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Hi, I want to discuss the Hi Sec Auto Tracking upgrade for use with mech in all three match ups. I am a high master player and have been using it and been finding good uses for it in all of the three match ups.
It is more viable with mech rather than bio because:
-engineering bay not used
-less mobile
First, lets look at what the upgrade is:
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Hi-Sec_Auto_Tracking\
100gas 100minerals 80s build time Hotkey: H
Researched from: Engineering Bay
Increases the attack range of Missile Turrets, Auto-Turrets, Point Defense Drones, and Planetary Fortresses by 1.
So the upgrade of range of these things by one seems insignificant, and with the upgrade being so uncommon, why should anyone get it? I think that the fact that it is uncommon makes it even more powerful. The small investment reaps massive benefits throughout an entire game and I research this quite early in my games.
Now overall, i think of it like this: If this upgrade gets me one more muta kill, one medivac kill or one warp prism/observer kill, then it has payed for itself. And it almost always does due to players not being used to the range and pushing their boundaries. It has use through from the mid to the late game.
So lets discuss the three match ups and its uses:
TvT:
+ Show Spoiler +-Tank vs Tank battles, easily wards away vikings when turrets are put near tanks
-Less turrets needed to cover against banshees
-less turrets needed to cover against medivacs
-protects behind mineral lines with planetary, allows it to reach (valid in all three)
-point defence drone reaches more vikings missiles
-As said above: Can get extra kills as players not use to turrets reaching so far
-strong late game to set up turrets to defend areas with mass tanks
TvP:
+ Show Spoiler +Probably the least beneficial but still has its uses
-Turrets can often score colossus kills if they come too close (much more common than you think)
-Can kill observers more easily
-Less turrets needed to defend against warp prisms/voidray/pheonix
TvZ
+ Show Spoiler +-Most obviously, defends against mutas very well, often gets you extra kills
-good for late game against broodlord/corrupter and once again can get shots off on broodlords if they are not careful
-useful against overlord drops
Other benefits present in all three match ups
+ Show Spoiler +-Range on PDD
-range on Auto turrets
-range on PF
Helpful to raven, a common unit in mech compositions
So I believe that when playing mech, this upgrade is extremely powerful as it allows better defence against drops and harassment, which can be a big issue when playing as the immobility that is mech. I have not played a game in which this upgrade has not payed for itself.
So why don't people get this upgrade more often? It's price is reasonably cheap when going mech as you often go up to three bases quickly and it is very strong. Also, the engineering bay is not used, so you are not taking time away from other upgrades.
In conclusion, get this upgrade!
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I get this upgrade all the time in tvt. Its a great way to discourage drops, especially doomdrops.
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i think building armour is better for TvZ because it makes PFs much stronger before ultras, and armour on turrets seem to be better vs mutas, but high numbers of muta (~20+) range may be better. then again if zerg makes 20 mutas vs mech, thor will be the main force here
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I actually don't see why people get a lot of the building upgrades going mech.
One Ebay upgrading isn't that expensive, and in your slow pushes it helps a ton
edit: especially for defending small attacks, I like it with PFs (not sure if the building armor is better in that case though)
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While building armour is good, the range means that units cant sneak behind planetary and pick off units! Although, both upgrades are definitely viable
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On September 03 2012 17:12 mousez wrote:
While building armour is good, the range means that units cant sneak behind planetary and pick off units! Although, both upgrades are definitely viable
or you could just get both.
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On September 03 2012 17:15 zhurai wrote:Show nested quote +On September 03 2012 17:12 mousez wrote:
While building armour is good, the range means that units cant sneak behind planetary and pick off units! Although, both upgrades are definitely viable or you could just get both.
I am not saying that you cant, I was just arguing that range is more effective (and cheaper).
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On September 03 2012 17:12 mousez wrote:
While building armour is good, the range means that units cant sneak behind planetary and pick off units! Although, both upgrades are definitely viable
In tvz the raid unit mainly lings can't benefit from the range, only roaches can use that but, roaches isn't the greatest raid unit overall either since it cost too much and can rarely poke in do damage and retreat. The benefit of having stronger defenses is more beneficial in this matchup.
However the building armor cost much more and that might cut into too much to what you are doing but overall, building armor helps better against lings and muta so I would go that first, besides it can't never be bad getting both tvz if the zerg goes for mutas.
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United Kingdom12041 Posts
As a meching player I get both in all matchups since they're so useful. Turrets in TvT are especially useful later game when it gets to sky terran vs sky terran to get some nice extra damage on BCs and also vikings. In TvZ the range helps as you can have better positioned turrets which cover a larger area, but then armor is really helpful for turrets and PFs due to runbys and stuff so it's essential too. In TvP mech isn't exactly standard (me and a few others on the forum here play it), but turrets with range and armor really help if they try and go air toss against you, they're also useful to have to spot DTs and Observers as I've lost countless games to DTs just camping my factories.
So yeah, they're pretty damn good upgrades for mech.
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I always get both when Sky Terran. The Range upgrade researches quickly, and usually gets a couple of obs at least. The armour upgrade means you can repair your PFs much more easily and they can tank damage from many stalkers.
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I tend to get this one if Im going mech, and on hard to defend maps I definetely get the building armor too...+1 range is huge when it comes to turrets and PFs - theres so many ways to get behind the mineral line and completely out of range from the PF without the upgrade.
Since the Eng bay isnt doing jack shit if I have resources from bad macro I just get them super early lol (my mech sucks ass)
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I ALWAYS get it in TvT when I'm meching (which I usually do), it's an amazing upgrade. In TvP and TvZ it is useful if you mech, but definitely not as essential.
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The building armour and range upgrades are both good to get - especially in lategame scenarios when it's going to be a lot harder to defend outer bases. You're always going to have an engineering bay so there's no reason not to get them both eventually. They're never a priority for me though unless I really feel I'm going to be stretched at some point in the near future. I tend to go for building armour first over range primarily to feel safer using PFs as static defense.
I dunno...doesn't really feel there's much to discuss.
They're good. You should get them. They're not a priority.
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I dont use both of them because I tend to forget these exist when I play lol. But for lategame, I think it is a good investment, maybe for mid game though.
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Auto turrets with armor and range are beastly! i really like going for standart marine tank in TvZ and spend my lategame overgas on a big raven fleet. So as soon as i hit 3-3 bio i get range, armor, corvid, hsm and start putting down turret fields in zergs main and expos. the interesting thing here is that not only the turrets easily outrange every zerg ground unit, they also beat every zerg ground unit except for the ultra and highly upgraded roaches in a one on one. Auto turrets are also unaffected by fungal. so if you are up against a standart ling infestor broodlord comp, well place auto turrets (placed in a way that only a few rets can be attacked by the lings) trade super efficient. The range up helps out greatly here because the turret is immobile and if you dont get the range there will be fights where the back row of your turrets will not be firing when the front is engaged.
Also auto turrets rushes work great coupled with a double dropship with some tank marine. The idea is that you build a full wall of turrets around your drop and siege up. the nice thing about this is that the entire drop can be queued up.
pick ravens and dropships, queue unload, queue pdd, queue mass turrets --- then siege up as soon as your drop lands. this literally takes 3 seconds to do and requires quite a big reaction from zerg far exceeding your attention cost.
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I always get this upgrade in TvT and TvZ, not that usefull in TvP, only if i am on 3 bases ++ and with a great bank, then yeah, is good for the planetary to defend better against zelot stranglers. As the OP pointed out, the benefits in the other matchups greatly outweight the costs, as it effects a wide range of terran units. In TvT it could make the difference in having a full enemy medivac landed in your base or it being burned in the air and it makes the turrets even more annoying for mutas.
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you can add that it kills motherships that are trying to recall into your main against mech in TvP!
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EPT
