EPTMay I present to you, "Starcraft 2 as explained by..." where we nerds explain how and what starcraft is to our collegues. If you have a profession (or even if you do not) post your (hopefully hilarious) analogical decription with your profession in this thread and I will stick it below.
As the creator of this thread and a 4th year Chem Eng student I shall start.
Starcraft 2 as explained by Chemical Engineers
Contributions: Myself, Serge
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/q64WD.png)
Starcraft 2 is aptly named to explain the origins of the various buildings and units in the game. "Star" refers to the interstellar capabilities of the 3 species in the game and "Craft" refers to the fact that each unit and building has been heavily perverted from it's original designs by architects obsessed with making everything aesthetically pleasing. Hence it can no longer be called a product of good design but a product of an architect's "craft".
The aim of the game is to increase the entropy of your opponent. If you sufficiently increase the entropy of your opponent, then they die and you achieve victory.
Unfortunately your opponent has this exact same plan for your forces.
In order to achieve simultaneous goals of detroying the enemy and surviving, it is therefore necessary to have forces that can dish out a greater dS/dt than your enemy and have a highly complex base and set of forces to delay his attempts at the same.
Which is where metallurgical processes come in. Only by extracting metals and high enthalpy gases (the most common being vespene gas) a general can quickly ascertain resources with which to manufacture an army. Of course this then requires production facilities. Thankfully due to the geology of the Koprulu Sector, only physical extraction is required for the mining and the miners can remove ore directly from open cut mines.
Terran
Terrans are named after their home planet "Terra" which is latin for Earth. They have a very straightforward strategy when it comes to warfare; They strip mine resources from planets without regard to EPA regulations, run their military bases off fossil fuels and even their weaponry is ridiculously pollutant (even for weapons). For example their siege tanks propel shells of liquid tungsten ( a heavy metal which is infamous for it's very HIGH melting point) which not only kill the target but also the surrounding flora and fauna and will prevent any life growing near the blast zone for centuries.
A better example of terran ingenuity is their tactical nuclear weapons. Ever since the creation of ICBM Interception Systems, humans have struggled to find way to deliver a nuclear warhead without it being intercepted. Terran engineers have long since discovered a way to trigger nuclear fission at subcritical mass. The result is a much lighter warhead which can avoid early detection systems. The nuke is very benign by comparison to it's 20th century Fat Man predecessors, but it still irradiates the landscape and gives the enemy cancer for generations to come.
Needless to say, all of us engineers working for the Terran Dominion, Umojan Protecterate, United Earth Directorate and humanity in general are happy with our current employers.
Protoss
Unfortunately not all enterprises are free from pesky regulation. The Protoss are a species that are confined by regulation. They have the technology to destroy entire planets (it's easy, just overload the flux capacitor on your average void ray!) but unfortunately the Environmental Protoss Agency would have their head. The last executor who initiated a planetary bombardment was Tasssadar. He is no longer an executor, let alone alive. Let that be a friendly warning to my graduate colleagues working for the Protoss.
Zerg
I don't know a lot about Zerg apart from the fact that they have quite possibly the most complex bioreactors in the sector. Even the small baneling coccoon is a virile batch reactor, using enzymes to catalyze a set of reversible reactions with minerals and gas as reactants and various acids as products.
Starcraft 2 as explained by Artists
By KanoCoke
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0aEX9.jpg)
Starcraft is an immense display of vibrant color, themes and motifs which allow an artist to delve into their imagination and further develop their artistic skill. From solid cold, yet sturdy man-made structures to wide ancient arcs and impossible geometry to spontaneous and radical anatomical aberrations, the creatures, buildings and scenery offer much to whet the appetite of the average artist's mind.
Through the various conflicts between the three civilizations on this game, an artist will be able to create a solid concept for any intergalactic-based piece they are to work on, be it an oil painting, a clay sculpture, or a 3d model. The speculations an artist will have as to the origins of people, buildings, creatures and planets, as well as speculations on their futures, relations and so on, will be able to give the artist an image that they can work with, as well as motivation to actually complete these art pieces, as compared to simple sketches.
In order to be more attentive to details and to be much more invested into an art piece, an artist must have his or her brain stimulated by a vast amount of visual and/or aural stimuli, and must be able to make quick and precise decisions so as to not make any glaring errors with anatomy and such. Playing this game will help with all these.
We shall take a look at several details regarding each of the races played in the game to help us with improving certain aspects of our skill base as an artist, as well as images we can borrow off of in order to create our own unique art pieces.
Terran
An imagined result of the human race's technological advancements and the greed that comes along with it. Practical mechanical designs and simple, yet futuristic apparel mixed in with several motifs based on the early American "Wild West" culture. As to how the human race as a whole ended up solely conforming to old North American culture, minus the Soviet Russia-based battlecruiser commanders, it can be up to the artist to create a collage of images based entirely on their imagination as to how that may have occurred. Many of the designs are practical, and are thus mostly bland, therefore an artist has to pay more attention to minor details such as scratches and scrapes so as to add more personality to structures and armor when creating a piece. Playing as this race will improve the decision-making and distance-gauging of an artist, and will thus help with perspective and choosing poses, positions and so on for people and objects in relation to each other. A landscape artist will benefit the most from this.
Zerg
Scaly, slimy, horned, clawed, and sometimes winged monsters supposedly created by an ancient race. Very complex anatomical designs and great contrast between pale and bright colors, this race is a visual marvel for artists and regular people alike. Not as many people would be able to relate to eerie, slimy monsters in general, however, their visual impact and radical designs make for great art. According to canon, the Zerg are evolving at an immense rate, therefore artists can add whatever personal flair to the standard monster and building concepts as long as they retain most of their form, which allows for much freedom artistically. Playing as this race extensively increases the rate at which an artist can multitask and pay attention to a vast amount of detail, meaning that a comic artist will be able to benefit the highest from playing this race.
Protoss
Sleek, curvy, elegant and dignified, the Protoss are the other half of the alien race, that have superior technology compared to us humans. Their structures are architectural masterpieces with often great symmetry and solidity, which, while rather rigid, is beautiful to look at and reminds many people of fantasy-based settings revolving around magic. The creatures themselves have good anatomical designs, interesting cloth-based apparel and primarily bluish skin. As a race that has advanced technology, their weapons and armor look more organic and exotic despite a lot of their units being robotic. The most aesthetically pleasing of all three races, seems to be the hardest to utilize effectively due to its micromanagement-based play, with their units being powerful, but few (and expensive). There is no kind of artist specifically that would benefit the most from this, but all artists would be more inclined to conserve their art materials and make the best out of failed pieces, thus improving the overall skill of an artist, while influencing them to be more patient, precise and cost-efficient.
Starcraft 2 as explained by a Mechanical Engineer
By Apolo
Starcraft is a game of 3 races who fight against each other and between themselves for supremacy.
They increase the entropy of the universe because of the irreversibility of the cicles that is harvesting minerals continuously. However, the entropy of their civilization decreases as they get more powerful with more efficient techonology (upgrades) and better units (t3) for their cost.
Making a control volume around the vespene geyser
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/PY8Zb.jpg)
we can see they operate as an open transient system where the first law of thermodynamics is
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tyX77.jpg)
Since it doesn't produce shaft work and heat transfer is negligible it can be simplified as
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3TwEh.jpg)
m1 is the mass at the initial state
and m2 at the final state which is zero. Just for curiosity, in BW, geysers operate in steady state after a certain point, because they never get depleted, so mass for BW after a while mass in * enthalpy in = mass out * enthalpy out.
It's likely they use the gas for their chemical (U) energy to power their more demanding technologies. Zerg most likely have some kind of chemical biological reaction with it, terran probably use vespene as combustion to function as the hot reservoir (temperature TA)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/898Nl.png)
to provide heat for a working fluid which will power some kind of turbine system to create work.
Finally Protoss should have the most efficient one which i would have no idea how it works.
Something useful to know would be all units movement's equation [squares/s] Since we can dismiss all unit's rotational intertia - even motherships and battlecruisers start moving in the opposite direction instantly as soon as ordered, the rotation animation is just an animation, it doesn't affect their movement - their movement can be simplified to just translations. The only way to get a body to go into a rotational movement is to quickly click in a circle motion like some players try to do for instance, trying to escape the scounting probe from the 1st marine .
Knowing the speed of all units and size of the maps or critical positions would make you able to know a lot of information about timings.
Protoss
Their units are generally slow and big. From this we can see that either their propulsion system is not that much better than their Terran and Zerg counterparts or their materials are heavier. For a mechanism
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/p4LKX.jpg)
For instance
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/dGT3o.jpg)
They make up for this with better efficiency. This even though they produce the same output of work their engines are closer to reversible ones (carnot's) and thus they require less resources / unit of work.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/l7diQ.jpg)
Their materials should be advanced composite of other materials, make their arsenal more durable than other races which explain their units' higher durability. They seem to think wheels are for losers, so instead they use legs for their ground army as way of transmiting their engines power to the ground and on to kinetic energy.
Zerg
Very inefficient, they make up for that in numbers and brute spending. Because of this they deplete a planet's resources very fast. Their units and structures are all made of biological materials, not very strong, but able to repair themselves and more quickly produced.
Terran
More likely related to our technology. They have cars, the predominant grey colour seems to indicate their structures and units are made mainly by metal alloys. Vikings seem to use turbines, banshees use an air propulsor, which is technology we already have, though they probably have them more efficient.
I should add there are plenty of unrealistic stuff in the game (units instantly changing direction would kill passengers, flying units which have as a means of propulsion gases hovering above humans and not killing them instantly, etc) but having everything realistic i'm not so sure it would be possible to have a game as fun.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/209je.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/HGzSC.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/yqHEN.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.meheal.com/imagens/maqtermica.png)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8tBPa.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/75eF8.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Oflqz.jpg)
