Chapter 2 - Combat Strategies

This section offers a collection of strategies and tips for Homeworld 2 combat situations.

• Focus fire is an important real-time strategy concept and it's definitely important in Homeworld 2. Focus fire means focusing all of your ships' firepower on a specific enemy vessel instead of allowing your vessels to select their own targets, which spreads the firepower across many other ships. Now, you don't necessary need to focus all your firepower on the same ship. While you may want to get rid of the most powerful threat as soon as possible, you should also see what other enemy units are in the area and send specific counters against them. For example, you encounter an enemy battlecruiser and some bombers. While you may want to use all of your ships to blow apart that battlecruiser, your flak frigates would be better used against those bombers.
• Focus fire is also important with the new subsystem feature. You can specifically target a carrier's engines, for instance, or perhaps its fighter facility. Destroy that fighter facility to prevent that carrier from building any more fighters until the fighter facility is replaced.
• It's also occasionally worthwhile to micromanage individual strike craft engaged in battle with other strike craft; though, certainly, if there are more pressing matters (like the rest of your fleet), the time spent gaining the upper hand on a squad of assault craft would be better used elsewhere. But if you're trying to harass resource collectors and need to defeat a specific strike craft squad, focus your fire on specific fighters. For instance, if one enemy fighter is near death, don't let your strike craft engage the others when it could simply kill that fighter in a few hits. You gain a numerical advantage and you win the battle.
• Use tactics to adjust your strike craft's formation and stance. The two most important are aggressive and defensive tactics. Use aggressive tactics to switch your strike craft group into the claw formation; use this stance when entering a battle. Use defensive tactics to switch your strike craft group to delta formation; use this stance when you have selected your strike craft to guard a specific craft.
• While the "platforms" for each race (gun and ion beam for Hiigara and gun and missile for Vaygr) seem best suited for defense, they're also very powerful offensive weapons. Note, however, that all platforms can only be moved one time. Once the platform reaches its destination, it remains there until destroyed or scuttled. Using the platforms offensively is a powerful single and multiplayer game tactic. They're invaluable for fighting the Vaygr in the single-player game; the platforms are essentially additional firepower, an important ally against formidable battlecruisers.
• Counter units are one of the most important concepts in Homeworld 2. If you aren't fighting intelligently, you lower your chance of success considerably. For instance, using flak frigates to fight other frigates or ion cannon frigates to defend against bombers isn't smart. Many craft are specifically designed to battle other types of craft. If you aren't following these rules, then you're putting yourself at a disadvantage in single and multiplayer games. Use the following chart as a guideline for what ships to use to counter specific enemy craft.