So I thought I'd do an overview of the units that can be built in Grey Goo, and how they compare to units from other RTS games (primarily Starcraft and Warcraft, because TL.net is based on Blizzard games).
Beta Units
1. Commando - Basic unit of the Beta. Pretty much a Starcraft Marine, complete with the ability to garrison a structure (in this case, wall towers). Weak but cheap to build, and very upgradable. Can be upgraded to shoot air as well as explode on death (with no friendly fire). This means that he's a combination Marine/Baneling from Starcraft 2.
2. Stalker - Basic anti-armor unit. Similar to Stalkers in SC2, except they can't shoot air and can't blink. However, they have a sidegrade which grants them unlimited cloaking while moving, increased range, increased damage per hit, but lower rate of fire, making them excellent for hit and run tactics. Unlike the Commando, the Stalker cannot be mounted on towers.
3. Predator - Main battle tank. Light armor with high damage with medium penetration but low rate of fire. Can fire while moving, making them excellent for harassing Goo players. Their armor is also just enough to allow them to cost efficiently fight Small Proteans (formless Goo unit that morphs into light units). Also very useful for denying expansions of non-Goo opponents. Can be mounted on walls, which gives them a significant HP shield. Think Tank Mode Siege Tanks garrisoned in a Bunker. Has a sidegrade which lowers its attack damage but significantly increases its rate of fire. This means that armor affects it more, but it deals less overkill damage against low HP units.
4. Seeker - Ground stealth unit, able to detect cloaked units as well as see into brush (the only unit able to do so without already being inside the brush). The Seeker has a sidegrade that removes its permanent cloaking but gives it an Arbiter-like cloaking field that only works when it's not moving (using the Hold Position command helps a lot). Placing an upgraded Seeker in a wall tower effectively gives you a Stealth Generator like in Tiberian Sun. Also, two upgraded seekers that are standing still will cloak each other, unlike Arbiters in Starcraft.
5. Cloudburst - Dedicated anti-air unit which can fire while moving. Very powerful when hidden in the brush where air units can't see them nor fire back at them. If you built so many of them that your enemy stops making air units, you can upgrade them to be able to target ground units (though their ground attack is much weaker than their AA attack). But hey, it beats having units that are dead weight. Can be mounted on wall towers for added survivability.
6. Hailstorm - Artillery unit. The weakest in terms of damage but the fastest in terms of movement. Can be upgraded to fire while moving, which makes them even more mobile than their Human and Goo counterparts. Required in all matchups to deal with deathballs.
7. Avalanche - Siege unit. Very high damage which ignores all armor, slow rate of fire, high armor, but very, very expensive to build. The most expensive Beta unit outside of the Hand of Ruk. One shots most ground units, but its slow rate of fire means that it will do a lot of overkill against swarms of units and get overwhelmed as a result. Very useful for breaking down walls, and for taking out high HP targets (mostly buildings). Similar to the Hailstorm, the Avalanche can be upgraded to fire while moving, while dramatically improves its mobility (it has a long arming time before firing where it stands still when it's not upgraded).
8. Guardian - Mobile turret. Very cost efficient unit which can attack ground and air, but can only fire while mounted on a wall tower. Has a sidegrade which changes its ground attack to an artillery shot with longer range than the Beta Hailstorm. Combos very well with the Hand of Ruk's six built-in towers.
9. Stratus - Air scout. Very fast and has a huge sight range. Mandatory vs. Goo players so you can see into higher ground and not get ambushed and devoured. Has a tracking ability in place of an attack, which lets you see the targeted unit for a short amount of time (I believe 30 seconds or something). The Stratus can can be upgraded to have its tracker explode when it expires, dealing a considerable amount of splash damage around the unit. It can also be upgraded to become a detector, in case of stealth units in an area that your Seekers can't get to.
10. Warbird - Fighter unit. High burst damage but limited ammo, and has to return to the hangar to reload. Works like the Orca Fighter in C&C games, though its missiles are too weak to destroy anything in one bombing run. Also has a nasty tendency to severely overkill a single low HP unit when give an attack-move command, so you have to micro them into attacking separate targets. I find Warbirds to be impractical because building a Warbird means that you're not building a Nimbus, which is so much better (Beta build air units one at a time, at a Hangar, which only supports up to four military aircraft).
11. Nimbus - Bomber unit. Carries two bombs, which is enough to destroy most ground units in a small AoE. Has a sidegrade which turns into the bombs into a massive AoE (area of effect), high DoT (damage over time) attack not unlike Psionic Storm in Starcraft (though at the cost of slightly lower damage). Nimbuses also have a lot of HP for an air unit, making them hard to take out in time if you don't see them coming. The Nimbus is the slowest air unit in the game but it is still much faster than the fastest ground unit (the Human Dagger).
12. Hand of Ruk - Epic unit. Thematically similar to the Terra-Tron joke unit from Starcraft 2, in that it requires you to combine several production facilities and tech buildings into one unit. Has six mountable towers that are best loaded up with Guardians (see above), and can launch nukes at extreme range for massive damage. The Hand of Ruk also serves as a mobile factory with two build queues that can build any ground unit. Also, unlike other epic units, the Hand of Ruk can be repaired at a repair pad. Its main weakness is that it's extremely slow, and it has a rather long minimum range where only its mounted units can fire. Also, you sacrifice the Starcraft equivalent of six factories with attached tech labs to build it, and it takes up 70 supply out of 200. It also loses in a straight fight against other epic units.
Human Units
1. Trident - Basic unit which is good for scouting early in the game. It has the same DPS as the Commando (double the damage but half the rate of fire), but has much higher HP. It can be upgraded to autorepair outside of combat, which it shares with the Gladius (tank), the Howitzer (artillery), and the Lancer (siege). A single upgrade will grant autorepair to all four of these units, which is really nice.
2. Revolver - Basic anti-armor unit. Similar to the Stalker, but has no upgrades or sidegrades. More supply-efficient than Tridents in the later game, when resources are no longer an issue.
3. Dagger - Ground scout unit. Has stealth detection but isn't cloaked itself. Has decent armor and can fire a very weak machinegun while moving. It is the fastest ground unit in the game, able to outrun Small Proteans and Drovers (the second fastest ground units). Can be ugpraded to have permanent cloaking. Unlike the Beta Seeker, it can't see into brush, though its cloaking upgrade will allow it to get in if there aren't any detector units around to spot it.
4. Gladius - Main battle tank. Human version of the Predator (decent damage + armor + fires while moving). Lower damage per attack than the Beta Predator but has faster attack speed. Shares an upgrade with the Trident that gives it autorepair (see above).
5. Longbow - Dedicated anti-air unit. Everything I said about the Cloudburst applies to the Longbow, except that the Humans don't have any wall towers to mount.
6. Howitzer - Artillery unit. The least mobile artillery unit in the game (Goo artillery has the same movement speed but can ignore terrain), and is average when it comes to range and damage (longer/more damaging than Beta Hailstorm, shorter/less damaging than Goo Crescent). However, Howitzer shots turn into short-lived land mines if they miss, which means they have a second chance of dealing damage. Can be upgraded to have mines with larger vision range (to see into brush) and longer timed life (for better area denial). As mentioned above, a single upgrade gives the Howitzer and three other units autorepair.
7. Lancer - Siege unit. This is basically a ground version of the Void Ray from Starcraft 2. A very effective but also very expensive base race tactic is to teleport six Lancers into the enemy base to destroy the headquarters as well as production facilities. If timed right, the enemy will be unable to replace their army and you will win through superior macro. Also has a sidegrade which changes its Void Ray attack into a railgun for damage in a line for severely reduced single-target DPS. I don't ever use this sidegrade because I already have access to Howitzers for my anti-deathball needs.
8. Monitor - Air scout. Similar to the Stratus but has no special tracking ability. Has a single upgrade which gives it permanently cloaking, so it's like a very fast Observer with no detection. Serves the same role as the Beta Stratus.
9. Scimitar - Bomber unit. Unlike the Beta, the basic human military aircraft is the Scimitar bomber. It has a single-target attack which deals a lot of damage with maximum penetration. They have a tendency to massively overkill a single target when on attack-move, so you need to micro them individually. They have a sidegrade which gives them a lower-damage, AoE bomb that turns into a mine on a miss, similar to the Howitzer. This sidegrade helps mitigate their massive overkill on attack-move but doesn't completely eliminate it.
10. Scythe - Fighter unit. The fastest unit in the game, the Scythe has a payload of six missiles which deal AoE damage against air or ground targets. they still overkill on attack-move, but their splash damage really helps keep it down compared to the Warbird and the Scimitar. Has an upgrade which gives it two extra missiles, for a total of eight (a damage boost of +33%). Scythes are very expensive, though, so you can't just send them off to attack without microing them a little.
11. Alpha - Epic unit. The weakest and the cheapest epic unit in the game. Unlike the Beta and the Goo epics, which require a lot of sacrifice to build, the Alpha only requires a single large factory with all attachments, and you don't lose it when the Alpha is finished. Able to one shot ground and air targets, though both attacks share the same cooldown. Has a minimum range than can be exploited, but whenever the Alpha takes a lot of damage in a short amount of time, it releases a shockwave that deals moderate damage in a large radius around it. Although generally weaker against normal units than other epics, the Alpha has the distinction of being able to beat the others in a solo fight (unless a Purger manages to get within its minimum range, where its shockwave ability deals nowhere as much damage as the Purger's devour rate).
Goo Units
1. Drover - Basic unit. Think of the Drover as a Zergling/Firebat hybrid. A cheap unit with fast movespeed that deals short range damage in a cone, and has pretty fast autorepair to boot. Annihilates enemy light units when they're bunched up, but if you split your units, Drovers become very cost-inefficient. No upgrades at all.
2. Strider - Basic anti-armor unit. Serves a similar purpose to the Stalker and the Revolver, but its large size is a mixed blessing. On one hand, it's harder to get them to attack at once because they're large and they need a larger space to get a good concave, but on the other hand, their large size makes them less vulnerable to artillery. So they're pretty much Protoss Dragoons except with much better pathfinding.
3. Radiant - Scout unit. Can see into high ground and into brush, but can't detect cloaked units. It serves a similar role as air scouts when you're in a Goo mirror match. Can be upgraded to have permanent cloaking as well as detection ability (two separate upgrades). Edit: It has a third upgrade that lets it shoot air units.
4. Tempest - Anti-air unit. A powerful anti-air unit that ignores terrain and deals splash damage to aircraft. However, it has limited ammo which takes a few seconds to recharge, so you can send in one air unit at a time to waste the Tempests' shots to create a window where your aircraft can ravage the Goo. Has more upgrades than any unit in the game. First upgrade places a tracker on its targets, and allows you to see where the unit goes to if it survives the Tempest's AA fire. Second upgrade gives the Tempest an added damage over time effect on their attacks, making it easier to ensure that air units do not return home to rearm and get back in the fight. Third upgrade is similar to the Cloudburst's and the Longbow's upgrades, and allows the Tempest to fire at ground units with splash damage like their AA attack, though it's very weak and uses the same amount of ammo as its AA attack.
5. Dweller - Land mine. The Dweller explodes when units walk over it while it's burrowed and also spawns a Small Protean to finish off the survivors. It's vulnerable while it's moving, though it can be upgraded to be permanently cloaked when moving and not just when burrowed. Also has a second upgrade which lets it spawn two Small Proteans when it explodes for a better instant ambush.
6. Destructor - Main battle tank/siege unit. The Destructor is powerful hybrid tank/siege unit which can be ugpraded to deal splash damage or a Mutalisk-like bouncing attack. Unlike other tanks, it can't fire while moving. It's not a bad unit, but it's a bit overshadowed by Crescents which are just very powerful (see below).
7. Crescent - Artillery unit. The most powerful artillery in the game, dealing high DoT over a large AoE. Also able to ignore terrain. Has the longest range of any unit in the game other than the Hand of Ruk. Its main weaknesses are its slow speed (though it's less of an issue since it can ignore terrain like the Protoss Colossus), low HP, and interceptable projectiles. Crescent artillery shots deal extreme damage but can be intercepted by enemy AA. It has a sidegrade which keeps it from being shot down, but it greatly reduces the damage and the AoE (about half the unupgraded Crescent). The Crescent also has an upgrade which lets its attacks heal solid Goo units standing on its DoT AoE (it doesn't heal formless Goo, though).
8. Bastion - Mobile wall. The Bastion is a unique unit which is the closest equivalent to the walls that the Beta and the Humans use. Units close to the Bastion must target it if they attack, which means it can literally draw fire away from your more vulnerable units and allow them to close the gap to the enemy. It can be upgraded to go berserk when taking heavy damage, and to explode when it dies. It can also be upgraded to spawn a Small Protean when it dies, which it shares with the Large Protean (though you shouldn't be losing Large Proteans in the first place).
9. Mother Goo - Headquarters, refinery, factory, tech building, and siege unit, all in one mobile but very slow package. Mother Goos gather resources from Catalyst vents and can also gain resources by devouring enemy units and structures. They can also ignore terrain, like all formless Goo. The Goo produce units by splitting off of the Mother Goo. Small Proteans, Large Proteans, other Mother Goos, and Purgers all come from a Mother Goo. Basically, a Mother Goo's HP is your resources, and each point of damage taken by a Mother Goo equals a point of resources lost. Also, the Mother Goo, like all formless Goo, can detect cloaked units. Oh, I almost forgot. You need two Mother Goo size pips to spawn another Mother Goo.
10. Small Protean - Barracks, scout, anti-scout, and harasser all in one. The Small Protean is produced by splitting off one size pip from the Mother Goo. It is very fast and can ignore terrain, making it very useful for denying early game scouting as well as scouting and harassing the enemy as well. It deals very little damage against armored units though, so you'll have to morph it into 2 Striders if you need to take out armored units. A Small Protean can be morphed into 4 Drovers, 2 Striders, 2 Radiants, or 2 Tempests. Units spawn at 60% health and have to autorepair out of combat back to 100%. However, the Small Protean's current HP has no effect on the morphed units' HP, so you can attack with a Small Protean and wait until its down to around 10% HP before morphing into other units.
11. Large Protean - Factory, siege unit. The Large Protean requires 3 Mother Goo size pips to split off. It produces the heavy units, and is a heavy unit itself. It's very slow, so the only things it can take out are buildings or units moving into valleys without air scouts, leaving them vulnerable to downhill Goo ambushes. A Large Protean can be turned into 2 Dwellers, 2 Destructors, 2 Crescents, or 1 Bastion.
12. Purger - Epic unit. Requires you to sacrifice a full HP Mother Goo (4 size pips) that's sitting on a Catalyst vent. It then builds very slowly unless you sacrifice other formless Goo to it. It is worth it, however, because the Purger is very powerful and has no potential minimum range because it can escape into higher ground if it's being attacked, and it can always devour enemy units that get too close. Furthermore, Purgers heal nearby Mother Goos, which means that it generates infinite resources for the Goo. In the later parts of the campaign, you pretty much need the infinite resources and full production capability of 12 Mother Goos + 1 Purger to win. The Purger comes with two main drawbacks, though: It requires the most investment out of all the epic units (and each point of damage it takes while building delays it), and it can't hit air units (thought that is less a problem when you have infinite money and can build infinite Tempests).
Wow, that was a long post. Phew!
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