Throwing Down with the Best of Them: Let's Play Starcraft Remastered [SSLP]

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Throwing Down with the Best of Them: Let's Play Starcraft Remastered [SSLP]

megane: Jun 20, 2008

I could be misremembering, but I thought the idea was that the zerg were fairly well-known, but only as weird alien animals - dangerous in the way a tiger is dangerous, but not a large-scale threat. So seeing some zerglings wandering around isn't surprising beyond that they haven't been sighted on this particular planet before.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2021 20:46

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 04:38

megane: Jun 20, 2008

JohnKilltrane posted:

Yep! Absolutely. As we saw in mission two, the Terran campaign also likes to use purple for "rescuable" units and buildings - which makes sense, as we'll see. Also worth noting that white, who we were fighting in this mission, is Alpha Squadron. Astute readers may remember that these are General Edmund Duke's boys.

I remember absolutely loving that rescuable units kept their original colors, so you could be finishing the map and notice that one purple marine in your army - hundreds of units lost, but this one dude survived the whole time and was still kickin�.

# ¿ May 17, 2021 00:54

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Vultures don�t have pilots; they�re entirely AI-controlled. However, testing showed that human allies found this unnerving, so they glued a stuffed dummy on top.

Similarly, they tell marines that their helmets have all sorts of fancy filters, but really it�s mostly just painted cardboard.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2021 05:54

megane: Jun 20, 2008

I can't think of a single work that was ever improved by the authors "explaining" something post facto like that.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2021 19:36

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Also, she knows about all the horrible war crimes he committed to win, since she... did most of them for him, on his direct orders. The only living people who know he caused the Tarsonis massacre are Raynor and maybe some of Raynor's troops.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2021 21:19

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Fond memories of having two dozen dragoons lose to one (1) bunker of marines because they get 90% of the way through their hilariously terrible attack animation and then realize they desperately need to cancel it so they can shuffle 3 pixels to the left (to make sure their giant robot rear end is in exactly the right spot to most optimally prevent the rest of their army from getting a shot either)

# ¿ Aug 25, 2021 22:16

megane: Jun 20, 2008

I always figured there were two �classes� of battlecruisers (and science vessels): the super huge ones in the cutscenes (like the Hyperion) and then much smaller ones seen in gameplay. The big ones presumably can�t enter atmosphere or something, so there�s a little tactical version.

# ¿ Aug 27, 2021 15:36

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Explopyro posted:

(why would he actually say this out loud? this is not how you convince people)

I never read Mengsk as any sort of mastermind or diplomat, he's mostly just a ruthless opportunist. His only real advantages are that he's got a good eye for situations that might benefit him, he's a loving monster and thus willing to take those chances even if billions of people have to suffer for it, and - well, I would say "his enemies are even worse than him," but that's not really true; he just hasn't had the power to commit atrocities on their scale (until this campaign, at least) and thus appears less evil by comparison.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2021 23:02

megane: Jun 20, 2008

To be fair, this is sci-fi; we�re lucky they didn�t say it was 8,000 years later and everyone was still driving the same siege tanks because it was a �classic design.�

# ¿ Sep 13, 2021 08:12

megane: Jun 20, 2008

YaketySass posted:

I really like that after the Zergs being completely silent and seemingly feral antagonists in the first campaign, you're introduced to the Overmind who's speaking with these self-aggrandising biblical undertones. It's an unexpected contrast both to Terrans and to the basic Zergs, and a cool way of alluding to it having an actual agenda.

It's impressive that they manage to go through the entire Terran campaign without even hinting at the Overmind's or cerebrates' existence. The story up until now has been all about Mengsk's rebellion; I don't think we've even learned the name of a single non-human (maybe the one Protoss commander gets like two lines?). The Zerg are just mindless rampaging bugs, the Protoss fit the generic elf role in that they show up to fight evil but seem to have no real motivation beyond that... and then MC Eyeball drops his big intro line on you and suddenly there's a whole new layer to what's been going on. It's the sort of clever story-pacing that Blizzard has kind of forgotten how to do over the years.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2021 22:16

megane: Jun 20, 2008

You might think you'll never need to know how to perform CPR on a mutalisk, kid, but one day some lucky mutalisk is going be very glad I made you learn.

megane fucked around with this message at 20:37 on Nov 2, 2021

# ¿ Nov 2, 2021 20:05

megane: Jun 20, 2008

WC3 units also have way longer combat lifetimes. You can lose three zerglings in one frame from a siege tank you couldn't even see.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 16:34

megane: Jun 20, 2008

It�s like how a one-way mirror works; it�s really dark inside the cloud and really bright outside, so if you�re outside you just see the shiny bugs instead of the hydras hiding in the darkness, but if you�re inside, you can still see the brightly-lit stuff outside.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2023 00:30

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Some fun facts about SC1's pathfinding:

_{(image from here)}

The map has a navigation grid. However, the nav grid is square, while the terrain is this diagonal isometric shape. So the connection between the visible terrain and where units can actually stand is dubious. This is particularly noticeable around bridges, ramps, and stairs. The bridge in the picture is actually one of the biggre and nicer ones, there are ramps where a single dragoon can block the entire path.
The original pathfinding code (inherited from Warcraft) used the big green squares. The finer grid was implemented when they switched to the isometric art, but the pathfinding was never entirely rewritten, so I think some things still use the original big grid.
Units take up many grid squares, aren't aligned to the grid, and can have sizes that aren't even a multiple of the grid size - notice the hydralisk being slightly over 2 grid squares wide.
Many units don't move smoothly. Their speed changes depending on what frame of their animation they're in. Dragoons and goliaths, for example, have an awkward "stepping" pattern where they sort of jump forward and then stop. This is exacerbated by the fact that units in SC can't fire unless they're standing still, and some have delays before and after firing. This is what causes the dreaded dragoon dance, where they spend 90% of their time shimmying around, getting in each other's way, opening and closing their little hatch, and generally screwing around instead of shooting the enemy.
If a unit finds its path blocked by another unit - and remember units don't fit the grid, so this means "some unit has a single pixel in one of the grid squares I'm trying to step into" - it stops dead, waits briefly, and checks again. But after failing this check a few times, it calculates a new path under the assumption that the blocked square is permanently impassable. This often results in units going miles out of their way because the dragoon in front of them wouldn't step 3 pixels to the left.

Honestly it's a wonder the pathfinding functions as well as it does.

megane fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Apr 9, 2023

# ¿ Apr 9, 2023 23:08

megane: Jun 20, 2008

A, Avram

# ¿ Apr 18, 2023 22:57

megane: Jun 20, 2008

I always figured Aiur had giant racks of prefab pylons and dragoons and stuff packed away in underground vaults somewhere, and you were basically getting them out of a giant vending machine. Insert 150 minerals, out pops a nice refreshing ice-cold photon cannon.

megane fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Jul 13, 2023

# ¿ Jul 13, 2023 22:36

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Nexus is already plural, the singular is Nexu.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2023 00:05

megane: Jun 20, 2008

When I was a kid I imagined that the Citadel of Adun was a gym where the zealots would go to work out and run laps. Unupgraded zealots are just out of shape.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2023 00:54

megane: Jun 20, 2008

It's Selendis's time to shine

# ¿ Aug 30, 2023 23:30

megane: Jun 20, 2008

Everyone remembers "you must construct additional pylons," but for me the voiceline that captures the quintessence of playing Protoss is "carrier has arrived"

# ¿ Sep 21, 2023 15:38

megane: Jun 20, 2008

This LP continues to rule.

Tenebrais posted:

Given how we named the player for the Terran campaign, let's play with the later canon a bit and call her Mira Han.

We�ve got Horner and Selendis running around, might as well keep the theme rolling.

# ¿ Nov 25, 2023 07:08

megane: Jun 20, 2008

"Natural" means the base that is right next to your start, your "natural" first expansion. "Proxy" means building your stuff (e.g. a barracks) near-ish to your opponent's base in order to get aggressive quickly and/or surprise them.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2024 06:24

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# ¿ May 17, 2024 04:38

megane: Jun 20, 2008

A: Protoss Gear Solid

# ¿ Feb 26, 2024 03:58

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Throwing Down with the Best of Them: Let's Play Starcraft Remastered [SSLP]