Leszek38: Is there a level scaling in this game? I had some trouble with mission 8, so I got this wonderful idea of resetting the progress, since I now do know how to play this, I can show up in mission 8 with bigger fleet...
And now I cannot beat the third mission, there are six assault frigates that make for impossible odds. I seem to remember that the first time around there were like 3 frigates or so?
There isn't any level scaling in Homeworld 1 as far as I'm aware. Or that I noticed at least. But yes there is definitely level scaling in Homeworld 2. Basically in H2, there are several levels where the difficulty or number of enemy ships you will have to face is directly affected by how many ships you enter the mission with. So if you have a small fleet, you will have fewer enemies to deal with. If you have a lot of ships, you will have not only a lot more enemy to deal with, they will sometimes be more likely to rush your position earlier in the mission.
For most missions it's usually not much of an issue and does a decent job of maintaining each missions challenge curve regardless of whether you've done well in the game or whether you've only barely survived thus far. Because as you know, you can't really go back or do side missions to bolster your position if you got your butt kicked in the previous mission and only completed it by the skin of your teeth. So the idea of this mechanic was to not overly punish players who were struggling and still give them a chance to progress. But there "is" at least one mission where the challenge curve is absolutely brutal.
When I would play H2, I would get into the habit of intentionally not triggering mission end until I was ready and would mine all resources and build all ships in preparation for the next mission. Once done, then I would trigger the end mission event. Again, for most missions, this wasn't really an issue even with the challenge scaling. However there was one mission where the scaling was absolutely insane. So insane, I found it literally impossible to complete even though I jumped in with a full fleet. I'm talking I had maxed out Battlecruisers, Destroyers, Flaks, Ions, Torpedoes, Fighters and Gunships and I knew how to use them to my advantage. But the level just threw so much at you, so intensely that I would just lose everything. I believe it was mission 12 Thaddis Sabbah. It was on that mission that I learned about the difficulty curve and how it worked. So I went back to my save in the previous mission just before I triggered the endgame event and completely dismantled my entire fleet. Literally, everything had to go and recovered all my resources. Then I triggered endgame event and jumped into mission 12 with no combat ships. As soon as the cutscene ended, that was me racing to rebuild my fleet as quickly as possible. I still had a fair amount thrown at me, but nowhere near as much as when I started the mission with a full fleet and they weren't as aggressive when it came to rushing my position. The mission because a lot easier to manage. It was still a little challenging, but nowhere near to the brutal insanity that it was before.
I still love Homeworld and Homeworld 2 to this day. But sometimes, there are some missions that you simply never forget. Even 15 years after you played it. I have since bought the Homeworld Remastered collection and it has been an absolute joy playing this series again.
Hope this helps.
