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Reserved.
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May 31, 2023 22:10
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Mar Sara 1: Liberation Day Video: The Deal  We start with the same cinematic used in the announcement trailer, way back in 2007.      The door begins to open.  Revealing...   A man.   On his back is a tattoo that reads, 'Heaven's Devils.'    Remember when this was a sign of quality? When you knew everything was made to perfection before you even bought it? What a fall from grace.     Our man's name is   His shackles are removed, but his feet are locked into the boots.       Machinery starts to spin up.       The framework gets screwed together.  And before our eyes, Starcraft's iconic power armor is assembled around him.                   A hydralisk lunges.   A ship slips between two buildings.   The Queen of Blades gives us a harsh look.   Mutalisks tear through the skies.   Zeratul defends himself against organic high heels. Yes, you heard me right.   A hydralisk gets obliterated.     I must reiterate: You have no loving idea how much hype this one line inspired.    We then immediately cut to the game itself. I'd like to point something out here, namely:  Remember, Starcraft 1 begins in 2499, and Mar Sara got torched by the Protoss shortly after. To quote Starcraft 1: Terran 04: The Jacobs Installation posted:So we're expected to believe that it took just 2 years since the end of Brood War to recover from that and repopulate the planet? And to go even more in-depth: Liberty's Crusade posted:Where the energy beams struck, they burned. The sky itself curdled as the beams pierced through the atmospheric envelope. Air itself was torn away from the planet by the force of the blows. Again. Just 2 years. To fix up a backwater planet. While the Dominion was recovering from the UED and Kerrigan kicking their poo poo in for the entirety of BW. A recurring Thing in Starcraft 2 is the writers completely ignoring reason to do something they wanted. Starcraft 1 started on Mar Sara, so let's make Starcraft 2 start on Mar Sara! Who cares about the fine details! No one will notice! Video: Liberation Day   Instead of just a quick briefing with talking heads before missions, we get actual cutscenes! The power of 2010 technology! Anyways, we drop in on good old Jim Raynor. Last time he we saw him, he was swearing bloody revenge on Kerrigan after she killed Fenix.      He isn't doing so good on that, considering he's knocking back drinks in a seedy bar by himself.       In fact, he's completely forgotten about the whole thing! Jim Raynor is a SAD MAN because he MISSES HIS GIRLFRIEND. He MISSES HIS GIRLFRIEND so loving much that Fenix will never get mentioned in Wings of Liberty. Also, pay no attention to how the closest thing Raynor and Kerrigan had to a romantic moment, even in the side materials, was an off-screen in Liberty's Crusade and that Kerrigan had a bigger romance with a one-off character who was introduced and killed in Uprising. Starcraft 2 very heavily insists that this is TRUE LOVE, you guys.   While Mengsk's voice keeps on going after finishing his line, but his voice has been muffled so much he's incomprehensible. Jimmy's THAT GODDAMN SAD, you guys.        Now that the galaxy is free from a foul, propaganda spewing TV, Jim starts up that computer by his side.        Destroying Dominion authority here will cripple Emperor Mengsk's operations throughout the planet. And that leads into our first mission! Mission screens give you a quick few lines explaining the mission, plus show you what unit you'll unlock for doing it. Starcraft 2 has four difficulties. Casual, Normal, Hard, and Brutal. Higher difficulties, instead of just giving enemies unfair buffs (most of the time), will instead do things like tweak pre-placed enemies or give you less leeway on objectives. They also govern how low you can set your game speed, Casual will let you go all the way down to Slowest, while Hard caps you at Fast and Brutal at Fastest. Since I am Decently Good At Starcraft but also Kinda Suck At Micro, I'll be sticking to Hard for the entire thing.   This has become the hub for all operations on Mar Sara. The Dominion recently pulled troops out of the city, and they are now understrength.Backwater Station is another SC1 callback. It was the location of Terran 02, where you had to fight through some zerg and destroy an Infested Command Center.  Are the locals cooperating?     The mission opens up with Raynor's dropship flying in.  Which then drops off the man himself, plus five Marines.  And then we gain control! Our first mission involves no building at all. Instead, we have to take our little group of Marines and take out the building marked in the top right.  Marines in SC2 are much the same as their SC1 counterparts. They are Man With Gun. They shoot things, and shoot 'em good. They're also substantially stronger thanks to SC2's improved pathfinding and unit groups no longer being capped at 12 people. If you have 100 Marines on hand, you can point them all at a target with a single click.  Jimmy, meanwhile, has the same role as the last time he hit the field waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the Jacobs Installation. He's just a bigger, beefier Marine that can soak some hits early on to keep the little guys alive.  As I start to move up, I'd like to point out the Light - Biological on Jimmy's unit card. Instead of SC1's Normal/Concussive/Explosive damage types, SC2 changes for a more modular approach. Now everything deals base damage to everything else, but some units get a bonus against specific unit tags. Here, Jim is tagged Light and Biological, so any unit that get a bonus against either type will tear through him.  Another change is that the game will mark any lines being spoken by a unit. We can also see a checkpoint, with a number of trashed vehicles at the stop. Looks like the Dominion doesn't want anyone getting out.  Also, we can zoom in!  The game will bring up these tutorial prompts whenever something new comes up. I won't be bothering to show them off, they're all basic things like 'the Marine is your basic infantry unit!'  Pushing up, we run into some burning buildings and a civilian warning us away.  Bullshit posters with barbed wire along the bottom. Mengsk has stepped up his dystopia skills.  Past the sign are our first victims.  Their AI lock on to the first unit to open fire, instantly shredding through this poor Marine, but the magical power of clean pathfinding lets me pull him back to safety while the others mop up.  The first pack dead, I move Jim up in front to soak some hits. His 2 base armor and 200 HP will let him tank shots this early on and preserve my Marine count.  A cutscene starts at the top of the hill.  Commander, destroying the Dominion Holoboards will help incite rebellion against the Dominion. This introduces a new mechanic to SC2: Bonus objectives. Pretty much every mission will have one, and they'll have tasty rewards to incentivize going out of your way.  Not here, mind you, the tutorial missions are just to get you used to the concept. But really, being able to blow up Mengsk's ugly mug is it's own reward.  Just past the holoboard is a gas station, a garage, and what looks like a semi with jet engines strapped on.  Also two dead Marines.  How the hell were you planning on fitting 'gently caress You' in that tiny space, man? Honestly, I think those Marines shot you just for your poor graffiti design.  This is starting to look ugly. Further ahead we get our first checkpoint save. At launch, these were the only way to save mid-mission, with quick saves being added several months la-BATTLE BROTHERS.  SPACE MARINES, TODAY THE ENEMY IS AT OUR DOOR! WE KNOW OUR DUTY AND WE WILL DO IT.  AND IF WE DIE THIS DAY WE DIE IN GLORY, WE DIE HEROES' DEATHS, BUT WE SHALL NOT DIE, NO! IT IS THE ENEMY WHO WILL TASTE DEATH AND DEFEAT!  AS YOU KNOW, MOST OF OUR BATTLE BROTHERS ARE STATIONED IN SPACE, PREPARED TO DEEP STRIKE!  THE CODEX ASTARTES NAMES THIS MANEUVER STEEL RAIN. WE WILL DESCEND UPON THE FOE, WE WILL OVERWHELM THEM - WE WILL LEAVE NONE ALIVE!  WE ARE THE SPACE MARINES! WE ARE THE EMPER-I'm sorry I think I blacked out there for a second. The last thing I remember was starting the big fight in the town square early to thin out the enemy and keep more of my reinforcements alive.  Jimmy's hurt, sure, but now I have enough bodies to steamroll the rest of the mission. If I sat back and let the drop pod Marines start the fight, a few of them would have died by the time I moved my starting force in.  Another holoboard is to the southeast of the square.   Go blow that board in the center.  This is bad.And the fourth is to southwest. A fun little detail about voice lines is that the game tracks the status of the speaker. If the speaker dies, the line cuts off instantly.  To the northwest is a road leading to the base.  And another cutscene.     The man at the end of the line takes a few steps back.    SC2's vastly improved pathfinding results in a new bit of tech in combat. See, if I just attack moved my army into this fight, the first guy would stop and start shooting, which would force the second guy to walk around him so he could start shooting, which would force the third guy to walk around both of them so he could start shooting. This would result in most of my army not actually being able to attack as they slowly formed a circle around my target. The solution?  A lovely little technique called stutterstepping. You have your army attack-move at an enemy.  Then, during the delay between attacks, a normal move command.  Then another a-move. This lets your entire army get in range of an enemy and fire on them as one.  And with this many Marines, a single volley is enough to kill an opposing Marine.  Also even the Dominion transport has a gun mounted.   Thank you Raynor! We know you wouldn't forget us! There's more people still bein' held up ahead!But I'm able to clear out the fight and take down the fifth holoboard with only two casualties.  Just up the road is the final holoboard.  We're with ya, Raiders!Again, we get nothing for that.  Approaching the base causes the alarm to start blaring, and also makes all the civilians rush the place.  Where they will then proceed to firebomb the bastards.  We also got some monuments to Mengsk we can destroy.  Again, optional, but fun.  Right in front of the HQ is a new unit: the Viking.  They're a dedicated air-to-air fighter, that can transform into an anti-ground walker. We'll be seeing more of them later.  Bullets and firebombs take care of these two in short order.   And the HQ doesn't last much longer.      At the end of every mission is a score card, which lists how well you did and any achievements you got. Blizzard also added in a new achievement for every mission in the game with during SC2's 10th anniversary. Liberation Day gets: Quick Sign Off - Destroy all 6 Dominion Holoboards in the "Liberation Day" mission in less than 3 minutes on Normal difficulty. They're all made to be done on Normal, as some of the conditions can be rather difficult to accomplish. I don't have every achievement, nor will I get them by the end of this LP, but they're fun to see. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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May 31, 2023 22:10
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PurpleXVI posted:oh dear sweet Jesus. I gave up on this after Heart of the Swarm, so it'll be exciting to see someone else suffer.   The problem with that is it makes text and small details a lot harder to make out, which is bad when you're doing a game that has a lot of text and small details. I'm basically starting this with the assumption that it'll never be able to be archived, barring Baldurk coming in out of nowhere and bumping the archive's size limits by a ton. Hell, half the reason I started at this size is because Killtrane is also working at 1920px. ChaosDragon posted:So Mar Sara was terraformed by Kel-Morian Combine which was a intact political organization? Still leaves the tiny issue of the sheer amount of resources that would have been needed to fix up Mar Sara, when even in-universe it was considered a backwater planet so out of the way that the Confederacy was alright with experimenting with zerg there. Like, of all the planets fried by the protoss, you pick Mar Sara? Not even Chau Sara as a PR thing for fixing up the first planet lost to the alien menace?
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May 31, 2023 22:42
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PurpleXVI posted:It's less about archiving, it's more that with the screenshots that big I'm finding them actively eye-straining. I can personally still read the text perfectly well at 900px, but even a midpoint like 1000px or 1200px would help a lot. Mmm. I already have the next mission finished, but on Terran 03 I'll try stepping down to 1200px and see how that looks.
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May 31, 2023 22:56
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PurpleXVI posted:Even if you've recorded at a higher resolution, Irfanview, among others, can easily batch-resize all your screenshots(or do things like cutting out the cinematic black bars on cutscenes). Yeah, but I've already uploaded to lpix and don't want to just leave a full update's worth of images that'll never get used floating around baldurk's servers.
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May 31, 2023 23:15
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I, personally, am only familiar with the earlier books since I read them a bunch of a kid. Did you know that Mengsk got duped by the recruitment office as a kid? Because he got duped into joining the military right after high school.
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May 31, 2023 23:32
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Sanguinia posted:I dunno, it always seemed to run way deeper than just being comrades in arms to me, and not just because they're The Main Breeding Pair among the principal cast. The main issue is that his literal final lines in BW is swearing revenge on Kerrigan. Like, sure there's a time skip between games for Raynor to get all sad, but in the eyes of the players he leaves the story going,  It may not be tomorrow, darlin'. It may not even happen with an army at my back. But rest assured: I'm the man who's going to kill you some day. I'll be seein' you.Then nine years later we finally get the continuation to his story and he immediately drops it with no fanfare and starts staring longingly at a photo of her. It's just incredibly unsatisfying if you've been wondering how the scrappy underdog would manage to beat the Queen Bitch of the Universe, which sours the whole thing.
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Jun 1, 2023 03:22
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Mar Sara 2: The Outlaws Jimmy misses his girlfriend so much her photo gets a load screen. Video: Old Times   Jimmy finishes a job and goes right back to drinking alone.  Also, the common housefly has managed to make it to the Koprulu Sector.    Although it looks like he finally got a drinking buddy.           The implication here is that Jim's little tussle at Backwater Station let Mengsk know exactly where to send Tychus.   Jim instantly relaxes once Tychus reveals himself.  Turns out that the obvious Dominion plant was a previously unmentioned friend of Jim, who knew? Guess what, this all takes place in a pair of side story novels! It barely even matters here! All you need to know is that Jim and Tychus used to be Crime Buddies before Tychus took the fall for Jim after a job went bad. Jimmy then ended up fleeing to Mar Sara, cleaning up his act, and becoming the local marshal.                        Every mission will have one of these intermission segments, where you can talk with people and look at things.  The jukebox lets you change the music. >Talk to Tychus   Haha. Yeah, I've heard this one before! But you left out the part where you walked on water, made off with the Warden's daughter! Don't you get uppity with me, boy. I heard all about you becoming a big time freedom fighter while I was away! What happened, Jimmy - the war for truth and justice get too much for ya? I ain't licked yet, Tychus. And I promise you - Mengsk is goin' down one way or another.>Watch news     Actually Donny, the people I talked to seemed really encouraged by the—   >Examine Kerrigan's photo.  >Examine Viking photo  Folks in these parts are ready to fight back against Mengsk. Guess they just needed a little push. You still take this whole revolution thing pretty serious, then. Everyone needs a hobby, Tychus.>Start mission Video: The Outlaws  Ex—convict Tychus Findlay has revealed the Dominion came to Mar Sara to excavate an alien artifact. Seizing the artifact will strike another blow against the Dominion and generate funds from selling it to Findlay's mysterious contacts.Our next unlock is the ever useful Medic, but more than that, we're actually getting paid for this job! One of SC2's big campaign changes is a more freeform method of progression. We'll have to get off Mar Sara in order to actually spend those 45K credits, mind you, but boy will it give us options.    Well I'll be damned...  On top of marines, this base has some kind of vehicle unit guarding it.   No intro cutscene this time, we go straight to base building! We start with 8 SCVs and 6 Marines.  Some more improvements from SC1, bases will now tell you exactly how many workers you need to saturate your resources. Each mineral patch can take 3 workers to hit full efficiency. Bases also have far more efficient resource layouts. A setup like this, with one more geyser on the other side of the mineral line, will be pretty much standard throughout the entire trilogy. Gone are the days of New Gettysburg where minerals and vespene were on opposite ends of the screen, forcing you to either make several extra SCVs or an entire second Command Center to cut down on travel time.  A small quirk with SCVs is that they count as both bio and mech, letting Medics heal them or other SCVs repair them as needed.  While we're at it, extra SCVs will help us harvest minerals faster. Train 'em up at the Command Center.Supply Depots have also gotten a makeover, dropping from a 2x3 footprint to a slimmer 2x2.  They also gained the ability to lower themselves, letting units walk across it. This means you can build them around your base without having to worry about your units getting stuck on them, or slap one in the corner of a defensive wall and drop it as needed to let your own guys in and out!  All we can build in this mission are Command Centers, Depots, Barracks, and Refineries.  While my SCVs are building, I take my starting Marines and head out a bit.  Because just outside the base are resource caches. Blues are minerals, greens are vespene, and each one is a quick 100 of whatever the cache holds. This early in a mission it gives a nice shot in the arm to speed up your economy, and incentivizes you to push out of your base instead of just turtling until you have an unstoppable death ball.  With that 100 gas, I go and make a Tech Lab for my Barracks. Much like the add-ons in SC1, the Tech Lab opens up higher tech units. They're also needed for unit specific upgrades like the Stimpack in ladder play, but the campaigns use an entirely different system for those so they're just a unit prereq here.  Further north are three mineral caches guarded by three Marines. This is one of the differences difficulty can make. On Casual, this would have been completely unguarded, letting you snag it effortlessly. If you look closely, you can see that one of the enemy Marines looks a bit different.  That's because it's not a Marine, it's a War Pig! They're a stronger Marine that we'll see more of later.  Even more quality of life improvements: Shift-clicking to queue up multiple actions will now show every action as a line.  With a bonus 400 minerals in less than a minute, I start pumping out Depots so I can make an army.  It was at this point I remembered to bump up my game speed. Hard defaults to Fast, but I'm used to Faster at this point. This also make that timer above the minimap a bit misleading, as it tracks the in-game timer, not the actual time.  A bit later, and an attack wave hits. With my new Medics I can clear them out with no losses.  Medics have been simplified from their Brood War counterparts. Gone are Optical Flare and Restoration, the SC2 Medic can heal and nothing else. Admittedly, they don't need to do anything else, the ability to keep a group of Marines standing is so powerful that I'm not kidding that a mixed force of Marines, Medics, and one more early-game unit can handle about 95% of all fights in Wings with no issues. They're also the first instance of the campaign unit lineup diverging from competitive, in that the Medic has never been available to Terran in ladder play, with another unit taking their niche.  I build up another Medic and two more Marines and then start moving towards the objective. If you look at my control groups, you can see that SC2 allows you to group select buildings and hotkey them as needed. This lets me periodically swap over and queue up another batch of Marines to bolster my numbers without having to map over every time.  Moving off the road starts an event.  Good! That'll keep the Dominion off our backs. Those folks need our help, Tychus. There's no way we're leavin' 'em to rot! And our bonus for today is to help out these rebels.  Welcome aboard, boys. It's Raynor's boys! Dominion can go to hell!Walking over the marker immediately gives us control of them, netting us another 4 Marines and 3 Medics.  Plus another Barracks, two Supply Depots, and 200 minerals and gas in caches. Not a bad haul for going 10 feet out of our way!  With the free Marines, plus the reinforcements trickling in from my base, I'm now up to a healthy 21 men. That should be enough to finish the mission.  Approaching the base makes the vehicles we saw in the intro, Hellions, to advance on my army. They...  ...do anti-Light damage in an AOE line. As you can see, my army has nothing but Light units, making them tear through my marines.  If their AI was good enough to close in before attacking, they could have torched a good number of my Marines.  Just past them is a Bunker, and I had the bad luck to run into an attack wave as it was heading out.  I'm not even in the base yet, and I'm already down a third of my Marines.   The base itself has even more Hellions, backed by a bunch of Marines to take down anyone burned by the Hellions, with two Barracks a and Factory that's constantly pumping out more Marines and Hellions. And on Brutal, there's a Siege Tank tucked by the Depot on the upper right! With Marines as your only attacking unit this early in the game, your only option there is to just have enough bodies to survive long enough to close in.  After the initial push, the first priority is taking out enemy production.  The AI is actually smart enough to pull SCVs to repair! Not smart enough to grab that War Pig and Firebat to attack until one of my Marines wanders too close, however.  The first Barracks goes down.  So does the second.  And then the factory, leaving the entire base defenseless.   And done.      No Quarter - Complete "The Outlaws" mission without building additional Barracks on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jun 3, 2023 04:15
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PurpleXVI posted:Original Starcraft and Warcraft 3 was when I played most of my RTS games. Shoutout to the DBZ map that covered everything from the Saiyan saga to Buu. Also shoutout to Mass Attack maps.
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Jun 7, 2023 11:10
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Mar Sara 3: Zero Hour   Another set of things to look at before our next mission, but note the credit count in the top right. After this mission, we'll be able to spend our hard earned money. >Talk to Tychus.   Moebius? They're a legitimate research group. Why the hell are they talkin' to you? Soon as yer boy Mengsk made it illegal to trade in alien goods, they got desperate. And you know me, Jimmy -I am a great patron of the sciences.>Examine badge.  He was countin' on it. Guess my 'tough guy' reputation kept things nice and quiet 'round here. All the time I wore that badge, I never had to shoot anybody. Well where's the fun in that?>Watch news.      Anyone found in possession of these items will be dealt with to the fullest extent of the law. Look on the bright side, partner; you're a wanted man either way. Thanks, Tychus. Actually, the only civilian deaths appear to be collateral damage from overzealous Dominion Security Forc- >Examine skull.  All the scrapes we were in back in the day, all the narrow escapes... ...none of it compares to how terrible they are, Tychus. You don't know what real fear is 'till you've got a thousand of these sons of bitches barreling down on ya'.>Examine hunt photo.  It's been four years, and they're still finding burrowed dens out in the wastelands. Well, a trophy like that's gotta' fetch a good price on the black market. Up for some huntin', partner? Knock yourself out, Tychus. Me, I've hunted enough zerg for two lifetimes.Turns out the Protoss are bad at actually cleansing a planet of zerg, if there's enough survivors for there to be an annual hunting contest. >Examine freedom poster.  You really mean that, Tychus? Nah. I was just kiddin'.Also, if you look to the left, you can actually see a small thank you card made by a kid. >Start mission. Video: Zero Hour  Caution is advised - Dominion security forces may succeed in tracking the artifact to the station.Our last mission on Mar Sara is the most time-honored of RTS traditions: a timed defense mission.    Haha, japed! You thought it was a timed defense mission against terran but it was actually against zerg instead! Just like Terran 03 in SC1!    The zerg are already starting on a base, and is that... a portapotty in the back there? I sure hope no one is using it, but you gotta admit-  If it is occupied, having a swarm of zerg drop down 50 feet away from you must be the galaxy's best cure for constipation.  We're gonna have a real fight on our hands here.    We start with a decent base already built up and some resources to start us out.  The two bridges to enter the base both have one Bunker and 8 Marines on hand. Bunkers still have their innate +1 range to loaded units from SC1, and keeping a pack of four Marines safe from harm is still as good as ever.  We're also on a 20 minute timer before the mission ends. I put a squad of Marines in each Bunker, then move the excess to the far side of it. That way, the majority of damage will be on the chunky Bunker rather than letting my exposed Marines take damage.  And while the mission briefing didn't mention it, we also unlocked the good old Missile Turret.  And the Engineering Bay. Weapon and Armor upgrades are the only thing you have to research in every mission. This early on, we're limited to 1/1 which cost 100/100 each. Strangely, while all the production buildings keep the terran gimmick of being able to fly, the Bay loses it and is permanently grounded.  I send an SCV to each side to build a second Bunker. Once they're done, they'll stick around for repairs.  Shortly after, the camera is forced over to the western bridge.  A swarm of Zerglings are coming for us, but a few will take their time to destroy those neutral buildings.  They may start with 1 armor, but 8 Marines is more than enough to shred the Zerglings before they can do any serious damage.   The bonus for this mission is to save three sets of units that'll pop up at set times. They'll eventually get swarmed and die if you do nothing, but you have several minutes before that happens.  We just got attacked, so there should be enough time to go grab the first pack.  Of course, the zerg still love their burrow ambushes.  I lost two Marines making my way over.  But get five more and a free pair of caches as a reward.  Gas isn't particularly useful this early in the mission, so I only make a refinery now. The starting gas plus the cache is enough to get 1/1, and there's not much of a need for medics when the majority of combat is happening in Bunkers.  By multiple air bogeys, Tychus meant like four mutas.  Being in range of both my Missile Turrets, one Bunker, and my spare Marines means they don't survive.  I get add-ons for both my Barracks, and Zero Hour introduces the second add-on: the Reactor. The Reactor is opposite of the Tech Lab. It allows you to make units two at a time, but doesn't enable higher tech units, making you choose between quality and quantity. Right now it doesn't matter, as my only Tech Lab unit is the Medic and those don't need to be pumped out en masse.  The later groups we need to rescue will take more bodies to save, so I start building up an actual army. If you look at the minimap, you can see the zerg swarming in from the north, and the Creep starting to cover the northern edges of the map. Creep in SC2 got a bit of a buff, with non-worker zerg units getting a movement speed boost while on it. This makes a push on a zerg base more dangerous, as it takes a group of Zerglings even less time to cross the gap and start attacking.  With two Bunkers and SCVs covering on each side, the low ground is safe.  Reactor'd buildings get a tweaked queue design, and have their production cap doubled to 10 to match.  I wait a bit longer for the west side to get hit.  Then empty my Bunkers on that side and push up. There'll be more than enough time to move up, grab the second group, and head back before another attack wave hits.  Three Marines, a Medic, and another set of caches.  Attack waves are starting to get a lot more intimidating.  They also add in a new unit in front of the Hydralisk, the Roach. Roaches are significantly tankier than Hydras, but have much lower DPS and can only hit ground to compensate.  As a defense mission at the start of the game, Zero Hour has a lot of downtime. I just keep making more units.  Jimmy chimes in at the 10 minute mark.  And the final rebel group spawns in one minute later.  I grab my army and move up the west side like last time, but things already look worse. Those glowing purple things are Creep Tumors, which take the place of the old Creep Colony as a way to spread Creep. The big thing with a tentacle on top is a Spine Crawler, which replaces the Sunken Colony.  At 25 damage (+5 vs Armored) they can kill a Marine in two shots, but they're infinitely less cool than the Sunken Colony so they're automatically poo poo.  Five Marines, a Medic, and more caches. Now, I could pull back to my base right now...  But I made this army for a reason.  I start pushing into the northwest base. That big thing near the Hydras is a Nydus Worm. In player hands, it acts as a better version of the Nydus Canal. In campaigns, they're used as a way for enemies to spawn in limitless reinforcements without cheating and spawning them directly. The massive waves of Zerglings we've been seeing have been coming from Worms.  They really don't want you breaching this base.  But with 40 Marines and two Barracks constantly sending in more, they don't get a say in the matter.  If you've paid attention, you may have noticed that this is the same place shown in the mission intro, with the portapotty just past it.  Standing in front of it is a Tauren Space Marine, a nod to Blizzard's own Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain band.  Approaching him has him duck into the outhouse.  Clicking on it has it wiggle and start a countdown.  *click*  *click*  Clicking on the outhouse three time makes it uh...  Uh...  I'm sure that's the last we'll be seeing of the Tauren Marine and his rocket outhouse.  While we were gone, the zerg have been airdropping Creep Tumors behind our Bunkers. If you've been watching the minimap, you can actually see exactly when they landed!  Since we're now basically done, I can do what I wanted to do this entire time and abandon the low ground.  This also lets me show off a new ability of the Bunker. At any moment I can Salvage it, refunding me the full cost of the Bunker and letting me relocate elsewhere.  Tychus is set to say this line the moment any zerg manages to get too far into the base, regardless of whether or not I'm letting it happen on purpose.  And now I just wall off the top with Bunkers.  With 7 Bunkers firing at once, I flat out can't lose at this point. To make it even better, SC2 changed how high ground vision worked. While SC1 would allow low ground units to fire on a high ground attacker at a sharp accuracy loss, a low ground unit in SC2 physically cannot shoot over without some kind of unit granting vision, either a fellow low ground unit making it up a ramp or a flier. This means that unless there's a Zergling hugging my Bunkers, Hydras and Roaches can't chip away at my Bunkers.  Zero Hour actually loving sucks as a mission, gameplay-wise, because all that stuff you saw me do? Totally optional. There's absolutely nothing stopping me from just making a Bunker wall before the 5 minute mark and letting the rebel groups die, at which point you just snooze for the remaining 15 minutes. Design-wise it's cool as hell, watching the map slowly get overrun by Creep as night begins to fall and wave after wave of Zerg throw themselves at you, but it's just such a nothingburger of a mission. Hell, at least Terran 03 introduced Vultures and the Factory for you to play around with while you waited!  For the last three minutes, the zerg will start tossing drop pods directly into your base, which will hold either a Creep Tumor or a small batch of Zerglings.  For the last two minutes, the zerg will start an endless trickle of units that'll hit your Bunker wall and die. Even if you manage to clear out every single zerg base, they'd just start spamming Nydus Worms to try and get them through.  The only thing of note is that Spine Crawlers outrange Marines, meaning this Bunker keeps getting smacked every time it gets vision.  Take your time, Matt. No rush!There's one last notice at the one minute mark, and the lighting also starts to change to day time.  And done.  Battlecruisers in SC2 got-  -A fair bit of a glow up. Gone are the painfully slow cannon shots, now they spam lasers everywhere.   Good to see ya, Matt! Welcome to the party. Glad we made it in time, sir. Now let's get you boys outta there.  A Strong Offense - Destroy 8 Zerg Hatcheries in the "Zero Hour" mission on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jun 10, 2023 04:21
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painedforever posted:Is it possible to clear the whole map before the end? The computer will eventually cheat in units anyway, but can you clear the rest of it, and keep it clear? You can, in fact they added a set of achievements for every mission with the 10th anniversary and the one for Zero Hour is to wipe out every Hatchery on the map. There's just no point to it over making an Almighty Bunker Wall.
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Jun 10, 2023 07:01
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Rythian posted:By the way, I think you've left a dangling italics tag somewhere in the first post, BisbyWorl. It looks a bit broken with everything italicized. Thanks, fixed that.
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Jun 10, 2023 12:26
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Intermission 1 Video: Escape from Mar Sara    We may have gotten off the ground, but we're not out of the woods yet. ALL SHALL SUBMIT! DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!      Matt Horner is another side story character, but one with a bit more history. He was introduced in 2006's Queen of Blades, a former Sons of Korhal member who left with Raynor at the end of the Terran campaign and ended up as Jim's second in command. He's the boy scout of the group, the guy with a strict moral code in a band of rebels.          Hmm. I just noticed that Tychus' middle finger is noticably clipping into that.                                         Well your friend has a criminal record as long as... Mine? Believe me, if Tychus Findlay wanted me dead, I'd be dead already. Understood, sir.  We finally made it to the Hyperion! This will be our base of operations for the majority of the game. >Talk to Tychus.    Yeah - what, did you bust the zipper or something? Ok, so I might've had a little help when I broke out of prison. Let's just say it came at a price. I get to stay locked up in this suit 'til I pay off all my debts...At no point will Starcraft 2 go into the whole 'how does he shower if he's stuck in the suit 24/7,' issue. Tyranny this isn't. And who's collectin' those debts? Who sprung you? Them Moebius boys, of course. I didn't just run into them in a museum, y'know. They want them artifacts somethin' fierce.And with Mengsk pulling the strings here, it's starting to sound like he wants those artifacts, and is using Moebius as a middleman to keep Raynor from getting suspicious. Your debts better not bite us in the rear end, Tychus. Coverin' for your shenanigans ain't part of the deal.Dramatic irony! Also, you may have noticed that guy with a suspiciously unique design in the background.  A few people can be talked to even if they aren't marked, but they just get a quick line instead of a full conversation. Stetmann is someone we'll be seeing more of after the next mission. He's voiced by the same guy who does Robin in Teen Titans. Just your fun fact of the day. >Talk to Horner. Just how bad is it, Matt? Zerg are attacking all over the sector, sir. Mengsk pulled the fleet back to protect the Dominion core-worlds, leaving the fringe worlds to fend for themselves. It's a nightmare. There's no way we can stop an alien invasion with one capital ship and a handful of volunteers. 'Best we just stay clear, partner. We can earn ourselves a fortune working for Moebius while this whole thing blows over. You don't get it, convict - this isn't gonna just 'blow over'! The zerg won't stop until we're all dead!Matt frequently calls Tychus convict instead of his name, which is hella rude. Don't worry, Matt - we ain't sittin' this one out. But we're not exactly in tip top shape either. We'll earn some cash and build up our forces so we can make a difference when it counts.>Examine Mission Archives.  The Mission Archives, are... well... archives for missions. It lets you watch old cinematics and replay missions.  There are three other rooms on the ship, but two of them are locked out for a bit. >Head to Armory.     What do ya got for me, Swann? Rory Swann is another new face, but this time he's 100% new, no side stories here. He's the tech guy. He builds stuff. He has a clamp for a left arm. Not much more than that.   If take a close look at the console, you can get a sneak preview of some units we'll be getting in the future.   I've heard that before, brother. It's different this time.   Welcome to the Armory! This is where we'll be blowing the majority of our hard earned cash.  Also, you can click on James at any time to get quips like this, if the whole 'the player and Jim are one and the same' thing hasn't clicked yet. >Talk to Swann.   Read: We'll be getting a new unit with every mission. >Examine Armory Console.  Here's the real meat and potatoes of Wings. At the Armory I can buy permanent upgrades for my units.  Each unit has two upgrades, which are automatically available when we obtain them. The Marine has Stimpacks and Combat Shields (+10 life, 60K credits) while the Medic gets Advanced Medic Facilities (No longer requires a Tech Lab to build, 60K credits) and Stabilizer Medpacks. (Medic heals are faster and use less energy, 105K credits)  The Base tab, meanwhile, starts off with only Bunker upgrades, and will steadily fill out as we complete more missions. The Bunker has Projectile Accelerator and Neosteel Bunker. (+2 Bunker slots, 50K credits) There's nowhere near enough credits in the entire game to grab everything and no way to refund purchases, so you have to pick and choose what to grab. Taking every upgrade you can for bio units will make that side strong, sure, but that means you won't have a lot of cash to throw at mech units. Advanced Medic Facilities, for example, sounds nice, but there will never be a moment where you need to use a Reactor to rush out a bunch of Medics really fast so its a 60K investment that you won't get much use out of.  My haul from Mar Sara is just enough to grab Stims and Neosteel Bunker, giving me a hefty boost on both offense and defense.  With my money spent and nowhere else to check, it's time to check the next mission.  We've picked up a distress call from the planet Agria. There's a colony there under attack by the zerg. Your convict buddy Tychus lined up a mission retrieving another artifact. It's on a protoss shrine-world called Monlyth.Or missions, I should say. The mission format is one of SC2's biggest gameplay enhancements, bringing a more freeform structure and letting you pick how each campaign plays out. There are some restrictions, missions are divided into chains which has to be done in order, but clever mission routing can let you pull off stuff like taking Battlecruisers into tiny baby missions. The problem is that is heavily limits the story, as the game can't take into account every possible permutation of missions. As a result, each mission chain is effectively siloed off from each other and doing one will, at most, result in small comments in another.   ...The Dominion abandoned us here ...We're just a small farming colony. We've got to evacuate before we're overrun....If you can hear this message, please help us!We can pick between getting the good* old Firebat by helping Ariel Hanson, *May actually be worse in new and exciting ways!  Supposedly there's protoss guarding it — a group of fanatics, call themselves the Tal'darim. Now don't get all sentimental thinking these Tal'darim are your old protoss buddies... 'cause they ain't.Or go do a token TvP mission and get the entirely new Marauder. Hey, remember when I mentioned thread participation? Well here it is! You guys get to choose my mission order for the entire trilogy! 
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 07:14 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 11, 2023 03:46
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MagusofStars posted:As for upgrades, Stimpacks are a no-brainer since they're basically the defining feature of Marines. Interesting you took the Bunker personnel upgrade though. I personally never bothered to take it, since I always found that four in a Bunker was plenty when supported by SCV's and other units. Bunker slots have a dirt cheap credit cost, are useable in all but a very small handful of missions, and let you cram a lot more damage into every bunker. Depending on what mission wins the vote, I might even grab the range bonus in the next Intermission.
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Jun 11, 2023 05:10
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Koorisch posted:So i'm guessing that Matt Horner is supposed to be the Magistate stand-in from SC1 since they can't have the player character be a person? Nah Matt's entirely separate. Canonically the Magistrate hosed off shortly after Raynor took the Hyperion and has been MIA ever since.
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Jun 11, 2023 12:28
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Alright, there haven't been any new votes for the past day and change, so I'd say it's safe to call it here. We are robbing the Protoss and getting the Marauder. I have to admit I'm surprised it won over sending me to go get the Firebat. It actually held that 2 vote lead pretty much the entire time.
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Jun 13, 2023 14:11
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Artifact 1: Smash and Grab Video: Smash and Grab  Sorry, Hanson, I'm sure the colonists can hold out a bit longer while we go make some money.    Suddenly, zerg!    Them critters were just hiding underground, waitin'? Well, that sure complicates things. We can't fight two armies at once, partner...       We start the mission with 5 SCVs, a Barracks with a free Tech Lab, and three Marines backed by a Medic. You can also see that one of the vespene geysers shown in the cutscene has vanished. Turns out that the game will remove a few resources from bases on Hard and Brutal.  There are also new symbols on the minimap.  Those are Relics, and they're our bonus objective for today. From here on, bonuses will (95% of the time) give Research points, as mentioned in the mission briefing. There's no way to get any Research points you missed, so we have to make sure to grab everything in one shot.  Well here's the plan. Then we've gotta get that artifact before the zerg overrun the whole place!Smash and Grab is a mission on a soft timer. There's no hard 20 MINUTES TO FAILURE countdown on the screen, but the zerg will push through the protoss lines and reach the artifact if you wait around long enough.  Immediately after, an attack wave marches up. Stalkers are counterparts to Dragoons from SC1. They're the basic protoss ranged unit.  I ain't sure this is the best time to be experimenting, Swann. Pfft. Best time there is! Let the Marauders loose against those Stalkers and you'll see.This prompts Swann to send in our new toy.  Marauders are the tanks of terran infantry. Twice the health of a Marine, one base armor, and dealing 10 damage (+10 vs armored) lets them mop up those Stalkers with no losses. They also introduce a recurring Thing in Wings of Liberty, with missions being tailor made to showcase the unit you get from it.  Take this mission, for example. Down the bottom path, which we're intended to go through to reach the artifact, is a bunch of Stalkers and static defense, both of which are armored. This makes the Marauder the perfect choice to break through. Try to get clever and, say, push backwards to the zerg base to try and cut off the zerg assault to give yourself infinite time to clear the mission will get you swarmed by an army of Zerglings and Hydralisks, both of which aren't Armored and will swiftly overwhelm the much slower Marauder.  Also the Adjutant will occasionally remove her own face and stare at you for a few seconds. It's really creepy.  The zerg attack at the 3:30 mark.  Right now it's just a few Zerglings and a Hydra, but this is to let the player know that the zerg will occasionally hit you, so you still have to invest in a bit of base defense instead of just grabbing everyone and heading towards the artifact.  With only 5 starting SCVs and no resource caches, Smash and Grab has a painfully slow start as you build up an economy, an army, and defenses. Which is probably the point, really. It makes you sit and watch as the zerg make their own pushes while you can do nothing but watch, not knowing how much longer the Tal'darim can hold the line. Still makes the opening dull as hell, though.  Just before 7 minutes, I rally by Barracks to a random Marauder and head out.  Getting the first Relic on my way.  The protoss still have Zealots. They're not Armored, so you're encourages to slap some Marines into your army so they don't take forever to kill.  Up ahead is the dumbest possible set up for Photon Cannons, but even this is meant as a soft lesson to the player if they haven't played SC1:  Destroy a Pylon...  ...And any nearby buildings shut down.  Ahead are two more cannons with the same setup, plus two new protoss units called Sentries.  Sentries can use Force Field to place down barriers that my army can't walk through, making me wait for them to time out naturally. It gives me time to hit those Pylons and knock out those Cannons with no risk.  They can attack, but they aren't a major threat.  Up top, the Tal'darim aren't looking so hot.  We also get hit by another zerg attack wave, this time with another new unit crawling up the ramp: the Baneling.  Remember Scourge? Banelings are Scourge for the ground. They deal 80 damage against buildings, which means letting a few of them slip through can crack a bunker line like it's nothing.  This group shows off the Sentry's second ability. Guardian Shield reduces the damage of any attacks against allies within the field by 2. They also have Hallucination, but the campaign AI never uses it.  Right next to them is our second Relic, guarded by three Cannons.  Pop the first.  Hit the Pylon to knock out the other two.  Done.  Up the ramp is the Tal'darim's base. Take this out, and I can take my time before grabbing the artifact.  The defenders fall.  Quickly knock out the Pylons powering the Gateways so they can't build more units.  Then take out all the Probes and the Nexus to ensure they don't try and rebuild.  The zerg manage to take out my Missile Tower, but there's so little of the mission left that I'm not worried about rebuilding it.  The third Relic is just below the artifact. But what about the fourth Relic? The one that's been right next to my base all along?  Well I lift off my Command Center.  Load some SCVs.  And float it over. I have enough resources stockpiled that I can keep building up my army while this is happening.  And the zerg still have a ways before reaching the artifact, so I'm not pressed for time.  Then I just drop an SCV right on top of it to grab the last Relic.  Completely unintentionally, this unlocked an achievement that was added for the 10th Anniversary. Normally, you're supposed to push into the zerg lines a bit to get that Relic, taking out a few Spine Crawlers along the way. No Smash, Only Grab pops if you get all four Relics without destroying any zerg buildings.  The only thing standing between us and victory is this small pack.  ...And waiting 15 seconds for the Force Field to fade.  Standing on the marker makes a barrier pop up around the artifact.  And those giant Stone Zealots come to life.  They're beefy, have innate Detection in case you manage to bring cloaking units here, and can hit air so you can't cheese it with air units.  They only last a few seconds.  If the zerg manage to make all the way across, they have to fight their own set of Stone Zealots to give you a few more minutes before you lose.       And we get our first in-person appearance of the Queen of Blades to close us out.   No Smash, Only Grab - Gather all 4 Protoss relics without destroying a Zerg structure in the "Smash and Grab" mission on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jun 17, 2023 04:51
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Wings is the worst of the trilogy in that regard, I find. Some missions are just so blatantly designed around the unit of the day that they end up utterly useless the second they're not in their debut mission.
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Jun 17, 2023 11:32
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Intermission 2 Video: Queen of Blades     The sound of fighting is playing over all of this.            Looks like Tychus is catching up on recent history.               You should watch the video just to hear the incredulous way Tychus says this line. It's great.             Ooooor Tychus could be, I dunno, trying to read up on what's happened since he was put on ice and doesn't bother to ask before doing something? Like, I get what they're going for here, making Matt (rightfully) suspicious of Tychus to contrast Raynor's blind faith in him, but Tychus honestly hasn't done anything to warrant it so far! Hell, every penny we've made so far has been from his Moebius jobs! The only reason we, the players, know Matt's right is because we got to see the intro cinematic!  I understand your loyalty, sir, but — I owe him, Matt. Leave it be. Yes Sir.        Clearing a single mission unlocks the Mercenary system.  I'll get into exactly how they work next mission, but they're a stronger and more expensive version of a base unit. The War Pigs (which we saw back in The Outlaws) are an elite Marine with a hefty health and damage boost. The catch is that you only get so many per mission, with no way to get more if any die.  While you get the War Pigs for free, any other Merc requires a small Credit cost to buy. Firebats also have a Merc version, so you'll always have a Merc squad to buy regardless of which mission you chose to do.  The Cantina has also opened up, although the main thing it has is the Merc shop. >Talk to Tychus.   I thought it was just about the money with you, Tychus. Nothin' says I can't do my part for humanity and get paid well for my trouble. Right.>Watch news.  That's right Donny. Is it possible that the leader of the zerg has a human heart? Donny, there's never been any evidence — at all — to suggest that infested humans retain their free will.  Well at least they're not sniping at us for once. >Examine Badge.  Examine Zerg Hunter.   Over at the Armory, a Marauder has appeared. >Examine Marauder.  Not every unit will show up here, but we can get a small little lore blurb for those that do.  At the Bridge, Stetmann's still waiting for the Lab to open. >Talk to Horner.   Well, we gave her a setback today. The artifacts are obviously important to her, I just wish we knew why.That's everyone talked to, so now it's time for my favorite part of an Intermission:  Upgrades.  Marauders get Concussive Shells and Kinetic Foam (+25 life, 90K Credits).  A non-conditional AOE slow is... incredibly loving strong, so I blow most of my earnings on Concussive Shell.  Then hire the Hammer Securities for good measure.  Now, I'm sure you're wondering what that Arcade machine is all about.   They deadass put a shump minigame in their RTS.    This is normally the part where I show off everything that's in here. One tiny problem with that: Video: Lost Vikings   I loving suck at shumps.  Edit: Thanks to TeeQueue for doing a full run of Lost Vikings for us. It is 56 minutes long.  So let's just move on to the next mission, shall we?  Agria and the Firebat is still there, but now we have a new mission to replace Monlyth.   The planet Redstone's got the most valuable minerals around - an' with the zerg invasion, the Kel-Morians packed up and left it all behind. Some enterprisin' men could turn a big profit there. Meet me at Redstone if you want a piece of the action.This one starts a new mission chain. The Artifact mission chain is the only one required to beat the game, so those missions are gated behind having a number of total missions cleared. 
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jun 18, 2023 03:19
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Poil posted:Surely he was also along and present during Raynor's first visit to Char. According to Queen of Blades, Matt was left on the Hyperion while Raynor went planetside to search for Kerrigan, so he never saw her in person.
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Jun 18, 2023 13:42
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Alright, I can safely call it here. We'll be saving the colonists.
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Jun 20, 2023 14:27
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Colonists 1: The Evacuation Video: The Evacuation  Today, we'll be saving those colonists.           We start with a short no build-section.  The dropship gives us two Firebats, with two Medics to back them up.  Our goal is just to the west. The zerg will occasionally attack these Marines, but only in small numbers. You'd have to wait around for a good while for the defenders to fall.  Firebats are... bad. Really bad. Like the Marauder does their niche of dealing with crowds better than them despite being made for anti-Armored! I'll get into the main issue in their unit writeup, but the short version is that a quirk in how their attack animation works can result in significantly reduced attack speed in certain situations. Also, they lost Stims, so they can't even close the gap quickly.  Instead of heading to the base, I take a completely unmarked path through the trees.  I have zero clue how you're supposed to find this normally, this is just muscle memory for me.  But it nets us a free 200 minerals and 100 gas, so I'm not complaining.  Back on the road, I meet my first group of Zerglings.  The anti-Armored Marauders had a lot of Armored targets in their recruitment mission, so the Firebat mission will have swarms of Light Zerglings for you to fry.  There are a few caches in the fields.  One last group of Zerglings stand between us and the ramp.  And a gas cache.   If you don't know about the hidden area and miss out on the free 200 minerals, the start of this mission is rough. You have 4 SCVs, your starting army eats 8 Supply right off the bat, and you have to split your money between building an army, building SCVs, and building Depots.  From now on, every mission starts us off with a Merc Compound.  Mercenaries don't have a build time, and instead are put on a timer before you can hire a squad. It counts time from mission start, not when you first gain control of the Compound, so all that wandering in the no-build section means we don't have to wait as long for our first set.  I will not be building any Firebats, here in the Firebat mission. Marauders are the name of the game today.  About a minute after you get the base Jim shows you the escort route.  And immediately after our escort shows up.  We gotta escort them up to the escape ships over here.  They won't head out right away, though, as the colonists have to actually board the transport.  The transport heads out with two Marines and an autoturret on the APC itself, so while it isn't completely defenseless we'll still have to do most of the work.  The base itself is guarded by two turrets, but I'm fairly sure the only time the zerg actually attack your base is if they wipe out the entire escort wave, so as long as you don't screw up you don't have to invest anything into base defense.   Sorry to hear that, Doc. At least these bunkers are in a good spot, I'll see if we can't get them manned.There are a few pre-placed bunkers along the road. The idea is that you drop people in, fend off an attack wave, then pop them out and catch up to the transport. However, I'm so strapped for cash that salvaging them for the free 100 is a far better use. I'll rebuild them later.  There are more caches scattered across the map.  The other free Bunker is near the starport, except unless you intentionally run ahead to get it early the game gives it to you while it's being attacked.  Thankfully, I'm close enough to peel them off and salvage the Bunker.  And right next to the goal is our bonus objective. These are a bit more well hidden than the Relics from last time, but they're still easy to find.   With the first convoy secure, I have some time before the next one starts.   So I grab the second bonus while I wait.   Since so much time has passed, both my Mercs are off cooldown.  Two clicks instantly spawn in 8 supply worth of soldiers, all of them better than their base version. Mercenaries give you a massive power spike, for only a slight upcharge in unit costs and a dirt cheap credit cost.  Mercs also inherit any upgrades you bought for the base unit.  The second convoy heads out.  There are more caches I could search around for, but honestly money stops being an issue after the first convoy is done and you have time to fully saturate your base so there's not much point.  The only difference in this trip is that the zerg start sending larger attack waves.  Here's why Firebats are useless:  The Marauder's slow gives all my Marines more than enough time to kill them all, and my army takes zero damage in the process. Firebats have to get in close and take some hits to do the same thing.  Since I now have a good amount of minerals on hand, I start building Bunker walls at the three entrances to the road.  And head to the final bonus.   You don't have to go far to grab any of the bonuses. We're still in early game, after all.  My Bunkers walls start to take shape.  One Marauder and four Marines is pretty much what every Bunker will get. The Marauder will keep the enemy slowed, giving the Marines time to kill them.  Space is actually fairly limited in the base, so I have to spread out to get enough Depots down.  And the third APC heads out.  The Bunkers do their thing.  Some Mutas come in.  And the APC gets through.  And now, I show off something foolish.  If you push far enough down a side path, you run into creep. Creep means a zerg base is nearby.  This is not Zero Hour.  Do not attempt to breach the zerg base, as they will happily send Ultralisks at you. With their basic attacks now having AoE (which shreds Marines) and a bonus vs Armored (which hits Marauders and Firebats) they hard counter everything we have right now.  I lose a few guys getting out, but eh, I'm not exactly hurting for funds. Matt's warning means that the zerg will start throwing drop pods at future convoys, so I can't just block off the three entrances and call it good.  More mercenaries. More.  The second entrance is plugged.  Five waves is honestly too long. A lot of the mission is just waiting for the zerg to attack, and even then they're easy to fend off. I honestly would have slimmed number of waves to 3 or so, then amp up how many zerg come at each transport.  Some drop pods hit.  The mission actually takes so long that I start mining out.  Banelings start joining attack waves at this point, which would be rough if I didn't have Marauders on hand to trivialize them. This is actually a nice example about how clever mission order can help things out. Firebats in Smash and Grab? Useless, the only Light targets on your path are Zealots, while Stalkers and Photon Cannons would tear through them as they slowly walked up. Marauders in The Evacuation? Extremely good thanks to Concussive Shells.  I'd like to take a moment and watch the colonists board the escape ships.  The APC is several times larger than the entrance.  Yet it fits anyways.  Wonderful, it's just like them to keep things nice and interestin'.And now the zerg will pop out Nydus Worms.  Just like with Zero Hour, the time of day passes as the mission progresses. They really liked that trick.  And the last APC heads out.  A Worm will pop out near each entrance, and will spawn an endless stream of zerg until you kill it.  The problem is that the first is within easy shooting range for your army, so it dies instantly.   The next two spawn in range of my Bunkers and die instantly.  And the last spawns right next to my army, so it dies instantly.  And done.       The Great Purge - Destroy all Zerg Structures in the "The Evacuation" mission on Normal difficulty. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:45 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jun 24, 2023 05:01
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Phelddagrif posted:Really the thing that makes Firebats unplayable is the time it takes them at actually start attacking. This is easily seen when you send a Firebat and a bunch of Marines at a pack of Zerglings. By the time the Firebat has chosen its target and gotten ready to attack, the Marines have already killed the ling. So the Firebat chooses a new target, resets its animation, and gets ready to attack, and then that ling is dead. Since you brought it up, I'll give a sneak peek at the Firebat overview:  they're so god drat bad
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Jun 24, 2023 18:27
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Intermission 3          No long cutscene today, just a quick introduction for Hanson before we're set loose. Note the top left, which will mark any new mercs and research options (speaking of, the Lab is open now!) between missions, since those aren't guaranteed. >Watch news.       >Talk to Tychus.   Yeah? Who might that be? Oh I dunno, some white knight kinda guy, came charging down to save her colony, maybe? drat, Jimmy - you never could read the ladies.>Check Mercenaries.  Like I said before, Firebats also get a Merc variant so you always have one to buy after your first mission. We will not be getting the Devil Dogs. >Head to Bridge.  Horner reminds you to check the Lab the moment you enter the Bridge.  And then immediately follows up with a second reminder. >Head to Laboratory. Fiiiiiiiiiiine. If you insist.    And does it have anything to do with the fleshy sac you have floating in a tube?  Well I'm all for that. What do you need?    The Lab is the final area of the Hyperion, and is where we'll be using those Research points we've been getting from missions. >Examine Artifact.   Just spit it out, son. Well, sir — when the second piece was added? The ambient containment field spiked drastically. Hm, I know. If we add any more pieces, we'll need to draw even more power from the ship's fusion core to maintain the field. >Examine Protoss Tank.  The research tanks are just for brief notes. >Examine Zerg tank.  And now... >Examine Research Console.  Welcome to the Research console, the third and final form of customization in Wings. Every interval of 5 research we get from missions nets us powerful upgrades we can choose from. We only got 3 zerg research from the last mission, so the game cheats and gives us a small boost so we have something to pick from here.  With 5 zerg points, we can choose between Shrike Turrets to focus more on damage...  ...or Fortified Bunker, giving them far more durability. The main problem with Research is that a number of their upgrades sound even, but digging deeper shows that some of them are far, far worse than their counterparts. Take the Shrike Turret, for example. It deals 6 damage with 5 range and an attack speed of 0.86, exactly the same as a Marine. At a glance, this sounds really good, it's effectively a 7th slot for your Bunker! Except it has the same stats as an unupgraded Marine, and doesn't scale with infantry upgrades. That's fine in the early game, but once the enemy is allowed to hit 3/3 suddenly the Shrike needs 12 shots to kill a single Zergling, and anything with any amount of innate armor might as well be immune to it entirely.  Fortified Bunkers, meanwhile, boost Bunkers to a hefty 550 HP a pop and will be helpful forever.  >Head to Bridge.  >Talk to Horner.   Every time we help folks in need it's another step on the road to a better future. I know, Matt - but it's been four years and we're still no closer to bringing Mengsk down. Now with the zerg back in the mix... Your better future needs to hurry up an' get here or there's gonna be no one left to see it.>Talk to Hanson.   Doesn't seem like the Emperor cares at all. My people from Agria, and displaced populations from across the sector, have all fled to a refugee staging area on Meinhoff. There are reports of violence and disease spreading throughout the camps, but the Emperor's done nothing! I'll look into it, Doc.>Head to Armory.  The Firebat's here! He won't be going anywhere else! >Examine Firebat.  >Check Armory Console.  Firebats get Incinerator Gauntlets and Juggernaut Plating. (+2 armor, 85K credits)  As I'm not using the Firebat ever again, now's a perfect time to grab those Stabilizer Medpacks. >Head to Bridge.  >Check Star Map. The planet Redstone's got the most valuable minerals around - an' with the zerg invasion, the Kel-Morians packed up and left it all behind. Some enterprisin' men could turn a big profit there. Meet me at Redstone if you want a piece of the action.We still have Redstone available.  But with so many people in close proximity, an epidemic of some kind has started sweeping through the camps. Please - my people need help! We've got to do something before it's too late!But, uh, I think those reports of violence and disease on Meinhoff may have been a liiiiiiiiiitle understated. 
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jun 30, 2023 |
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Jun 25, 2023 03:27
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Unit Spotlight: Marine Overview:
Armory Upgrades:  Stimpacks
This frenzied burst does come at the expense of the Marine's health. Medical treatment is highly advisable after multiple uses. Stims are a massive boost to damage that doesn't need to be researched at the start of every mission, you always have Medics on hand to patch people up, and it has a dirt cheap credit cost. The only time you shouldn't buy Stim is if you're doing some kind of gimmicky Marine-less challenge run.  Combat Shield
A small, yet surprisingly potent buff. Marines are squishy, so an ~18% boost to health gives them a lot more staying power. (Spine Crawlers go from killing in two hits to killing in three, as an early example.) It isn't mandatory like Stim, but definitely worth grabbing when you have some credits to spare. Mercenary: War Pigs  War Pig mercenaries are well known for both their ruthless combat efficiency as well as their heavy drinking and barroom brawls. Their upgraded equipment and thousands of hours of combat experience make them well worth all the trouble they cause when they are off duty.
Field Manual Artwork  
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:30 on Jun 28, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 16:51
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Kith posted:That's Nova. Many of the game's doodads imply that she dances in her off-time.  of loving course. Kith posted:Fun Fact #2: This is not the War Pig used in the Wings of Liberty Campaign. That's actually the XP Reward model, granted to players who reach certain levels in Multiplayer. The model featured in Wings of Liberty has crunchier textures and a Samus-inspired visor: And that one's on me, since I just grabbed the first model image I saw on the wiki. I'll fix it in a bit.
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Jun 28, 2023 11:04
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Alright, calling it here. We're going to Meinhoff. Also, thanks to Kith for sending me a link to the Starcraft Field Manual. Art from that will be added in to the unit spotlights.
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Jun 28, 2023 15:38
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Unit Spotlight: Medic Overview:
Abilities:  Heal
Armory Upgrades:  Advanced Medic Facilities
Eh. You never need to make so many Medics in a hurry that you'll need to Reactor them out, and you still need Tech Labs anyways to make all the other Barracks units. Plus, there's a potential late game upgrade that can render this almost entirely redundant, leaving you down 60K credits with no hope of a refund. Skip.  Stabilizer Medpacks
This, on the other hand, is a must pick for any bio comp. The only thing a Medic can do is heal, so making their heals even better is a no brainer. 105K is a steep cost, but well worth it. Field Manual Artwork 
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Jun 28, 2023 15:43
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Kith posted:Being out of Supply so you can't build more Marines and Medics. That's when you send your SCVs to mine from the enemy base to free up supply for more marines and medics.
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Jun 29, 2023 09:36
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Colonists 2: Outbreak Video: Outbreak  If you've played co-op at all, you'll find the core of this mission burned into your very soul.     It's a zerg virus. All we can do is burn it out. But... where are all the people?         We start off with a fairly well off base, with a free Refinery, two Barracks, and four Depots.  We also have a small force of two Firebats, three Marines, and two Medics at each entrance to the base, I move to get a Bunker up for each group before sundown.   Plus make a Tech Lab so I can get some Marauders out for the AoE slow.  The Adjutant is nice and gives you a warning every day.    I need my SCVs on minerals while I get my economy going, so instead of sending one to each side for repairs I instead I put a Firebat on Hold Position in front of the Bunker. That way, a good chunk of incoming damage will on them, which my two Medics can keep topped off with no trouble. Now, you may have noticed those red dots on the map.  That's thanks to the handy dandy Sensor Tower this mission also unlocks! Any enemy in range is automatically marked.  They only show as a red ! while you don't have vision, but that's still good enough as an early warning system.  And it begins.  The Bunkers will pretty much be firing non-stop for the entire night. Infested Terran themselves have ditched the suicide bomb gimmick and instead just slap at you.  My defenses are good enough for night 1, so all I can really do is get my resources saturated.  This is the one time Firebats are useful, as there are just so many enemies around that there's a good chance they can actually attack.  With a bit under 1:30 left on the clock, we get our new toy.  Three Hellions, which we saw back during Liberation Day.  Plus a free Factory to make more! The strange thing is that campaign Hellions get a completely unmentioned buff over their MP versions. They have an extra 10 HP, and their attack has gone from 8+6 to 10+8.  Jim chimes in at 30 seconds.  Infested Terrans have 35 health, so two shots from a Hellion can kill large numbers of them at a time.  And whatever Infested left standing burn in about 2 seconds after sunrise.  There's zero pressure on your base during the day, so I can unload everyone and roll my army across the map.  The goal here is to go all over the map and wipe out as many buildings as possible during the day, then fall back at night to defend. The Hellion moves fast, and every building on the map is flagged as Light so they can kill them quickly.  Unlike its future co-op counterpart, Outbreak has minimal defenses while you're actually clearing. The buildings spawn a handful of Broodlings on death (forgot to mention that, larger zerg buildings now spawn Broodlings on death) and there's a couple of Spine Crawlers dotted about the map, but for the most part you can just hit F2 and attack-move across the minimap without issue.  Each time you clear a batch of buildings, Hanson chimes in to let you know you can move on.  So I keep moving.  Keep building.  Remake my Bunker wall.   And finish one last section just a few seconds before dark.   Sir, if you kill one of those creatures, Stetmann can study it and perhaps learn something.Naturally, the bonus objective demands that you intentionally head out at night.  Now that most of the top left has been cleared, there's less pressure on the northern side. The catch is that the spawn rate of the infested buildings ramp up as you kill more, so the other side will be hit harder.  Night 2 starts to spawn in Infested Marines, which will chip away at you from a distance and stop you from simply loading all your Bunkers with Firebats.  For whatever reason, the map partially reveals where the Infestors spawned in at. This will be helpful in a bit.  There's this suspiciously breakable debris near the back of my base.  So I use my cunning knowledge to pre-emptively wall it off for later.  oh god what the gently caress this shouldn't happen tonight  poo poo poo poo poo poo poo poo  Okay the Hellions can keep this secure crisis averted.  What is that...thing!? Was it human?The game makes a point to mark the first Aberration you see. They're big, they're slappy, they should not be here tonight.  Since I pulled everyone things up top have gotten a bit hectic.  Good thing I only had a few seconds left!  Now, you'd think I'd be unable to grab the bonus right now.  You would be wrong.  While my army does its thing, I build a Turret near the two spots revealed on the map last night.  Since the Infestors just... burrow during the day. Any form of detection will let you snipe them with zero fuss.   While my Hellions zoom across the map to hit the second, my infantry keep pushing south.  Toasty.  With half the map cleared, I pull back for another night.  Since the south is already open and we've already seen Aberrations, there's nothing new that can show up. So...  Skip!    Clear out the top right.  Finish up the middle right.  The bottom right is the most heavily defended. By which I mean it has two Spines Crawlers right next to each other.  I only have a few buildings left, so I decide to finish it here instead of dragging it out another night.  Once you're down to your last 10 buildings, anything left will get flagged on the map in case you missed one somewhere.   As an extra incentive to stay at base, infested buildings constantly spawn large groups of enemies when you attack them at night.  But since I have a nearly maxed army it doesn't matter so much.  Since I have Literally No Defenses right now, I float my base and send it away as a precaution in case the infested have enough time to break in.   And done.       23 Minutes Later - Complete the "Outbreak" mission on Normal difficulty before the 4th night. BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 04:47 on Feb 5, 2024 |
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Jul 1, 2023 04:35
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PurpleXVI posted:Does sticking them into bunkers skip over the Firebats' wind-up animation before attacking or are they still slow to actually target stuff? It skips their animation, but at the same time you also want Marauders in bunkers to slap anything in range with a slow, so Firebats have to wait even longer before they can start attacking.
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Jul 1, 2023 10:35
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Kith posted:Speaking of Co-op, will you be covering that at all? Technically most of it is canon. Kinda. I am planning on doing a side series further down the line, starting in Heart of the Swarm. I want to wait till any tricks a commander might have has been seen in the campaign, since I can't really go 'This is so-and-so's Battlecruiser, it has x, y, and z over a normal BC' when we haven't seen BCs yet.
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Jul 1, 2023 11:57
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LLSix posted:Sometimes you had your hellions in their own group. Other times they were grouped up with the bioball. I understand splitting them up, it lets you cover more ground. Why'd you combine them? I split them up to hit both Infestors in the same day, the rest of the time I was just hitting F2.
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Jul 1, 2023 15:46
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Intermission 4       I'll be honest, I don't like Donny and Kate's whole gimmick. It's a one note joke about Kate starting to tell the truth and instantly being cut off but, like, media control is Tyranny 101 and Kate has almost praised the Raiders or slammed the Dominion several times by now. Mengsk should have had her unpersoned and replaced with someone more willing to say what he wants, and just letting this go on makes him look incompetent.   Today is fairly dead, all things considered. Hellions don't have any Merc version.  We haven't hit any new Research breakpoints.  And Hellions don't even show up in the Armory.  All we have are a few convos and a small scene that starts up the moment we enter the Bridge.    How could you even suggest that? They're perfectly healthy! I hope so, Ariel. The protoss don't mess around when it comes to infestation. Just in case, maybe you should start looking into some kind of cure for the zerg virus. Conventional wisdom says a cure is impossible — the virus mutates too fast. But I'll look into it. Just do what you can. That's all anyone's askin'.I'd just like to point out that Hanson is looking into a cure for zerg infestation in a lab that, in her own words, has medieval facilities and non-existent knowledge.  >Talk to Horner.   If any of Dr. Hanson's people on Haven are infested... I know — it's just a matter of time before the protoss come looking for them. Still, I have a history with the protoss. If it comes to that, maybe I can talk 'em down.>Talk to Hanson.   >Talk to Swann.   Ah hell, we were stupid. Havin' right on your side ain't no match for gauss guns and combat walkers. Lotta' folks died for nothin'. If you hadn't shown up when you did... Hey, your people bought their own freedom - paid for it in blood. Me and Matt, we were just glad to help.>Check Armory Console.  On top of the usual upgrades for our new unit, we've also done enough missions to unlock something new in the Base tab.  Hellions get Twin-Linked Flamethrower and Thermite Filaments. (deals an additional +10 damage vs Light, 60K credits)  While our new base option is for the Missile Turret, which gets Titanium Housing and Hellstorm Batteries. (turrets get a second attack that deals area damage, 80K credits)  I grab none of those, and instead opt to get the other upgrade for Bunkers and Marines.   There's a small wait before the next Colonist mission opens up, so instead we have to choose between Tosh's mission.  If we intercept the trains and liberate their contents before they can be shipped off-world, we could make a serious profit.Or heading back to good old Tarsonis for a little blast from the past. 
BisbyWorl fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jul 7, 2023 |
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Jul 2, 2023 03:31
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Synastren posted:I've played multiplayer fairly regularly for a decade (oof), and even ran (run?) the SA SC2 clan; if you'd like some multiplayer unit ~strategies~ or breakdowns, let me know. It's worth mentioning, though, that with each expansion, multiplayer shifted pretty dramatically, as there were occasionally some massive changes to units, introductions of new units, or a fundamental change in the gamestate at the beginning of the game. And probably half of the units in any campaign are relegated to single player. And there are significant changes to units between their SP/MP versions--marauders now shoot two projectiles at a time in multiplayer, which means that they are marginally less effective against armored units and less weak to unarmored ones. Yeah that's the major reason I'm not bothering with going over how units fare in multi like the SC1 LP. Like the Hellion alone has major number differences going from Wings to Wings MP, gets a massive overhaul in HotS, and gets further changes in LotV. All the while other units are being added or tweaked which can all influence mech compositions. I'd either have to thoroughly research the life of a Hellion from day 1 of SC2, or cover just the modern era and talk about a unit that's completely different to what you see in the campaign. And that's for a unit that was mostly the same as their MP counterpart! By the time we hit LotV, every unit will have drastic upgrades and changes over MP so there'd be no real way to do an MP writeup. It just isn't worth the effort, really.
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Jul 2, 2023 05:41
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Unit Spotlight: Marauder Overview:
Armory Upgrades:  Concussive Shells
Concussive Shells make Marauders a great support unit against melee units, in addition to their traditional role of destroying armored targets. Frankly, the anti-Armor is nice, but Concussive Shells is what makes a mixed Marine-Marauder army so deadly. See, the thing about melee units is that until they can physically reach your army, they have effectively 0 DPS. A Zergling could do 1 damage a hit, it could do a million billion damage, it means absolutely nothing until it can cross the gap and start attacking. Throw in a few Marauders, with their 50%, area slow, and every melee enemy in the game takes twice as long to become a threat, letting you thin out approaching attacks and reduce the damage you take. Any high threat ranged units which don't care about slows tend to be Armored, which the Marauder already deals with. Grab this, throw a handful of Marauders in every army from here on out, laugh anything from Zerglings or Zealots all the way to Ultralisks and Archons become complete non-threats.  Kinetic Foam
A decent boost to survivability, but 90K credits is a bit of a steep cost for a unit that has respectable bulk out the box. Grab it if you can swing the cash, but don't be afraid to save it for other units. Mercenary: Hammer Security  A private security firm based in the Kel-Morian Combine. H-Sec provides corporate security, and often finds itself at odds with the Dominion.
Field Manual Artwork 
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Jul 3, 2023 14:25
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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. The really hosed up thing is that Raynor had a son who was psionic, got nabbed by the Confederacy, and died in a Ghost training accident. This never, ever comes up in game. Calax posted:The only other books I remember are "Speed of Darkness" from Tracy Hickman (one of the writers behind ye-olde dragonlance). Not great. I remember giving it a few tries before tossing it aside. The other is "I, Mengsk" which I've heard good things of, but didn't read. I think it was written in the run up to Starcraft 2 coming out. That one is written by the Black Libraries Graham McNeil. I, Mengsk is funny as hell because you get to see a teenaged Mengsk get duped by an army recruiter, and also Valerian trains under an honest to god Japanese sensei.
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Jul 4, 2023 03:13
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Cythereal posted:Because he's an awful racist stereotype and I, for one, have been actively voting to delay him joining as long as possible. Funnily enough, you did actually make a difference last time!  Unfortunately, there's a bit too big of a gap this time. We are heading to Redstone.
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Jul 5, 2023 14:13
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Unit Spotlight: Firebat
Right off the bat, they cost twice as many minerals and supply than they did in SC1. They attack slower. They lost access to Stimpacks. They have competition for Armored infantry in Marauders. But remember when I said that Firebats can attack far slower than their stats implied? I'll have to get into the nitty gritty for this.  Behold: A normal Firebat attack. Looks just fine, right? Well, not quite. If you take a closer look...  There, that brief moment where one Firebat sorta 'snaps' to a new target? That dooms the Firebat, even if they had all the stats in the world. See, the Firebat's attack can be broken down into a few parts. First they aim, then they wait, then they fire. If the enemy they target dies during during those first two steps, the Firebat is forced to aquire a new target and reset their attack animation. If you have, say, a bunch of Marines on hand to pour on some damage, well...  You end up with any Firebats constantly cutting their own attack to retarget, making their effective attack speed drop like a rock. This means that Firebats are complete garbage at dealing with swarms of low HP enemies, as it just gives them more targets to reset on. Which, you know, makes them useless at their entire loving niche. Now, you could, in theory, stuff a Firebat in a Bunker to completely skip over their attack animation and actually be able to do something. Except Marauders exist, and combining Concussive Shells with Firebats means the majority of that extra time needed for an enemy to get close will be effectively wasted as they slowly inch into range. Armory Upgrades:  Incinerator Gauntlets
Oh great, now your Firebats can hit a few more guys the 1-2 times they manage to attack in a fight.  Juggernaut Plating
And they can take more punishment while anything and everything is allowed to beat on them! Provided they're able to attack and draw aggro, that is. Mercenary: Devil Dogs  These ex-Confederate firebats have fought on dozens of worlds over the last four years. They don't care about causes, only cash.
However, this involves burning 110K credits on Firebats. Spend your money literally anywhere else. Field Manual Artwork 
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Jul 5, 2023 15:23
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