Infestor Mind Control

Think about the Mind Control ability for the infestor. Or Neural Parasite in other words.
Imagine you're up against a few thors and some hellions. You have roaches and lings to hold off the push that is about 3-4 thors and a 6-7 hellions.
Naturally your opponent will bring some scv's to repair the thors.

If you hold of the push the scv's will most likely retreat but you will have an infestor there to mind control a worker. Build something like a barracks and you have instant unit diversity.

Imagine transferring SCV's and a burrowed infestor with lings at the transfer path. Or perhaps control a worker, be it a probe or scv while taking out an expansion. Building an expansion of your own their after you've killed everything off.

So I've just proven with basic ingame logic that it's relatively easy to mind control a worker.

The question is: would you want to do that? Why not use this in higher level of play? I'm highly in favour of this in longer macro-style plays, since with time I think that 2 races can easily win the game for you if you know how to use them effectively.

 

Most people settle for less I guess.

 

It's already hard enough when you think about it to support one race, but having two or more is just overkill unless you're playing BGH or below silver league. Remember if you do choose to MC and get another race, you have to get upgrades, supply, and tech. This slows down your current race in all 3 aspects, and the pros of the start of the other race will not offset, how much more advance your opponent is getting.

Bluntly, not worth it.

 

what about just turrets or sensor towers, something simple?

 

Zerg is all about map control, so they shouldn't need sensor towers, and they have spores for turrets.

 

But say you mind control the worker, and merely build to be able to a certain tech. Say, medivacs backing up your muta/hyrda push etc? Surely that wouldnt set you back that much?

 

There's only three different situations where this a is viable,
1) You are winning by a landslide
2) You are playing a money map
3) Your opponent is an idiot

Don't forget with you use neural parasite, your infestor has to stay in the same place. It is RARE for a probe or scv to be in the front line for you to take over and build the buildings on the spot without your infestor dying. If you're wasting your precious energy on this instead of the battle something is wrong.
Just building a second race is just not efficient, economical, or w/e you want to call it. Don't do it unless you have a death wish. There is no way you will have enough money to build a cc/nexus and get supply and gets units without hurting your own army production by a lot. The cc/nexus building alone is a huge hit.

Starting up a second race mid game is not viable.

 

yeah, it's just one of those things you *could* do, not *should*.

on that note, what happens if you neural parasite a drone, and make a building with it? will you be parasiting a building?

 

I would much prefer an AoE ability that renders units stationary and unable to attack for the simple reason that a lot of the units in SC2 don't even have a neural system, so the current ability makes zero sense. Or leave in neural parasite, drop infested Terran, and put in a special type of feedback that affects shields instead of energy while making neural parasite only work on biological units.

 

yeah, but that would really limit neural parasite's usefulness. how many biological units even exist that are more expensive than an infestor? why risk your infestor's life to mind control.... a marine? a zealot? maybe a high templar? that thing would be useless except in ZvZ where ultralisks are used.

 

Sounds good in theory the two problems are:

1. Population caps at 200 (not 200 per race you control). So if you control a scv and build stuff with it, it shares the same population cap with your zerg. You still need to make supply depos for your Terran army, because they can't eat overlords (or wouldn't want to I guess).

2. You need to build a command center before you can build a barracks. 600 minerals for the first marine seems pretty steep.

Then again, if you're completely destroying your opponent(s) it's a good way to spend a bit of time to get lols.

 

I thought that Neural Parasite only lasted 10 - 15 seconds? *confused face*

 

They changed it into lasting until the Infestor dies or the controlled unit moves out of the abilitiy's range.

 

So...I'm thinking people haven't actually done this before given the replies.

When you take control of someone's worker you have access to their level of tech. So in terms of cost to take build up to and take advantage of more advanced units from the opponent's race...there isn't any beyond building the appropriate building and actual unit cost.

The real problem is despite the OP's "proof" of the viability of taking control of a worker it just isn't that easy to pull off in an actual game where the outcome is still in question. Infestor's aren't cheap, and their mind control is limited in range. So most of the time you would have to daisy chain the worker back to your base using at least 2 infestors, meanwhile making sure nothing gets killed, keeping in mind every time you "switch" which infestor is controlling the player is going to get a status check on where those units are at.

Probably the most viable use of this is if you catch a worker scout or successfully raze an expansion later in the game, and just build there. Obviously the OP's suggestion about taking a worker during the opponent's own assault on you is also possible. But none of that is really easy to successfully accomplish.

edit: One thing I haven't tested and would be curious to know is what happens when you load a mind controlled worker into a transport. This would make it easier to get back to your lines with it. Possible likely outcomes:

1) You can load it but lose control of it inside the transport....but can then drop it off in your base and take immediate control again. (what I would expect)

2) It disappears from within the transport (game glitch)

3) It permanently becomes yours when loaded into the transport (game glitch)

4) It crashes the game! (wheeee, game glitch)

5) You can't load controlled units (2nd most likely IMO).

I guess I'll try it next time someone leaves a game before I've killed all their workers.

 

Speaking of mind controlled units and shuttles... now that you can mind control air units, anyone know what happens when you mind control an enemy shuttle with units in it? I know in SC1 all units inside became yours, but with neural parasite being channeled, it would seem very strange to do the same thing for SC2...

 

Khayman is wrong.


Tested:

You do NOT gain your enemys level of tech. You must work your way up through the race you controlled by building their starting building and on.

Secondly, you cannot load Neural parasited units into transports.

Havn't tried the transport take over yet. I'd need another player to test, will attempt soon.

 

I'll retest it but the last time I used it this way in a non-ladder game I was able to immediately make units I did not have the tech for, and then LOST that ability as I destroyed his buildings (this was tested on a game where everyone had left).

edit: so I retested it and couldn't get it to work. Conditions weren't exactly the same (opponent had not left) but close enough for my purposes. Don't know if they changed it or I imagined it, but it is hard to imagine the latter.

Interestingly enough I was able to neural parasite my partner's ghost. No real practical application to that unless you want to take over some random partner's units who hasn't shared control with you. I made his ghost execute a few marines before he killed it

 

Well if you can Neural an allies ghost, you could do it to his workers, skipping the headache of getting the enemies.

Still, have to tech up and the supply cap remains 200 =/

 

I just tried it with a friend. You get control of the shuttle, and you can see what units it contains, but you can't drop any of them.

Oh well, it would still be a really good tactic to force the shuttle to stand still, not drop its units, and then fly towards your hydralisk army for hugs...

 

yeah, MC a transport for easy pickings sounds like a good strat. still, for most enemies you mind control you should march them towards your own army as they're dying to make sure you can finish them off yourself.