A few minutes ago I was reading opinions about the Thor, and many agreed that this powerful Terran unit, although It seems useful, does not share the same ideology of Terrans: Versatility. And this is certainly true, it is a very slow unit, (EDIT)bad at defending itself against air units, and seems also vulnerable against packs of melee atackers like zerglings or zealots. Anyway, I tried to think of at least 1 factor in the Thor that could be even considered as versatile. The only thing I could come up with is the fact that the Thor can actually be built anywhere on the battlefield by using an SCV. So I though, perhaps a good way of removing this versatility issue in the Thor is to give the SCV the posibility to disassemble a Thor. Basically it would be the exact inverted proccess of building. Same duration (for example, if Thor takes 30 sec. to be built, then it would take 30 sec. to disassemble). Or maybe 50% duration, we should discuss about it. This disassembly process would have no cost whatsoever, and after completion the Thor would be ''dismantled'' and the cost of the Thor unit would be refunded to the user. If this seems to imba, it could be a 75% refund for example. (EDIT) It could also give a % of money back depending on the Thor's HPs, but I think this should be analyzed because, lets use numbers: Let's say the Thor's cost is 200 minerals 200 gases (just to use round numbers) Let's say the Thor has 300 hitpoints. If Thor's HP were 150, or 50%, then It would give you 100 minerals 100 gases. If you were to Repair this Thor manually, how much money would it cost you to bring it to its max hitpoints? 100 minerals and 100 gases? .. I don't know, I think it would take a little bit more than that. So in that case, this MIGHT be a little imbalanced. But hell, maybe It's not. We need opinions here. So a player could send a dropship with SCVs, build Thors near the enemy base, nuke the base, then dismantle the Thors, get a % of the money spent back, then go back to base. Seems very versatile and pretty balanced, considering these facts: -Disassembly in my opinion should be uncancellable. -If the SCV conducting the proccess is destroyed, then the Thor would lie there unable to be used. Another SCV can be sent to continue with the disassembly though. -During this disassembly proccess the Thor won't be able to conduct any action whatsoever. This would also fix a small inconvenient. I'm positive that something as massive as the Thor does not fit in a Dropship. Therefore, on maps with many islands on it, It would be impossible to use Thors in an effective way because they would get stuck on the islands they were built in the first place. With this disassembly ability, this problem would cease to exist. I'd like to know your opinions about this. Cya By the way I'm new to the forums, so hi everyone
Thx, yeah basically the idea flashed my mind and I really didn't take a lot of time balancing durations and prices, that why I mentioned the posibility of the 75% instead of 100% refund. Duration could be modified as well. I though at first of same duration as building because otherwise people would actually disassemble the thor instead of simply moving it around... but maybe that's great. I mean, imagine having to move a thor from one tip of the map to the other one, It would need a good escort otherwise he would be SUCH an easy target. So it's so much easier to simply disassemble it and move the SCV around with a flying dropship. And makes a lot of sense. If you can build something, you can bring it down as well.
That's the exact idea I had someday, but as I wasn't posting here then, so I just forgot about it. As the Thor is built from modular parts, the amount of money you get back should be 100% unless the Thor is damaged. In this case, the amount of money you get would decrease with the Thor's hit points, so salvaging a Thor with 37% of its hitpoints would give you 37% of the Thor's cost. And BTW, the Thor can attack air at the moment, it just isn't very good at it.
Ok, but for the record it can attack air units. As for salvaging units I think Blizzard has discussed this and said something about the ability to salvage, this may only apply to buildings but I'm not 100% sure.
I like it, it saves having useless Thors littered around the maop for Island games, and if you're in a pinch and need some money, just cash in a Thor. Great Idea.
lorewise i dont think its possible. anyway how about changing the artillery strike to an aerial bombardment? and just make the thor a strong ground attacker with no ability. simple.
I always thought Terran need a kinda air strike, but you could initiate this your self with Banshees or whatever, allowing it to call on a air strike kinda makes aspects of the game automatic. And with the dissasemble how would it help island maps if you gotta build it again once you reach another island. You might as well get an SCV to build one on the island; kinda stupid creating a Thor on your island then breaking it down to build it again on another location.
It helps because otherwise you have to build 1 thor per island, thus wasting lots of resources. With this ability, you just need 1 thor and an scv to build and disassemble it on each of the islands, and that's it. Remember you get a refund of the money you spent on building it, so you can end up saving a lot of money. And on the other hand, It would be extremely stupid lorewise if Terrans were to create a unit they can't possibly transport, so this ability responds to this problem right there.
I persoanally can't see why you haven't got another power up for this idea! It is just an example of something right on the fringes of terran lore, yet practical enough to be considered very seriously. i'd support this idea!
Salvage applies just to buildings so I'd be inclined to think it wouldn't affect the Thor in the current build.
I think a good way to make it more useful and to play up Terran versatility would be to have the Thor's weapons be modular. By that I mean it starts out with just the basic arm cannons (or something similar) and then you can pay to add a variety of new/replacement weapons to better fit the situation. Obviously the number of open slots would be limited (just one or two seems fair) and once upgraded you can't switch them out. Having trouble with mass zerglings/zealots? Change to gattling guns and spray 'em with lead! Enemy air units harassing your ground forces? Load some AA batteries on its back and clear the skies! Oh and if you need to get there faster upgrade to leg boosters which increase it's forward speed (not turning) but at the loss of a weapon slot (and maybe an armor rating decrease) What do you think?
It would be just easier to allow dropships to transport the thor. 1 thor per dropship or something. If two tanks fit in a dropship and two ultras fit in a ovie, there's no reason a thor shouldn't be able to fit in a dropship.
I agree acctually. But if they don't allow them into Dropships, this is a decent way to save some cash.
Well you would have to pay the initial build cost and then again for the each weapon added. It wouldn't be too expensive though since the Thor isn't a one at a time superweapon. BTW I agree that it's better to allow the Thor to be transported then having to disassemble/reassemble every time you want to cross a gap. However its much bigger than any tanks or ultras so having it fit into a dropship doesn't makes much sense. I think they should give the Thor the lift off ability like Terran structures do (maybe as one of the modular upgrades) but can't attack while in the air.
Thor is just as big as building... damn! IT IS WALKING BUILDING. Whoooa! It should be salvaged too. Or dissasembled in two parts (one dropship can pick up one part of Thor, so to transport Thor, you should dissasemble it, pick up with two dropships, unload and assemble with SCV again.
i just want a dropship or two to be able to like land, attach, on the thor and pick it up that would be cool to watch and cost extra so its not really that imba
Yeah, or some sort of grappling hook that attaches to the Thor's armor and lifts it off while the Dropship carries it around. It would look cool but I hardly believe It would ever be implemented. I though about simply loading the Thor into the dropship, but if you check both units' sizes you will realize that its really impossible to do that. And anyways, the purpose of this ability is not just to make thor transporting easier, the idea of this ability is to add versatility to the thor by quickly putting him in and out of combat, and being smart and using good micro to take full profit of the refunds made by dissasembling. And well.. making the game a tad more complex than SC1.
