Submit your questions - April

On April 05 2009 09:07 Assault_1 wrote:
I have a question that's probably already known.. maybe someone can answer it for me

What's the grid system for buildings/units going to be like? In sc1 the maps are made up of discrete unit squares. For instance, u can easily make gateways in perfect rows. I'm not sure if this was intentional, or the best they could do for the time, but in sc2 will the maps be 'continuous' (ie. build anywhere), or will the squares be smaller, or the same?

On April 05 2009 09:07 Assault_1 wrote:
I have a question that's probably already known.. maybe someone can answer it for me

What's the grid system for buildings/units going to be like? In sc1 the maps are made up of discrete unit squares. For instance, u can easily make gateways in perfect rows. I'm not sure if this was intentional, or the best they could do for the time, but in sc2 will the maps be 'continuous' (ie. build anywhere), or will the squares be smaller, or the same?

Map sizes can fluctuate on a per-map basis, but generally the playable area on maps are about the same. The terrain cells were converted over into the new editor to proportionally match the original StarCraft (i.e. 128x128 SC1 is about the same as 128x128 in SC2 ).

On April 06 2009 19:52 Jortikka wrote:
- Am I gonna be able to link images to my profile ?

On April 08 2009 01:04 JieXian wrote:
Is there an option to switch between normal hotkeys and the

..............qwer
..............asdf
..............zxcv

style as an ingame option? cause it is kinda useles to use 3rd party programs to alter hotkeys if you can only do it at home and not at a pc cafe.

On April 08 2009 23:30 tegg wrote:
sorry for the yes or no question, and it may have already been answere but not that I've heard. will there be shared unit control in ally games for sc2?

On April 09 2009 03:23 Elegance wrote:
Is there any sort of Protoss ground-to-air counter to the Banshee? It seems that only air units can counter it effectively (Air wars are overrated)

On April 08 2009 04:33 Too_MuchZerg wrote:


Yes there is, WC3 has it so SC2 will have it too. Not ingame but just txt file which you can copy to your computer you use.

On April 08 2009 04:43 Zato-1 wrote:
Zerg Corruptors can infest enemy air units. Protoss Colossi can be hit as though they were an air unit. Can corruptors infest colossi?

On April 09 2009 14:08 Zato-1 wrote:
Do Protoss have any answer to the Terran Battlecruiser? The Void Ray seems like the obvious choice, but two Void Rays cost the same as a Battlecruiser, and a Battlecruiser beats two Void Rays in a straight fight (first one dies instantly to Yamato)

On April 09 2009 20:28 Chodorkovskiy wrote:
That's assuming BC + Yamato still only costs as much as two Void Rays. I would imagine it's closer to 2.5 or even 3. Also, BCs are at the very top of the Terran tech, where as Void Rays are a midgame unit, no?

Several auto-cast, SCII-buffed BCs do start presenting a problem, but here's where we hit the Mass Carriers wall...

On April 09 2009 17:02 SearingShadow wrote:

I believe Blizzard confirmed that Corruptors can corrupt Colossi.

On April 08 2009 23:45 FrozenArbiter wrote:
Yep:
http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=16101690946&postId=161356124024&sid=3000#9

On April 21 2009 04:52 spkim1 wrote:
Based on what we saw in BR#2 and in other videos and screenshots, there seem to be a general lack in strong Zerg anti-air. Will there be something replacing the Spore Colony, like a "Wing crawler"? And will the scourge make a reappearance or be replaced by an equivalent unit?

On April 21 2009 19:36 FabledIntegral wrote:
This has probably be answered but I haven't heard about it yet so if not maybe someone could just answer me in this thread...

Will things such as drone drilling be able? Will we still be able to spam through mineral lines? If not, how are we supposed to prevent cannon rushes behind the mineral lines with pylons on each side (where currently you just spam some scvs/probes through the line to the other side to stop it). And on that note, will there still exist the other ways to force units through objects such as minerals/temples, such as putting a vulture next to minerals and then putting the SCV on top and spamming the vulture through?

On April 22 2009 22:49 spkim1 wrote:
Will there be choosable AI difficulty levels in skirmish and/or campaign? It would be nice to train vs pro-level AIs, and for those who don't want to play or cannot access battle.net.

On April 23 2009 02:45 JohnBall wrote:
Two questions:
How could zerg deal with Nigthawks flying around behind the zerg base and using the Seeker Missiles in the mining workers?

And:
The Hydralisk melee attack animation is very interesting! Does it deal a different amount of damage than the normal ranged attack? Does it have a different attack speed?

On April 08 2009 04:33 Too_MuchZerg wrote:


Yes there is, WC3 has it so SC2 will have it too. Not ingame but just txt file which you can copy to your computer you use.

On April 23 2009 02:45 JohnBall wrote:
How could zerg deal with Nigthawks flying around behind the zerg base and using the Seeker Missiles in the mining workers?

On April 23 2009 02:45 JohnBall wrote:
The Hydralisk melee attack animation is very interesting! Does it deal a different amount of damage than the normal ranged attack? Does it have a different attack speed?

On April 23 2009 17:55 omninmo wrote:
In SC1 each unit had a set amount of damage per attack. Will SC2 follow in this tradition or will it rather take after wc3 where each unit has a damage range, e.g. 8-12 damage per attack.

On April 24 2009 21:42 jeppew wrote:
during playtesting, are there any units that are rarely/never used? (maybe the mothership?)
like ghosts/scouts were in SC:BW. If so, are you going to leave them as they are or do you strive to make every unit viable?

On April 24 2009 23:41 Zato-1 wrote:

Already asked in March, and they didn't answer.

On April 25 2009 02:22 spkim1 wrote:
Question: if warp rays (or whatever they are called now) shoot beams, aerial micro manoeuvers previously used in SC1 with units using projectiles like mutalisks/corsairs (shooting while still moving) seems to be no longer available for beam using units. Will the warp ray still be able to do the aerial micro manoeuver practiced in SC1? Am i making sense here? lol

On April 25 2009 03:09 Krikkitone wrote:


Its been reported that Warp rays will be able to shoot and move at the same time (although probably not as a micromaneuver, since they need to Keep the beam on target, so their movement will be part of their attack)

On April 25 2009 02:22 spkim1 wrote:
Question: if warp rays (or whatever they are called now) shoot beams, aerial micro manoeuvers previously used in SC1 with units using projectiles like mutalisks/corsairs (shooting while still moving) seems to be no longer available for beam using units. Will the warp ray still be able to do the aerial micro manoeuver practiced in SC1? Am i making sense here? lol

On April 25 2009 02:29 Tyrant wrote:
Starcraft is an amazing RTS that is known for a delicate balance of soft counters that allow for a player skill to be a larger part of deciding a victory rather than unit choice as seen in many other RTS.

While watching the first battle report the terran marauder stood out to me as a very strong "hard counter" unit where you cannot effectively micro against them due to their slowing attack and in the demo they appeared to beat literally everything except zealots.

On April 25 2009 02:29 Tyrant wrote:
While watching the second battle report the replacement for the science vessel seems to be a nightmare for zerg as there are no scourge to counter them. Hydralisks are too slow to deal with them effectively and even if they were faster they would still be shredded by simply moving the nighthawks behind the ball of death on the ground. It seems that the nighthawks are also a hardcounter to zerg.

On April 25 2009 02:29 Tyrant wrote:
Will the design of SC2 follow SC1's model of numerous soft counters or will SC2 be moving toward the path of other RTS where a certain unit is designed to simply outplay another unit or perhaps some middleground?

On April 28 2009 19:19 Rob Air Guitar wrote:
Will Zealots still be speed upgraded or has charged replaced that buff??

On April 29 2009 05:04 jtype wrote:
It could be a nice feature to be able to select, for example, a new or popular build order for your computer opponent to use, so you can practice countering it and spotting the early warning signs for it. As new builds and strategies are being used/developed, imagine if they could be downloaded/'learned' from replays.

Also, if you could set the APM for your computer opponent, so you could train with someone who is technically the same 'speed' as you, that could make for some pretty good training. That, combined with choosing a build order for your AI opponent, could really make the single player 'custom' mode very valuable for practice.

On April 29 2009 05:15 Zato-1 wrote:
I don't think that's what the skirmish vs. the AI is meant for. The computer AI will certainly be superior to the one SC1 has (which isn't saying much), but I don't think stuff like setting APM will be helpful. The computer AI will always have perfect multitasking for instance; if you drop a base from two locations at once while pushing with your army and sneaking DTs into an expansion, the AI will respond to each threat with the same amount of micro it would have handling each one of these threats separately.

It would be nice if Blizzard incorporated popular BOs into the AI with patches as the game matures, though. I'm sure you'll be able to play skirmishes against the AI to get a feel as to what units each race has and what each unit is good for, but I doubt it can be a decent substitute for human opponents if you're interested in competitive play.

On April 29 2009 03:38 Zato-1 wrote:

I think this question loses significance when you consider what the Void Ray is as a unit.

It's almost as expensive as a SC1 Scout.
It's bad at fighting against groups of small units (like Marines) by design.
It deals half the damage of a SC1 Scout unless you let it focus on its target for several seconds.
It's supposed to be strong against big, expensive units but when you consider them case by case, it's not good against BCs, probably not good vs. Carriers, and maybe good against Thor.

So what IS the Void Ray good at fighting against? Theorycrafting tells me it's good vs. units that can't fight back, mostly. Ever try killing Ultralisks with Wraiths? It takes an eternity. Not for the Void Ray, though. Or consider a Marauder with 125 HP and base armor 1; it'll take a muta 16 hits to kill one, so either you get a bunch of mutas or it'll take an eternity to kill them- the Void Ray will be much more efficient at that.

Basically, if your opponent has units that can't fight back vs. air, make 'em pay with the Void Ray, kind of like how Wraiths can be used to punish an opponent who only makes tanks and vultures in TvT. With the notable difference that the Void Ray's attack is actually pretty strong, even if you only have a few of them. Hit and run micro maneuvers won't be something you want to do with this unit.

On April 29 2009 23:07 stroggos wrote:
are mutas stackable?.

How will the ladder system work in sc2

On May 02 2009 13:42 Ideas wrote:
hope it's not too late :\

In the latest Q&A it was revealed that only the medivac currently has an unload animation of all the transport units in the game. Do the transports still have the ability to unload and move at the same time as was possible in SC1 (by pressing U and clicking on the transport unit as it was moving)?

In the latest Q&A, Dustin Browder said that the new macro mechanics are currently working out very well. Will these be replacing the gas mechanic? Or are they both going to be in use?

On May 02 2009 21:41 Ape wrote:
1. Is it possible to zoom out far enough? On Warcraft III the maximum zoom distance isn't very good especially on big screen. I think you should be able to even see the whole map on screen, if you wanted to zoom far out.

2. Zerg unites have some bonus for example on moving speed while they are on creep. Do they also get that bonus from allied team creep or even from the enemy one?

On April 23 2009 02:06 rally_point wrote:
In BR2, when a group of units were issued a move command, their animations would begin at exactly the same time. This resulted in a very robotic flow, espeically with discontinuous movement such as zergling hopping. Does Blizzard have any plans to randomize animations (perhaps randomize the part animation units will start at) so that move flow looks more natural? (Of course individuals in the group would still move at the same rate, they would just look slighly different)

Edit: Looks likes the Q&A have already been submitted, my bad :S

On April 29 2009 18:43 spkim1 wrote:
It's true that microing hit-and-run style like you would with mutas is not going to be effective with a void ray. But then again the ultralisks have quick mobility, so if what you say is true about the void ray being only useful for stationary targets, it will not be effective agains the ultralisk either.

More than hit-and-run, I was referring to Corsair or Mutalisk movement when chasing, say, speed overlords: with good micro sairs/mutas will barely slow down while shooting down groups of fleeing Overlords. I'm just hoping the warp ray could do that so they would be more advantageous when chasing down, say, weakenned BCs, or indeed speed overlords (really, i'mm just hoping the void ray fills up the hollow gap left by the absence of the Corsair)