Homeworld 3 has introduced roguelike elements to the franchise with its new War Games playlist. This activity blends the traditional combat seen in Homeworld's campaign and mixes it with randomized fleet buffs and objectives. If your team can survive the gauntlet of objectives, you can unlock new Artifacts and fleets for future runs.
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PostsWar Games is a fresh take on traditional real-time strategy and should definitely be experienced at least once, especially if you're a fan of PvE modes. This guide will explain how War Games works, how its roguelike Artifacts work, and provide some general tips for beating this mode.
War Games Explained
War Games is a PvE game mode where up to three players must complete mission objectives to earn roguelike modifiers. Unlike traditional Skirmish matches, War Games has no PvP elements and provides various starting fleets to choose from. Successfully completing objectives will accrue XP on your account, which will unlock additional fleet options.
When the match starts, your team will have a few minutes to build up a fleet and accumulate resources before fleet command issues an objective. You must complete this objective to proceed to the next level. The longer you stay in the same level, the harder it'll become. Speed is highly rewarded here. Once all objectives are complete, you can hyperspace to the next level at any time.
Enemy presence is reduced between levels. The faster you are, the easier your runs will be.
Your goal is simple: complete three consecutive levels. Your entire fleet, resources, and roguelike buffs called Artifacts will persist between each tileset. Craft your fleet to take advantage of the Artifacts you find to gain an advantage over the Incarnate. Should your fleet be destroyed, the War Games mission will end. Complete matches to earn XP, try out new fleets, and experiment with Artifact choices to create the ultimate build.
Difficulty Modifiers And Fleets
CloseBefore starting a War Games match, you'll need to select a starting fleet. Your starting fleet determines your initial resources, ships, and available ship upgrades. For example, the Strikecraft Fleet can purchase every fighter and their respective upgrades, but it lacks the ability to create most frigates. The first three fleets are Higaran, while the latter three are Incarnate. Both factions behave quite differently, so choose wisely.
Additionally, you can also adjust the difficulty of your War Games match before it starts. By selecting "Game Settings" and "Select Difficulty Modifiers," you can select the difficulty tier you wish to start at. Each difficulty modifier increases all XP gains by 50% for that run, up to a cap of 500%. Bear in mind that you can't pick and choose which modifiers you want. If you pick T5 difficulty, all modifiers from tiers 1-5 will be active.
All Starting Fleets
Fleet Name
Starting Resources
Starting Ships
Modifiers
Strikecraft Fleet
3,000
- x1 Carrier
- x5 Recon
- x5 Interceptor
- x1 Resource Controller
- Artifacts: Starts with a boon for each strikecraft.
- Limited access to frigates.
Reconnaissance Fleet
6,000
- x1 Carrier
- x6 Interceptor
- x1 Resource Controller
- Artifacts: Starts with two unused Artifacts.
- Doubled starting resources.
- Limited access to strikecraft.
Bomber Fleet
3,000
- x1 Carrier
- x2 Torpedo Frigates
- x1 Resource Controller
- Artifacts: Starts with one boon for Fleet Bombers and Torpedo Frigates.
- Limited access to corvettes.
Incarnate Fleet
6,000
- x1 Carrier
- x5 Dominance Fighters
- x3 Assault Corvettes
- x1 Resource Controller
- Artifacts: Starts with two unused Artifacts.
- Doubled starting resources.
- Uses the Incarnate ship roster.
Platform Fleet
3,000
- x1 Carrier
- x4 Dominance Fighters
- x2 Resource Controllers
- Artifacts: Starts with Dominance Fighter boons.
- Uses the Incarnate ship roster.
Experimental Weapons Fleet
3,000
- x1 Carrier
- x8 Beam Fighter
- x1 Resource Controller
- Artifacts: Starts with Beam Fighter boons.
- Uses the Incarnate ship roster.
All Difficulty Modifiers
Difficulty Tier
Modifier
Cumulative XP Bonus
T0
Standard difficulty.
0%
T1
Larger enemy incursions.
50%
T2
Reduced available map resources.
100%
T3
Enemy incursions spawn more frequently.
150%
T4
Destroyed Carriers do not respawn.
200%
T5
The second mission has an additional objective.
250%
T6
Larger enemy incursions.
300%
T7
Artifacts spawn less often.
350%
T8
Reduced available map resources.
400%
T9
-1 Artifact options.
450%
T10
The first mission has an additional objective.
500%
read moreArtifacts
Artifacts are powerful modifiers that you'll earn throughout the course of a War Games match. You can earn Artifacts by completing objectives and collecting Artifact wreckage on the map. There's no limit to how many Artifacts you can have active at a time.
Artifact passives will carry over between tilesets, but they do not carry over between War Games matches. Once the game ends, you'll need to earn new Artifacts for your next game.
Most of your Artifacts will come from map pickups. Keep an eye out for these industrial strips of metal guarded by Incarnate while in each tileset. There are usually two or three of them per level.
Once you acquire an Artifact, select the Artifact icon on the top-right of your screen to open the Artifact menu. From here, you will be presented with three random Artifact buffs. You must pick one of them—there's no rerolling. Buffs come in the form of fleet population caps and ship-specific upgrades, most of which have small stat penalties to balance out their extreme benefits. You can stack the same Artifact buff multiple times, increasing its positive and negative properties.
Unlocking Artifacts
As with most roguelike games, you won't have all Artifacts unlocked by default. You will need to play multiple War Games matches and experiment with builds to unlock every possible option. Artifacts are primarily unlocked through in-game challenges, all of which may be found in the Homeworld Compendium. You can access the compendium from the main menu. Some Artifacts also won't appear until you equip a certain Artifact boon or increase your account level.
War Games Tips
- Speed is key. The longer the run takes, the tougher and more frequent enemy reinforcements will be. Once you finish the main objectives, grab any leftover Artifacts and leave.
- Traveling to a new zone will heal every ship to max HP. All ships are also brought forward, including strikecraft.
- Resources are not auto-collected when you initiate a hyperspace jump. Be sure you've collected everything before proceeding.
- The third level has a massive difficulty spike. Coordinate with your team to complete each objective as safely as possible.
- Solo players will want to create subgroups for ships and split up their fleet when it's safe. Regroup when a large fleet or titan appears.
- Certain Artifacts have specific unlock conditions. You need to reach a certain level, have a particular Artifact boon, or complete certain challenges to access them.
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