What recommendations? The only one I made was about the ghost ship, which was far more interesting than The Thing IN SPACE! The Beast was very, very boring.
I can't see how on earth that would be an improvement, Aesaar. And I enjoy "The Thing" quite a lot. Specially the fact that it is mostly our fault that we're disseminating this "unbound" creature on the galaxy.
A fan of Cata has no place calling HW2 out on superweapons. Siege Cannon, Super Acolytes, infection beams. Oh, and energy shields, because a 3000 year old empire never developed them, but our clan of lowly miners can! Missile-armed fighters? Just the miners! No, you'll forgive me if I find the idea that a bunch of miners somehow developed all that fancy super-advanced tech completely unbelievable, because it makes no sense whatsoever.
Ahaha, I'm sorry I couldn't disagree more. You see, not a single "superweapon" in Cata was metaphysical and worshipped. Instead, it was seen as a completely materialistic and pragmatic solutions, scrapping things we find out and so on (in a space mad max style) in order to get
the thing killed (nevermind the help that the Bentusi had to give to make it work at all). HW2 was all about these metaphysical "cores" that would get us into the center of the frakkin galaxy to get the "ultimate" weapon. I have no issues with "ultimate weapons", but after all that climatic hype, you get to defend your home planet against three bomber destroyers? Really. What a massive anticlimatic BS. It was clear from some point in the narrative that the writers just didn't know what to do next.
About the "missile armed fighters", I really don't see your point. We are discussing a fictional universe where all you need are blueprints of the things you want to build and a factory to do so (and materials). The only thing that really made me smile in smug contempt was the fact that all these ships were
manned, and despite all the losses you took, you still had plenty of human resources to ship all those bombers and cruisers and dreadnoughts. But that wasn't a problem of Cata alone, so there.
And the behavior of the Bentusi wasn't just terrified, it was completely different from what they were in HW1. They weren't Bentusi, they were "more advanced race #45106" flying Bentusi ships. That's what I dislike about Cata. It pays lip service to Homeworld and nothing more. Change the names and they have nothing in common but the ships. HW2, despite its failings (which are many), still feels like Homeworld.
Yes, it was "different", in the sense that this Thing freaked them out. That's it. And that's the surprise of the story. I am at *pains* to read things like you are here, Aesaar. Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree here.