I feel guilty comparing Nebulous: Fleet Command to Homeworld because it’s a terrifying bait and switch. It’s like offering someone a cake that is actually a cleverly painted piece of a torpedo hull. It’s like offering a handshake while wearing one of those comedic buzzers – except the buzzer is a complicated simulation of zero-gravity physics, rocket behavior, and communications jamming, depicting a spacecraft with an appropriate internal system that requires careful consideration of attitude control if you don’t want, say, your engines to turn into Swiss cheese about 90 seconds before you have to withdraw from the fight.
Being a “true” 3D real-time strategy game, it looks and sounds very similar to Homeworld on the surface, but it’s not as basic as that. These are systems within systems. This is a game in which you can theoretically designate the route of a single missile guided through an asteroid field in order to hit the back of an enemy cruiser. I can barely understand how to lightweight another ship on fire with regular elderly anti-tank missiles, and now they’re threatening to add carriers, fighters, and bombers. Customizable! Humanity. Here’s the trailer.
According to a press release from Rear Admiral John F., the Carrier update, scheduled to arrive on January 10, 2025, “adds a whole new dimension to the game’s take on hard science fiction space warfare.” Yes, they are speaking metaphorically: the game has not moved to 4D mode, although I really wouldn’t forgive the creator for starting to play in non-Euclidean geometry.
“The titular aircraft carriers appear as both dedicated hulls and stand-alone modules for existing hulls for both factions in the game, and with them come ships that can be launched according to various archetypes,” continues Rear Admiral John F. in a press release with his its characteristic gravelly roughness. “Each faction receives three unique space frames, with the seventh space frame representing the common design.
“Whether you’re deploying scouts, missile bombers, utility ships, or Top Gun-style fighters, each space frame can be customized using the dedicated in-game editor. The unit can also have multiple customizable loadouts that can be selected and mounted if players need to change tactics mid-battle.”
The update will be accompanied by a “flood” of complementary changes, including rebalanced weapons and ship defenses, anti-aircraft missile technology, and unguided cluster bombs and rockets.
Nebulous: Fleet Command currently has no final release date. I think what I’d like most at the moment is to have a proper story mode with an extensive tutorial – the Early Access version currently promises “a single-player campaign mode featuring a fixed fleet, narrative arc, and objectives.” Give me a 20-hour thread dedicated to fleshing out the intricacies, because I feel like it works brilliantly here for those brave or crazy enough to get involved.
In the meantime, there’s always – shudder – multiplayer. You can follow the development of Fleet Command in early access on the developers’ website Trello public.
