression Frigate has a nasty trick up its sleeve: Enemies hit by the dual cannon will take extra damage from ALL sources. We’re excited to see how this further empowers your War Games fleets!
Of the 12 other new Artifacts coming in 1.1, several offer new specialization routes for upgrading the Suppression Frigate and the Heavy Suppression Frigate. The CQB Pattern (and unlocked Upgrades), transforms your Suppression Frigates into absolute devils in close-range brawls. Meanwhile, the Area Denial upgrade path does almost the opposite — trading survivability for increased range. There’s more to discover in War Games’ 1.1 Update, with 9 new challenges that each unlock new Artifacts including welcome upgrades to Hiigaran and Incarnate Frigates.
A New Skirmish Map: Karos Graveyard
Karos Graveyard is a new map added to Skirmish mode. This map is reminiscent of earlier Homeworld games where there was less terrain, and more open space for combat, and greater distances between starting positions for combat. We’re really excited to see how players adapt to this new map and look forward to your feedback.
Update 1.1 - Bugfix and Improvement Highlights
While you can find the complete patch notes below, we wanted to take a minute to call out some fixes that address some feedback we’ve received since launch. So let’s dive in.
Tactical Pause & Time Dilation in Solo Skirmish & War Games
First mentioned in our last Dev Update, you can now pause or slow time while playing War Games or Skirmish solo.
General Gameplay Fixes & Improvements
There’s a lot of fixes in Update 1.1, but there’s a few we think deserve special attention:
After using an ability on a target, ships could occasionally start attacking other enemies instead of the initial target.
Ships would occasionally fail to resume the Guard command after engaging in combat.
Frigates sometimes moved to match their target’s height when given an Attack order.
Giving deployment orders to multiple turrets at once while in Tactical Pause could cause an issue where only one turret was deployed.
The In-Game HDR option in Video settings could sometimes be turned on despite the Windows' HDR option being set to Off in the Monitor's settings.
VO for all units was missing when selecting ships while playing as the Incarnate fleet.
Added a "More Info" button to mod detail modal that links to the mod URL.
Kala Terminus 2-6 player Skirmish map has been updated. There are new player starting positions and more resources to support larger and longer PVP and PVE matches.
A Look Ahead: Mod Tools Incoming
Our team has been hard at work on the mod tools and we’re excited to announce that we’re finally ready to release them to the community. Though there are a few loose ends to tie off, we’re currently looking to release Homeworld 3’s official mod tools sometime later this month! We’ll share more information soon.
As a refresher, the mod tools will support the creation and distribution of custom Skirmish Maps. However, those of you who aren’t afraid of swimming in uncharted waters will find the mod tools are quite capable of doing much more.
Before we get to the patch notes, we have one last thing to say: As we continue to incorporate community feedback into Homeworld 3, it would be invaluable to us if you took the time to leave a Steam review or, if applicable, revisit your existing review. Thank you!
Homeworld 3 Update 1.1 Notes
New Content for Multiplayer
Added new content to War Games!
9 NEW challenges
13 NEW Artifacts
NEW Heavy Suppression Frigate
Unlock the Heavy Suppression Frigate with artifacts
Added a new map to Skirmish!
“Karos Graveyard” Skirmish map has been added. Long-time fans should recognize this map’s open, spacious inspiration from previous Homeworld games.
Added support for Time Dilation & Tactical Pause in Solo War Games & Skirmish matches.
Updates
In this update, we have addressed the following reported concerns from players:
Chinese localization has received many fixes. We are continuing to investigate further improvements here.
Gameplay
Achievement “Destruct Sequence Alpha-One” would not always be granted in campaign missions after using the Scuttle command on any ship.
Achievement “Untouchable” would occasionally be incorrectly awarded to players that were receiving damage.
After using an ability on a target, ships could occasionally start attacking other enemies instead of the initial target.
Ships would occasionally fail to resume the Guard command after engaging in combat.
Attack Move orders could unintentionally change to a Move order when multiple strike groups were created after changing formations.
When the first Move order of a unit still in Parade formation was queued, it was possible that the ship would reference their build location.
Changing formations to one that would “split” the current group into multiple smaller groups could result in some units stacking with other ships.
Units set to Sphere formation could fail to approach the enemy Incarnate Mothership when ordered to attack.
Changing the formation of Strikecraft or Corvette units from Parade formation with the Production ship would occasionally cause them to fly in circles.
Ships switched to a Passive stance while they were attacking targets would continue to engage and attack until all targets in sight were destroyed.
Frigates sometimes moved to match their target’s height when given an Attack order.
While a Torpedo Frigate’s range ability was active, missiles could explode before reaching their target after a certain distance.
Suppression Frigates would cancel their ability when ordered.
In some instances, Support Frigates would stop repairing the Mothership.
Battlecruisers would exhibit unintended behaviors with stationary targets and not consistently attack them.
Carriers would occasionally allow large salvage to be taken that should have been brought to the Mothership.
Starboard and Port cannons on Incarnate Battlecruisers did not always deploy before firing.
Capture Corvettes and Resource Controllers were observed to move towards enemy ships that could not be captured when players right-clicked on them.
Railgun Corvettes would charge their ability but wouldn’t fire on a Titanship. We’ve reassured them that it’s for the best to use it.
Strikecraft would occasionally get stuck inside and near the Titanship’s dock.
Some Incarnate ships wouldn’t flash to indicate when directional damage was received.
Units outside of the player’s field of view would sometimes be added in Box selection.
Guard Turrets were not always included in bandboxes.
Giving deployment orders to multiple turrets at once while in Tactical Pause could cause an issue where only one turret was deployed.
While the game is in Tactical Pause, it was possible that the queued unit limit (100) of the Build/Research Panel could be exceeded.
Some Asteroids could be missing Navigation data for ships.
Commands using special symbols (such as /, ], or [) were default bound to the symbol keys for a QWERTY keyboard layout, even if the player used a different keyboard language layout.
Multiplayer
In some instances, players would encounter network errors that could prevent them from joining multiplayer games.
Linux users could desync in multiplayer (Linux players must use Proton 9 for fix to apply).
War Games
Players could occasionally receive “Connection Failed” or “Retrying Connection” notifications before fully loading into the next stage
Desync Errors could be displayed after hyperspacing to the second stage.
In the Deep Space map, one of the resource nodes could have its large resource pocket separated from the node.
Players could gain more experience points at the end of the playthrough if the last stage was New Galaxy map.
The “Intercept Enemy Transports” objective could mistakenly complete if a transport reached its exit point.
In the Under the Ice map, an objective blocker could occur due to the Lost Probe staying in place if ships passed through the capture area without staying.
The location of an incursion point in the Under the Ice map could cause some Incarnate ships to spawn and go through the terrain.
Artifacts
The incorrect ship tactical icon would be shown on these artifacts: Cluster Missile Turret Pattern Artifact, Railgun Transport Pattern Artifact, Tactical Bomber Pattern Artifact, and the 8 Smart Missile Frigate Artifacts.
Artifact “Hiigaran Strikecraft Boost” was unintentionally available as an upgrade for Incarnate Beam Fighters in the “Experimental Weapons Fleet”.
Skirmish
Kala Terminus 2-6 player Skirmish map has been updated. There are new player starting positions and more resources to support larger and longer PVP and PVE matches.
Trinity Gate and Naraka map’s starting positions were the opposite of those shown on the lobby preview.
When creating an offline Skirmish match, the host was sometimes placed into Team 2 by default.
In the Buran Ice Shelf map, slot 1’s resource nodes could have more resources than the other slots.
Assets on the Buran Ice Shelf map could load without collision.
Build caps for Railgun Corvette would not always match the Corvette Population Caps for Hiigaran players.
Campaign
Tutorial: Torpedo Frigate could occasionally move outside of the playable area if they destroyed the allied ships before the player’s ships attacked them.
Kesura Minor: Barrage Frigates could occasionally be destroyed if captured after destroying the Carrier.
Trinity Gate: It was possible to use the gate without controlling all three data spires, which was not the intended behavior.
Trinity Gate: Attack Frigates could unintentionally be added to the fleet population when captured.
The Lighthouse: A progression blocker could sometimes occur from the possibility of the Carrier salvage setting stuck if the Resource Carriers delivered it on the same movement plane as the Mothership.
The Lighthouse: Passive units Guarding another ship could break off and chase moving asteroids.
Naraka Gate: The Mothership could sometimes not appear at the Repair Bay after watching the cutscenes when the NLIPS option was disabled.
Chamber of Storms: The hyperspace Incarnate Battlecruiser cutscene would not fit correctly in Ultrawide.
Visual Updates:
The In-Game HDR option in Video settings could sometimes be turned on despite the Windows' HDR option being set to Off in the Monitor's settings.
The Khar-Sajuuk Mega Beam VFX cut off prematurely in rare instances.
Durring the Hiigara mission, the explosion/smoke trails VFX of Combat Drones occasionally stuttered when destroyed.
The VFX that played when Power Regulators exploded were incorrectly implemented.
VFX attached to lights sometimes persisted after a ship was destroyed.
The smoke effect on damaged Mothership sometimes lacked depth fade in the material which could cause particles to visibly clip with geometry.
Ion Cannon Frigate had a mesh split
The Fleet Bomber would disappear a short distance away from the camera when cloaked.
Active gates sometimes shone excessively when the camera was positioned close to them.
Ship lights occasionally flickered while the camera was moving.
The lights on facility assets occasionally flickered and were overscaled.
Pausing the title while certain ships were maneuvering would occasionally cause their auxiliary engines to flicker.
The engine trail bloom of fighter-class ships sometimes popped in and out suddenly on medium and low settings.
Engine trail colors occasionally randomly changed for ships produced after 2 minutes of gameplay.
Audio Updates:
VO for all units was missing when selecting ships while playing as the Incarnate fleet.
There was occasionally no audio notification for new chat messages.
It was possible for no feedback to play when undocking a unit with the “Auto Launch” option set to OFF.
Skipping the first Cinematic could cause the in-game speech to break.
Friendly Carrier, Destroyer, and Battlecruiser lost voice lines would incorrectly play when an enemy of each type was destroyed after loading a saved game.
The lost Carrier’s voiceline would play when an enemy Carrier was destroyed.
Captured Raider Barrage Frigates occasionally lacked VO when selected or ordered to use abilities.
Raider Command Carrier weapons were quieter than intended over distance.
The notification speeches regarding the Resource Controller and Carrier being under attack were occasionally absent for the 'Remastered Fleet'.
The Naraka Gate SFX would repeat three times when opened.
UI:
Added a "More Info" button to mod detail modal that links to the mod URL.
The research requirement for the Incarnate Missile, Smart Missile, Multi-Beam Frigates and Carrier all mentioned Assault Frigate instead of Attack Frigate.
The movement line occasionally became shorter than the initial movement range right after ordering a ship to move to a marker.
A debug string could present itself in the movement disc’s tooltip when specific languages were selected.
In the Lobby Browser, when a lobby was selected, a debug string was occasionally visible to the right.
When selecting units quickly, resulting in more than 12 unit icons in the Unit Selection Panel, icons for units at the bottom of the list occasionally appeared over the units at the top.
Not all Mothership upgrades were occasionally displayed in the 'Ship Upgrades' panel.
Backing out of the "Restart" pop-up occasionally limited the 'ESC' key functionality until the "Exit" tab was clicked.
Players occasionally did not notice that they could scroll down to select options when creating a multiplayer lobby.
In the Context Menu, abilities on cooldown occasionally appeared as available and did not offer negative feedback when selected.
The ship info panel occasionally lacked Unit Stats.
Save and Load cards created on the Chamber Of Storms mission weren’t formatted properly on some resolutions.
Camera Input Bindings were editable when Camera Movement options were disabled, which could be confusing.
Fixed several crashes and many additional minor bugs
Hi everyone, Now that the dust has begun to settle, we’d like to share some details about Homeworld 3 and the journey ahead. We’ve been collecting and prioritizing your feedback about Homeworld 3’s gameplay. As always, thank you! Here are a few things we’re taking immediate actio
Hi everyone,
Now that the dust has begun to settle, we’d like to share some details about Homeworld 3 and the journey ahead.
We’ve been collecting and prioritizing your feedback about Homeworld 3’s gameplay. As always, thank you! Here are a few things we’re taking immediate action on and we will continue to update you on their progress. Additional work is in the planning stages, expect new updates in the coming months.
Open maps & “claustrophobic” maps
Though terrain is a major feature in Homeworld 3, we’ve heard that many of you miss the vast, empty maps of earlier Homeworld games. Some of you also feel that Homeworld 3’s maps can be too small or “claustrophobic.” We have already started work on our first new Skirmish map without large terrain — just open space. We’ll also look at other maps to make sure you can pull the camera out far enough and, if necessary, make further adjustments.
Strategic pacing & directional damage
We have heard your thoughts on the overall pace of combat. Homeworld 3 is definitely a faster-paced game, and many of you feel like you aren’t able to maneuver properly or employ tactics like flanking. We’re increasing the health of units. This will allow you more time to maneuver in an engagement to make use of things like directional damage.
And, just to dispel any confusion, Homeworld 3 has directional damage!
There’s been some doubt about that, which we think is due to the pace of combat and that it wasn’t present in the War Games demo. We’re also increasing the efficacy of directional and flank damage. We think this will increase Homeworld 3’s strategic depth by incentivizing unit positioning and smart maneuvering.
Improving unit behaviors
Speaking of maneuvering: During the next several weeks you’re going to start seeing improvements to unit behaviors. For example, things like larger ships needing to engage from the same plane of combat and various other behaviors will be addressed over the coming weeks and months. We also have fixes for issues like units occasionally forgetting their orders and improvements for various units like Suppression and Torpedo Frigates.
Hyperspace Jumps & a new tech tree in Skirmish
Skirmish has long been a staple of Homeworld and RTSes, and there’s a couple of things we think we can do to improve this experience. Notably, we are exploring implementing Hyperspace Jumping in Skirmish, allowing you to teleport ships across the map for some audacious gambits. We’re also reworking the Skirmish tech tree to help make strategic player choices more meaningful and allow early game fleet compositions to be more nuanced.
Tactical Pause & Time Dilation for solo Skirmish & War Games
This will be coming up in our June 1.1 patch. For users who want to pause or slow down combat in solo games— now you can, just like in the campaign!
Above: Also coming in Patch 1.1 is a new War Games Artifact that'll unlock the ultra-powerful Heavy Suppression Frigate variant.
Mod tools incoming!
We’re continuing to work toward the launch of Homeworld 3’s official modding tools. If you’ve browsed the mod.io dashboard within Homeworld 3, you’ve already seen the cool things the community is creating. Our mod tools will only empower that effort. Officially, they can be used to create and share Skirmish maps, but for adventurous modders who aren’t afraid to go into uncharted territory, there’s a lot more that could theoretically be done — and we can’t wait to see what this community creates.
To be clear, all of this will be moving forward in parallel to our ongoing bug-fixing and improvement efforts. By the time Patch 1.1 drops in June, we’ll be on target to address over 150 issues and counting — including performance improvements, better support for AZERTY and QWERTZ keyboards, and many, many other things.
With the help of this community, we will make Homeworld 3 the best it can be. To that end, we will strive to incorporate your gameplay feedback even more in the weeks and months ahead.
Thank you, Blackbird Interactive and Gearbox Publishing
Hello Commanders, Today we are releasing a hotfix (1.03) for Homeworld 3 that addresses some reported concerns we’ve seen from players, including AZERTY & QWERTZ key rebindings and a couple of progression blockers that some players were seeing. A note on “what is coming next”
Hello Commanders,
Today we are releasing a hotfix (1.03) for Homeworld 3 that addresses some reported concerns we’ve seen from players, including AZERTY & QWERTZ key rebindings and a couple of progression blockers that some players were seeing. A note on “what is coming next” is still in the works and we’re hoping to release more information on the custom Homeworld 3 Unreal 4 editor soon.
We have released an update for Homeworld 3, and added the following rebind controls:
Control Group key bindings are able to be rebound, allowing players using AZERTY and other keyboard types to use them
Menu & Cycle Production Unit Focus key bindings can now be rebound
Note: These two additions come with some untranslated new menu entries, but we wanted to unlock these features for players asap.
Translations on these menu options will be added in a future update.
In this update, we have also addressed the following concerns from players:
Multiplayer
The War Games Production Bay map stuttered or lagged despite high framerates
Epic players were unable to invite other Epic players via the EGS overlay
The "Remove Player" button in lobbies was not consistently removing players
When lobby hosts selected “Return to Lobby” after a finished match, the “Abort Launch” would occasionally not reset for other players
Gameplay
Captured Incarnate Destroyers started attacking player units over time
Campaign
There was a continuity discrepancy in the Campaign mission 13 intro cutscene
Players could occasionally be short 1 Resource Unit in Mission 1
UI/Accessibility
Scrollbar appearance and hover behavior weren’t consistent and sometimes difficult to use
We are continuing to investigate the reports created for issues players are experiencing while playing Homeworld 3. Coming soon, we’ll have more information on some of the confirmed bug fixes that we have planned for the game.
