Starcraft II

[Cap'n CJ]

Chrono Boost is win

I wish I could use it on allies buildings in 2v2, though.

[joacqin]

You need three workers to harvest a crystal to the fullest according to a loading screen tooltip.

And yes, a zerg can get out a few units faster than anyone and if you catch your opponents with his pants down you will win or cripple him severly but by getting those early units you have crippled yourself and made it almost impossible to utilize the strength of zerg which is numbers. You need to expand early (which I suck at) and get those larvae coming or you will get beat. If you fail the early rush you will be so far behind that you might as well quit, almost as far back as if your rush had semi-succeeded.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Finished the campaign last night, and I have to say I was rather surprised that there really weren't any last-minute plot twists. Everything happened pretty much exactly as I thought it would. I don't want to spoiler anything, but I really thought something would turn out unlike you'd expect, and I'm left wondering what they are going to do with the zerg campaign now.

[joacqin]

Yeah, I was somewhat disapointed as well but then again the exact opposite result was almost as expected. Zeratul's visions kinda forced what happened to happen though or else everything is screwed.

As for my MP, and I must tell you Aldeth that it is very fun in reasonable doses is currently going way too good. Just got five straight wins in silver which if it continues might lead to me being promoted which I seriously do not want to. Just using hotkeys for different groups and buildings makes a world of difference in your game.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Originally Posted by joacqin

You need three workers to harvest a crystal to the fullest according to a loading screen tooltip.

I did notice that tip, but here's the issue I have with such a strategy. If it takes you more than 10-15 minutes to play a MP game, then gas, and not minerals are the limiting factor in production. Early on, yes, you need minerals pretty much exclusively, with little or no gas required. (Especially if you're like me and play the terran - I build nothing but SCVs, marines, and supply depots early on, and what all those things have in common is no gas component required.) Furhtermore, most units in the game require more crystals than gas to produce.

But consider this, the time it takes an SCV to make a round trip gathering gas, and a round trip gathing minerals is nearly identical. (For minerals, they spend a couple of seconds at the mineral pile, and for gas they enter the refinery for a couple of seconds. Add in the fact that you only get 4 vespene per trip, but 5 minerals per trip. So, once you are at "full production", you are getting the following per round trip:

2 geysers * 3 SVCs * 4 vespene = 24 gas
8 mineral piles * 3 SCVs * 5 minerals = 120 crystals

That's exactly a 5:1 ratio between minerals and gas. While I will concede that you certainly need more crystals than gas, you don't need that much more. Mineral collection outpaces gas extraction by such a wide margin that you quickly find yourself with a greater demand for gas than minerals. With 2 SCVs per pile it's about a 3:1 ratio, which is probably a more realistic goal to shoot for. The only reason I prioritize minerals over gas early is I need no vespene at all for my early production.

The main issue is research paths. Those things are vespene intensive expenditures, typically requiring as much vespene as minerals. Upgrades are also expensive gas-wise. The only way I can see you needing 5 times as many minerals as gas is if you build a force consisting of marines, marauders, seige tanks and medics. The marines and marauders require no gas, and both seige tanks and medics require three times as much minerals as gas.

Originally Posted by joacqin

Yeah, I was somewhat disapointed as well but then again the exact opposite result was almost as expected. Zeratul's visions kinda forced what happened to happen though or else everything is screwed.

I had a bit of a different interpretation. I better spoiler this though, just in case:

Spoiler!

Here's my thinking - while Zeratul was very clear about needing Kerrigan alive to prevent the hybrids from destroying everything, he was very unspecific about why and how they needed her alive. Is it not at least possible that she needed to remain in control of the Swarm to defeat the hybrids? Is it not at least plausible that making her human again was tantamount to killing her?

Things that I wonder about that probably will not be answered in the expansion pack(s):

1. Valerian obviously had every intention of double crossing Raynor. Once he finds out that Tychus is dead, and Kerrigan isn't, won't he try and to kill both of them before they can return to the ship? Your list of resources to prevent such is rather thin. By the sounds of things, you have one battle cruiser, the Hyperion, commanded by Horner, and not much else. The rest of the forces at Char are Dominion, lead by Genreal Warfield, who is ostensibly still loyal to Valerian. They could shoot the Hyperion from the sky, which means Raynor and Kerrigan would be SOL.

2. The Dominion is in open revolt against Arcturus, but not Valerian. By destroying the Queen of Blades, and possibly killing Raynor to boot, would he not be viewed as a conquering hero upon his return? Couldn't he take control of the Dominion easily at this point? Wouldn't the Dominion still remain the dominant terran force? Wasn't 90% of the terran campaign focused on stopping exactly that from happening?

However, without any Terran missions left, it seems unlikely that we'll get clear answers to these things.

Questions that I think will be answered in the expansion packs:

1. Who leads the zerg now? AFAIK, there is no Overmind. Now that Kerrigan is human once again, she isn't in charge of the Zerg anymore. From SC1, we saw that even the loss of a cerebrate was enough to have a huge population of Zerg run amok once they were directionless. It would appear that would now be true of the entire Swarm. There will have to be some yet-to-be-introduced character that takes over this job.

2. With the Terrans, and I suppose specifically the Dominion in control of this Zerg pwning artificact, how are the Zerg even a playable race at this point. The Protoss in the past have shown no compunction about incinerating entire planets to wipe out Zerg infestations, and now it appears that Terrans have a similar ability. While I have no idea if the artifact destroyed all the Zerg on Char when it was activated, it certainly seemed like it was capable of destroying a significant area around the artifact.

3. It seems like a logical continuation of this story would be for hybrids to start gaining in power, with Kerrigan eventually stopping them. So, are Hybrids going to be a playable race? Now that we finished the Terran missions, how are we going to have Kerrigan do this?

Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long for the expansion pack(s). If they decide to release the game as a trilogy, that would be disappointing. It seems like the development of subsequent campaigns would be easier compared to what they've done up to this point. You already have all the units for all the other races, and you already have battlenet up and running.

[joacqin]

You can never have too many minerals, I acknowladge that you get vastly more minerals than gas but just use it to build zerglings/zealots/marines and are marauders completely gasfree? That is sick, terran needs to be balanced.

As for the story, who knows but you did see how she looked in the end I think the counter lies in what the overmind did to her and I think Raynor only gave her her own mind back. She is still a hybrid, dunno how to spoiler wrap so I tried to be circumspect.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Marauders are gas free, but they cost 100 minerals whereas marines cost just 50. Medics are firebats are both 75 minerals and 25 gas.

To use spoiler tags type [spoiler] and then to end it put the / in front of the word spoiler.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Spoiler!

Other than having dread-locks in her hair (and it still being black) Kerrigan looked pretty damn human to me. No wings, no strikingly zerg characteristics, or anything else like that. If Raynor gave her her mind back, and she doesn't look zerg at all, I think it is fair to say she isn't still the leader of the zerg.

That said, I concede that she may have retained some of her zerg powers. However, since the terran campaign in "done" it does leave a lot of questions about how she will be incorporated into the expansion packs (as we know she will).

[AMaster]

Marauders cost 25 gas. At least in mp, and I'm pretty sure they do in SP as well, but maybe not.

Spoiler!

Both Kerrigan's hair and skin are distinctively nonhuman, and we already know that the zerg campaign will have the player taking the role of Kerrigan

[joacqin]

Spoiler!

Thats what I saw as well, she is still a zerg/human hybrid she just got her original mind back and probably lost some of her powers. Read some speculation elsewhere and I am fairly convinced that the zerg campaign will be about taking control of the swarm as Kerrigan.

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Originally Posted by AMaster

Spoiler!

Both Kerrigan's hair and skin are distinctively nonhuman, and we already know that the zerg campaign will have the player taking the role of Kerrigan

Originally Posted by joacqin

Spoiler!

Thats what I saw as well, she is still a zerg/human hybrid she just got her original mind back and probably lost some of her powers. Read some speculation elsewhere and I am fairly convinced that the zerg campaign will be about taking control of the swarm as Kerrigan.

I'll take your word for it on the marauders - I cannot actually check in-game at the moment, but given that both of you guys play so much more than me, the two of you are probably right and I'm probably wrong here.

Spoiler!

I'll have to take another look at the last cinematic. I distinctly remember her hair still being black with the dreadlock things going. I thought her skin looked like regular human skin though.

[AMaster]

You don't have to check in-game

Spoiler!

look closely at the skin; it's not immediately obvious, but there are some weird patterns and markings there

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Spoiler!

I checked the end game cinematic over the weekend, and I now agree. There are some weird purplish looking things on Kerrigan's skin - and the hair too. I think I missed it the first time because as Raynor is carrying her away, she doesn't look anything other than human.

[joacqin]

Finally starting to learn to play, I still suck but I am getting better. Love the basic mechanics of zerg, love how I can replenish an army almost instantly do not love that all my units die instantly if my opponent has any clue whatsoever.

[Fly2tHeSkY]

I'm guessing the majority of you guys (that play mp) are on the US server. Blizzard decided to be nice to us and gave us our own =)

[chevalier]

Originally Posted by Barmy Army

What are your battle.net names?

NewbieOne, character no. 967, EU server. Gold league because I'm slow, in more than one sense of the word.

[Barmy Army]

Originally Posted by chevalier

NewbieOne, character no. 967, EU server. Gold league because I'm slow, in more than one sense of the word.

Gold league isn't a bad level to be at. It means you know how to hold basic cheese, and know how to play a bit. Top gold and plat is a big jump I think though. Leave a top gold/plat zerg alone to macro without constantly harassing him is an instant loss. It's silly how once a zerg gets passed 3 bases, they can just instantly remax. They will just throw 50 lings at one of your far away expos and think nothing to it 'here, deal with that'. The only way to stop zerg getting out of control is to deny their 3rd as long as you possibly can.

I'm currently trying to work out how to get into plat ><.

[joacqin]

Bugger off! Stupid cheesing terran! The only reason zerg seems strong later on is that terran and toss are so used to quick easy wins that they do not know how to actually handle an even playing field.

[Barmy Army]

No, it's because the larva mechanic is broken and zerg units are cheap as hell.