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Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Sanguinia posted:

It's not meant to be a plot twist when its in the introductory movie. Though there is the minor twist that the actual mission Mengsk gave him is to kill Kerrigan, not Raynor.

Here's the thing though: Blizzard can be accused of bad writing but in a more general sense they are trying to be subtle. There's a lot of things left unsaid in the writing for SC2, not that the answers actually improve anything, and Tychus is one of them. The fact that Tychus was actually in prison for the entirety of SC1 means that he has no context for a lot of things that Raynor and veterans of the series take for granted. In this way he can function as a viewpoint for new charcter, and as a means by which other characters get to espouse things about the setting at him.

Seriously, by missing out on SC1, Tychus (CW:suicide) genuinely has no knowledge of what the Zerg even are, and barely any understanding of the Protoss. I've seen at least one theory that Tychus' position in the narrative is him commiting Suicide by Cop after making what he thought was a simple assassination deal with Mengsk that immediately spiraled into 'try to kill the most powerful single being in the universe, BTW according to your old pal Jimmy she's also a victim of Mengsk DealsTM, formerly a human and if she dies the entire sector dies, so she has to stay alive.'

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Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

MagusofStars posted:

So like, in 2500, he's so short on soldiers ships, and equipment that he has to play tons of politics to even defend his own territory against the omnipresent Zerg threat, but within two years, he's got enough free liquidity to throw away resources completely rebuilding the entire ecological system and atmosphere of a lovely backwater colony nobody cared about?

Even in a soft sci-fi setting with Space Magic, that really stretches credibility. Mengsk has dozens of higher priority ways to spend his time and money during the two years between BW and the recolonization.

Technically Mar Sara was recolonized because presumably Dr. Narud was looking for the artifact we just jacked. This doesn't make it less stupid, but it is at least internally consistent.

no, it's honestly not better.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Gun Jam posted:

Do unexploded Protoss bombs from five years ago count as artifacts?

Please, the Protoss don't use anything so primitive as bombs.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

ilmucche posted:

Isn't that an immobile lurker?

It would actually just be a lurker constrained by taking damage off creep, since spine and spore crawlers can actually move.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.
Moreover it has some real knock-on effects relating to unit niche and how memorable/interesting the missions can be, but that's a topic that has some real depth to it, and can contain more issues than simply 'unit introduced' discourse.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

PurpleXVI posted:

See, I think that this speaks more to some units simply being bad and other units simply being overpowered. If there are units that the players never use, well, then those units loving suck or other units outshine them, or both. I don't think the solution to that is "here's the mission where you're forced to use a tiresome gimmick unit" or "here's a mission where we take away your good units."

Counterpoint: niches exist. Both reapers and hellions have a niche that means they see a form of play, but that play is specifically in the multiplayer competitive format rather than campaign, where there's no value in the niche they accomplish. Even then their value is as a low-investment scouting piece or small raiding party designed to inflict economic damage rather than as a mainline battle unit. No one is expecting a reaper to replace a marine.

As for other units being overlapped, this is one of the stated reasons that diamondbacks never left the campaign, because they ended up competing with siege tanks. To a certain extent this also applies to a lot of the 'classic' units we will see compared to their sc2 counterparts and is kind of a sticking point.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.
Ultimately Firebats are only ever going to be a niche part of the army simply because, among other things, the marine is just that good (and cheap).

Nightmare mod theoretically also gives them a niche as baneling bait by making them either immune or taking significantly less damage from baneling acid, but ultimately bioball doesn't really need a tank, and marauders do enough of that at a pinch and also don't need to be at melee range for the same benefit.

And then yeah, Blizzard came out with hell bat, which... well, we'll get that when we reach the hellion.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.
Fun fact: Because hellion attacks are AOE and the infestors start next to the two biodomes and are just burrowed during the day, with sufficient hellions and a good surround, you don't even need to detect them, because emough hellion attacks will 'hit' in their attack on the biodome. It can be a little finicky, but is entirely doable.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Felinoid posted:

Which makes the fact that their first instinct was to turn humans into bombs a bit of an insult to our usefulness.

disposablewords posted:

Viruses being involved in infestation isn't that wild an idea, really. Some kind of retrovirus is probably their main means of twisting an infested lifeform to mutate zerg-y bits, even if it's delivered via parasites. But it's also never really explained in that way until this point, to my knowledge, so it feels like a bit of a leap. Plus the zerg just haven't done it this way before, and everyone's talking about it like it's known. Unless it was explained and presented in a book between the games, in which case, bleh, drat expanded universes.

Given that Kerrigan spent 3 missions worth of time in a chrysalis (and that might have been months, given the situation/missions involved), it implies that turning Terran into gasbags is either the leftovers of a failed infestation or the Quick-And-Dirty version of infestation, which makes a lot of sense. In this way the fact that infesting a building now actually doesn't turn Terrans into explosive bags of gas is a progression, albeit one that doesn't really matter, since their main use is expendable shock troops and well, that's Zerg's whole thing. Certain expanded universe stuff implies that Kerrigan is doing the same thing the Overmind did to her, that is, experimenting with infesting various humans for genetic compatibility/psionic potential, which is internally consistent with the larger SC2 narrative structure.

Also, I've seen at least one theory that Tosh referring to Hanson as a 'Honeypot' and her situation at the end of this missions line (if you don't side with her) suggests the whole thing is a situation created by Kerrigan to distract Jim from the artifact business, in which case it would be a tailor made infestation virus strain. But that kind of strains credibility in the face of Blizzard 'subtlety' (Either Not telling you anything, but vaguely alluding to it, being very unsubtle).


I think it's probably just an excuse to show off Day/Night cycles and do a Zombie thing. A lot of SC2 Missions to me kind of feel like Blizzard doing RTS Stuff, but also Flexing the capabilities of the Engine to potential modders and the like, since at the time WC3 custom maps had extended the life of that game a hundredfold, not to mention the creation of DOTA and in a roundabout way probably WoW.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

PurpleXVI posted:

Weren't the Ghosts in general implied or outright stated to be psionic? Though I think that's all we ever really see of it in Starcraft. Its also probably common among the Terrans in Starcraft because the Terrans are ancestors of the mutants and criminals launched out from Earth in colony ships, meaning they probably had a statistically larger number of psionically capable people among them from the get go.

Like most fascist dictatorships the UED had no problem conscripting ghosts from their populace, if the state can make use of it, they'll ignore their own propaganda. But the Koprulu sector is inherently rich in a number of substances that boost or otherwise enhance latent psionic abilities, possibly due to the Protoss, or perhaps some other race. This stands as one of the possible explanations why the Terran populace of the sector has experienced an explosion of psionic individuals, with some theorising that the majority of the race will be psionically adept within a few generations.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Reapers you say? Hell, cowboy, we gotta train no more of these guys, they're seriously bad!

They're actually fine, but their big niche in multiplayer is disposible scouting and well... campaign. Add that to ther campaign design and there's really only one other map that you'll see them on, and that's Outbreak, if only because their anti-buiilding attack makes them better than the hellion at killing buildings (even ones with light armour)

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

FoolyCharged posted:

All right, time to go grab the goliath.

Goliaths are the best little mechwarrior boys and I'll hear nothing about them sucking. At least their upgrades make them a solid 'useable' which is more than about half the units in wings I guess.

Counterpoint: They share ground weapon sounds with another unit and it's like getting tickled with a malfunctioning water hose :colbert:. Pitch that thing down 10 semitones and make me think it's actually an autocannon (Also make it have better DPS, probably by shooting faster).

Omobono posted:

Yeah I don't see much point in the planetary fortress. Is the other CC upgrade available in the campaign?

I'm actually going to bat for the PF here, I think that it's better than the Perdition Turret by a fair margin, especially because of the last few missions. A Perdition Turret actually does less DPS than a Planetary, a Planetary has a 40 damage cannon that works against units with armour much better, it provides the same AOE, and it has 3x the health and armour of a fully upgraded bunker. Couple that with an upgrade that will come up soon, and I genuinely think that the PF is a better investment than the Perdition turret in holding a defensive line, even at the cost.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

TeeQueue posted:

56 minutes and most of it spent manually mashing the spacebar for the increased firing rate.

I bled for this LP.

Well ok they were muscle cramps but the point remains. :negative:

The worst part is that GiantGrantGames, as part of his 24 hour 100% achievement stream, also did the 500k lost vikings achievement, and he specifically set up a macro to press the spacebar for him. So you know, there's the record of someone else who did it like 2 days ago that you could have just linked to.

(I'm sorry and applaud your sacrifice)

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Szarrukin posted:

The only use I found for Goliaths is AA support for siege tanks.

What a coincidence, that's their function in SC1! Goliaths would be fine except for some reason basically everything that isn't a marine is overcosted or has another glaring flaw. With Golaiths, they require an upgrade to be truly solid, but they also cost 3 times in minerals and supply (and 50 gas) what a marine costs while providing about 1.5 - 2x the value in DPS or relevant damage. And for some reason they share weapon sounds with another unit that we'll see later.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

BisbyWorl posted:

Before you ask; no, there will not be some kind of clever twist where following the prophecy bites us in the rear end. All the poo poo Zeratul finds will always help us out.

Hooo boy, is that, in the grandest of Blizzard ways, not true and yet true at the same time. Infuriating.

Fun fact: Zeratul can kill an Ultralisk faster than the duration of Void Prison, and watching speedruns of this mission in particular is fascinating (there's a skip right at the start before you get blink because the map loops back on itself and you can see a small sliver of that area through a hole in the cliff face... which is enough to blink through).

But yes, this whole prophecy business is very much Blizzard really trying to work the angle of what exactly Zeratul has been doing in those intervening years exiled, while also setting him up as The Guy who Knows What's Going On. And as we'll see, all it really does is expose just how little Blizzard really planned out the whole trilogy.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

VostokProgram posted:

I actually like the last protoss mission in wings, its a cool set piece

It's a cool set piece once. After that, every time you try and play the campaign it's a slog of the same mission exactly like Zero Hour.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Cythereal posted:

This is my feeling as well.

SC2 mostly just ignores large parts of SC1's plot and characterization.

Shadowlands actively relishes going "Nuh uh, this is what REALLY happened you guys!"

There is a lot more WOW writing to mess up, and it's already a series of retcons, so the whole thing is a lot more rickety. But rampant and baseless speculation on my part, both have the fingerprints of Steve Danuser.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

BisbyWorl posted:

For an additional 50/25 you can get a Siege Tank instead and deal with swarms of Zerglings without being torn apart.

Range is the best stat etc etc. Honestly if a melee unit is gonna cost more than a zealot, it needs to be at least comparable, and the list of features that would be added to most units is surprisingly large. At a base level, even just the charge that zealots get is so useful that I feel like it should be standard on almost all melee units.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Kith posted:

I would argue against that, actually:

Tosh in the Nova timeline wasn't planning on betraying Raynor, he just wanted to make more Specters to oppose Mengsk with and Raynor's objection to that is that Specters are "unstable". That's kind of a stupid thing to be upset about when the vast majority of the Terran infantry are former criminals that have been brainwashed on some level. ohhhh noooo, specters sometimes go crazy and kill everything around them. You know who else has done that? Marines. Reapers. Firebats. Marauders. Even the loving Medivac has a blurb about how a pilot got so pissed over some light teasing that she deliberately crashed her craft with no survivors. On top of all that, Heart of the Swarm effectively calls you an idiot for siding with Nova because she shows up with a squad of Specters in tow, proving that the Dominion is still fully willing to use them despite their risks (again, just like any other Terran infantry).

Even without foreknowledge, there's no good reason to make that decision.

:actually: HOTS and LOTV make it canonical that Raynor helped Tosh instead of Nova, so the Spectres existing is actually because of Raynor! The general implication is that the Dominion was always gonna use Spectres anyway, this was just Nova's personal objection to try and keep the Dominion from having another weapon. And then it turns out that a significant number of them joined the Moebius Foundation!
:goonsay:

That's right! It's all bad!

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

bladededge posted:

I think the thread is about five layers deep in Actuallys right now, can we get a sixth

I could, but the first aksually was literally for the comedy of 'Blizzard tries to write it so that whatever choice you make is correct --> Blizzards subsequent writing means no matter what choice you made it's actually bad', and it feels too much like actually buying in to continue. Suffice it to say that Blizzard writing is a special beast that can never really be approached from a single direction other than 'it's bad', but even then it can be different flavours of bad.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

megane posted:

e: And that’s not to mention Brood War, because if we look at BW in light of this cutscene, it’s as if they followed up Revenge of the Sith - with Anakin murdering a bunch of children and innocents and destroying galactic civilization - with a movie revealing that he was the hero all along


I have some bad news for you about the original trilogy (I kid, I kid). But HOO BOY is this only the start.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Tenebrais posted:

"the horrifying all-devouring swarm is actually a good guy setting up to fight an apocalypse prophecy" is just plain bad. There's no satisfying way to spin that. You can make sympathetic zerg characters with good motivations, but don't try to retroactively justify everything they were before.

There's a lot here going on, some of which is stuff that I will not talk about because it's stupid spoilers, but suffice it to say that that's not exactly what Blizzard are going for here. Instead they're very much going for a retread of the Warcraft 3 era Orcs.

SirSamVimes posted:

You probably could have gotten the same effect by saying "the overmind somehow discovered a galaxy ending evil and made preparations to fight it because he lives in the universe too and would like to continue existing that he may continue devouring everything and becoming perfect". It'd still be a lame "greater evil" deal, but it wouldn't poo poo on all the characters' motivations from the previous game.

You can't do that, every redeemed race of (ugh) 'Noble Savages' (gently caress this trope) has to have an evil guy who dies doing something good to save the race. That's how redemption works at the species level. The Overmind has to be a load-bearing Grommash Hellscream.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

MagusofStars posted:

That’s true but also: You know what other tactic leads to an amateur losing to a competently playing veteran?

Literally all of the usual tactics. If you’re completely outclassed, you’re almost never winning by playing it straight because of the raw skill difference. But maybe if you with an oddball high-variance strategy, you can get lucky and catch the opponent off-guard.

The counterpoint to that is that Starcraft, and SC2, isn't entirely a single battle so much as it is a resource war with a hugely abstracted logistics system attached to it, and one of the biggest advantages that veterans have over new players is a much better grasp of the logistics involved rather than micro advantage (although obviously they often have that as well). Moreover, the entire game is built around when you choose to compromise your economy to threaten your opponent with victory. Floating your command center actually exacerbates this disadvantage, handing both map control and economy time to your much stronger opponent without actually threatening them.

If you're looking for a high-variance oddball strategy, you're actually looking at cheese like the classic six-pool, cannon rushing or proxy barracks since those try to eliminate the economic skill disadvantage by A) limiting the time involved (and thus the advantage gained), B) betting on the lack of available information for their opponent and finally C) pressuring your opponent when they may be unready. The strength of SC2 is that no build is purely capable of answering all possible timing pushes, the veteran must choose which possible pushes they wish to counter, leaving them open to being blindsided.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

CheeseThief posted:

Are psionics even well fleshed out in SC or is it all just vague space magic? I'm just curious because there's the whole thing about Terrans being new to it while the Protoss had it inately since before even the Xel'Naga (I think, might misremember that). Would Terrans eventually be like the Protoss forming mind blades and communicating entirely through telepathy? Or is it a species specific thing where Terrans will have their own unique psi power? If it's the latter I find it interesting that the main human psi power is to become invisible which is a Dark Templar thing. But maybe I'm just trying to draw connections between story and gameplay elements that were never intended.

Just... just hold on to that for about 2 and a half expansions. It'll come up.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.
In some ways it feels a little weird that Tosh, noted fugitive with all his friends in jail, is doing a full scale facility assault complete with AI Raynor throwing hordes of people directly to their deaths while Nova, noted assassin with complete access to the Terran Dominion Forces, is doing a stealhy no build mission.

Torchlighter fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Sep 2, 2023

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Xarn posted:

IIRC the canon says that psi indoctrinators were a thing and they were more brutal version of the "social reconditioning" they give to convict marines. If you need to basically lobotomize someone to stabilize them, maybe don't expose them to the chemicals in the first place?

That assumes you care about the people as anything other than specialised weapons that you don't want pointed at you.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Kith posted:

Yeah, I don't think I'm too terribly impressed by that. I mean, I'm sure it's useful in certain situations, but I'm not screwing over my buddy Tosh to shove two Ghosts in a bunker just because they can shoot real far for less DPS than a Marine.

It has one very specific use case that makes it incredibly good, but again... gotta betray Tosh.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

painedforever posted:

Would they be better with better micro, i.e. keep moving them around while firing?

Do units get a penalty to shooting at moving units? I'm thinking of Dawn of War that had a bunch of this stuff...

Is it the price versus performance that makes the Diamondbacks a middling unit?

Performance-wise Diamondbacks are fine. Costwise, 4 supply is a killer for weird reasons. Damage/HP/Unit numbers per supply below 200 doesn't entirely matter provided you're still on top of your supply limit and therefore building limits, but the minute you hit the hard cap, damage per point of supply matters a lot and Diamondbacks are among the worst. The fact that nothing else shares their gimmick of being able to shoot while moving and that it will never be required simply consigns them to the awkward space of 'unit that has one map you use them for and never again (certain exceptions apply).'

The weird thing is that they share a very specific niche with two other units we have yet to see and Reapers in having maps with very little income and some sort of gimmick related to that, but it would probably behoove me to wait until those other units get revealed to talk about it in more detail.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Warmachine posted:

More or less. It's been 13 years, so my memory is fuzzy. But my recollection is that despite being a new unit they were removed from multiplayer for precisely the reason that they are impossible to balance and their playstyle was a niche looking for a problem. They more or less existed for a vision of StarCraft 2 that the developers had but just didn't playtest well.

One of the things I'm looking at when I say this:

Mechanically, only the cover/miss chance change, the ability to select everything, and units that were able to traverse cliffs made the cut as mechanical changes. I guess rich mineral fields too if you can count that. Units that could move and shoot did not pass playtesting.

They were also removed from multiplayer because they technically shoved out part of the siege tanks niche. Of course, no one runs siege tanks for that niche, but well, the siege tank is iconic and you're not replacing it, and giving the Terran both is just... kinda dumb. Honestly, the starcraft II engine and UI is responsible for so much more change than a lot of the mechanical things. And yet they still made units that could move and shoot later.

Felinoid posted:

Personally I kinda prefer the old 'cover' mechanics (we're talking about high ground, right?) to the new ones. Being able to fight back, if poorly, I feel is better than "can't fight back at all unless something provides high vision, then you're fine". It feels very weird to have pulsing vision/no-vision when the dude in front gets killed and then everyone has to edge up, then the next dude gets killed and everyone edges up, etc. Eminently solvable on the player side, but after you notice it on your side, you start noticing it on the enemy side and the jerky movement is just really weird-looking.

They were really banking around Cliff Jumping/Blink Micro being a thing, and that both answers the vision issue and really saps the power of high ground defence/Walling overall. Definitely a conscious choice by Blizzard, although success rate is somewhat up to interpretation.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Warmachine posted:

:aaa: I feel like I missed out quitting when I did and not giving non-ladder multiplayer modes/maps a try.

I would never blame anyone for previously quitting SC2 without trying the Arcade, especially early in the life cycle, from the outset it was loving rough. Blizzard released it too early and well, with Blizzard's whole 'we own everything' clause it was never going to be quite as popular as old WC3 maps. There's a teeming community now with plenty of old WC3 map equivalents and a bunch of gamemodes that show up, and with a bunch of new custom campaign stuff and SC2 being free it's arguably a diamond in the rough or throwback to a much earlier time in gaming, but you have to interact with :blizz: general chat and well... :blizz: in general.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Warmachine posted:

Ok. I'll say it.

I miss HotS.

It literally just got an update like this week! Nothing like... bitg, but it technically still exists!

All of my caveats related to SC2 custom maps still apply, I assume.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Kurgarra Queen posted:

Hell, you could keep the part where the Overmind made Kerrigan to fight a (possible) Xel’Naga resurgence. It’s easy to hand wave as her being human i.e. not a race made by the Xel’Naga makes it harder/impossible for them to mess with her,

:shepicide: ...oh, that's... that's already true.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

disposablewords posted:

Well that too, but you don't bother with even this minor effort unless you think something might actually come of it.

As we'll see there's reasons why Mengsk would choose now specifically to do this, and Raynor is actually a super logical answer to a certain problem that will come up.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

BisbyWorl posted:

Tech Reactor
  • Tech Labs and Reactors are replaced by Tech Reactors, which combine the functionality of both.
  • Tech Reactors cost 75/75 and take 50 seconds to build, compared to 50/25, 18 for Tech Labs and 50/50, 36 for Reactors.
Protoss plasma shields have finally given us the ability to fit the Tech Lab and the Reactor into a single structure add-on.

This new add-on, known as the Tech Reactor, replaces the old Tech Lab and Reactor add-ons and allows us to train two of any unit type simultaneously.


This one can actually be a bit awkward to use, depending on how you play. If you're just doing whatever, great! You save a lot of valuable base real estate and a good chunk of cash over having to make 2-4 of any given production structure! If you're steamrolling the map with a bio army, you're paying more money and time when you only really need one or two Tech Labs and a bunch of Reactors.

So, funny thing, those are the LOTV Multiplayer values of time for the Tech Lab and Reactor, and because we're in the campaign they're actually the original Wings of Liberty values of 25 seconds for Tech Lab and 50 for Reactors... Which is actually kinda weird. See, the reason you want tech labs is to unlock access to more advanced units. Tech Reactors cost 50 more gas than Labs, where gas is already the bottleneck for high tech units such as siege tanks, and takes as long as reactors to build. It removes your ability to build anything but tech reactors, so in essence this means that taking Tech Reactors actually technically delays the first tank you build by 25 seconds. Of course, in return you get a second queue, allowing for a second tank to build and saving you 20 seconds on building a second tank... but if you don't have the 150/125 to pony up for a second tank, that queue goes idle.

It's not really a distinction that super matters but it is funny to see such a high level piece of tech actually be a tradeoff depending on how important getting a second tank is compared to getting the first.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

DTurtle posted:

Mass reapers was nerfed numerous times because it was too powerful. I don't know if they were ever combined with Medivacs back then though. That was before the time I started watching competitive SC2.

Mass Reaper would have been an early all in build, any resources not spent building reapers would almost certainly have been spent on +1/+2 Weapons for a timing push rather than teching to Starport.

Kith posted:

The Reaper's gimmick in WoL was their insanely strong anti-structure attack. Reapers were intended to be tricky suicide squads that could blow up key production buildings, but Blizzard realized it sucked to get pushed back that far, so instead they made Reapers the same kind of mineral line harassment units that every faction gets.

Please do not look directly at the fact that Terrans already had one of those in the form of the Hellion.

Current SC2 strategy often hits expansion to the natural before you even get a factory out, so Hellions have a pretty significant gap where harassment would be useful but they aren't in sufficient numbers to be effective. And Reapers would actually be the third mineral line harassment unit for Terran behind Hellions, who transition into hellbats and are at least a believable frontline for mech and another unit who actually has a place where you do see medivac play... widow mine drops

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Kith posted:

I feel like if Vultures could be told to maintain a field of Spider Mines, they'd be a lot more popular in the campaign.

Vultures in SC2 feel bad to use, partially because of the way that the game engine changes their movement & damage (no turning circles for any unit feels better in general, but for vultures and fast movers it makes them worse vs everything slow, also they don't have an acceleration/deceleration and that makes them feel weird, surprisingly) and also because they just turn up far too late to be super useful. There's at least one mod that unlocks them on The Evacution, and they're actually pretty great there.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Tenebrais posted:

I think the idea of a contagious zerg virus is meant to be a new development - possibly some weapon Kerrigan is testing out. Zerg were initially worm-like creatures with extremely volatile DNA, able to assimilate DNA of other creatures and mutate into their forms (helped in major ways by the Xel'naga - this will be on the test).

That said, they were able to infest other creatures and change them as we saw with infested terrans, so I suspect they did develop some viral mechanisms for this kind of hostile takeover. I'm not entirely clear if Kerrigan was a special case when it came to assimilating a living creature, but I think it's something they were hoping to do to a living protoss.

It's a little weird and not entirely clear, but I believe the general canon is that the process in SC1 and the process seen here in SC2 are different. Expanded universe books make it clear that Kerrigan is either trying to figure out the process that created her or trying replicate it for some unknown purpose. As for being a 'special case', to speak more on that would be spoilers for future content so I will avoid too much, but the answer is 'yes'.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

megane posted:

Look, I understand you all have a lot of questions about the Zerg virus and the artifact, and I'm here to...

[glances at notes, which consist of one crumpled up sheet of paper covered in scribbled-out nonsense with the word "XEL-NAGA!(?)" written at the bottom in crayon]

uh,

It's worse than that, there are actual answers.

Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

FoolyCharged posted:

He gpt tasked with destroying the zerg disrupter dongle. Instead he goes awol and rebuilds it. Duran notices it, calls him out to the head UED guy and uses the situation as an excuse to murk stukov. Stukov then uses his dying words to warn dugall stukov is infested

He didn't even get tasked. IIRC, the end of that mission is that Duran is getting ready to plant charges to destroy the Disrupter, which he told the UED about, when a group of ghosts under the command of Stukov show up to 'take over' the deconstruction. Much later, when Duran pulls a 'oh gee I can't establish contact and I've conveniently withdrawn my forces to make sure that a giant chaotic wave of zerg creates a distraction for Mengsk to escape', Stukov goes awol back to the Psi Disrupter that he never destroyed and Duran uses that to convince DuGalle that Stukov is a traitor. The next mission is you in the psi disrupter facility chasing down Stukov before Duran betrays you and tries to set the Psi Disrupter to self destruct, which you stop, and this allows the UED to make Planetfall on Char to capture the nascent Overmind.

I like it because it introduces a little ambiguity at the time: Stukov taking over seems more sinister, he might have ulterior motives or maybe he just doesn't like Duran, rather than 'Duran is obviously betraying you.'

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Torchlighter
Jan 15, 2012

I Got Kids. I need this.

Kith posted:

I think it's kinda funny that every campaign has one Really Good Character.

For all of Blizzards many writing sins, they've always been capable of hitting at least one character with enough good characterisation to see it through to the end of the game.

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