Homeworld 3: 10 Best Tips for Beginners

The road to becoming the best fleet commander is a tough one. You need to level up your game, from your skills as a gamer to obtaining the best ship vessel that can take on anything you throw at it. Furthermore, Homeworld 3’s combat system is a relatively complex one that you need to learn how to navigate and make the most of. With our Homeworld 3: best tips for beginners, though, it shouldn’t take long to dominate the lands beyond the stars.

10. Use Rock, Paper, Scissors Strategy

Just like in most strategy games, the different units in Homeworld 3 will have their own varying strengths and weaknesses. So, it’s up to you to weigh your ship’s strengths against the enemy’s to assess whether you’re likely to win. You can use rock, paper, scissors strategy. Generally, bigger spaceships are weaker against fleet bombers. However, fleet bombers are weaker than fighter vessels. Feel free to go through Homeworld 3’s unit descriptions to anticipate the likelihood of victory.

9. Learn the Formations at Your Disposal

Since you’ll be commanding a fleet of ships, you want to learn the formations you have at your disposal first. Formations allow you to group your ships into a specific formation. That way, enemies can focus on the entire group of ships rather than just one. Now, each scenario will demand different strategies. For example, the default Delta formation will spread out your ships in a V-shape, thus reducing the AoE damage. Alternatively, you can choose the Wall formation, which is perfect for your long-range fighter ships. You can direct these ships to shoot down high-priority targets from a safe distance. A Sphere formation, on the other hand, will come in handy when protecting your AI and resource collector ships, and so on.  

8. Use Control Groups for Easy Management of Ships

The more you play, the more you unlock more and better ships. Managing them all can become tedious. What’s more? Most fights need you to react quickly. So, you can group your ships into control groups. You can group your long-range fighter ships that thrive in Wall formation into one, for example. Then, and especially in PvP multiplayer, all you need to do is press the respective button for that control group to unleash your ships into battle.

7. Aggressive, Passive or Neutral?

When considering your control groups, you want to prioritize the stance options you have. These are aggressive, passive, and neutral, which determine how your ships react in battle. The aggressive stance takes a gun-blazing approach, killing all enemy ships on sight. Passives, on the other hand, stay back from attacking, while neutrals do everything they can to survive. So, generally, you may want to take a neutral stance. That way, your ships will automatically take cover when under heavy fire.

6. Take Cover to Evade Enemy Fire

It’s not always that your ships will automatically take cover, even when on neutral. In other cases, your ships may be too far away from cover. So, you want to ensure that you deploy your ships near asteroid belts and megastructures that they can quickly use to take cover. Alternatively, ensure you hide behind obstacles to avoid an enemy’s line of sight. You can also use tunnels to sneak behind enemies. 

5. Repair Your Ship After Battle

Ships have a ‘hit points’ meter that tracks damage intake. To ensure that your ships are always at their best, make sure to dock them after battle. This will send your damaged ships to the mothership or closest Carrier for repair. Speaking of Carriers, these are ships that you can send out into battle to repair your fighter ships. Support Frigates are also support ships that help repair damaged vessels during battle.

4. Scoop Up As Many Resources As You Can

In addition to constant repairs, you want to also scoop up as many resources as you can to keep your ships at the top of their game. Your enemy will also scavenge for resources, so be sure to leave them scraps. Your resource collector ships will come in handy here as you send them out to scavenge valuable items. However, remember to be on stand by should enemy ships try to take them out.

3. Pause to Plan Your Next Strategy

If you feel overwhelmed, feel free to pause the game. In fact, Homeworld 3 has a pause function dedicated to planning your next strategy. You can queue commands and sit back as you watch them unfold. This is the time to send out your resource collector ships, your carriers, support frigates, and drones, rebuild your army, and reposition your offense and defense units. 

2. Make Good Use of Drones and Turrets

Drones are pretty useful for scouting unexplored areas for useful information. It’s a more efficient and fast way to cover as much ground as possible. They also prove useful in sniffing out enemy positions and planning your next move. Meanwhile, you can deploy turrets to lock down valuable ships. Your mothership, for instance, must always be protected. And since you won’t always be closeby to defend it, your turrets will easily get the job done, destroying smaller and bigger enemy vessels alike. Turrets are highly effective and you can always move them around as you see fit.

1. Use “V” to Move About

Homeworld 3 stands out for its 3D RTS gameplay. While exciting, it can get a little tricky to move about. A quick tip is to use the “V” key to move about. This will draw out a horizontal and vertical axis for you. It makes it a lot easier to see the exact spot you want to move your ship to. While generally helpful during exploration, using “V” to move comes most in handy when choosing the precise location to take cover during battle.

So, what’s your take? Do you agree with our Homeworld 3: best tips for beginners? Are there more tips we should know about? Let us know over on our socials here.