EPT
Analysis of Terran Weaponry - Page 2
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Fencar
United States2694 Posts
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desarrisc
Canada226 Posts
Now I present to you: ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/9/9d/Marine.png) Marine Marines have been part of Terran army as long as people can remember. There are historical accounts that dates them back even before the Earth was ruled under United Earth Directorate. The space marines consisted of the backbone of ground-based combat in space. However, this may all be a propaganda glorifying the marines to make more young men join the marines. Initially, the marines only consisted of convicts and ex-criminals who were spared death penalty for their enlistment in the Marines. All marines underwent Marine Re-Education Program(MREP), in order to demand absolute obedience from these aggressive criminals and implement into them the combat skills required to become a marine. MREP is most likely a Clockwork Orange-esque mental modification to brainwash the convicts into submission via Pavlovian behavioural modification and transmitting drugs. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F0_ITFYggf0/T1vy8dkkTqI/AAAAAAAAABw/qgPn_dt-49g/s1600/clockwork-orange-brainwash.jpg) However, as the criminals began to drop in supply and conflicts began to break out everywhere (particularly against Zerg broods and the Protoss eradicators of infested organisms that happened to cross path with the Terrans), majority of men who were not disabled were forced into mandatory conscription into the marines. Hence, many men were known to have joined rebellion forces during this period. Not all marines were considered equally brainwashed minions of the Confederacy before the Brood War. Many members of the Sons of Korhal were renegade marines who had the mental willpower to override the obedience command from MREP. Also, officer class marines are known to not undergo the absolute obedience component of the MREP in order for them to have some degree of free-will in orchestrating strategic maneuvers. ![[image loading]](http://us.media.blizzard.com/sc2/media/artwork/artwork_starcraft-large.jpg) You can easily distinguish between the UED, Confederate or Dominion marines from the renegade marines simply by their suits. The rebel marines often make modifications to their suits by spray-painting on lewd pictures of women or other "tattoos" onto their power suits to express themselves, whereas the government based marines simply have the logo of their faction on their suits. Despite the re-education procedures, we can see evidence of resistance by most marines on the battlefield during the Brood War. The marines would often stray off from their formations, in some inhibited desire to break free from the command to obey, and this was particularly observed in urban areas with ally or enemy structures. The marines without explicit commands were shown to split between hills, and run into cliffs with no avail. ![[image loading]](http://cdn.gamerant.com/wp-content/uploads/starcraft-2-marines.jpg) However, by the 4th year after the Brood War, the Terran forces in general seemed to have modified MREP combat formation to near perfection. As we see in Wings of Liberty that marines move in perfect unison and show the capacity to scoot and shoot with machine-like precision under a good commander. So effective was this modified MREP, that even rebel forces are known to use this program just without the obedience component of MREP. Now onto the Marine himself. Marines are known to be exclusively male. They are equipped with a personal power suit that is both made with light and durable metal. CMC-300+ edition of the suit comes with its own oxygenic system that converts the carbon dioxide either from the user or the environment around it. But most importantly the suit itself is attached to the central nervous system on the user. It takes input from the nerve and neuron firing, digitalizes the data, then translates this directly into the motion in the power suit. So the functionality of the marine is limited by the nerve cell's ability to relay signals quickly. The UED realized this limitation by the human central nervous system, and its scientist developed perhaps one of the strongest upgrade known in all of Starcraft universe: Stimpack. ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/3/39/Stimpack.png) Stimpack is a cocktail of neurotransmitter and extremely potent analgesics that essentially seal all pain receptors in the body. It accelerates the neural firing process by tapping into the parts of the brain that are not usually used in normal cognitive or motor functions. So the users of this drug can temporarily maximize the power of the suit, which is shown by the marine's capability to fire with extreme precision due to enhanced perceptions and run upwards of 50km/h. The drug lasts for approximately 12 hours, but it also produces powerful toxins as by-product as the drug is injected into the arm. Though the toxins from stimpack can be mitigated with medical treatment by medics or medivac, the long term effects have been shown to generate various forms of cancer without advanced medical treatment at a hospital. In a recent research by the Moebius Foundation, the average lifespan is shortened about 5 to 10 years per untreated use of the stimpack. However, this is not a huge problem for Terran armies as Marines have operational lifespan of about four years. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://media.reason.com/mc/psuderman/2012_01/legalize-stim.jpg?h=338&w=300) Stimpack has such a delicate and secretive chemical recipe that it requires a tech lab or academy to develop it en masse. It degrades rather quickly if not kept in good storage system, so mass transport of this drug was deemed too difficult. Most army expeditionary forces simply have to develop it within the conflict zone. ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/c/ce/Infantry_weapons_3.gif) The C-14 Gauss Rifle is potentially one of the best designed weapon in Terran arsenal. It is brutally efficient and cheap that even a small squadron of marines with medical support have been reported to destroy tanks, thick-shelled roaches, and even the mighty ultralisks. Gauss Rifle uses multiple superelectromagnets within the gun barrel to accelerate the charged heavy metal bullet to hypersonic speeds. Uranium-238 shells can essentially shred through most materials and at 30 rounds/sec firing rate, almost anything is fair game to a Marine. It can also be attached to the power suit, and can use the same computerized system that connects the nerves to the suit. With the HUD display and stimpack, marines can fight with extreme accuracy even when fighting agile enemy units like the mutalisk. ![[image loading]](http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/images2/8/81/Combat_Shield.png) Finally, I would like to briefly discuss the combat shield. Although this shield may look like an equipment to block enemy projectile or melee attacks, I hypothesize that it also serves as an auxiliary function of physiological stabilization through chemicals stored in the shield. It is an effective detox-nutrient system that can drain parts of the toxins generated from stimpack, as well as mend some physiological damage. Though nowhere effective as medical support in combat, this shield has been shown to increas marine survivability by 27% and increase stimpack usage by 18%. These marines, albeit fragile, are extremely potent soldiers in almost any combat situations. There's even a popular saying on Sigmaris Prime that: "Whoever controls the marines, can become the king of the universe." /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Phew, this took WAYY too long to write. Next time I'm gonna try to keep it much simpler. I do know that some parts of the Starcraft Lore may conflict with the ideas I'm suggesting here, but everything is propaganda in Terran anyways. | ||
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boomudead1
United States186 Posts
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RaiKageRyu
Canada4773 Posts
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mrRoflpwn
United States2618 Posts
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LuckyMacro
United States1482 Posts
On September 22 2012 16:58 RaiKageRyu wrote: If you played the campaign thoroughly, it was explained why they removed the Vultues from the main force. They had highly unstable engines or something. Propaganda spread by Mengsk! Nice thread btw  | ||
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kckkryptonite
1126 Posts
On September 21 2012 14:21 X3GoldDot wrote: i didnt knew dustin browder drove a vulture Lol! I've never seen a vulture up close before | ||
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KaiserCommander
Mexico290 Posts
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FeyFey
Germany10114 Posts
Still an interesting read. I always loved Blizzard explanations for units, the Cleric one made me pretty sad even (Warcraft1->Warcraft2). | ||
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[]Phase[]
Belgium927 Posts
The flamethrower seems to have a range of few hundred meters, but once again this is a wild guess from the gameplay. Liked the zerg thread a lot more, id like to see what improvements would have to be made to, if the animals really existed, make them truly efficient. | ||
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Ljas
Finland725 Posts
On September 22 2012 19:24 []Phase[] wrote: 100 meters range on the helion? The flame doesnt reach that much further from the car, you know how far 100 meters is right? id say 10 meters tops or smth And the medivac shouldn't have room for any marines. Stuff isn't up to scale in the game, unless you want to say the assault rifles have a 20m range. | ||
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WhiteDog
France8650 Posts
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Poehalcho
149 Posts
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Blacktion
United Kingdom1148 Posts
According to the lore, that gauss rifle has 2 firing modes, standard and fast, but the marines cant accurately use the faster firing mode without the strengthening effects of stimpack. This is why the injection of stim increases a marines attack speed. As to how the terrans manages to make a nuke with the blast radius of an artillery shell, im at a loss. | ||
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ShatterZer0
United States1843 Posts
On September 21 2012 14:21 Nazza wrote: Nice read. Good luck trying to explain why the Crucio does less damage than the Arclite though.... Traded artillery damage for assault damage. Cannon fires faster in assault mode than it used to, much faster. Also, it does less ally splash... which means some weird targetted ai system thingy... probably makes for less volatile impacts when compared to the Arclite. | ||
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Account252508
3454 Posts
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Gladiator6
Sweden7024 Posts
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Luisa_2
Germany200 Posts
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Quadratic
Canada249 Posts
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UndoneJin
United States438 Posts
I can definitely appreciate that these take a good bit of time | ||
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