OK, just ordered it and have been playing Star Wolves 1 and 2.
More like Homeworld than anything else. You've got a huge galaxy to explore, but its mostly empty. You have a mothership and fleet. The mothership is by far the most important. Its the toughest and also needs to stay alive or else you lose. Instead of having large fleets with hundred of disposable units, you have a handful of wingmen and proper management of them is key to winning. You can customize your ships but there are a limited number of hardpoints and not much equipment anyways. If you lose one of them just make sure somebody picks up the escape pod and takes it back home. Then you can assign the pilot to another ship and arm it. No problems there.
The only RPG elements involve your character leveling up occasionally and putting stats into skills. And as I've said a dozen times before: Stats are NOT the defining characteristic of an RPG.
The Freelancer elements come from bouncing around the galaxy on your own whim and picking up jobs where you see fit. You get paid for them (also for anything you salvage from pirates) and then buy more ships and goodies. In Star Wolves 2 you can also hire wingmen and mercenary teams (short term).
Navigating around the galaxy feels a lot like Freelancer in that its tedious and boring, and you will often get hit by random pirates to keep the "action" alive. Mostly its just irritating.
But in game commands are almost exactly the same as Homeworld. You can either launch your ships or keep them docked while the mothership does all the hard work.
Voice acting is horrid. I think they devs are Russian or something similar. Videos are cheesy. Music is pretty cool. Graphics are decent but not mind-blowing. Homeworld 2 and Freelancer are far better. Overall I am underwhelmed. The campaign is weak and nothing else stands out. Am hoping Star Wolves 3 is much better, otherwise I just wasted thirty bucks.
Also, its hard. REALLY hard. When you get hit by a small group of enemies they have the magical ability to blast all your motherships shields and most of her armor. Doesnt matter if everybody has loads of anti-missile systems and you set your fighters to defend against missiles. Nor does it matter much if you have a dozen mercenary ships. There arent enough defensive systems for the mothership at stores throughout the star systems. It was frustrating.
I got killed so many times I finally gave up this morning.
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