AI air sorties will also no longer prioritise attacking support vehicles, instead favouring combat targets. Now, hard AI opponents will be able to harvest faster, while the nodes are depleted at a slower rate. On the AI front, two major improvements have been made to stop the AI from struggling during the middle of the game because of a lack of resources.
There is audio feedback for any commands issued while paused, with visual feedback confirming the commands once the player unpauses the game. During tactical pause players can issue combat, movement, and build commands to units which will be carried out once the game has become unpaused. The player can now pause the game in the single player campaign and in skirmish games using the “P” key. Anyway, Blackbird Interactive has realised its mistake and finally rectified it. Tactical pause was a prominent feature in Homeworld, but was nowhere to be found in Deserts of Kharak thanks to strategy nerds who think it dilutes the RTS genre. It squashes some bugs, tweaks the AI and introduces a tactical pause feature to skirmish mode and the singleplayer campaign.
So the 1.3.0 patch that went live yesterday has come as something of a surprise. Yet it seems like we’ve barely heard a peep from Blackbird Interactive since, and updates have been few and far between. If that’s what you’re looking for, it won’t disappoint, but the campaign is rather short, and the multiplayer options don’t do much to keep your interest piqued.Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak launched in January last year, doing for ground combat what the original Homeworld did for space. These modes allows players to select from two different factions, but it’s simple fare that doesn’t do much to raise the needle or enhance the experience – this is a game you pick up to play the campaign.ĭeserts of Kharak is a single-player focused RTS game designed for lovers of the waning genre. Multiplayer and skirmish options are available for those simply looking to get into the action. Units get more interesting as you move through the game by offering things outside of the “counter this with that” philosophy, and the progression is paced well, but hardly revolutionary. Units begin as standard paper-rock-scissors options, with light but speedy vehicles countering the long range and powerful railguns, and heavy armored units able to blow through lightly armored fare but weak to the range of railguns. This also makes it a pity that the campaign is so fleeting most players can complete it in around six hours. This makes for more interesting and tactical experiences you can’t brute force through missions with salvage superiority. Deserts of Kharak often limits available resources in each mission, forcing the player to make tough choices on whether to build more units or upgrade. Resource management sets the gameplay apart from the traditional RTS, where you can often establish resource dominance to win. The story and setup are cliché sci-fi fare, and enemy aggression sometimes act too passively toward the player, but the missions offer impactful choices when it comes to resource management and route to victory. Missions are diverse and interesting, never falling into a rhythm of just churning out units en-masse to win. The campaign is the best part of Deserts of Kharak.
The decisions a player makes using the carrier are decidedly more interesting than those of the legendary “space banana” base of Homeworld fame, from powerful airstrikes to massive barrages. The most notable addition is the new carrier “base” unit, which doubles as production facility and a mobile fortress with a variety of powerful defensive and offensive abilities. This is a good thing if you’re looking for a single-player focused RTS experience.ĭeserts of Kharak takes much from Homeworld’s heritage, such as persistent units that you want to keep healthy from mission to mission, but provides new and interesting things to play around with as well. Many times I could hardly tell the difference between my swarm of desert-ready vehicles from a fleet of ships, circling around my quarry, guns blazing. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak is billed as a prequel to the revered (and now remastered) Homeworld series, and it shares much in common with the genre-defining real-time strategy classic even though it takes the action out of space and onto the ground.