How to defeat the Warsage in Homeworld 3

Struggling to defeat Homeworld 3’s Warsage? This guide will give you all the strategies and fleet composition tips you need to beat it first try (and earn yourself an achievement while you're doing it).

Preparing to Defeat the Warsage

The Warsage is a named Battlecruiser that acts as a boss at the end of 'Mission 09: Warsage Citadel'. He does not emerge from hyperspace until you destroy the seventh and final hangar bay full of docked ships. For the best chance of success, make sure you have prepared the ground before completing this objective.

Firstly, ensure you've captured all of the available 'data spires.' Though not mission-critical, this will drastically increase your sensor range and let you know if any enemy ships are still in the area of operations. To effect the capture, move your ships within range and you will see the capture bar as pictured below. If at any point the status bar changes to 'Contested' or 'Decapturing' then you know there are enemies nearby.

Once you've established dominance over the 'data spires,' ensure you have cleared the area of all enemy ships. You should especially be on the lookout for enemy transports or carriers. This is vital because, if either of those ship types are still in the area, they will continue to manufacture strikecraft and frigates to attack your mothership while your forces are occupied elsewhere.

After you've destroyed any remnant carriers and transports you can safely order your resource collectors to strip the map of resource units and salvageable wrecks. Start with the wrecks as these are time-sensitive and will dwindle to nothing before you know it. There are four key resource patches and they are worth 12,000 RUs each. This is more than enough to rebuild your fleet several times over.

Building Your Fleet

The primary goal when building/ rebuilding your fleet is to ensure you have the maximum capacity of Torpedo Frigates (if you haven't researched this option do so now). You should have 15 of them. They will add the necessary range and punch to your strike on the Warsage, as explained below, and the fight can be incredibly tricky if you don't have them.

If you have resources left over after bulking up your Torpedo Frigate section (and you will if you've correctly managed your harvesting), concentrate on maximizing your strikecraft populations and any high-damage, single-target craft you have (such as Ion Cannon Frigates and Railgun Corvettes).

Make sure you have enough left over for a single probe (50 RUs) and launch it beneath the sections of broken station plating floating below the Warsage. This will allow you to see exactly what he has in store for you in terms of turrets and escort craft, without being close enough for him to spot and disable the probe.

Assault on the Warsage

By now both the ground and your fleet are prepared for the confrontation. Select your torpedo frigates and, with your strikecraft acting as escort, fly them directly upward between the three citadel structures. Make sure to keep them out of the Warsage's range and, once they are in position, toggle your torpedo frigates' 'Missile Thrust Boost' ability. This drastically increases their effective weapons range while reducing their speed. They are now free to begin bombarding the enemy positions.

Your first target should be the resource collectors. This may seem counterintuitive but, if left alive, they will continually repair the Warsage making him extremely difficult to kill. Once down, move onto the enemy escort craft and gun emplacements. Only then should you begin hitting the Warsage directly.

With the escorts and turrets out of the way, order your remaining frigates and destroyers to begin the close assault. The Warsage has powerful guns and a self-repair function that passively heals him. At higher difficulty levels this makes him extremely difficult to kill, and it only becomes more difficult as you lose ships and the amount of damage per second your fleet can produce drops. However with the strategies above he should be no more than an afterglow in no time.

That should have you covered, but if all this talk of space combat has got you wondering what it would be like onboard one of these ships why not check out Pro Game Guides' guide to Starfield ship interiors.