Need advice on Starcraft

[kingcomrade]

I've actually never played SC's campaign, and I'm going through and need help.

I've been playing the game again, and there's some things that I need help with.

Marines, compared to Goliaths, are they useful? Or is it better to just to focus on Factories and churn out tanks and goliaths rather than build barracks? Or are marines only useful against Zerg? Or not even then?
Also, firebats. Are firebats useful at all, compared to marines? I haven't found a way to use them in a way that is worthwhile. Marines just seem to last longer and do more damage.
Another question: If you stim pak marines, then put them in a bunker, do they keep the stim pak forever? Or does it still run out after a few seconds?

This is just in vanilla SC, without Brood War. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I'll probably have questions.

Dealing with seige tanks:
As terran:
I seriously can't beat the last Terran mission. I've been trying to use ghosts to lockdown their tanks, but they still murder me. Their ghosts render my tanks and goliaths useless, and their tanks murder my infantry.
As zerg:
So far, the only way I've really got to deal with them is to use queens. They cost about the same as mutalisks, and insta-kill. And usually, there's always guards about so mutalisks usually get killed. Is there a better way?

Dealing with Reavers:
As zerg: Seriously. Dragoons + Reavers, I can't figure out a way to deal with this without sacrificing huge numbers of ground troops or expensive air troops.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Seriously the Starcraft Campaign (or even fighting the PC online for that matter) is really, really easy. Firebats have their uses online as do Goliaths but generally, just mass marines and tanks then send them into the CPUs base. Wallah. You = teh winnar.

A good siege, wait, move, siege again strategy works best. Move your tanks up, put them in siege mode and let them batter any nearby enemies or buildings that are within range. Keep your marines back to defend the tanks for any units that come out to them. Once the bad guys have stopping coming, unsiege your tanks, move them foward to the next target and repeat. Keep a few of those flying Science Observatory units handy too and make sure one is always just ahead of your tanks. You find your tanks can shoot further then they can actually see in siege mode and, with a bit of luck, take out some of those Ghosts before they get to you.

If you really want, you could do the "get 12 Battlecruisers" tactic and just fly around with those taking shit out. Usually "the best" strategy is some kind of hokey combination of everything though. Can't say much about Goliaths though, I only ever found them useful as an air defense on island maps. Using them against ground units for the time they took to build vs how quickly they'd die, just wasn't worth it.

As for dealing with Protoss reavers while playing Zerg, just get 24 Guardians and 24 Mutalisks. Once you have access to those, any map in the Zerg campaign can be completed without much thought. Again, same strategy as the tank and marines. Keep your long distance units back to do all the damage and your short range units to fend off anything that gets too close.

That said, the CPUs uncanny ability to send hundreds of Ghosts after you and have them all cast lockdown at once, is annoying. Just keep building units to replace those that get zapped and keep sending them in. Ghosts only have so much energy. If you haven't got 200/200 with most of that military, you're just not trying.

 

[kingcomrade]

I've found Goliaths are pretty good, and most useful against Protoss, Firebats useful against nothing. I COULD use leap frogging siege tanks, but that's no fun. Marines build a bit faster, but to get any sizable number you need multiple barracks, and I'd rather just build another factory.

 

[Higher Game]

Firebats are great at killing zerglings. They also shred protoss shields, since shields take full damage. With medics, they can easily destroy zealots. So, they're good at tearing down Protoss buildings' shields, and send in tanks to finish the job.

Stimmed marines and firebats keep the stim in the bunker for its normal duration, but it takes some good micro reflexes to stim a group and get them in the bunker quickly. With an SCV reparing the bunker and a tank, this makes a very efficient, strong defence. You won't ever want to use it against the stupid AI, though. Just mass battleships/cruisers/mutalisks and you'll win.

Goliaths are good against battleships, cruisers, guardians, and transports. They are bad against mutalisks; use marines instead. They're rarely produced against zerg, since medic/marine is the best against zerg, and they're only good against protoss when they're going for carriers.

Carriers are actually a good bike/tank counter, since they're the Protoss's only good air to ground unit. They can force a terran player to make a few goliaths instead of tanks, which could end up turning the game in favor of the protoss. The Protoss player probably has a few corsairs to web tanks and scare off transports anyway, so a carrier or two can be good to add.

 

[Slylandro]

KingComrade:

Marines are very useful all around units and are helpful long into the endgame. You can usually churn them out freely without too many problems. They hit air units and after several upgrades, you can build huge packs of them that can just mow most basic units down from far away. At the very worst, you can pack any excess marines into a bunker, turning it more or less into a good guard tower. (Note however that these fake guard posts cannot detect stealthed units-- so beware.)

The thing that makes FireBats unique is that although their attacks have less range, they do more damage up close than marines. That is because overlapping streams of fire from FireBats gain damage bonuses. Thus, to make FireBats live up to their potential, it is usually customary to put them in front of marines, preferably in groups of three. The general consensus is that FireBats are useful, but shouldn't be made in large quantities, especially because that can quickly take up your Vespene gas reserves, which are probably better suited for Golaiths and Siege Tanks.

Marines and goliaths: good question. When you play StarCraft, you must break out of the mold of typical RTS where the tank rush wins. Sometimes it does in StarCraft just by sheer power, but if you try this against a good player, it's not going to work. You should be building Goliaths and Marines for different reasons, so one cannot say either is inherently more useful. A Goliath is typically reserved for air defenses. They do alright against other ground attackers, but this type of conflict is typically not cost-effective for the Terran player. An important observation regarding the usage of Goliaths is that their attacks are explosive-based. (In SC that means they do less damage, the smaller the enemy unit.) So you should not use Goliaths against Zerglings for example. (Or at least, avoid it.)


Note that the way you should play against the computer in the Campaigns is different from the way you should be playing against humans in multiplayer (Just checking).

The best way to deal with Siege Tanks in the campaign, from the Terran side, is usually with cloaked ghosts or with Siege Tanks of your own. When they use ghosts to counter this, it is generally pretty difficult since the AI has near perfect simultaneous timing. The best way is, if you have an Explorer vessel, keep it around your tanks at all times. Explorer vessels have excellent viewing range, and can inform your tanks about targets ahead of time. The vessels also can detect invisible units. Cloaked wraiths might also be useful against the AI, I forget the details of that mission. An important thing to notice is that Siege Tanks in Siege Mode have big problems hitting things near them. To take advantage of this, get up close with Siege Tanks. If they don't have support, you can quickly wipe them out, sometimes by accident (the tanks' splash damage hurts allies too.) Hope that helps, I haven't played StarCraft in a while, been a bit too busy.

 

[Slylandro]

Carriers are actually a good bike/tank counter, since they're the Protoss's only good air to ground unit. They can force a terran player to make a few goliaths instead of tanks, which could end up turning the game in favor of the protoss. The Protoss player probably has a few corsairs to web tanks and scare off transports anyway, so a carrier or two can be good to add.

Corsairs were introduced in BroodWar I think.

 

[kingcomrade]

Yeah, Higher Game, I'm not playing Brood War. I don't like the new units, and I don't really play online, I suck too much for it to be fun. And medics vastly change how effective marines are.

So firebats are defensive counter-charge units that are good against Protoss buildings? Alright.

Also, if Goliaths did explosive damage, wouldn't that mean they do MORE damage to smaller units than to larger ones? I'm pretty sure that whatever you are talking about applies only to their missiles. Their machine guns never have any trouble killing zerlings or zealots or anything bigger for me. They do about double a marine's damage, so for the cost of 2 marines and some gas (and about 3/2 the build time for a marine), you get the damage of 2 marines, better armor, and more HP.

I've noticed when playing that I usually don't invest in any more than 2 barracks. It's usually better to spend money on another factory to build goliaths, as my play style goes for wars of attrition.

 

[Slylandro]

"Also, if Goliaths did explosive damage, wouldn't that mean they do MORE damage to smaller units than to larger ones?"

No. As I said before, "explosive" damage in *SC* (StarCraft) means *less* damage to small units. "Concussive" damage is the opposite. *Less* damage to large units.

"I'm pretty sure that whatever you are talking about applies only to their missiles. "

You're right, my mistake. The ground attack is normal damage (does same damage to all ground units regardless of size.) The air attack is the explosive one.

I think your assessment of Goliaths and Marines is pretty fair, but I wouldn't infer that building Goliaths over Marines is preferable when possible. In the later stages, you might want to continue to pump out Marines so that you can use your Vespene Gas for BattleCruisers instead for example, and just take a small group of them and iteratively wipe out small enemy outposts and then return to base for repairs. (Works better in the campaign than online).

Also, consider damage upgrades. Damage upgrades tend to be more useful for common, cheap units, than for rarer expensive units like Goliaths.

For example Marine damage can get upgraded +3 at the Engineering Bay. Marine ground damage is 6. Goliath damage can get upgraded +3 at the Armory. Goliath ground damage is 12. Now, consider this. Approximately, for every goliath, you can get *two* marines instead and faster (matters a lot online especially where rushes are frequent), and this is not counting the 50 Vespene gas extra.

Marine damage is now 9, and Goliath damage is now 15 after upgrading. Yes, they both increased by the same amount, but since it's possible to have double the number of marines, it's actually more like damage of 18 v.s. damage of 15. This doesn't make Marines better (they have other weaknesses like the inability to be 'repaired' in original SC for example), but it's an example of why things aren't so neat and tidy in SC and why you usually should not generalize.

Marines look weak in the original SC campaign because you're usually fighting entrenched enemy forces who can deal with rushes and are usually advanced enough in development to have good tools to defeat infantry attacks. In online play where each person starts from more reasonable resources, Marines are killer.

On a side note, BroodWar does a good job of balancing the sides in SC by providing each side with more tools to defend against the "cheapshots" of opposing forces. Protoss got Corsairs to deal with Terrans' annoying SiegeTanks encampments and force them to play more creatively. Zerg got Lurkers to deal with Terran Marine rushes and give Zerg better defenses in general. Terran Goliaths received the Charon Booster upgrades so that their range would now be on par with Zerg Guardians which were too good earlier in SC; it also made them into a more distinctively strong anti-air unit than before. Terrans also got Medics so that the survival rate of Marines beame more respectable. Etc.

 

[Spazmo]

And don't forget the matter of rate of fire. Goliath cooldown is 22, while the Marine's is only 15, and 7.5 when stimmed. So not only will those two upgraded Marines do more damage than a Goliath, but they'll do it at a much faster rate as well.

 

[jiujitsu]

I never played Starcraft.

 

[Human Shield]

I've been bad at RTS games, I never know how many units of each to built. I try to build as little as possible and get full upgrades and end up not moving out and I never seem to have enough strong defense that I have to reload and micromanage where the attack is. I never know how many drones and such to built, I watched some professional replays and they seem to spam tons out.

 

[Roqua]

While we're talking about help, I need help going to the bathroom. How does a zipper work? I also find combat In kotor way too difficult. Please help. My mouse has buttons, what do they do?

 

[almondblight]

Doesn't armor hurt the marines more though? For instance, armor of 3 does minus 3 to all shots, so instead of 18 vs. 15, against a foe with an armor of 3 it's 12 vs. 12 (I think). I read somewhere that Firebat attacks are actually counted by the game as two level 8 attacks, so against a large armored unit they would be doing almost no damage (don't know if this is true though). Anyway, the problems I've always had with Goliaths is that they are two big to clump together nicely and slow each other down in tight spaces. With marines, you can cram a bucnh together so that several hit an enemy at one time; with Goliaths, it's hard to control and get that unified firepower (at least it seems).

 

[kingcomrade]

If you compare marines and goliaths they seem about equal, with the marines coming out on top by just a little, but you also have to remember about build times and infrastructure (the barracks/factory). Build time is my main thing. You can get more firepower more quickly with multiple factories than you can with the same number of barracks because of build times. Goliaths only take like 6 or something more seconds to build for about double the power. So if I'm facing someone with 3 barracks while I have 3 war factories:
at 24 seconds he will have 3 marines
At 30 I will have 3 goliaths.
at 48 he will have 6, which is
at 60 I will have 6 goliaths
At 72 he will have 9 marines
at 90 I will have 9 goliaths.

I'm paying more in gas and for the factories, and it's a little slower, but at each stage besides the first I always have either more or equal firepower than he does.

Spazmo, the cooldown doesn't matter so much, as Goliaths have more than 2x the hitpoints of a marine.

I think marines are most useful against zerg, as I'm pretty sure hydras only do 75% damage to them, as compared to 100% versus goliaths. Versus Protoss, on the other hand, you want the survivability that goliaths offer for about the same firepower because zealots just tear through marines (in my experience).

 

[Atrokkus]

I concur to most of what was said before, and just want to add: in StarCraft, one of the keys to victory is *mass production*. If you want a lot of marines, don't hesitate to build 5-6 barracks. If you are making a huge tank offensive, build at least 6 factories.
Controling a production machine so large takes a quick hand and wit. You can't hotkey every building, so have to click through them, finding them across the map. And this usually has to be done while maneuvering your forces in the battlefield. This is generally the hardest thing in StarCraft: you have to control everything, without the helpers and all those funny features that are popular in new RTSs. Just pure and raw micro-macro control.

On a side note, BroodWar does a good job of balancing the sides in SC by providing each side with more tools to defend against the "cheapshots" of opposing forces. Protoss got Corsairs to deal with Terrans' annoying SiegeTanks encampments and force them to play more creatively.

Absolutely correct. SCclassic is considered very imbalanced. Had Blizzard stopped at SC1, without exp, the franchise would go down fast, and probably wouldn't have gained its title as the best sport RTS in history. Broodwar was a like a huge patch that addressed so many issues at once, that afterwards it was easier to balance out smaller features with patches.

So, I recommend that you get BroodWar. The campaign in BW is more challenging and fun, as well.

 

[kris]

I concur to most of what was said before, and just want to add: in StarCraft, one of the keys to victory is *mass production*. If you want a lot of marines, don't hesitate to build 5-6 barracks. If you are making a huge tank offensive, build at least 6 factories.

Nothing is more satisfying as when you annihilate the mass produced army with special attacks.

 

[kingcomrade]

I do have Brood War. I guess I'll try it out some, but I just always liked the dichotomy in the original.

By the way, the only way Terrans have besides towers to detect invisible stuff is comsat and science vessel, right?

Yeah, I know mass production is key, that's why I was talking about making factories instead of barracks.

 

[Atrokkus]

Nothing is more satisfying as when you annihilate the mass produced army with special attacks.

Yeah, but it's not an outright irresistible counter. Yes, high templars are essential, but they just won't do without other warriors against a swarm of the zerg. Zerg are too numerous to be destroyed utterly and singlehandedly by psi-storm. So, numbers is still the key.
However, yes, spec. abilities is a very important factor. Especially, the surprise attacks (psi-storm is totally predictable) like, for instance, Maelstrom of Dark Archons when the zerg is sending a lot of ultralisks in.

By the way, the only way Terrans have besides towers to detect invisible stuff is comsat and science vessel, right?

Right. When fighting zerg, Vessels are essential and must-have, it's a mobile Hiroshima. However, on ground maps against terrans and toss i prefer offensive turrets. Comsat is just an auxiliary asset.

but I just always liked the dichotomy in the original.

Well, it's preserved in BW, the campaign structure is similar.

 

[kingcomrade]

No, it's not preserved at all. God damnit I hate siege tanks and reavers, now the Zerg have this Lurker.

I've been watching replays a lot from gosugamers and such, and I'm noticing that in Terran vs. Zerg, the Zerg 99.99% of the time goes lurkers+dark swarm+scourge, and 99% of the time they win.
Another thing that bugs me about it, nobody uses Hydralisks anymore! Compared to lurkers they are pretty useless.

 

[Atrokkus]

That depends on the match-up. If it's ZvP then hydras are quite effective, and are being used. Other than that, yeah, they are pretty much useless.

I've been watching replays a lot from gosugamers and such, and I'm noticing that in Terran vs. Zerg, the Zerg 99.99% of the time goes lurkers+dark swarm+scourge, and 99% of the time they win.

Well, not 99%, there is no real imbalance about that, it's just that zerg player was better overall than terran, nothing to do with races. The counters may be right, but still micro and macro are decisive. If the zerg gets the mapcontrol, few things can ever stop him.

 

[kingcomrade]

No imbalance? Zerg are practically designed to fight Terrans. Defilers' Dark Swarm and Plague both utterly destroy Terran units, Terrans have poor detection so Lurkers kick their ass...add to that scourge, which can easily destroy Terran's only mobile detecting unit...

When I watch 20+ TvZ replays, see the same Zerg tactic over and over, and see the Zerg win every single time, yeah, I think that's imbalance.

Hydras ARE good against Terran. They are good against tanks and goliaths, first of all. Most of the Terran players I see do Marines and Medics and Science Vessels, and I wonder at the Marines, but what else can a Terran do? There's nothing in the Terran arsenal that can defeat Dark Swarmed Lurkers.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

Well, Terrans suck no matter who you're playing. Even compared to Protoss they have so many weaknesses it's not really worth playing them. One of their major problems is the sheer number of supply depot's a Terran player has to build simply to maintain their army.

Point being, a Terran supply depot takes up 6 squares of space and you need to build 25 of them (150 squares of room total). They usually end up being built together all in one clump which then becomes a huge security threat as anyone can fly over that area unharmed (Protoss Reaver drop). If you try and spread them out over your base, you're caught trying to juggle these huge arse depots with room required for barracks and more importantly, factories with attached machine shops.

Compare that to the Protoss diamond thing-o which are spread out all over the base to power the facilities but they only take up 4 squares. If you get the required 25, that's 100 squaers of room vs 150 for the Terran. On most maps, 50 squares of building space is a lot. Especially when terran need a mass of barracks and factories in order to produce the necessary units (which are tanks and marines, there's really nothing else a Terran can get).

Of course, compare them both to the Zerg who's supply depots are flying units AND act as freaking obsever units which can see cloaked units (making a Stealth attack against a Zerg nigh on impossible).

Again though, the fact that Terran need Factories with attached machine shops adds to the room they need to build. You can't mass factories too close otherwise your tanks get caught and you can't get them out from between the buildings. Add in everything else you need and the fact that nobody EVER flies their buildings off apart rom perhaps the Engineering bay and it means all of Terrans advantages become pretty useless.

 

[Atrokkus]

They are good against tanks and goliaths, first of all.

well, yes, hydras are used sometimes, but I wouldn't say they are some of the top-units in zerg disposal against terran.
Fast-hive -> mass lings (with armor upgrade), lurks are generally more effective in fast-paced games.
And goliaths are really not a problem: they are very rarely emplyed by terran. Mostly it's marines, and hydras don't have any serious advantage over marines. although yeah, with lurker support hydras are good and versatile.

Most of the Terran players I see do Marines and Medics and Science Vessels, and I wonder at the Marines, but what else can a Terran do? There's nothing in the Terran arsenal that can defeat Dark Swarmed Lurkers.

First off, the marine+vessel+tanks combination is the strongest in this match-up, hence the popularity.
However, here is the macro that's more important. Fast exp with Terran is getting popular now, and it really helps a lot. The mass accumulates, terran gets map controled faster and thus keeping zerg at bay. And that with the same force structure. Well, depending on the opponent's moves, of course, but largely it's that way exactly.
Note, also, that swarm is not really that powerful when there are swarms of tightly packed units: tank's splash damage gets through the swarm. That is, a single ultralisk will come unscathed after a direct volley, but a pack of zerglings will die, at least partially.

See, the M&M+Tank+vessel is a perfect counter for the lurker-hydra/ling strat. And it's more in the micro and macro than unit -choice really. And of course it's a game of adapting. If the zerg does something really wacky, you gotta return the favor.
Plus, the economics and map control play a much bigger role, and that's why many terrans nowadays do fast exp, and it really helps them win.
The unit counters are known to every player, and you can't win just by picking the right units, it's just one part of success.

Anyways, I don't know which games youve seen, but there certainly is no real imbalance here. Different players, different situations, different outcomes.

The only thing that stimulates imbalance is map-choice. Different maps offer differnt results. For instance PvT on islands is a pretty wacky match-up. And maps change frequently, hence the ups and downs of race/balance relation.

Face it, SC:BW is the most balanced RTS to date, that's why it's still alive and kicking, and generating huge interest in S.Korea. WC3, with all due respect and love that i have for it, is much worse in terms of balance, and that's why it's still not as popular as SC in Korea.

And I mean SC:BW, not the classic SC. The classic SC was horribly imbalanced and really not much fun to play.

 

[kingcomrade]

You're right, there, Warcraft 3 is boring, and I would say Starcraft is the most balanced out there. Not that it's perfect, but it's fun. I just am not that great at micro-ing spellcasters, so someone who can use defilers or ghosts or whatever is always going to kick my ass. I just can't figure out a way to keep them where I need them without getting them killed.

 

[Atrokkus]

Yeah, that's hard, and takes helluva lot of practice. That's why gosu are gosu and chobo are chobo ^_^