Homeworld: Cataclysm Q&A

Homeworld was one of last year's most critically acclaimed real-time strategy games. So it's no wonder that the unveiling of the game's standalone expansion pack, Cataclysm, was well received by the media and the gaming community. Since then, we've had several opportunities to play early versions of the game, and we were pleased to find that Cataclysm not only adds new units and an original story, but also features new gameplay enhancements and better graphics. We recently sat down with Barking Dog Studios designer Chris Stewart to find out about Cataclysm's progress since it was last shown at the E3 convention in May.

GameSpot: How far along in development is Homeworld: Cataclysm?

Chris Stewart: Cataclysm is right at the end of development. Sierra has us assembling the cardboard boxes and gluing the manuals together at this very moment, in anticipation of going gold.

GS: Is the game still on track for its original ship date?

CS: Yes, we're still on schedule.

GS: When we wrote our preview, you talked about a lot of new features, such as waypoints, fog of war, upgrades, and so on. Now that you have had time to test these features, are they all staying in the game? And how do they improve the gameplay?

CS: It's all still there and it all makes for some amazing gameplay. What we were looking for from these features has really panned out - especially the upgradable technologies, which really add a lot of variety to the game. These upgrades have created a lot of room for ingenuity. Initially we were afraid that it would be a balancing nightmare, having ships that change throughout a game, but in many ways it's solved a lot of problems, because the tactics of the games have a lot more flex than your standard "rock beats scissors beats paper beats rock" approach. It makes for really exciting, diverse battles.

GS: The multiplayer mode was also supposed to be enhanced. What multiplayer features are you adding to the game?

CS: Some things we added to Cataclysm multiplay were simple tweaks of the Homeworld set up. Multiplayer now has randomized start points, for example. The rest are the "terrain" features we added - primarily crystals and slipgates. These have added a lot to the game. A lot. Slipgates add such a different flow to a map, and crystals have proven to add an endless amount of variety to games. Just when I think I've got the knack down for harvesting crystals with low risk, somebody does something evil, like blow one up while I'm harvesting it, taking out an entire carrier. The meteors are interesting too, though they're less of a strategic addition and more of a hazard addition. You never want your fleet to get caught in a meteor storm.

The ability of one side to steal technology from the other and the sheer tactical variety of having two completely different fleets to choose from have also proven to add a whole new twist to mulitplayer.

GS: What sorts of surprises, or new gameplay designs, will we see in the campaign?

CS: If we told you, they wouldn't be surprises. One secret we did manage to keep until just recently was that acolytes can be upgraded to carry ordnance - missiles in this case. Two per acolyte. Once fired, they have to dock with a command ship to get reloaded. And if acolytes pair up into ACVs, the missiles cannot be fired. It gives acolytes a little bit of bite against the larger ships that normally eat them whole.

As for surprises in the campaign, there's not a lot we want to give away, though there are a number of twists in the story. The Bentusi play an important and emotionally charged part in the drama.

GS: What are the system requirements for the game?

CS: Pentium II 233 with 32MB of RAM. The full specifications are listed below.

Minimum	Preferred
Pentium II 233, 32 MB RAM	Pentium II 350+, 64 MB RAM
150 MB HD Space	400 MB HD Space (Full Install)
4x CD ROM	4x CD ROM
4MB PCI Video Card (16-bit color, DirectX compatible)	12 MB+ 3D Accelerated Video Card
16-bit DirectX-compatible soundcard	16-bit DirectX-compatible soundcard
Windows-compatible mouse	Windows-compatible mouse with mousewheel