Part 4

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak ship classes explained, including Corvettes, Capital Ships, Super Capital Ships, and Motherships. Learn their stats and roles.

Corvettes are larger than strike craft, possessing more firepower and armor at the cost of RUs (resource units) and speed. They require fuel and have larger tanks, lasting longer. Like fighters, they cannot hyperspace without assistance from hyperspace gateways or other ships. Corvettes bank instead of performing a 180-degree pitch but compensate with omnidirectional turrets.

Capital Ships, such as Frigates, are general-purpose warships that can serve as a fleet's backbone against anti-fighter or strike formations. They have limited self-repair capabilities and can hyperspace alone.

Super Capital Ships include destroyers, cruisers, and carriers. These are large, slow, and powerful vessels that are slow to build and require significant RUs, crew, and have better self-repair abilities. They can be used for ramming and can hyperspace alone.

Motherships are the largest vessels, acting as carriers, fleet foundries, refueling stations, and minor combat vessels. They are vulnerable, and losing one often means losing the game. Scuttling a Mothership can destroy nearly all fighters and frigates, and heavily damage super capital ships within range.

Explanation of Terms:

• Mass: Weight of the ship.
• Armour: Hit points of the ship.
• Firepower: Damage output of the ship. Varies in formations; sphere formation reduces firepower to 50-70% of an attack run.
• Coverage: Percentage of a sphere a ship can cover (press the cover button to crouch behind walls or objects) when stationary to intercept.
• Type: The kind of weaponry the ship uses.
• Manoeuvrability: How agile the ship is.
• Max Velocity: Maximum speed, with separate values for normal and combat speeds. Scouts can briefly use afterburners for higher speeds.
• Special Action: Unique abilities a ship may possess, like afterburners.
• Fuel: Determines how long a ship can operate before needing refueling.
• Evasive/Neutral/Aggressive: Combat stances affecting ship behavior and fuel consumption.
• Service time: Time taken for support craft (strike craft only) to dock, fully repair, and launch from support frigates. This can take 10-15 seconds plus docking/launching time, and is generally measured against support frigates.
• RU Cost: The cost in resource units to build the ship.
• Available from: The mission number from which the ship can be acquired.
• Time to build: The duration in minutes and seconds required to construct the ship.
• RU per sec: Resource units generated or consumed per second.

Scout

• Mass: 40 tons
• Armour: 110
• Firepower: 12
• Coverage: 8%
• Type: guns
• Manoeuvrability: very high
• Max Velocity: 1500 m/s (with afterburners), 1000 m/s (normal)
• Special Action: afterburners
• Fuel: Evasive: 6 minutes (combat), 10 minutes (normal); Neutral/Aggressive: 8-9 minutes (combat), 13 minutes (normal)
• Service time: 13-16 seconds
• RU Cost: 35
• Available from: mission 1
• Time to build: 12 seconds
• RU per sec: 2.9

Scouts are cheap, fast, and very useful for engaging interceptors, especially when set to evasive mode. They are hindered by fuel limitations and fleet size caps. Afterburners consume more fuel, reducing combat time. In early versions of Homeworld, a cheat allowed scouts to become nearly impossible to hit.

Interceptor

• Mass: 60 tons (V1.05: 10 tons)
• Armour: 160
• Firepower: 18 (bugs have reported 26)
• Coverage: 8%
• Type: guns
• Manoeuvrability: very high
• Max Velocity: 875 m/s
• Special Action: none
• Fuel: Evasive: 6 minutes (combat), 10 minutes (normal); Neutral/Aggressive: 8-9 minutes (combat), 13 minutes (normal)
• Service time: 14-19 seconds
• RU Cost: 55
• Available from: mission 2