I played the original Homeworld because it ran on my laptop, it was definitely a fun game, but there are times when it can be boring and slow because some processes take a while, like waiting for all your ships to return at the end of a combat.
It can be really rewarding at times, but being that I'm not big on RTS gameplay, I was having a hard time managing strategy and combat in all 3 dimensions while still making sure I had resources and could recoup my losses. I eventually got stuck and abandoned the game.
TL;DR: The original Homeworld was a very well-made game, but as with a lot of space-sim types is a bit complicated with many hotkeys, and can be slow at times, but very rewarding and fun at others
