In Homeworld, there are a group of units that could be considered "spellcasters"
- these are the Gravwell, the Cloak generator, the Salvage Corvette, the Repair
Corvette, the Minelaying Corvette, the Cloaked Fighter, and to a lesser extent,
Missle Destroyers, Scouts, and Heavy Corvettes. While the latter few are used
quite frequently and the Gravwell was used notoriously at the beginning of the
second beta, most of these units are now underused, not having a direct role in
combat. But used properly, the usage and number of these units become the heart
of the game.
First, the "weakened" Gravwell. Why even build one when a field
frigate is even more cost efficent and effective? Two reasons. First, time. If
your resource collectors or controllers are under heavy strike craft fire, hyper
in a gravwell, no matter what the cost. Would you rather waste money on
hyperspace or lose a controller that would put you at a disadvantage, especially
as the game progresses? Sending a gravwell over will both delay the fighters'
attack and delay any other attack that follows. With this, you have two options,
whether to go on the defensive or offensive. Going on the defensive involves
either sending in a larger strike craft fleet of your own or hyperjumping an
assault frigate to whack on the spinning enemies. He should then either retreat
his fighters or face losing them without accomplishing much, since although he
could attack the gravwell slowly, the fighters would likely be crippled before
the Well dies or wears off. The other option you have when you have the enemy
fighters trapped in the well is to "make your own threat" and attack
his RCs meanwhile. With his fighters immobile, he would probably not have much
to defend it with and you could attack freely at least until his fighters spin
out of your gravwell and rush to his defense. This offensive usage of the
gravwell runs some risks though - it's likely to lead to a direct confrontation
of forces that may not end until one of your motherships is killed. If you do
this option, make sure that you
a) kill enough of his Resourcers that time would be against him, and
b) have a sizable enough fleet such that you won't be forced too far into the
defensive. Even after killing off half the enemy's collectors, the battle can
still turn against you if your opponent went for a build order that gave him a
decent amount of ships early on.
The other primary usage of a Gravwell is Mothership/RV defense (RV early on,
Mothership later). You won't have a gravwell to counter a scout/interceptor rush
no matter how fast you research though, so make sure you have enough defense for
such a tactic early on. As long as you keep an eye on the sensors manager often
enough, you should be able to catch the purple blips that indicate a hyperjump
in progress. Seeing a group of blips originating from the enemy Mothership is
especially deadly lategame - you know for sure he has at least a few destroyers
and frigates in there and you'll need to act fast. If your enemy should try to
jump anywhere near your Mothership (again, by looking at the sensors manager)
turn the Well on immediately and move it ASAP towards wherever the opponent is
jumping. If he's jumping a bit further away, you can let lax the Well tactics
and switch to mad anti-Frigate defense :)
- And it isn't just hyperspace you have to defend against. Enemy strike
craft-only attacks on RVs and even your mothership (a decent combo of fighters
can take out the mothership in much less than a minute) are stopped cold with a
couple gravwells and assault frigates or even ion cannons - stationary fighters
are dead fighters.
The next "Spellcaster" is the Cloak Generator, a very powerful
unit. Not only does it complement other specialized units (You think a gravwell
is bad? How about a cloaked Gravwell!) but even though ships can't fire while
cloaked it almost doubles the life of ICFs and destroyers. Think about it... the
ICF's beam is non-continuous anyway, and while it recharges it can be cloaked.
Or, going against a bombing run, you could give the ships you want cloaked
"Cancel Orders" + evasive orders (or give them a "move"
order if they stubbornly insist on firing) while the enemy fighters make their
run, then quickly switch to aggressive and attack while the fighters are moving
away, getting distance. Sure, it may take a while, but fighters are definitely
deadly and its well worth the time spent. A few miscellaneous tips with cloak
generators...
I know that it's already been mentioned several times, but here it is again :
It's good to have more than one, since they only last 5 minutes and take 10
minutes to recharge. With 3 cloakers working together, you could make some ships
constantly cloaked.
Cloaking ships while travelling is real useful for a surprise attack. You can
even use that Z axis you never use cuz your opponent wouldn't see it coming -
because now he won't. Better yet, move some ship in a straight line towards your
opponent, and from maybe 25 km away, cloak, and go straight down. If your enemy
saw you coming and went out to intercept you, he'd be in for a little surprise.
If you have trouble with your cloak generators (this also applies to field
frigates BTW) staying with your main attack force, even if you are
"guarding" them, check your tactical settings. If you're willing, the
best thing to do in battle is to actually move the generator(s) as a seperate
unit, just giving them constant "move" commands so that they stay
exactly where you want them.
-Note that this is all moot if your enemy gets some prox sensors nearby - if you
can, get some strike craft support with any cloak generators for the sole
purpose of killing Proxxes.
Salvage Corvettes. Stealing ships! The idea of it may seem exciting and you
may think you're going to use these almost every game in theory, but in an
actual game they are much less effective than they seem. The thing is, people
have been begun to think so little of them that they're now much more than
people think. Of course, there is only one use for them, but there are three
different ways to use them.
-Plain out theft. Just go out and steal an enemy resource collector wandering
by. It may take 20-30 strike craft to go on a decent RC raid, but just a few
salvage corvettes and you can not only deprive the enemy of a couple collectors
but you gain a couple free collectors as well. Note that it takes 3 corvettes to
steal a controller, should you feel so inclined, and more for increasing size
classes of ships (up to 5 for a carrier). The best way to steal and get away
with it though, is to provide a distraction. Take some strike craft, and go
raiding on the other side of the enemy's base, or even just dance around right
in front of his mothership for no apparent reason if you have enough salvage
corvettes to justify this loss of strike craft. If he decides to ignore your
distraction and try to go save his collectors, you can get several free shots
off. Otherwise, he probably won't be able to dispatch your forces and run to the
RCs' aid in time.
-Battle "referreeing" ... where your corvettes carry out a few select
enemy units in battle for foul play ;) Say you have a frig vs frig battle - you
have 4 ICFs and your enemy has 2 ICFs and 2 destroyers. The least you need to
turn the battle to your favor is 5 salvagers - take one destroyer and one ICF,
then kill the remaining ICF first, then the destroyer. You would win an equal-RU
battle provided you get the ships in time, and even after that you would get a
free destroyer and ICF. Don't get greedy though - in a clear battle like the
example I just used, a determined opponent would rather chase your Salvage
corvettes down than lose a frig and cap ship, so make sure the theft is clouded
up with a fighter melee in the background or something. Again, distractions are
critical. If you watch your opponent's moves in battle and can see what he's
doing, the better off you are, so that you could take off with a couple of his
ships when you can tell he wouldn't be watching.
-Battle complementing. This is different from Battle "referreeing" in
that you don't make off with ships to even out the battle, you make off with
battle turners - for example, last night I was making an attack against Mad
Hatter's mothership, but I noticed he had a gravwell protecting it. I sent a
couple salvage corvettes in, and even though Mad turned on the well, I captured
it a second later and my fighters proceeded to attack. Similar uses are against
Cloak Generators, Field frigates, and even enemy salvage corvettes if he looks
like he's going to try something with them :p
Note that salvage corvettes are immune to the effects of a Gravwell! Don't
hesitate in sending them in to rescue your trapped fighters!
Next is the Minelaying Corvette. While it used to be a very weak unit, Force
Drops and asteroid field mining are now some pf my favorite tactics. Just to
demonstrate the power of a force drop, it takes maybe 15 seconds to kill 4 RVs
with a couple minelayers. This is just as fast as a decent attack bomber fleet!
Minelayers are supposedly the corvette's counter to frigates and caps. Even
though the balance is supposedly Fighters > Caps/Frigates > Corvettes >
Fighters, there are always the exceptions, and the Minelayer is the exception in
the case of the corvettes. Still, you'd have to be sneaky in order to use one in
battle, since they're a pretty obvious target and very stationary. The best way
to use them is in combination with your own frigate force, so that the frigates
can take the damage and attack with the minelayers giving them additional
firepower. If a fighter or 'vette runs into a mine (it's unlikely but possible),
all the better, since one mine can pretty much kill any 'vette.
Without even using them for battle, mining up a resource field is plenty of
fun. People have complained that the mines go away too fast, but 5 minutes is
plenty of time, especially if the Collectors are already in the field you're
mining. Just dropping repeatedly in 3-4 different places could effectively cover
the entire field. But watch out - even though the mines aren't attracted to your
ships, the ships can still run into the mines, so that area is effectively
"radioactive" for five minutes.
Last we have the cloaked fighter. IMO, seriously weaker than the Taiidan
Defense fighter, it still has its uses. Free scouting for one. Yes, even though
probes and prox sensors can already do this and faster, they have one advatage :
cloaks. When I say "Free" scouting, I mean that the enemy won't even
realize you're scouting the area. It's much better to send a single cloaked
fighter to a resource field and back if you know that your opponent pays
attention to where you send your probes. Also, if your opponent typically
intercepts your fighter fleets going for his resources, send off two different
fleets - one to some place, maybe his RV or a second patch that he's collecting
from - and the other to another asteriod field where you know he is, with this
fleet composed of entirely cloaked fighters. Cloak them before you leave your MS
and even if the enemy keeps a sharp eye on the sensors manager, he'll never see
it until it's too late - and by that time he's probably engaging your other
fleet anyway. Another miscellaneous note : turn off the cloak when attacking in
a group, especially when attacking in a group with attack bombers, since you'd
want the cloakers to take damage for the low-hp Attack bombers.
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