Greets to whole Starcraft community I'm just a common Starcraft player, but player who have played SC a lot since The Beginning. I would like to comment current Terran units projects (mainly from purpose and gameplay point of view) and share my ideas with You. Infantry: SCV - in general, terrans have as good resource unit as it possible, quite tough and with repair ability. However, AI of worker units should be improved (return to resource field after finishing structure, or 'watch & auto-repair' button). Also i would change drill back to old, good, fusion cutter (which will benefit this time from infantry weapons upgrade Idea: How about making Thor an upgrade of SCV? You need an assistance of another SCV to change it to THOR. On the other hand, making it from scratch is good, too Marine - i've read that many people are disapointed about new additions to Marines. First, bayonet looks weird and unserious, and even doesn't work at all. Isn't plain gauss gun better (lighter)? Second, shields are quite odd too. Terran forces in open combat situation always attack from a distance. I think that solution maybe found in SC, where you might cast Defensive Matrix on you Marines. Idea: Defense Matrix Personal Generator - late-game upgrade. Allows Marine to cast SC1-like Defensive Matrix on himself. Personal Defense Matrix has shorter duration and weaker defense than original Matrix (or is balanced in other way). I think that our Proud Space Marines deserve such thing to allow them to survive on battlefield when it gets hotter. Call Drop-pods - IMHO right for calling backup belongs to these who fight in first line, i.e. to Marines NOT Ghosts. It just fits better here. Reaper/Firebat - Firebat is one of the most charming and favourite SC1 units. It's a pity that he is practically useless. Fending off Zerglings and nice dealing with protoss shields is not enough. Short range, ground compulsive attack only, made it very weak unit. On the other hand, Reaper may jump, is quite quick, and as raider it fits nice in bigger picture of terran forces. There are three possibilites how to solve this problem: - keep Reaper, throw out Firebat (Firebat, I would miss u - give Reepers flame throwers. Why? They are most hardened, violent, bloodthirsty criminals that terran worlds ever born. They would use the biggest bad gun they can carry. I doubt that current small gauss-toy will satisfy such guys. So give them real weapon = flamethrowers and everything will be ok, especially that terrans have enough air & ground attack units. - keep Reaper. Keep also Firebat, but turn him into Demolition Specialist. Base double-flame thrower attack remains, but change it characteristic from compulsive to normal, or allow it to burn buildings better. Idea: Plant Explosives - upgrade will give them an ability to plant high explosives on target enemy structure (about 100 damage, dealt with proper delay and cooldown). I know that Reaper already possess more practical ("sticky") D-8 Charges, so giving it to firebat instead can make two units suck... any other ideas? Medic - well, i can't imagine terran infantry without medics right now... I hope that Blizzard would bring them us back. Auto heal and then restoration for removing negative effects are vital abilities. Third was Blinding flare which was quite unusable. So how about this... Idea: Channel energy - medic may use this ability to transfer 50 units of her energy to target allied 'caster' unit. It may boost and support greatly your spec-ops. Ghost - this guy is just great. And he got now Snipe, ability which everyone had felt lack in SC1. With classic Cloak it would make ghost very good unit. It may also lock targets for nukes and call drop-podes. People gossip also about emp-attack or lockdown. Let's discuss it. Cloak - he's Special Agent. This camouflage uses energy to activate (25) and to sustain it. IMHO obligatory. There's also idea of 'blend in'-natural ghost camouflage, but don't you think it'll overlap? Snipe - he's Sniper. As I wrote, ability to 'one shot, one kill' infantry, makes great 'feel' of that creature. It doesn't use energy. GOOD. BTW Someone can tell me that Ghost's rifle has silencer? Nuclear Attack - Special Agent again. While not game breaking, Nuke has nice tactical potential and became iconic for terrans. Obligatory. And don't uses energy. BTW Shouldn't Nuke cast irradiate at ground zero after explosion? All above is sure, but there's one more ability to pick (suggesting something using psi energy): Lockdown - he's Engineer Lockdown was sometimes even ten times better than nuke Therefore many people had complain about it. Y'know, couple of ghosts could take down half of BCs/Carriers squadron with ease. Well, I think that Ghost shouldn't be an engineer and anti-mechanical ability should belong to another terran unit. Drop-pod Call - he's Commander. Ability maybe not crushing like nuke, but quite useful ability, then again, it looks better in Marine's arsenal (it calls Marines anyway.) Distraction - will allow Ghost to create illusion of himself (like HT's Hallucination) to distract enemies for 75-125 energy. Ghost is Psionic in first place... With toughness around 45 HP was ok, but Ghost should have far better speed than normal infantry (agility) and greater sight (psi awareness) Vehicles: Cobra - whatever Blizzard will do, it'll be better than Vulture anyway It was generally weak unit, only Spider Mines were pretty damn good (thrust me, there's nothing more funny than view of dragon trying to run away from Spider Mine Nowadays, Banshee took role of Spider Mines, so Vulture had to be tweaked. Electrical, both vs air & ground attack while very-fast-moving is all about freakin' terran mobility. Additional bonus against armoured units, makes it so good in late game, that it doesn't need any other special abilites. Love it. Viking - altough Goliath was more coherent, Viking has also few nice features. Ability to act as ground or flying unit by your will, creates great tactical tool in hands of every terran commander. It really reminds old, good wraith in working (transform is also some kind of evasion from non-versatile enemy units). Properly used, may frustrate your op' through continuous raider attacks. Doesnt's sucks vs ground like wraith and has far better movement than goliath. On the other hand, when it engages in battle, it is always responded. Anyway, very good idea. Siege Tank - main ground terran force. It is so good in its role, that it really don't need any new abilities, maybe, little HP or sight 'facelifting'. And no, giving it G2A Missile Racks isn't good idea. It'll make them too strong, even if the it'll be weak attack (and in this case people will complain it's too weak - so no air defense = no problem). The only thing that may be introduced is option to ATTACK THE GROUND (not units) to lay fire, (to take enemy attention and allow allied units pass nearby, or shoot blind FoW). Thor - fundamental concept is great - to build unit from scratch, using SCV (reason they're named construction vehicles). Form of unit - gargantuan mechwarrior is ok. It's role? Ultimate Assault Weapon System. It's so big that imho it may be slow, single unit killer - devastating large units, but having problems with mass of weaker and more agile units. It won't overlap with Siege Tank (which work nice in groups, well against large amounts of units due to explosive attack) and Battlecruiser (flying, fleet 'core' unit). It deals HUGE amount of damage to single unit (not splash or explosive, structures resist better his attacks) and has slow cooldown... It may fit in role of bulky, durable unit (800-1000 HP), freelancing in greater assaults (taking attention of BIG enemy units). You may build any number of THORs but its expensive. Crafts: Banshee - invisible bomber, wait a sec... where i have seen that? Of course, bunch of wraiths could inflict nice quantities of damage to air units, even without a scathe, but their A2G attack always sucked. It looks that Banshee will be far more useful, taking care about enemy ground forces (suprising like spider mines), workers and buildings, becoming intimidating like lurker. Now it'll need some escort but vikings and predators are awaking your orders. Predator - it looks like descendant of Valkyrie, however, it's visage is interesting and bringing cloak to mind... Especially with lack of wraiths, it may fulfill role of surprise-attack airfighter, able to decimate numerous hordes of mutalisks... but two units already has Cloak (while in SC 1, had it Ghost, Wraith and Spider Mine...) Terrans are more vicious and cunning these days, so... nobody knows. Battlecruiser - BC wasn't heavily fixed. It really didn't need to. It's just good to see Laser BATTERY instead of Laser CANNON from SC1 (which looked little ridiculously). Plasma Torpedoes work in similar fashion to Yamato Cannon, which was also preserved. I'm curious how Blizzard will solve Plasma Torpedoes OR Yamato Cannon BCs versions problem. Dropship - Analogical units have secondary abilities. Does dropship need any? Well... not. Terran units are quite small. Ability to load and unload whole cargo at once and greater speed are enough. However, infantry enthusiasts may think about: Rescue Pods - to save percentage amount of infantry units from crash. Some kind of parachuting (so it even don't need to stop to drop infantry). (exchanging Drop-pods?) Nomad - descendant of Science Vessel... it's still detector. I can see three interesting abilities to implement here: - Solar Blast - which would blind temporarily ALL units in around. - Electrical Storm - removes energy and shields of ALL units around, Nomad is affected. - Irradiate - already known anti-zerg spell from SC1 One word about buildings. I dislike idea of making structures with addons unmovable. They could abandon add-on and lift like it was in SC1. Large number of add-on also makes playing terrans li'l too complex. You need to build many factories of the same type, with various addons - it'll need too much place. Similar problem is with Terran Defense (terrans always were defensive in nature...) - Sensor Tower, Bunker with Marines and Missile Turret are equal to one Phase Cannon (which can also move). It isn't balanced at all.
i like the idea of giving the marines personal defensive matrix upgrades rather than shields. it should be a late game upgrade and can only be use once, think of masterchief from halo. he has shield! yah give them like that device he got in the inro trailer of halo 3, after throwing in on the ground it created a force field...shield etc. yes something like that.
Excuse me, but the predator doesn't have cloak, but has a point defence laser system that destroys enemy projectiles. However, the other ideas are great.
I like the idea of the drills replacing the fusion cutter. The fusion cutter seemed way to generic for a science fiction game, and it's not like the drill and clamp are useless or even ineffective. They are still able to be used for harvesting minerals, constructing buildings and attacking (not that the SCV should attack!).
drilling holes for bolts and whatnot, it can be a fusion cutter at the tip. I kinda like the defensive matrix for marines, but its too much "real money" for a simple marine to be equiped with such high tech armor. A shield is just a chunk of metal and gives a more consisten solid HP upgrade, that can be utilized with the use of medics more than a timed defensive matrix, plus the shield upgrade is early game, when you need stronger marines, late game you might want to switch to vikings,tanks, thors and whatnot.
There is already a thread on the SCV, something like "the SCV in SC2 looks really crap" which is a stupid name because it actually looks good, it's just that the guy who made the thread didn't like the look of the new ones. The defensive matrix won't work too well, as DKutrovsky said, it is too much high tech technology for every single one of the Marines to have.
Even though most of it had already been talked to death, I think you deserve a power up just for the sheet of text you typed. Too bad I can´t power up ´till i reach the 40 posts limit .
Terran Infantry Armor, CMC - 300 (or one of its many descendants) is POWERED, only it isn't shown in game via 'energy bar'. Look, whatever Marine will do, it's supported by his armour: walking, running, carrying heavy objects, targeting, shooting - everything. It has even gyroscope to keep it's user vertically. It's powered from nuclear microreactors, and fuel needn't to be changed for many, many years. It's 'high technology' already. I think that addition of Defensive Matrix Power Generators to CMCs would alllow to use Marine as support unit during late game too - using only mass of 'metal' doesn't work in REAL.. Anyway, thanks for replies and support
Ouch.... Encyclopedic knowledge alert. Nah, just kidding, but you are right. The Marines actions are strengthened by its armor supporting that action. Otherwise they would just be like those Civilians from StarCraft1, but they'd have guns. They'd all be ripped apart/tired out in an instant if they didn't have their armor. I don't think there is need for an additional Defensive Matrix, the Nomad/Science Vessel or whatever can already cast it in the first place, but there are more important units to cast it on.
Well, I've seen that as a nice solution to Bayonet & Gothic Shield Combo However, in SC1, on small, low resorces maps, it was a way to win. When minerals ran out, you could gather/build few Science Vessels (they didn't need too much minerals), unload your Marines (around 12-18) from Bunkers, cast Defensive Matrix and raided enemy base. Counter it as a zerg
Sorry for chain posting... but it's another thing to solve. Point defence systems are usually used by slooow air units (like Battle Cruiser) because they can't outmanuever missiles. I would be glad to see BC with Point Defences (& Yamato) and Predator with Plasma Torpedoes instead.
You can use the edit button in the top right corner of your message. Also, as the Predator is purely an anti air unit, it shouldn´t have an ability that allows it to attack ground units, and I think the intercept mode or whatever fits the Predator perfectly. Of course the "real" battle cruisers have point defense systems, but in the game it would be too OP for one unit to have so many abilities, allowing even small battle cruiser fleets to rule over the map.
i think the battlecruiser should be able to fire while moving, it is realistic and it isnt overpowered because they are so slow
If you had read the Halo Novel, it said the shield technologie was a modification of a stolen jackel's shield, and the the convenant stealed it from the forerunner so it is no way humain invention.
"Marine - i've read that many people are disapointed about new additions to Marines. First, bayonet looks weird and unserious, and even doesn't work at all. Isn't plain gauss gun better (lighter)? Second, shields are quite odd too. Terran forces in open combat situation always attack from a distance." Yes they do ideally attack from a distance but that is not always the case. A bayonet is useful if the enemy closes the distance or (in real life) if you run out of ammo. And a shield can help protect against both ranged and melee attacks. "I dislike idea of making structures with addons unmovable. They could abandon add-on and lift like it was in SC1. Large number of add-on also makes playing terrans li'l too complex. You need to build many factories of the same type, with various addons " Unless there has been a change you can move them, just watch the terran demo. And deciding which addon to build is part of the stategy. Do you crank out a lot of base units or build high tech units at a slower rate. Later in the game when you have multiple bases you can have both. "Terran Infantry Armor, CMC - 300 (or one of its many descendants) is POWERED, only it isn't shown in game via 'energy bar'. Look, whatever Marine will do, it's supported by his armour: walking, running, carrying heavy objects, targeting, shooting - everything. It has even gyroscope to keep it's user vertically. It's powered from nuclear microreactors, and fuel needn't to be changed for many, many years. It's 'high technology' already." Maybe but giving them energy shields would make them like the protoss and doesn't fit the terrans like a low tech but effective metal shield imo
