Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak - Part 8 Guide

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Plasma bombs, ramming, kamikaze attacks, and mines are not stopped by the defense field. Additional units are excellent for escorting fighters against motherships, with their repair rate and blocking 90% of mothership guns, you can keep fighters safe doing attack runs all over the enemy MS. To attack an enemy ship, the field frigate goes toe to toe with enemy capital ships, which means it also blocks ion cannons targeted at other enemy ships by virtue of it being an obstruction, but this incurs damage on the field frigate so don't forget about that. Gravity wells do still work in the field frigate so you can combine them to make a horribly lethal system or to trap fighters escorting or being escorted by the field frigate.

Firepower Reduction Data Raw:

Raw means that 5-10% of guns that do get through are not counted, which can lead to all sorts of firepower counts. % is how much of its 100% firepower it has remaining, NOT how much is blocked. The other figure, if there is multiple weapon system types on the ship, reflects how much raw firepower the ship can bring to bear on the field frigate or ships in its area of effect.

Swarmer - 0%
Adv Swarmer - 0%
Fuel Pod - 0%
Fighter - 0%
Std Corvette - 0%
Repair Corvette - 0%
Missile Corvette - 100%
Scout - 0 firepower, 0%
Interceptor - 0 firepower, 0%
Attack Bomber - 100%
Defender - 0 firepower, 0%
Cloaked Fighter - 0%
Lt Corvette - 0 firepower, 0%
Heavy Corvette - 0 firepower, 0% (though burst still works)
Multigun Corvette - 0 firepower, 0%
Mine Layer Corvette - 100%
Assault Frigate - 41 firepower, 50%
Support Frigate - 0 firepower, 0%
Drone Frigate - 0%
Ion Frigate - 100%
Multibeam - 100%
Destroyer - 276 firepower, 75%
M Destroyer - 100%
Carrier - 0 firepower, 0%
Cruiser - 552 firepower, 60%
MS - 0%

Kamikaze of all strike craft is reduced also as they cannot connect their gunfire as they go into impact, except for bombers which you don't want to kamikaze anyway unless you are losing badly or have masses of Ru.

Drone Frigate (Kushan Only)

Mass: 60,000 tons
Armour: 16,000
Firepower: 192*
Coverage: 100%**
Type: Miniature auto gun***
Fuel: Unlimited
Manoeuvrability: Low
Max Velocity: 325 m/s
Special Action: Launch/retract drones
RU Cost: 800
Time to build: 75 seconds
RU per sec: 11
Available from: Mission 6

*Each gun has about the same power as a scout since there are 24. 8 x 24 = 192. The drone frigate has no guns of its own and therefore it cannot attack without deployed drones.

**Though coverage is 100%, not all guns can fire at all directions since there is a range difference and also the frigate gets in the way.

***Drones take 50 seconds to regenerate when deployed; they take 20-25 seconds to replace when retracted into the hull.

Additional: Scuttling self-destructs the drones as well. Additional 2: Drones cannot hyperspace unless stored. Additional 3: Drones are not repaired when retracted; when some of my drones were damaged, I retracted them, and some of them were still bubbling with damage.

Useless unless you try the hyperspace drone ball (extend drones hyperspace) then recall drones. You can force attack the frigate inside the sphere easily. Best avoided, but if you have to use, only in aggressive mode. The drones rebuild faster when retracted. Also, they utterly kill slower machines if you have a lot of them. A Frigate can take out a Drone Frigate easily with little damage.

Super Capital Ship Class

Destroyer

Mass: 185,000 tons
Armour: 44,000
Firepower: 10,500 ITM 300-400 in tests* 341 (V1.05)
Coverage: 88% (2 forward gimballed ion cannons, two turrets with two guns each)
Type: Ion cannon, guns
Fuel: Unlimited
Manoeuvrability: Very low
Max Velocity: 315 m/s
Special Action: None
RU Cost: 1350
Time to build: 150 seconds
RU per sec: 9
Available from: Mission 6

*x2 Ion Cannon = 138x2 = 276 + 4 big guns guestimated at 20-30 each.

Fast and deadly, though somewhat easy to capture. The ion cannons can gimbal slightly left and right, but there is a dead zone from directly below, which is where to hit it.

Missile Destroyer

Mass: 200,000 tons
Armour: 42,000
Firepower: 8,500 ITM 375+/- 25 per missile in tests* 450 (V1.05)
Coverage: 100%**
Type: Missiles***
Fuel: Unlimited (missiles 3-5 seconds)
Manoeuvrability: Very low
Max Velocity: 295 m/s
Missile velocity: 1000 m/s
Special Action: 32 missile burst****
RU Cost: 1500
Time to build: 175 seconds
RU per sec: 9
Available from: Mission 9

*Kills bombers sometimes in one hit, sometimes in two, unknown reasons.

**Missiles have shorter range attacking things coming from behind.

***Missiles when the destroyer is at different orders have different chances of hitting their targets (while missiles against capital ships are a near sure thing) vs fighters: Evasive 50%, Neutral 70%, Aggressive 90%. Also, missiles are fired in 4s normally.

****10-second penalty on missile production and firing ability; normally, missiles are produced at 0.5 seconds per missile.

You get these after capturing them after the Sea of Lost Souls, which makes life hard for the strikers. 32 missiles are its Achilles' heel, however, as scouts can outrun them on afterburners, and those missiles are wasted. Missiles will also lose locks to cloaking devices.

Carrier

Mass: 600,000 tons
Armour: 70,000
Firepower: 19,000 ITM 100-200 in tests* 109 (V1.05)
Coverage: 100%
Type: Guns**
Fuel: Unlimited
Manoeuvrability: Very low
Max Velocity: 315 m/s
Special Action: Build and dock strike craft, build frigates
RU Cost: 2000
Time to build: 280 seconds
RU per sec: 7.1
Available from: Mission 9

*Based on % damage done to salvage corvettes stuck to its hull.

**Carrier guns are somewhat shorter range than the guns on fighters.

Small motherships that build anything up to frigate class, vital sometimes. They need to be supported by other ships, or they can be captured easily. Can be used effectively to ram frigates.

Can dock:

50 fighters
25 corvettes

Additional: Any ship docked or

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