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Ever since I heard Blizzard was making big changes to mech in HotS,
I've become completely enamored with the idea of a sister-unit to the siege tank. I think my design of this unit accomplishes the following:
1. Adds mobility to the mech army like the Warhound.
2. Takes over the Anti-Air role from the Thor, which also gives blizzard room to redesign the Thor.
Edit: For those confused, I do mean that the Javelin missiles would have to be removed from the Thor.
3. Keeps the emphasis of mech play on Siege tanks, which we all love.
Visual Design:
I think it would be great to draw from the concept art of the Crucio siege tank, it's simply beautiful.
[concept art](http://i.imgur.com/GVyhd.jpg) - Crucio Siege Tank
[more concept art](http://i.imgur.com/Mv0DQ.jpg)
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EDIT: Some people have brought up a very good point about having too similar units, leaving the Terran army with a tank, tank, transforming car, and giant robot.
After thinking about this I feel that a combination of adding broad-differences in art design compared to the Siege tank, more unique weaponry, and it's already unique versatility would remedy this problem. I believe a unit like this is definitely on the right track, and at worse has superficial issues easily worked out. In short, it could be tweaked until the only similarity is the fact that it has a Siege mode.
examples:
* Instead of tracks it could have wheels, or be some kind of walker.
* The design would be 2/3rds the size and have sharper looks to represent it's speed and agility.
* The main weapons could be something completely unique like the diamondback laser.
* The siege weapon could be a rapid fire light-missile launcher, or some kind of ammo-eating, mutalisk shredding, quad-cannon.
I would personally mix it up by keeping the tracks and tanky aggressive design, but changing the weapon to the diamondback laser. In tank mode it could fire a constant laser doing damage over time, while in siege mode it could fire powerful bursts of super-heated plasma that deal AOE damage to air units (like a mini-Yamato cannon?).
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Possible names:
"Wolverine" (Like the M10 Wolverine tank destroyers from WWII)
"Firefly" (As in the Sherman Firefly, British adaptation from WWII)
"Skyguard" (Stole this from Planetside)
"Lyote" (Why not? It's fast and agile like a Lyote)
Description: An agile medium sized version of the Terran siege tank, equipped with a single rapid-fire 90mm cannon. The "Lyote" medium battle-tank is designed to add much needed mobility to the Terran mechanized army. Because of it's smaller size and lighter weaponry it is considerably faster than it's brother.
It has also been adapted to use Siege technology for the purpose of anti-air, and because of the lighter armaments siege time is cut in half.
When placed in Siege mode the single 90mm cannon has increased range of motion, allowing it to elevate up to 75 degrees (leaving a small vulnerable area overhead). The 90mm cannon is automatically primed with air-burst proximity ammunition that shreds everything in a small area.
Terran Marines that have seen it in action have been using the term "Bloodrain" to describe the effect. This is due to it's tendency to vaporize mutalisks into a fine mist.
Stats: (Just rough estimates)
Minerals: 100
Gas: 75
Supply: 2
Hitpoints: 105
Armor: 1
Speed: 2.95 (Same as stalker)
Range: 9
Damage:
90mm: 10 (+4 vs armored) [0.8 cooldown]
(compared to siege tanks which do 15 (+10) with a 1.04 cooldown)
90mm "Bloodrain" ammunition: 10 (+10 vs light) [3.0 cooldown] (very small area of effect)
Requirements:
1. Factory w/Techlab
2. Armory
Abilities:
1. Siege-mode
