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redleader posted:huh, i could have sworn it had attack move way earlier than that. i'd have put money on it! guess i just misremembered you could technically patrol-move as a sort of bootleg version
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Mission Eight: Eye for an Eye.  Behold, my long silence is broken, and I am made whole once more. The cunning Protoss have dared to strike down that which was immortal. For the Protoss who murdered Zasz are unlike anything we have faced before. These Dark Templar radiate energies that are much like my own, and it is by these energies that they have caused me harm. Yet shall their overweening pride be their downfall. For when the assassin Zeratul murdered Zasz, his mind touched with mine, and all his secrets were made known to me. I have taken from his mind the secret location of Aiur, the Protoss Homeworld. At long last, my children, our searching is done. Soon we shall assault Aiur directly. For now we must ensure that the Dark Templar can cause no more harm. Cerebrate, you shall set a trap for our foes. Kerrigan will lead them to you.First, note the splash screen. Unlike the preceding mission, there's no time given. The game doesn't tell us how long the Overmind's been out of commission for. The fact that the Overmind says "long silence" may indicate that it's been days, even weeks - but then again, I guess if you're used to spending every second of your life psionically linked with an entity, even a couple minutes can feel long. This also brings things back on track. If you remember the Zerg backstory, every thing that's happened so far, from the Zerg invasion of Terran space to the abduction and infestation of Kerrigan to her removing her neural implants and attaining her full psionic potential have all been steps on the way to the overarching goal of invading Aiur. A goal that's now within our grasp - but first we've got some housecleaning to do. Mission Objectives: Destroy the Protoss bases Let not a Dark Templar escape Kerrigan must survive Here's our start:  A few things to notice here. First, a glance at the minimap shows that we've got three bases scattered around the map (though only one of them has resources). Second is our new unit for the mission: the Ultralisk.  We've seen it before, of course, but now we get them ourselves. They're… decent. "Decent!?!?" you exclaim, outraged, "John Killtrane, I've played/watched/absorbed through cultural osmosis enough about Brood War to know that Ultralisks are horrifying titans of destruction!" They sure are - but sadly not here. Like almost every unit in the game, the Ultralisk needs its upgrades researched before it becomes truly powerful. Unlike almost every unit in the game, the Ultra's upgrades unfortunately aren't introduced until the expansion. So while yes, someday, Ultras will be a devastating force to be reckoned with, for the time being they're just okay. They aren't bad, they're still fairly effective, but they aren't the horrors they'll become. It's also worth noting that with the Ultra, we now have complete access to the full complement of Zerg units. Third, we've got a new building:  We get two new buildings this mission. One is the building that allows Ultralisks, but that'll come later. This one here is something entirely different, and something quite unique among Starcraft structures. It's the Nydus Canal, it has an entrance and an exit, and it allows instantaneous transportation between the two. We'll take a look at it in more detail later. For now, all we need to know is that our main base here has two canals, each linking to one of our other bases, functionally allowing us to teleport between them. There's a fourth thing to notice here, and it's the most important one. It's these setups here:    Scattered Zerg beacons with a few units and an Overlord each. What's going on? Well, if you were to come to this game from Warcraft 2 back in 98, you might assume that the "Don't let any Dark Templar escape" was a flavour objective that just meant "Kill all the Dark Templar." You'd be wrong. The Dark Templar will actively try to get out, and if even one makes it, you lose. No warning, no second chances. It's game over. The beacons mark where the Dark Templar will try to escape. Fortunately it's just an indicator - the Dark Templar don't escape by reaching the beacon (I believe they escape by reaching the edge of the map beyond the beacon). Speak of the devil, here comes one now (while we were looking at that last beacon, in fact, which is why it's so zoomed in):   Okay, so, quick note here. In this mission we finally get to see the Protoss method of remaining undetected (or rather, one of two methods) and it's a doozy - certain Protoss units (two, to be precise) are permanently cloaked. It works just like Cloaking for the Wraith and Ghost, only it doesn't need to be researched, doesn't take any energy, and never runs out. Unfortunately for us, one of those two units is the Dark Templar - you know, the unit we have to make sure we don't let escape. Hence the mission starting us with Overlords at all three beacons. (It's not as bad as you'd think: as far as I can tell, the Dark Templar attack move, rather than move - they'll always try to engage your forces at the beacon rather than just slipping by. This gives you a fighting chance. It's still a bit stressful) Dark Templar Kill Count: 1  It would seem this plan may just work, Cerebrate. The tighter we draw the web, the sweeter the despair of our enemies.This means that it's important to keep these beacons reinforced. Let's show off our new building, shall we? Move one of our starting Ultras onto it here...   ...and it immediately reappears down at the bottom of the map, ready to support our defences there. Another benefit of Nydus Canals is that it makes it easy to use our outlying Hatcheries to support unit production in our main base. Like here:   We can quickly saturate our minerals and vespene by spawning extra Drones and Nydus'ing them in. It's an incredibly useful building and having it makes our lives a lot easier. Basic basebuilding time. We get our Spawning Pool and Hydra Den...   And also start to plunk down some defenses:  I've moved Kerrigan down to the Beacon nearest our base:  Since she's a one-woman army, it means we won't really ever have to worry about reinforcing it and can only focus on the two other beacons. It also, however, means that I don't want to pull her up to defend our base - hence the static defenses. This is another case where the Creep thing really hurts. If you were Terran you could just throw up some Bunkers and Turrets at each beacon and call it a day. Unfortunately we don't have that option without building Hatcheries at each beacon first, and the terrain is designed to make Hatchery placement difficult. It's still very possible - I've done it before and used Sunkens and Spores to keep the Dark Templar at bay - but it's really not worth the effort. Our tech priority is kind of a no-brainer on this map:  More than anything else, we want to pimp out our Overlords as much as possible to ensure no Dark Templar slip by. It's probably not strictly speaking necessary but instant-lose conditions make me very wary.  Queen's Nest goes up as well, so we can get our eyes on the prize. Queens are always my preferred method of scouting for Zerg but they've become extra important for me in this LP because Parasite makes it much easier to grab screenshots than, say, suiciding in a Zergling. Meanwhile our northern escape route gets hit:   The Zerglings are able to kill the Dark Templar before Kerrigan can intervene. It's worth noting, though, that DTs do a ton of damage and are able to one-shot Zerglings. Dark Templar Kill Count: 2 It's not just Dark Templar, mind you. We're also seeing things like this:  There's two enemy Protoss factions. Blue is the one sending Dark Templar at us. Their army is comprised almost entirely of high-tech Protoss units. Teal, on the other hand, is mostly hitting out with Zealots and Dragoons. The idea being that teal kind of represents a traditional Protoss military whereas blue represents specialists. There's actually lore reasons for this! But we'll take a look at them in the Protoss campaign. We drop down an Evolution Chamber and further upgrade our Overlords:   The movement speed will be a big help as well - a big danger in this mission is Dragoons picking off your Overlord, leaving your beacon defence force blind. This will allow us to retreat as needed and easily bring in additional Overlords as required.   Dark Templar Kill Count: 3. They still haven't hit the northwest base. We finally get a Queen out:    Looks like teal's got a base between our northeast and southeast bases. Good thing we've got Nydus Canals, because otherwise we'd have to go right through them to reinforce. The Queen also spots this:  A likely expansion spot, once we can take care of those Scouts. And I know just the way to do so:   24 Hydras. One stack should easily be sufficient, but I've learned my lesson from the last mission. I want to be able to steamroll this expansion's defences and immediately consolidate it. Meanwhile, there's a party at the northwest, finally:   Dark Templar Kill Count: 4. Moving on...      We seize the expansion easily and are ready with a horde of Hydralisks should the Protoss try to retake it. We've also gotten some Parasites into teal's base:  Hmmm. A couple of Dragoons, and lots and lots of Reavers. Looks like teal will be easy to bring down, provided we use the right tools:  We've had one Spire, yes, but what about second Spire?  For those baffled by this decision, Spires also serve as Zerg's aerial upgrade centre - the Evolution Chamber of the skies. Having two of them allows us to improve weapons and armour simultaneously. Teal's also starting to get a bit more serious:   And, of course, the requisite DT:   This happens sometimes - teal will attack and then blue will send a DT on the heels of it in the hopes that your defences will be broken. I'm actually not sure if the AI deliberately coordinates this way or if it's just an occasional coincidence. It's also important to point out something that would frustrate me the rest of the mission. See how in those screenshots the Zerglings aren't doing anything? So it turns out that if you tell your units to move to the beacon, because they can't quite reach the centre point of it they'll never leave "Move" mode. They stop moving, sure, but the AI still has the Move order rather than the Stop order highlighted. This means the game thinks they're in Move mode, not idle, and they won't attack anything nearby. Of course it's a problem solved by even just the tiniest pinch of micro, but it's all too easy to just right click on a beacon and forget about it, then get confused as to why your units are ignoring the battle around them. Anyway. Dark Templar Kill Count: 5. We bring an Overlord up to teal's base so we can get a look at another new unit Protoss has:   It's the Observer, and it's their other permanently cloaked unit. Fortunately it has no combat capabilities. It's their aerial Detector and serves as their main scouting unit. Don't worry if you can't make it out too well - we'll be taking a closer look at it in the Protoss campaign. Fortunately, we won't really be making any use of Burrow this mission so the Observers don't mean anything to us, but it's neat to know they're there. Trying to target the Reaver with Spawn Broodling gives us this message, if you were curious:  Fortunately, there's a nearby Dragoon.     Hmm. Looks like quite a few Zealots in addition to those Reavers. How the hell are we going to beat that?  Oh. Right.       Unfortunately, we're rudely distracted from our attack by a counterpush on our southeast beacon:  Blue sends along a unit to give them a hand. The good news is it's not a Dark Templar. The bad news? It's something much, much worse:      It's the High Templar, Protoss' ground caster and the source of the Psionic Storm ability Kerrigan can wield. A single casting obliterated everything but our Ultra, which was easy prey to the Dragoons, which are now picking off our unguarded Overlords. Had a Dark Templar also been part of this group, this could have been game over for us. Fortunately, we've got some pals nearby:   A stack of Hydras, from when we took the expansion, are free to come down and take out the Dragoons. Unfortunately this leaves us in a rather precarious position: all it takes is either a High Templar or a Reaver wandering up and those Hydras could be toast. While this has all been happening, our razing of teal's base continues apace:    Fortunately, High Templar are unique to blue. Storm is a huge risk to our Mutas but one we don't need to worry about for the moment.    Once again, I grow tired of slaughtering your servants. Have the mighty Templar lost their infallible courage? Well spoken, Concubine of the Zerg. But though we strike at you from the shadows, do not think that we lack the courage to stand in the light. You would do well to abandon this attack. You seem overconfident of your abilities, dark one. I am no helpless Cerebrate to be assailed under cover of darkness. I am the Queen of Blades, and my stare alone would reduce you to ashes. You and your ilk cease to amuse me. Prepare yourself for oblivion's embrace.That new face there is Zeratul, the Dark Templar mentioned by the Overmind in the briefing. You know, the one that killed Zasz. Also interesting, while Tassadar called her Queen of the Zerg in mission six, this is the first time we see the title Queen of Blades. Anyway, that little altercation was prompted by destroying teal's base. They're effectively out of the picture now, though they do still have some buildings and units around. In fact, speak of the devil...  Okay. This is a big problem. That Reaver could easily wipe out most of those Hydras before they even get in range. This will require some careful maneuvering...    ...huh. Well that was a freebie. I'm not sure what happened there. My theory is the Reaver was sent to attack a specific target in our expansion up the ramp and so ignored everything en route. Another possibility is that the Reaver could have just been unable to attack, for reasons we'll cover in the Protoss campaign. Either way, teal's been dealt with, which not only means we've accomplish half of our mission here, it'll also considerably ease up the pressure on our beacons. While this has been happening, we have, of course, been teching up:  And our other new building for the mission:   The Ultralisk Cavern. It allows us to morph Ultras, and is unique for being the only tech building Zerg get that doesn't have any sort of research or upgrades (though, as mentioned before, that will change in the expansion). Another High Templar approaches our beacon:  But fortunately, this time we're ready:   High Templar are vulnerable to Spawn Broodling, and as a result Queens are mostly going to shift away from being Ensnare monsters and towards being Templar snipers for the rest of the campaign. Of course, your attention might have been drawn instead to that big, blue ball there.  It's the Archon, an incredibly powerful ground unit. Man, that's four new Protoss units in this mission. Granted, the Dark Templar aren't something they can build (yet...), but still. Actually, did I mention that? I should have mentioned that. Blue can't train new Dark Templar. I think this means that they only get the DTs they start with, and once those are dead you don't have to worry about them escaping anymore? However, it's also possible that instead of starting with them, the map is scripted to spawn one in every few minutes which then tries to escape, meaning they'll keep coming until you win. Does anyone know? While I'm off nattering about that, you may have noticed something more important in that screenshot: there was a second High Templar in that attack group.     Zerg units are pretty fast, so Storm isn't so bad if you know it's coming and if you're paying attention. Had I been choosing something to research at base just then, those Hydras would have been dead before you can say "Our forces are under attack!" Since we were watching closely, it's duck in, snipe the Templar, and run out before sustaining too much damage. I mean, it's still a lot of damage, but it's manageable. Manageable enough to deal with the Archon:   This is also a great illustration of what we talked about in the Guardian Spotlight: This isn't a maneuver we'd have been able to pull off with them. Nice try, Zeratul. It'll take more than two Templar and one of their monstrosities to break through our defences. You speak truly, Concubine, but for one thing - I did not send two Templar. Yup. Turns out there were three High Templar as part of that assault force. I never saw the third one coming and he obliterated our Hydras. Check this out:  As I was going to grab more Hydras to reinforce I had the Templar selected - he's walking away with one HP left. Don't worry, he doesn't make it back:    Our Broodlings even get in some scouting for us. It's time we send in some Ultras to help defend.  Without their upgrades, Ultralisks will do poorly against Zealots and Dragoons. Fortunately, blue (which is Zeratul's forces) hardly has any of those. What Zeratul does have is lots of High Templar, Dark Templar, and Archons. And Ultras, with their beefy 400 HP, do just fine against those. It'd take four Storms to bring them down - and Storms don't stack, so they'd have to be consecutive. Meanwhile, we've been expanding. First, let's take a look at how Nydus Canals work. We build a new one:  And once it's finished, it gives us a button that allows us to choose the exit:     Two things to make a note of here: First, the exit is free. The initial cost of the Nydus Canal (a paltry 150 minerals, no gas at all, for anyone wondering) covers both ends. Second, the term "exit" is a little misleading - the Canal is two ways. As soon as the exit is placed, there's no longer any difference at all between the two ends. "If the entrance gets destroyed but not the exit, can the exit still place another end?" you might ask. The answer is: It's irrelevant, because with Nydus Canals if one end gets destroyed, the other also gets destroyed. I mentioned this earlier but it bears repeating: Putting a Nydus Canal at every base is important, not just for the sake of reinforcements, but so that every Hatchery we have can easily and efficiently contribute to the troop production process. I also enjoy the way it turns our main base into a sort of Nydus Terminal. Go there, then you can go anywhere. In more pressing and hectic situations it can be beneficial to construct a comprehensive network of Canals so that every expansion has instant access to every other expansion without having to go through the main base first. We're also out of vespene, so we move in to teal's old area:   Unfortunately, we see here that their geyser doesn't have a whole lot left in it either. I'm sure I've mentioned this at some point but you can never be truly "out" of vespene - when a geyser gets depleted, it can still be harvested infinitely. The issue, however, is that your workers will only bring back two gas per load, instead of eight. This is such a pittance that for all intents and purposes a depleted geyser is an exhausted one, but it's worth bearing in mind when resources are scarce: four depleted geysers under your control is roughly equivalent to an infinite non-depleted geyser. Our Mutas go out to look for more options:   A new expansion with minimal defences - only a Photon Cannon (presumably it had more units guarding it but they were pulled away when we attacked teal's base. Also, given that teal was the colour the Protoss were in mission 6, I'm going to start referring to teal as Tassadar's forces, even though he doesn't appear on this map). And as it turns out, this new spot is on the same plateau as our northwest base:   With our economy shaping back up again, it's time to devote some thought to wiping out Zeratul. First:  You may have noticed in some of these screenshots that there's a couple of Dragoons hanging out between his base and our beacon. You might have, like me, assumed they were part of an attack force and got killed offscreen. Nope. They're stationary. They're defensive Dragoons, there to intercept anything on its way in. This means that they're a great candidate for Parasite. Now all I have to do is keep an eye on that portion of the minimap. If I see moving blue dots, it means something's coming - very likely a High Templar - and I've got Queens on standby to wreck it before it can pose a threat. One of these Queens, meanwhile, proceeds to spread the Parasites around:     Ohhhhkayyyy, looks like we're adding "Reavers" to the list of units Zeratul's got a bunch of. A plan starts to take shape:  Meanwhile our Mutas hunt down the last of Tassadar's forces:       He had some unit production facilities left, but fortunately no resources to do anything with them. While that was going on...   Dark Templar Kill Count: 6. You know, it's been quite a while since one tried to break through. I had to scroll up a long way to find the last number. Anyway, we put our plan into action:         Okay, so that... Didn't work quite as well as I'd hoped. My plan was to have my Defilers use Plague to siege the base down from atop the cliffs then send Mutas in to finish the job, but unfortunately the casting range isn't quite far enough to be able to reach the meat of the base. We'll have to do something else. (Which reminds me - in my younger years I distinctly remember trying to win this mission by floating Guardians up over the cliffs where they couldn't be reached and bombarding the base from afar. Seems like a good plan, right? Only issue is that the AI, while questionable in many other respects, is exceptionally gifted at using Shuttles to bring its High Templar up to the cliffs and let off a bunch of Storms before you can react. With Scourge to deal with the Shuttles it could still be quite workable, but let's look for other solutions, instead). Oh, and we caught an Archon being made:    Like Guardians, they're formed in the field, rather than produced. That last screenshot is being showing off that Archons are also immune to Spawn Broodling. Their production method and their curious immunity are both things we'll delve into in the Protoss campaign. Also note that Archons have 350 Shields, but only 10 HP. Plague is basically worthless against them - if we were Terran, though, EMPs would be devastating. Assuming you have EMPs to spare on Archons instead of nuking High Templar space mana. In any case, Archons are the second-strongest ground unit in the game, and this one's going out looking for trouble:   Fortunately for us, it runs into the first-strongest ground unit in the game, the Ultralisk. (Okay, okay, actually the merits of Ultras vs Archons are more complicated than that, they have their pros and cons, yadda yadda. Just let me enjoy this). Predictably, the Archon wasn't alone, and I wasn't fast enough to get my Queens in to intervene:  But remember what we said before?    When finesse fails, a big wall o' HP will get the job done. In fact, that gives me an idea...  A big force of Ultras, able to easily tank Psi Storms, Archon attacks, and even Reaver blasts. From what I've seen, though, there's just a few too many Reavers for even this many Ultras to survive. We send our Mutas on a suicide mission to thin out their numbers:            Our Mutas are gone, now, but they didn't give their lives in vain - several Reavers were destroyed, leaving Zeratul's base wide open for some serious pain:               I didn't mention this before, but in addition to being extremely hard to kill, Ultras also deal ludicrous amounts of damage: Their attack of 20 seems unimpressive for their tech level, but it's dished out quite rapidly. Now, Protoss, you shall know my wrath. Now you will know the fury of the Queen of Blades! Sweet revenge. But where's Zeratul? And where, for that matter, is Tassadar? JohnKilltrane fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 9, 2023 |
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Apr 9, 2023 13:58
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JohnKilltrane posted:We seize the expansion easily and are ready with a horde of Hydralisks should the Protoss try to retake it. Looks like a missing screenshot here.
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Apr 9, 2023 15:00
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That was I think the map I had the hardest time with in Mass Recall for the original game. The AI would get super aggressive, especially at the SE exit, and having to defend three points at once (or four, counting the starting base) would overwhelm me way too quickly. The only way I found that worked was immediately sending all starting troops at the right teal base, which was just enough to clear it, and expand there immediately, which seemed to dilute all their attack waves as the AI would send a bunch of it to try to retake the base instead. Fortunately Ultralisks are pretty legit at punching through those Reavers. Took me many attempts before I got frustrated enough to throw caution to the wind in that manner.
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Apr 9, 2023 16:11
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GunnerJ posted:Looks like a missing screenshot here. Fixed! Thanks. Myriad Truths posted:Fortunately Ultralisks are pretty legit at punching through those Reavers. Took me many attempts before I got frustrated enough to throw caution to the wind in that manner. Yeah it's funny eh? The first exposure to Reavers on mission 6 is so brutal that you learn to be extra-cautious around them. The whole idea of "Just rush them with big beefy bois" doesn't come naturally.
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Apr 9, 2023 17:36
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It's really interesting to see this map in light of how Blizzard kept this same general formula of "do not let X escape" going forwards, adopting the concept in different ways. Warcraft 3's version gave each separate base only one type of production facility, so each potential escape location was more specialized. Starcraft 2's version put you in the center of the map and warned you about which direction the escape was happening next so you would generally use a mobile force to cut it down rather than just relying on permanently guarding all three exits.
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Apr 9, 2023 17:37
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The big blue balls are the protoss units I mentioned earlier, "power overwhelming" is either their production quote or a selection quote, I don't remember which. E: or maybe neither but it is one of their audio snippets
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Apr 9, 2023 18:31
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Of particular note, each escape attempt is actually strictly scripted. When it happens, and even which direction it will attempt to escape in. If someone were to memorize the order and timings, they could focus on one canyon at a time and not worry about stray Dark Templars slipping down the other canyons. GiantGrantGames ended up taking advantage of this for, among other things, his "Zerglings only" challenge run. Oh, and be very thankful that the AI is not smarter about how it moves units around. In a bit of a twist that, IIRC, the modmaker did not predict when overhauling this particular map, in UEDAIP, the protoss will actually use shuttles to help their Dark Templar escape, by dropping them behind your defenses! Fortunately, you're given a bit more leeway in that version, as you're allowed to let a few escape, just not too many. But yeah. Imagine if they were to use that shuttle trick in the regular game. That would just be evil. Omobono posted:The big blue balls are the protoss units I mentioned earlier, "power overwhelming" is either their production quote or a selection quote, I don't remember which. I do believe it's one of their selection quotes.
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Apr 9, 2023 18:46
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BlazetheInferno posted:Of particular note, each escape attempt is actually strictly scripted. When it happens, and even which direction it will attempt to escape in. If someone were to memorize the order and timings, they could focus on one canyon at a time and not worry about stray Dark Templars slipping down the other canyons. GiantGrantGames ended up taking advantage of this for, among other things, his "Zerglings only" challenge run. You don't know the power of the ultralisk until you've seen a single one mulch through 100+ supply of marines in a few seconds.
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Apr 9, 2023 19:01
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Ultralisks in base: decent, nothing exceptional, I'd say their main point is to be big sacks of HP that distract the enemy's heavy hitters from mowing down adrenal glands zerglings. Also their big size means splash weapons catch less zerglings in the blast radius. Expansion ultralisks:  . I still would not make a mono ultra army (ignoring airships but frankly ultras can quickly destroy a base from under most flyers noses) but they're so much better.
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Apr 9, 2023 19:56
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I barely ever played Zerg outside of the campaign so I'm curious -- is the unit pathing smart enough that units will use Nydus canals automatically if it shortens the trip, or do you have to manually send them in? If it's the latter I can easily imagine your Nydus terminal being a pain in the butt if you're not organized
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Apr 9, 2023 21:48
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It is very much the latter.
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Apr 9, 2023 22:08
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The answer to "is SC1's pathfinding smart enough to" is always no. 
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Apr 9, 2023 22:18
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SC1's pathfinding being absolutely terrible somehow became part of why it had so many different micro skills to master, it is an abomination.
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Apr 9, 2023 22:35
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Some fun facts about SC1's pathfinding: (image from here)
Honestly it's a wonder the pathfinding functions as well as it does. megane fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Apr 9, 2023 |
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Apr 9, 2023 23:08
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Omobono posted:The big blue balls are the protoss units I mentioned earlier, "power overwhelming" is either their production quote or a selection quote, I don't remember which. Huh, come to think of it, I don't think I fully answered your question: Archons are ranged units, but they also do splash damage. So their main attack is nullified by Dark Swarm, but the splash damage it causes still happens. I think. Also, since it's been literal years since it was first posted, I thought I might share a link back to this post about pathfinding for anyone confused about the conversation surrounding it: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3965681&pagenumber=13#post517232030 As others said, the AI unfortunately won't auto-use Nydus Canals, they need to be explicitly told to. This is why I always like to put Canals right beside a Hatchery, so that once the units finish morphing it's just a quick click to send them off. That being said, of the three races, Zerg generally has the easiest time pathfinding. Not having to wrangle Goliaths or Dragoons is nice, and of course there's also the high quantity of units - if a couple of Zerglings or Hydras veer off course and don't go where they're supposed to, and you don't catch it, it's just fine? Let them run off and do their own thing. You've got dozens more.
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Apr 9, 2023 23:53
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Poil posted:I liked his realscale runs, mods for SC2 which changes the size and power of every unit to be more accurate giving no damns about game balance. Note: the real scale mods change marines to half a supply each. Also they did end up making capital ships smaller I think, since them covering your entire screen wasn't very practical.
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Apr 10, 2023 00:15
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The absolute worst offender for pathfinding in sc1 is often forgotten because they barely exist, if at all in multi. Those teeny, 1 tile wide staircases in the installation missions. So much time wasted herding my cats up those stupid things one by one because otherwise the whole thing falls to pieces and no one goes.
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Apr 10, 2023 00:30
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Worth noting, they did upgrade in Warcraft 3 in one department; units will use a Waygate automatically if told to move to an area. I think they will do so automatically if the Waygate is a shorter path even if it's possible to get to the destination without it, but I'm not 100% sure on that. They will absolutely use it automatically if it's the only path though, I know that for sure. But no on the automatic Nydus usage. You can, however, rally units into a Nydus and they will take it automatically.
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Apr 10, 2023 01:22
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Xarn posted:The answer to "is SC1's pathfinding smart enough to" is always no. lmao yeah I should have known. FoolyCharged posted:The absolute worst offender for pathfinding in sc1 is often forgotten because they barely exist, if at all in multi. Those teeny, 1 tile wide staircases in the installation missions. So much time wasted herding my cats up those stupid things one by one because otherwise the whole thing falls to pieces and no one goes. This is why (Brood War spoilers) I never ever bothered hijacking the goliaths in the "kill Stukov" mission. It's cool they gave you the option, but gently caress that noise
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Apr 10, 2023 01:29
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Also love that you can put a nydus on any creep, there's no creep ownership. Obviously I don't think you'd manage it in pro play but every once in a while I managed to pop a canal up in the back of an enemy zerg base and jam 300 zerglings into it, incredibly satisfying.
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Apr 10, 2023 02:42
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Grand Fromage posted:Also love that you can put a nydus on any creep, there's no creep ownership. Obviously I don't think you'd manage it in pro play but every once in a while I managed to pop a canal up in the back of an enemy zerg base and jam 300 zerglings into it, incredibly satisfying. Does that mean you can just built a canal in your own base and plunk the exit in the enemy base, as long as you can see it?
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Apr 10, 2023 09:25
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Martian posted:Does that mean you can just built a canal in your own base and plunk the exit in the enemy base, as long as you can see it? That's exactly what it means. The SC2 nydus network builds on this concept by having only the original building require creep, and instead of instant teleportation it "stores" the units in the network, similar to an air transport but with effectively unlimited capacity. New exit worms cost a small amount of resources, and when killed the original building remains intact. This allows it to be used as a sneaky attack vector in all matchups. Woe be to the person who fails to extend vision to all corners of their main base, because a crafty Zerg player will absolutely plop a nydus worm in there.
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Apr 10, 2023 09:35
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Staltran posted:Note: the real scale mods change marines to half a supply each. Capital ships have been a constant issue across all three Real Scale Campaigns, so there is actually three different systems that govern how they work, since HOTS and LOTV were done by a different person than the Original Mod Creator, and LOTV had a lot of time and effort put into it because the protoss are especially about their capital ships. There is currently talk of backporting the LOTV system to HOTS and WOL Real Scale, but it's very muich on a 'when it's done' time scale.
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Apr 10, 2023 11:26
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Myriad Truths posted:That was I think the map I had the hardest time with in Mass Recall for the original game. The AI would get super aggressive, especially at the SE exit, and having to defend three points at once (or four, counting the starting base) would overwhelm me way too quickly. The only way I found that worked was immediately sending all starting troops at the right teal base, which was just enough to clear it, and expand there immediately, which seemed to dilute all their attack waves as the AI would send a bunch of it to try to retake the base instead. Fortunately Ultralisks are pretty legit at punching through those Reavers. Took me many attempts before I got frustrated enough to throw caution to the wind in that manner. My solution for almost every Zerg mission in Mass Recall was "more Muta"
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Apr 10, 2023 20:14
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Szarrukin posted:My solution for almost every Zerg mission in Mass Recall was "more Muta" As it should be
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Apr 10, 2023 21:13
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This is a long shot, but is there any mod for base SC that allows BW units in the campaigns? I want to play the campaigns again and being able to add BW units is one of the main reasons that I tried Mass Recall, but I don't want to play Mass Recall this time.
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Apr 13, 2023 00:23
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JustJeff88 posted:This is a long shot, but is there any mod for base SC that allows BW units in the campaigns? I want to play the campaigns again and being able to add BW units is one of the main reasons that I tried Mass Recall, but I don't want to play Mass Recall this time. Beyond just finding the individual maps separate somewhere to load them from the Custom Game menu, I'm not aware of any off the top of my head, but any that exist are likely to be of the "git gud or suffer" difficulty variety. And just taking the regular maps separately to load from the custom games menu won't have any sort of logic for when they're enabled; if the buildings are available, you'll have access to the Brood War stuff. So like, Medics would be available on Backwater Station with all their upgrades available.
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Apr 13, 2023 02:08
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Unit Spotlight: Ultralisk The Ultralisk as seen in the manual. Overview: The Ultralisk is Zerg's biggest and beefiest unit, and once we've got an Ultralisk Cavern we can start churning them out for 200 minerals, 200 vespene, and 4 supply each. This makes it the most expensive Zerg unit in both resources and supply by a fair margin, but it's still considerably less than the other races' big units (roughly half the cost of a Battlecruiser, in fact). As we saw, they're a behemoth of a unit, boasting 400 HP and 1 armour. They attack with their massive Kaiser Blades, dealing 20 normal melee damage at a quick pace, yielding ~32 DPS. This is the highest DPS of any unit we've spotlighted so far, and one of the highest in the game. They've also got a respectable speed of ~5.1 - halfway between a normal Marine and a stimmed Marine. Despite having truly prodigious DPS, Ultras actually aren't the greatest damage-dealing option for Zerg. Unit-for-unit they're awesome, but pound-for-pound they've nowhere near the sheer destructive output of Zerglings or Hydras. They're also real big, which is a problem for melee units. Melee is all about covering surface area - getting as many of your units in contact with the enemy as possible - and Ultras are too bulky to easily get a good surround. I mean on buildings, sure, but how many Ultras can you reasonably get wailing on a Dragoon or Siege Tank at once? Because of this, Ultras function more as HP sponges - they move in first and tank all the big pain so that Zerglings can survive and kill things. Unfortunately, in order to excel at this role, they need two upgrades that won't appear until Brood War. Like the Goliath, we'll be taking a look at the upgrades here - because you really can't talk about Ultras without them - but we'll save the fluff on them for the expansion. Anabolic Synthesis: For 200 each of minerals and vespene we can bump the Ultra's speed from ~5.1 to ~7.7. This is a sorely-needed buff. 5.1, while relatively fast, is still way too slow for a melee unit. It's also slower than Zerglings and (upgraded) Hydras, and a unit that's meant to absorb hits but lags behind the units it's supposed to be protecting is a very tough thing to use properly. Now Ultras can close ground quickly and are only a pinch slower than upgraded Zerglings, easily keeping up with the Zerg army. Even for pros it can take a while for micro to catch up with what's happening on screen, so if your Ultras are going in first, they're the ones taking the first few enemy salvos, preserving precious Zergling damage. Chitinous Plating: This upgrade costs 150 of each resource and is unique, giving the Ultra +2 armour. This is a huge bonus. Ultras as they are now are good at what we used them for in the last mission: tanking big hits like Reavers and Psi Storms (as well as things like Siege Tanks). They're a lot frailer than you'd expect, though, against the rank-and-file. Marines, Zerglings, Hydras, Zealots, and Dragoons can shred Ultras. That's where this upgrade comes in handy. By boosting up the Ultra's armour, it gains a great deal of staying power against weaker, faster attacks. With this upgrade, the Ultra becomes tied with the Battlecruiser for the highest armour in the game - with level 3 carapace upgrades, you're looking at 6 armour. With these two upgrades, the Ultra becomes a true menace that's extremely difficult to kill - and once Dark Swarm gets added to the mix? Forget it. That being said, Ultras make me think a bit of Siege Tanks in terms of "taking things for granted." If you'll recall way back in the Siege Tank spotlight I cautioned against being so fixated on the awesome power of their Siege Mode that you forget they can still be quite effective in Tank Mode? Similar deal here. Whether you're using them or facing them, don't get so caught up in thinking of Ultras as damage absorbers that you make the mistake of underestimating their significant damage output.  Artwork of the Ultralisk taken from the SC1 manual. Fluff: Unfortunately, there's very little fluff given about the Ultralisk. Apparently it's based on a "docile herbivore" called the Brontolith but has been so thoroughly transformed by the Swarm that it now bears almost no resemblance to the original species. My assumption is that the Brontolith is kinda like a trunkless elephant. We do get to learn that the Kaiser Blades are big scythe-like appendages that jut out directly from the Ultralisk’s back, which is kinda neat. Tech Fluff: Like the Goliath, we’ll see this in the expansion. Campaign Usage: For the remainder of this campaign, we'll be using them as we saw here: meat shields for powerful spells and attacks. In Brood War, once we get their upgrades, they'll serve more as elite shock troops. While we'll definitely get more use out of them then, we'll be seeing them a fair bit here too.  A previously-seen picture of an Ultra busting in on some hapless Protoss Zealots. Competitive Usage: Ultras are one of the most potent tools in Zerg's arsenal and a staple of late game play. They particularly favour traditional Zerg and its macro-oriented playstyle: Ultras are very much an "A-move and forget" unit that you can just fire off in the general direction of the enemy and go back to focusing on other things, like your economy and your Defilers. I guess that means that as a more micro-oriented Zerg playstyle becomes more popular we may see less of Ultras, but I suspect that won't be the case - they're just too useful. Incidentally, we've talked about Zerg being real gas guzzlers, and now we've seen most of the culprits there. Producing copious amounts of Ultras - in addition to plenty of Defilers, Mutas, and a unit we'll see in the expansion - eats up tons and tons of vespene, and that's what makes less sure-fire options like Queens and Guardians tough to fit in. Vs Terran: Ultras have the HP to eat Tank and Mine hits and the armour to trivialize Marine fire, making them a core part of this matchup. Put them under Dark Swarm and it's a very bad day for Terran. Without Dark Swarm it's maybe a bit more of a toss-up? Ultras can take a lot of Tank hits; conversely, Terran will have a lot of Tanks. Vessels are what make this really interesting: Irradiate is a really good counter to Ultras. It doesn't kill them but it does weaken them considerably and make them easy pickings, plus it can hit them when they're under Swarm. However, Ultras are fast enough and durable enough that an Irradiated one can just charge headlong into enemy forces and have the splash from the Irradiate take out a bunch of Marines, hoisting Terran by their own petard. The main difference between standard bio Terran and the more recent mech Terran builds as far as Ultras are concerned is that the latter will have a lot more Siege Tanks. This is part of the reason why Queens are getting used in this matchup - in fact, it's very similar to what happened in this past mission. There's too many siege units for the Ultras to handle so Zerg tries to thin them out to a more manageable number so the Ultras have free reign over the battlefield. Only difference is Reavers can't be Broodling'd so we had to use Mutas, but the general principle is the same. Which reminds me - I've said a few times that Ultras are good at tanking hits from Tanks, Reavers, etc, but it should always be borne in mind that this is speaking relatively. Those units have damage output that's high enough to make mincemeat out of Ultras in many circumstances - they'll just make mincemeat out of any other ground unit in the game even faster.  hero (Z) vs Elite Terran (T) on Beltway - StarCraft - Brood War 2021 - YouTube - 16-55.jpeg)  hero (Z) vs Elite Terran (T) on Beltway - StarCraft - Brood War 2021 - YouTube - 16-57.jpeg)  hero (Z) vs Elite Terran (T) on Beltway - StarCraft - Brood War 2021 - YouTube - 17-01.jpeg)  hero (Z) vs Elite Terran (T) on Beltway - StarCraft - Brood War 2021 - YouTube - 17-07.jpeg) Hero’s Ultralisk offensive turns Elite’s Siege Tank line into little bits of scrap metal. Versus Protoss: The specifics of this matchup are different, but the broad strokes of Ultra usage are the same: drawing fire from your more vulnerable Zerglings and occasionally Hydras. Between Reavers and Storms Protoss has huge capacity to simply delete your more frail ground units, so every bit of damage landing on Ultras instead makes a big difference. Ultras are also great at drawing the fire of the Protoss rank-and-file - particularly if Protoss decided to send its Zealots in to deal with your Dark Swarm, and due to the cloud obscuring visibility has a hard time microing its Zealots onto Zerglings.  HyuK! 🇰&%23127479; (Z) vs Bisu! &%23127472;&%23127479; (P) on Destination - StarCraft - Brood War Remastered - YouTube - 16-33.jpeg) Bisu launches a major offensive on Hyuk’s base…  HyuK! 🇰&%23127479; (Z) vs Bisu! &%23127472;&%23127479; (P) on Destination - StarCraft - Brood War Remastered - YouTube - 16-51.jpeg) ...but Hyuk’s got some Ultras nearby.  HyuK! 🇰&%23127479; (Z) vs Bisu! &%23127472;&%23127479; (P) on Destination - StarCraft - Brood War Remastered - YouTube - 16-54.jpeg)  HyuK! 🇰&%23127479; (Z) vs Bisu! &%23127472;&%23127479; (P) on Destination - StarCraft - Brood War Remastered - YouTube - 17-03.jpeg)  HyuK! 🇰&%23127479; (Z) vs Bisu! &%23127472;&%23127479; (P) on Destination - StarCraft - Brood War Remastered - YouTube - 17-11.jpeg)  HyuK! 🇰&%23127479; (Z) vs Bisu! &%23127472;&%23127479; (P) on Destination - StarCraft - Brood War Remastered - YouTube - 17-18.jpeg) Bisu dishes out a lot of damage, but the Ultras have even more HP, and the assault is broken. Versus Zerg: A day may come when we will see a new spotlight for a unit that is useful in ZvZ, but it is not this day. ZvZ games rarely reach Hive tech, and even if they did, what use would Ultras have against Mutas? And why get them over Defilers? To summarize: ZvT: Virtually mandatory late-game unit, particularly for Zergling-heavy compositions. ZvP: Very nearly as essential as in ZvT. ZvZ: Nope. Nada. Zilch. Trivia: According to the Starcraft wiki, at one point in development the Ultralisk was intended to have a Roar ability that allegedly would have functioned similarly to Bloodlust in Warcraft 2. This is the first I’ve heard of it and can’t find any more information on it, does anyone happen to know anything more? In any case, if true, it’s a little funny to think how gamebreaking that could have been if it’d made its way in to the final product.
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Apr 13, 2023 02:37
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I forget, do ultras have a splash damage effect? Or is that only in SC2?
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Apr 13, 2023 02:53
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I think that's only in SC2. It might seem like they do splash, but that's likely just because their DPS is so high, so most ground units just evaporate if you have even 2 Ultras scrapping No mention of the hero Ultra? Or are we saving that one for later
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Apr 13, 2023 02:59
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Aces High posted:I think that's only in SC2. It might seem like they do splash, but that's likely just because their DPS is so high, so most ground units just evaporate if you have even 2 Ultras scrapping Yeah sadly it's not until SC2 that the splash gets added. Well, I say "sadly," but only because I'm a Zerg player. I only cover the heroes in the spotlight if we won't ever see them in the campaign. Ultralisk hero is coming, just not for... What, another 20 missions or so? Haha. If people want, though, I'll start doing the heroes either way.
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Apr 13, 2023 03:01
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Perhaps a little note in the bio saying we'll see it later? 
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Apr 13, 2023 03:44
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I like Ultras a bit more in SC2 since they feel like they've got more oomph in that game but a big part of that is the splash damage. They're still real good here once they get their BW upgrades.
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Apr 13, 2023 05:02
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I like how this is exactly how Ultralisk were used in Heart of the Swarm intro - as HP sponges tanking Siege Tank barrage until Nydus Canal is completed.
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Apr 13, 2023 08:04
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I used to watch a bit of competitive, mostly the 'Gold Rush' maps or whatever one calls the ones with unlimited resources, but Zerg vs Zerg sounds really boring. Muta spam, minimal tech and not much nuance, from what I gather.
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Apr 13, 2023 13:53
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JustJeff88 posted:I used to watch a bit of competitive, mostly the 'Gold Rush' maps or whatever one calls the ones with unlimited resources, but Zerg vs Zerg sounds really boring. Muta spam, minimal tech and not much nuance, from what I gather. Does that really count as competitive play? Having access to unlimited resources is an insane warping factor to how you play. Also ZvZ rules. It's not like they're just making mutas and A moving them at each other. In a matchup where your margin for error is so low and you can die so quickly, every play you make becomes important right down to your smallest micro and macro mistakes and that means people have to play their rear end off.
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Apr 13, 2023 16:06
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RevolverDivider posted:Does that really count as competitive play? Having access to unlimited resources is an insane warping factor to how you play. I don't see why not. The competition just becomes about things other than resource acquisition and management.
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Apr 13, 2023 16:17
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It’s like turning the clock off in a fighting game. It’s a warping factor that does significantly shift the way in which you play at a high level.
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Apr 13, 2023 16:22
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Yeah it doesn't change the ability to compete, just how people compete
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Apr 13, 2023 16:57
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