True Blue Episode 6

Greetings, and welcome to another episode of True Blue, the official GosuGamers.net blue post tracker. As usual, if it’s blue and it’s on the forums, you’ll find it here. This week featured a ton of new information on all three races, touching primarily on some of the new flavor added to some of the old classics.

The Protoss featured a bit more discussion surrounding air units, including the Dark Pylon’s Dark Shield ability – or its ability to temporarily cloak a selected unit – being used in conjunction with the Mothership. Evidently, the Mothership, unlike the Arbiter, is not immune to effects that would cause it to become cloaked. This, combined with the Mothership’s ability to actually cloak buildings, could make for some interesting hidden tech stratagems. Also, with Antigravity being moved to the Phoenix has been proving effective at taking out strategic targets such as enemy Queens or worker units, as lifting these units into the air makes them vulnerable to attack by the air to air only Phoenix.

The Terran players on the forums had a few questions about the various upgrades to the Command Center now available in StarCraft 2. As we have found out over the course of development, the Command Center can now be upgraded to either an Orbital Command or a Planetary Fortress. Both the Planetary Fortress and default Command Center will retain the ability to hold five SCVs. The Planetary Fortress, however, functions only as a shelter for these units, as it cannot lift off to transport them anywhere. The Orbital Command, while it cannot hold SCVs, can still lift off in addition to featuring the ability to call down Mules to aid with harvesting or activate a Sensor Sweep like the Comsat Station of StarCraft 1. It is also worth mentioning that landing any building will now cause mobile units in its landing zone to automatically clear out. Another Terran player wanted to know why it was the Drop Pods had been removed. Karune reported that the Drop Pods were less effective than simply using a Medivac Dropship to ferry your reinforcements around and as a result simply seemed redundant.

As for the Zerg, there was a great deal of discussion surrounding both the Nydus Network and the Overlord and his counterpart: the Overseer. The Nydus Network is available at the Lair tech level, and costs 150 minerals and 200 vespene gas. After completion, the Nydus Network can then spawn multiple Nydus Worms anywhere on the creep for the cost of 100 minerals and a 10 second build time. Units can enter the Nydus Network itself, or any Nydus Worm, and emerge at any exit they so choose. As for the Overlord, it gains the ability to spread creep for free when the player’s Lair tech finishes. Once the Lair finishes, the player can also research the ability to have their Overlords transport units. Overseers have detection, as well as a single target healing ability and the option to spawn a Changeling unit to infiltrate the enemy base and gather intelligence.

As a final note, Karune and Cydra have promised that we will be able to find them playing on Battle.net once the game releases, continuing to support and interact with the community. Hopefully they won’t be smurfing! That’s the blues for this week. Tune in next week for another issue.