Gamers will get to play the Somtaaw, a minor Kiith that has opted to return to space to mine and trade.15 years have past since the end of Homeworld and the Kushan people reclaimed Hiigara.

After Homeworld, with the Taiidan Emperor dead, the status quo in the galaxy has fallen apart. The new Taiidan Republic, who aided the Kushan people in Homeworld, are trying to rebuild after the civil war, but battles with Imperial holdouts is ongoing. All the while, the pirate clans have taken the opportunity to increase their power base.

The Kushan people are busy colonizing Hiigara, but it hasn’t been smooth. There’s a lot of political infighting as well as the societal impact when the population that was in cryo-sleep awaken to discover that they’ve made it to the homeworld, but most of their population died in the burning of Kharak. Some Kiith find that there are only a few thousand (in some cases only a few hundred) of them left. The Somtaaw are a Kiith, or clan, that find themselves too small to have any real say in colonization policy, so they gather what ships they can and return to space to mine for resources and trade for technology.

In the first mission players will get a sense of the new power structure of the Homeworld universe. Then all hell breaks loose.

What stage of development are you at? Will you have a public beta test or demo?

Homeworld: Cataclysm is Beta. We’re busy tweaking and balancing the game.

How different will Cataclysm be from Homeworld? How much of the original game is incorporated in this latest version?

It’s a different game, but anyone who played Homeworld will feel right at home. One of the things we want to ensure was that people who played Homeworld wouldn’t find themselves playing a game that was totally unfamiliar to them. So we started with Homeworld’s core game play and control scheme and then added some things to it that introduce new strategy elements, such as the fog of war, upgradeable weapons, armor and abilities for ships, a support unit system, and specialized research modules that dictate how and when your research tree grows.

What can you tell me about some of the missions? Are they mission based with clear objectives?

The missions have clear objectives that serve to push the single player story forward, though it is the nature of the story that the objectives you start with can change radically due to events that unfold during the mission itself.

How many levels will Cataclysm have and what environments will the player encounter?

There are 17 missions in Cataclysm and the environments are similar to Homeworld. We’ve added some new elements to the game, such as the crystal resource, slipgates, as well as altering some of Homeworld’s elements, like meteors.

What type of enemies will players encounter this time around and what steps have you taken to create a truly effective AI?

The ousted Imperial Taiidan fleet commanders and the Turanic Raiders return. The Taiidan have a score to settle with the people who killed their emperor and the pirates have grown powerful in the turbulent times following Homeworld. Neither enemy is as they were in Homeworld. Then there’s the Beast of course. Players are also going to find themselves in a couple of unexpected and difficult battles, but we’re keeping them under wraps for now.

The AI has been modified to take full advantage of all the new capabilities and features of Cataclysm ships, including EMP, Mimic, Leeching and the Beast infection attack. Salvaging now requires a lot more consideration. Players are restricted to how many support units they have, so they can’t cripple the AI by stealing all of its ships. We’ve also made changes to the tactics system which will give each ship more autonomy. Now when a ship is set to aggressive and that ship sees a target, it will hunt the enemy down relentlessly. Alternately, when a ship is set to evasive, that ship will retreat if it comes under attack. Stuff like this will save players the heartache of losing ships because their attention was elsewhere. It will also make computer controlled ships that much more vicious. And we’ve added more randomization so that each game against the computer will be a different experience for the player.

Will the various races in the games each have their own advantages and disadvantages?

The two races available in multiplay, Kiith Somtaaw and The Beast are two very different fleets. The Somtaaw fleet is made up of entirely new ships while the Beast fleet is a combination of Taiidan, Kushan, Turanic Raider, and a few Somtaaw ships. The Beast has the potential for a much larger fleet than the Somtaaw, but in order to aquire that fleet The Beast has to take a risk and confront the Somtaaw fleet in order to infect and steal ships. We’ve often commented that we want players to be constantly making strategic decisions and the first one will be “which fleet should I play with?”

Tell us more about the latest engine on which Cataclysm is based. What are its capabilities and how has it allowed you to expand the game beyond the scope of Homeworld?

We are using Relic’s Homeworld engine, though we have made a number of modifications such as polygonal-accurate collisions and dynamic Gouraud shading. For example, when a ship rakes its ion beam across the hull of another ship, the beam will follow the contours of the ship and leave a red glow from where the beam heated the hull. We’ve also added a slew of new effects. In Cataclysm you will see things like large shockwave explosions, shielding effects, holographic projection effects, external construction, new repairing effects, new salvaging effects, and lens flares. We've also added much more animation to the game.

What about interface, how has that been improved?

Although the interface will be familiar to anyone who’s played Homeworld, we have made many improvements and additions. We’ve made the right-click menu easier to access and more robust. We’ve made it so that players can assign their own bindings to quick key functions. And we’ve made a lot of configurable HUD information available to players - they can have as much or as little information on the screen at one time as they want.

What new multiplayer features will Cataclysm offer?

Players will get to play with one of the two fleets, which are very different from one another. We’ve made all of the new hazard and resource elements, like meteors and crystals, available in the singleplayer game available in the multiplayer maps. We’ve also streamlined the process of making multiplayer maps. And we have a stats screen that will be integrated with the WON Network, so there will be a ranking system.

What kind of strategy is required to play and successfully complete a level? What is the most important skill to master?

The most important skill to master in Cataclysm is to be able to deal with the unexpected. No one strategy will work every time and flexibility will be the key to success. It will also help to understand the special functions of each of your ships and know when to employ them.

What sort of a challenge will Cataclysm offer to gamers? How many hours playing time will it occupy?

Throughout both the single and multiplayer games, we’ve worked to make it so that gamers are constantly making on-the-fly, tactical decisions about how to build, equip, and use their fleet - “tactical variety” for lack of a better term. This selection of options available to players and their opponents will allow for a lot of strategic creativity. And as a result of this strategic variety, we expect gamers will have to have a whole playbook of strategies ready for any number of situations. Players won’t be able to favor one type or class of ship and expect an easy rise to the top.

For gamers who have already played Relic's Homeworld, what do you think will attract them back to this latest version?

We’re hoping that Homeworld players will be jazzed about everything, but probably the two big things that will attract Homeworld players are the addition of new ships (and their abilities) and the addition of new gameplay features, some of which fans online have been wishing for like waypoints and upgrades for ships, that deepen the 3D RTS experience of Homeworld.

What are your plans after the completion of Cataclysm? Are you currently developing any other titles?

The team is focused solely on completing Cataclysm right now. Once we’re done with this game, then we’ll look to start on another great game, whatever it may be. Or maybe we’ll start a Menudo cover band and tour Japan. Menudo was big in Japan I hear.