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I was actually watching the movie Starship Troopers the other day which has many scenarios involving marines fighting giant insect type creatures, similar to the zerg. (Starcraft is nearly a direct copy of WH40k which is an adaptation of the Starship Troopers novel)
This is just a selection of examples to prove a point.
+ Show Spoiler +
One scenario had an elevated compound under assault by bugs that would try to climb the walls. The number of creatures was limitless and for every one that was killed the height of the compound was effectively lowered since others could walk on top of the fallen ones.
Insects would have weak spots, nervous centers vulnerable to attacks or soft underbellies. In other scenarios insects would deflect shots with armored body parts. Or the marines could even dodge insect attacks in some cases, especially when running away.
Marines can't shoot an enemy if there is a person in between, that is to say the line of sight is important for their weapons. Friendly fire is something relevant that needs to be avoided.
Giant beetles the size of trucks with fire breath were defenseless to marines jumping on top of it, effectively making them unable to defend themselves in close range. Furthermore, they were a danger to their allies since the fire breath would kill everything indiscriminately.
Soldiers would differ in skills, some being more adept than others. They would have different weapons depending on the situation, such as automatic weapons or grenades. They could run out of ammo. In the book (though not the movie) there were different types of power armor for different tasks, scout, command & marauder.
Soldiers if engaging in melee combat would easily be critically wounded and would stand no chance versus the insects. Critically wounded soldiers had to be abandoned on the field in some cases, but especially in the novel safeguarding one's team was a high priority and it was important to save lives, and victims could be brought to a medic station where, in some cases with prosthetic limbs or artificial organs, the person could be made combat ready again.
As you can see the depiction of combat in the movie is fairly realistic and involves many factors that can't easily be simulated in a computer game, or at least that aren't simulated in Starcraft. Reading this you would be more likely to think of an FPS game where you control one individual soldier, but you operate in teams with multiplayer combat scenarios.
In Starcraft there are no individual differences between units of the same type, there is no dodge chance, no critical strike chance, no line of sight, no ammo, no real height differences, no differences in scale as even mega units scale down in the game, there is only friendly fire in a few scenarios. Not directly related to the Starship Troopers example, units in Starcraft can move in lockstep as if they were coordinated, which is also not realistic. To be even more pedantic, the maps are also not realistic, with everything depending on only two types of resources, all having the same general layout. Bases start out with only six workers, but given that you aren't creating robots the other scv's or marines have to come from somewhere. Yet if you would destroy a command center it wouldn't start flooding civilians that have now lost their shelter.
By the way, if you've wondered why terran can't simply carpet-bomb the zerg from the sky, in the novel the bugs live in underground colonies and are resistant to radiation. They are also more numerous than the terran by far, furthermore it's not considered ethical to sacrifice soldiers simply to draw out enough bugs for cost-effective carpet bombing. This makes boots on the ground the best alternative, especially since the marines have powerful weapons such as nerve gas, flame throwers, power suits. This rationale might not work for the Starcraft universe though.
And one thing from the WH40k universe that is missing are monstrosities, I guess only the overmind and the leviathans count. I think that for all the customizability of the zerg in HotS it's a pity you couldn't construct many massive constructions engineered for some specific purpose. But I guess it works better with zerg as the villains, which they weren't in SC2 so far.
  
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Hong Kong9165 Posts
I was expecting an analysis about the rational courses of action the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss factions have as independent, sovereign actors in relation to the anarchical nature of interstellar relations. Needless to say, I leave this thread sorely disappointed.
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On October 25 2013 22:28 itsjustatank wrote:
I was expecting an analysis about the rational courses of action the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss factions have as independent, sovereign actors in relation to the anarchical nature of interstellar relations. Needless to say, I leave this thread sorely disappointed.
it's okay, most of my blogs get 1 star ratings
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On October 25 2013 23:33 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 22:28 itsjustatank wrote:
I was expecting an analysis about the rational courses of action the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss factions have as independent, sovereign actors in relation to the anarchical nature of interstellar relations. Needless to say, I leave this thread sorely disappointed. it's okay, most of my blogs get 1 star ratings not as if I care what a random dimwitted TL person thinks about me, I'm mostly writing blogs to force myself to write stuff anyway
Hey man it's alright, nothing wrong with this blog. I'd say I'm unsure of the central message though. After one read through I think you are saying sc2 should not be judged based upon bw, but I'm uncertain.
I think you're observations are fairly rational. I think the underpinning issue is that sc2 drove many people away from bw into sc2. Up until sc2 beta release there was a larger population of people that still played bw, in fact I think playing 3v3 in-house games with friends back on US EAST was the most fun video gaming experience I've had. SC2 took that away, destroyed it even, so it's hard to not be emotional and compare the two with some disdain when the sequel took something away without adequately replacing it.
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On October 25 2013 23:33 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On October 25 2013 22:28 itsjustatank wrote:
I was expecting an analysis about the rational courses of action the Zerg, Terran, and Protoss factions have as independent, sovereign actors in relation to the anarchical nature of interstellar relations. Needless to say, I leave this thread sorely disappointed. it's okay, most of my blogs get 1 star ratings not as if I care what a random dimwitted TL person thinks about me, I'm mostly writing blogs to force myself to write stuff anyway
While very reasonable not let a random persons opinion personally affect you, it may be worth considering why most of your blogs are rated so poorly. Having other people enjoy your work is pretty rewarding.
Also, I'm fairly certain his post was just lighthearted, no need to start throwing around insults to people you just met.
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As an aside, when I watched Starship Trooper as a kid I thought it was stupid as hell. So they managed to build spaceships but somehow decided to throw a zillion naked soldiers to the bugs. No tanks to speak of, no arty, no nukes. Now the question: is there an explanation in the novel for that, or are the battle in the novel even like in the film at all?
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On October 26 2013 00:19 calh wrote:
As an aside, when I watched Starship Trooper as a kid I thought it was stupid as hell. So they managed to build spaceships but somehow decided to throw a zillion naked soldiers to the bugs. No tanks to speak of, no arty, no nukes. Now the question: is there an explanation in the novel for that, or are the battle in the novel even like in the film at all?
The novel and the movie don't have that much in common. The movie is not concerned with depicting sensible military tactics, since it's an anti-militarism satire.
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Mutas flying from one planet to another (in what atmossphere?)
Zerg being able to breath on every planet.
Widowmines/Banelings not exploding when killed.
Vespingeysers always found near mineral patches.
Buildungs not able to land on burrowed Zerglings.
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On October 26 2013 04:31 3point14 wrote:
Mutas flying from one planet to another (in what atmossphere?)
Zerg being able to breath on every planet.
Widowmines/Banelings not exploding when killed.
Vespingeysers always found near mineral patches.
Buildungs not able to land on burrowed Zerglings.
umm, what?
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On October 26 2013 04:31 3point14 wrote:
Mutas flying from one planet to another (in what atmossphere?)
Zerg being able to breath on every planet.
Widowmines/Banelings not exploding when killed.
Vespingeysers always found near mineral patches.
Buildungs not able to land on burrowed Zerglings.
Widow Mines shouldn't explode when killed. Despite being called Widow MINES, they actually shoot out a missile, rather than explode. It would be like expecting a Missile Turret to discharge a final volley upon death.
The Zerg can't necessarily breathe on every planet. It's just that we never see the planets they can't breathe on, presumably because any planet hostile enough that the Zerg can't adapt to it is also too hostile for any other faction to want to take.
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i dont want to start a discussion, but something as full with explosives as widowmines or as pumped up as a baneling
should explode a little more.
terrans and protoss can live in hostile environments due to their technology. but maybe all important planets in Korprulu are friendly enough for zerg.
i agree that my points might me explainable with certain assumptions. i just felt id bring up what i thought was unrealistic.
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