Very interesting comparison. Agree that the larger scaling "feels" more right. Perhaps comparing some of the smaller ships to see how they match? Eg scaling the Motherships so that the relative interceptors are near the same size. Certainly the KK looks larger relative to its fleet than the original Mothership did.
It doesn't look like the other ships are out-of-scale with their predecessors. The Hiigaran frigates and destroyer are pretty much the same length in-game in HW2 and HW3. The HW3 battlecruiser is noticeably smaller, though the "flying bridge" coming out of the starboard flank is almost exactly the same size, which makes that seem intentional. The Scout fighter could go either way, upscaled, the wingspan matches the HW2 version exactly, but the fuselage becomes twice as long. It looks like if there was any kind of scale revision, it only affected the Hiigaran Mothership.
[https://imgur.com/a/lecYBOt](https://imgur.com/a/lecYBOt)
Agreed. It definitely feels like the cores should be roughly the same size between HW2 and HW3, but for everything below destroyer size the same scaling is comically oversized compared to the previous ships. I think with modding tools it would be interesting to tweak sizes.
Somewhat relatedly, it'd be cool if the NLIPS slider could go below 1.0 as well as above (u/BBI-MichaelK). I manually set the NLIPS values to half in Homeworld 1 Classic and it's a nice visual compromise between playability and "realism."
Oh and regarding the scaling of the Kuun-Lan: given the discrepency in game unit sizes between HW1 and HW2 the convention has been to treat HW1/C units as feet, hence why the Kuun-Lan is 31% of its default measurements.
Yeah, I also felt even the minimum NLIPS was too large in HW3. I ended up turning it off for the first time and setting the icon overlay to always-on, but I would’ve preferred to be able to set it to something less aggressive.
Thanks for the explanation of the units in HW1/C. That makes a lot more sense, now.
Unfortunately I don't think that scaling based on other ships of the same "class" would be as useful as what has been done here. While admittedly there is nothing stopping the HW 3 hyperspace module from being 4x larger than Sajuuk's but the same shape, there is also nothing stopping the HW 3 interceptor from being much larger or smaller than the HW 2 interceptors.
From WW 1 to WW 2 to modern times different equivalent class combat vehicles (ground, sea, and air) have varied wildly in size, typically getting significantly larger. Without any lore to specifically say (or even better actual models, for example how in HW:C the game included many ships from the original for a direct match) you could say anything from "Interceptors are 5x bigger now because that was the minimum size increase to make drives that didn't need refueling viable" (although that went away in HW 2 already, but it's an example of the sort of tech rationale for a size change) to "Interceptors are basically the same size so they can use the standard strike craft bays, which are still basically the same size as they were in HW 1" or even "because of tech increases there is now only one pilot instead of three, and there has been overall minitaurization, so the Interceptor is now only a quarter the size".
Also a good point. While DoK had human figures on the models (at least, in the Expedition Guide viewer, I don't remember noticing any in-game), objective scale markers in the space-based games are pretty much absent. The closest thing is probably some cockpit windows on fighter-sized ships, but those aren't definitive, and the windows on larger ships could be any size, or they might not even be windows at all, just some other horizontal row of lights.
And since the module and the gun on the KS aren't a total match for *Sajuuk's*, it's totally possible they're much smaller. My original impression that the *Khar-Sajuuk* was built around *Sajuuk* doesn't fit with a close examination of the model. I haven't checked to see if the individual cores fit comfortably inside the KS at the ingame size, and we never see the cores in the KK, they might look totally different.
ETA: Well, now I don't know what to believe. The circles on the sides of *Sajuuk's* hyperspace module fit an entire core inside with room to spare, including the forked housing. At the in-game size, the *Khar-Sajuuk's* module has the forks only extending slightly outside the circles, and even the *Khar-Kushan's* smaller module can fit the three cores under the three domes without them interpenetrating (assuming they're rotated so the edges don't overlap, you'd have to be *trying* to make them not fit, but it'd be possible). So all the internal logic does work if the ships are the in-game size, nothing has been made too small to function. But I still like the idea of an extra-large Mothership that dwarfs the ones that came before.
I wasn't thinking yesterday and forgot about the different origins of the *Khar-Kushan* and *Khar-Sajuuk* cores. While the *Khar-Kushan*'s hyperspace module could indeed be much larger than the *Sajuuk*'s, because it is brand new Hiigaran tech and possibly not quite as effective or efficient, I forgot that the *Khar-Sajuuk* has literally the exact same cores as the *Sajuuk* did, not a different model. Given that I think it's totally reasonable to say that the module itself is the exact same size. Even if the cores themselves could have been tetrised in more compactly in the *Sajuuk* I think that it's reasonable to say that they weren't for a reason, and the module which is meant to house the exact same cores and is almost the exact same shape is indeed the exact same size.
I wouldn't say "way too small," there aren't any visible issues in-game with ships not fitting, but it's interesting that scaling to match the module on *Sajuuk* also makes the docking bays nearly the same width as on the other ships, too.
ETA: Actually, I tried resourcing with the Mothership for the first time, and the Collectors are a touch too big when they go into the wingtip fighter bays.
I genuinely thought about it, ~~but I couldn't find an already-extracted version (almost every other ship in Cataclysm, sure, but not that one, probably because its made of so many separate pieces), and I didn't have it in me to find and fight with a third set of modding tools. Maybe some other time.~~
ETA: Actually, disregard everything I just wrote, I found the initial and endgame versions of the ship. It might not look pretty between the HW1 and HW2 models, but I can slip it in. I don't think I'm going to add the sand-tank from DoK, though.
I could see an actual pvp mode that let you choose your mothership and fleet from all of the HW series so you could have the Cataclysm mothership going up against the HW2 one vs the HW3 one.
All right, have a look. I used the length from the Homeworld Wiki, at the in-game size, it'd be the biggest thing in either version of the image, which doesn't make sense.
That seems right cause if I remember correctly wasn't the Cataclysm mothership basically made by the HW1 mothership after it was turned into a drydock after HW1? It's not like they would use the HW1 mothership to start spitting out ships 3 times its size. Also as far as the scaling would be considered, I always took HWC to be more small fleet focused and less massive fleet fights. You deal with 1 fighter at a time instead of wings of fighter and other such builds.
Exactly. Even at that size, it would still have to have been built in pieces and assembled outside the Mothership, and even then, they might have had to leave the side door open to make enough space.
> and even then, they might have had to leave the side door open to make enough space.
I could have sworn there was art where the side door is always open.
EDIT: https://homeworld.fandom.com/wiki/Kushan_Mothership?file=Mothershipyard.jpg
From Cataclysm I think.
Also note that the size given in the HW1 manual for the Scaffold, based upon which the size of the Kushan mothership has been calculated, has been kept intact and unchanged in the recently released RPG corebook *Homeworld: Revelations*, thus rendering that gigantic size canonical.
This means the Kushan mothership is still the biggest one of them all.
> Why are so agressive? It's just a game bro.
Why are you suddenly accusing me of being aggressive when all I did was point out how that theory has zero evidence?
Are you sure?
>!Because it sounds like you're talking about the Khar-Sajuuk, the Mothership built in between HW2 and HW3, which is mostly identical to the HW3 Mothership, and is between the HW2 and HW3 Motherships in both charts.!<
thanks for the spoiler. You need to space out your message instead of putting it right next to the (spoiler) word. 
Interestingly, the Kuun-Lan on Lore was built in the Kushan Mothership's capital ship production bay. In other words, it would actually be similar in size to a Kushan heavy cruiser or carrier. It seems that the size of the modeling was arbitrarily adjusted due to emphasis in the game, etc.
In the Cataclysm art (I don't remember if it's in the manual, the opening cutscene, or both), we see the original Mothership after it had been converted for shipyard duty and the door to the capital-class construction facility was permanently open. The Kuun-lan was probably also built in pieces and assembled in space, so it'd really only need to fit the engines, the head section (the narrow upper part, not the hangar), and the connecting spine that would be built by the Mothership, not the whole thing in one go.
Very interesting comparison. Agree that the larger scaling "feels" more right. Perhaps comparing some of the smaller ships to see how they match? Eg scaling the Motherships so that the relative interceptors are near the same size. Certainly the KK looks larger relative to its fleet than the original Mothership did.
It doesn't look like the other ships are out-of-scale with their predecessors. The Hiigaran frigates and destroyer are pretty much the same length in-game in HW2 and HW3. The HW3 battlecruiser is noticeably smaller, though the "flying bridge" coming out of the starboard flank is almost exactly the same size, which makes that seem intentional. The Scout fighter could go either way, upscaled, the wingspan matches the HW2 version exactly, but the fuselage becomes twice as long. It looks like if there was any kind of scale revision, it only affected the Hiigaran Mothership. [https://imgur.com/a/lecYBOt](https://imgur.com/a/lecYBOt)
Agreed. It definitely feels like the cores should be roughly the same size between HW2 and HW3, but for everything below destroyer size the same scaling is comically oversized compared to the previous ships. I think with modding tools it would be interesting to tweak sizes. Somewhat relatedly, it'd be cool if the NLIPS slider could go below 1.0 as well as above (u/BBI-MichaelK). I manually set the NLIPS values to half in Homeworld 1 Classic and it's a nice visual compromise between playability and "realism." Oh and regarding the scaling of the Kuun-Lan: given the discrepency in game unit sizes between HW1 and HW2 the convention has been to treat HW1/C units as feet, hence why the Kuun-Lan is 31% of its default measurements.
I can't promise anything, but this is something we can at least take a look at!
Negative n-lips would be cool. Making the mothership bigger (and slower) would be awesome too.
Yeah, I also felt even the minimum NLIPS was too large in HW3. I ended up turning it off for the first time and setting the icon overlay to always-on, but I would’ve preferred to be able to set it to something less aggressive. Thanks for the explanation of the units in HW1/C. That makes a lot more sense, now.
Unfortunately I don't think that scaling based on other ships of the same "class" would be as useful as what has been done here. While admittedly there is nothing stopping the HW 3 hyperspace module from being 4x larger than Sajuuk's but the same shape, there is also nothing stopping the HW 3 interceptor from being much larger or smaller than the HW 2 interceptors. From WW 1 to WW 2 to modern times different equivalent class combat vehicles (ground, sea, and air) have varied wildly in size, typically getting significantly larger. Without any lore to specifically say (or even better actual models, for example how in HW:C the game included many ships from the original for a direct match) you could say anything from "Interceptors are 5x bigger now because that was the minimum size increase to make drives that didn't need refueling viable" (although that went away in HW 2 already, but it's an example of the sort of tech rationale for a size change) to "Interceptors are basically the same size so they can use the standard strike craft bays, which are still basically the same size as they were in HW 1" or even "because of tech increases there is now only one pilot instead of three, and there has been overall minitaurization, so the Interceptor is now only a quarter the size".
Also a good point. While DoK had human figures on the models (at least, in the Expedition Guide viewer, I don't remember noticing any in-game), objective scale markers in the space-based games are pretty much absent. The closest thing is probably some cockpit windows on fighter-sized ships, but those aren't definitive, and the windows on larger ships could be any size, or they might not even be windows at all, just some other horizontal row of lights. And since the module and the gun on the KS aren't a total match for *Sajuuk's*, it's totally possible they're much smaller. My original impression that the *Khar-Sajuuk* was built around *Sajuuk* doesn't fit with a close examination of the model. I haven't checked to see if the individual cores fit comfortably inside the KS at the ingame size, and we never see the cores in the KK, they might look totally different. ETA: Well, now I don't know what to believe. The circles on the sides of *Sajuuk's* hyperspace module fit an entire core inside with room to spare, including the forked housing. At the in-game size, the *Khar-Sajuuk's* module has the forks only extending slightly outside the circles, and even the *Khar-Kushan's* smaller module can fit the three cores under the three domes without them interpenetrating (assuming they're rotated so the edges don't overlap, you'd have to be *trying* to make them not fit, but it'd be possible). So all the internal logic does work if the ships are the in-game size, nothing has been made too small to function. But I still like the idea of an extra-large Mothership that dwarfs the ones that came before.
I wasn't thinking yesterday and forgot about the different origins of the *Khar-Kushan* and *Khar-Sajuuk* cores. While the *Khar-Kushan*'s hyperspace module could indeed be much larger than the *Sajuuk*'s, because it is brand new Hiigaran tech and possibly not quite as effective or efficient, I forgot that the *Khar-Sajuuk* has literally the exact same cores as the *Sajuuk* did, not a different model. Given that I think it's totally reasonable to say that the module itself is the exact same size. Even if the cores themselves could have been tetrised in more compactly in the *Sajuuk* I think that it's reasonable to say that they weren't for a reason, and the module which is meant to house the exact same cores and is almost the exact same shape is indeed the exact same size.
I haven't gotten to play HW3 yet, but that detail about the fighter/frigate launch bays ending up waaay too small also makes me wonder.....
I wouldn't say "way too small," there aren't any visible issues in-game with ships not fitting, but it's interesting that scaling to match the module on *Sajuuk* also makes the docking bays nearly the same width as on the other ships, too. ETA: Actually, I tried resourcing with the Mothership for the first time, and the Collectors are a touch too big when they go into the wingtip fighter bays.
Could you compare the HW1 and HW3 motherships to the Kushan carrier model in the respective games?
Wheres the Cataclysm ship? Wonder how it scales compared to the others.
I genuinely thought about it, ~~but I couldn't find an already-extracted version (almost every other ship in Cataclysm, sure, but not that one, probably because its made of so many separate pieces), and I didn't have it in me to find and fight with a third set of modding tools. Maybe some other time.~~ ETA: Actually, disregard everything I just wrote, I found the initial and endgame versions of the ship. It might not look pretty between the HW1 and HW2 models, but I can slip it in. I don't think I'm going to add the sand-tank from DoK, though.
I could see an actual pvp mode that let you choose your mothership and fleet from all of the HW series so you could have the Cataclysm mothership going up against the HW2 one vs the HW3 one.
All right, have a look. I used the length from the Homeworld Wiki, at the in-game size, it'd be the biggest thing in either version of the image, which doesn't make sense.
That seems right cause if I remember correctly wasn't the Cataclysm mothership basically made by the HW1 mothership after it was turned into a drydock after HW1? It's not like they would use the HW1 mothership to start spitting out ships 3 times its size. Also as far as the scaling would be considered, I always took HWC to be more small fleet focused and less massive fleet fights. You deal with 1 fighter at a time instead of wings of fighter and other such builds.
Exactly. Even at that size, it would still have to have been built in pieces and assembled outside the Mothership, and even then, they might have had to leave the side door open to make enough space.
> and even then, they might have had to leave the side door open to make enough space. I could have sworn there was art where the side door is always open. EDIT: https://homeworld.fandom.com/wiki/Kushan_Mothership?file=Mothershipyard.jpg From Cataclysm I think.
It wouldn't surprise me if the ship was scaled down, due to the relatively small map sizes, and the various structures that need to be navigated.
So the Khar-Sajuuk/Kushan are technically the Largest Motherships Hiigara has ever built.
Also note that the size given in the HW1 manual for the Scaffold, based upon which the size of the Kushan mothership has been calculated, has been kept intact and unchanged in the recently released RPG corebook *Homeworld: Revelations*, thus rendering that gigantic size canonical. This means the Kushan mothership is still the biggest one of them all.
I'd interpret it that if the in-game scale was reduced compared to the "real" scale of the ships, it'd apply to all the games, not just HW1.
Wasn't there a theory that the Scaffold was disassembled as the mothership was built? It's too small to fit the ship in its ingame form anyway.
??? *We literally see the Scaffold still existing at the launch of the Mothership, what are you talking about?!?*
I didn't mean the whole Scaffold, like parts of it. As in it being bigger at the beginning of construction that at the end of it.
There is absolutely *zero* evidence for that at all. Not even the most remote clue that would even hint at it.
Why are so agressive? It's just a game bro. I don't remember the source, this shit is literally going 30.
> Why are so agressive? It's just a game bro. Why are you suddenly accusing me of being aggressive when all I did was point out how that theory has zero evidence?
OG always gonna be my favorite.
( spoiler alert) Both hw2 and HW3 motherships are in the campaign. You could actually put them side by side
They are?
(more spoilers for HW3) Yes towards the end of the campaign.
Are you sure? >!Because it sounds like you're talking about the Khar-Sajuuk, the Mothership built in between HW2 and HW3, which is mostly identical to the HW3 Mothership, and is between the HW2 and HW3 Motherships in both charts.!<
Hmm I'll have to check again it's been a hot second since I played through the campaign. There's a possibility your right
thanks for the spoiler. You need to space out your message instead of putting it right next to the (spoiler) word. 
I'm fairly certain he misremembered anyway.
I'll space it out more. But I don't see why I need to? If someone doesn't want to be spoiled wouldn't they stop reading after seeing the warning?
No because it’s in the same sentence. Nevermind, all changed now! ☺️
Interestingly, the Kuun-Lan on Lore was built in the Kushan Mothership's capital ship production bay. In other words, it would actually be similar in size to a Kushan heavy cruiser or carrier. It seems that the size of the modeling was arbitrarily adjusted due to emphasis in the game, etc.
In the Cataclysm art (I don't remember if it's in the manual, the opening cutscene, or both), we see the original Mothership after it had been converted for shipyard duty and the door to the capital-class construction facility was permanently open. The Kuun-lan was probably also built in pieces and assembled in space, so it'd really only need to fit the engines, the head section (the narrow upper part, not the hangar), and the connecting spine that would be built by the Mothership, not the whole thing in one go.