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Hi guys,
this is a honest question although it looks funny (no shit), have you ever seen someone go for these upgrades in 1v1 and having a good reason for it ? Like, not the "I already won and have 5k in the bank, let's upgrade weird stuff and attack the rocks with planetary fortresses".
I don't watch a lot of pro games because I live on a rather tight schedule so I wonder if I missed interresting creative use of these, I guess you could say, useless upgrades.
Maybe someone has experience of some delayed medivac transition for 2-port banshee or something like that. As of neosteel frame, maybe it does improve terran contains, which I don't think are so good per se (I wish there were spider mines).
There's also the +5 loading capacity into command centers you get with neosteel frame :D Would have been pretty cool if you could repair from the inside actually. Wait can you ?
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I've seen caduceus reactor researched in some GSL games. Notable TvP, games where medivacs were dying a lot and being remade.
The other weird terran upgrades generally only have a place in very long, drawn out stale-mateish games where you're jockeying for position, both players are loaded with cash, and noone is making a a move. At that point you might as well upgrade everything.
See Boxer vs rain, the MLG match for example.
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I agree. When you think of it, caduceus only costs 100/100. It makes sense getting it if you plan on getting a lot of medivacs AND they lose all their energy very fast in the situation you're in.
Actually that brings up something I never really think about: medivac energy management. I usually blindly stim and run into engagement with energy-depleted medivacs. Doesn't work that well...
On the other hand if you got medivacs with full energy it kinda means you've probably been sitting around for way too long.
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I've seen games of Total Biscuit go for the neo steel frame upgrade and the one that adds range to turrets/ PF's because he's scared of mutas in TvZ. Never seen anyone go for the medivac energy though, although i would have thought it would be good for longer games and timeing pushes
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I know of some cases where the Medivac Energy was researched in pro-level games. Mostly TvT, I think. The idea is to fake cloaked banshees, forcing the opponent to invest into detection and air defense, while either going for a strong Bio-Push or a Marine drop (then meta was heavily shifted towards banshee openings so a researching techlab on a starport nearly always meant cloaking technology).
I haven't seen any use of loading capacity upgrade or the raven duration upgrades yet, though. I couldn't imagine any good use either.
Building armor and turret range were also considered unnecessary by many for a long while - now people start to realize they are actually quite good and certainly viable (defending mutas or bling busts on your expos for example) - there just remains the problem that the eng-bay is usually busy doing more important stuff and building an extra eng-bay mostly just does not cut it in terms of cost efficiency.
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I know of some cases where the Medivac Energy was researched in pro-level games. Mostly TvT, I think. The idea is to fake cloaked banshees, forcing the opponent to invest into detection and air defense, while either going for a strong Bio-Push or a Marine drop (then meta was heavily shifted towards banshee openings so a researching techlab on a starport nearly always meant cloaking technology).
I hadn't thought of that, very good point !
You also keep options for making other tech-lab required air units at any point. I always thought people (including me) were auto-getting reactor starport in TvP and sometimes TvZ where it doesn't always makes sense.
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Yes! A practice partner of mine will research it to force detection tvz. It can pay off late game.
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is neosteel the upgrade for armor or for bunker?
I just know that the armor upgrade for all buildings make them as tanky as rocks, so ling runbys are way less powerful. It just seems like if you want to keep up turrets and make buildings last so long that you can go back to defend your base if they go around you, then yes, that upgrade makes a difference.
upgrade it and get 5 armor on a PF? huge huge difference. you're not going to see it taken out without a lot of dedication.
I can imagine that if someone makes a habit of runbys or drops to snipe your add-ons, the armor upgrade would be frustrating as hell.
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Neosteel is the bunker (and oddly CC) capacity upgrade.
I do find the building armor upgrade useful although I never seem to know when to take it (except when I'm already winning...).
I'd love to see a triple ebay bio build with offensive armor upgraded bunkers with extra capacity. Gotta try that out (in 4v4, probably :D).
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I could see these upgrades being very strong on island maps. Building armor improved turrets and floating a lot of scvs with your CC would be great.
Maybe if there were more island maps on ladder we'd see these upgrades more haha
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I imagine it like this. you get neosteel if you see infestors/bling. suddenly, you have a way to protect all your bio.
so its like, do a tech switch, or get an upgrade that makes you less mobile but shuts down festor/bling or ling/bling/muta.
which one is cheaper in the short term.
They should shorten the research time and cut the cost. Although its nice to have some roomy bunkers to run back to if the zerg counter-built.
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armor upgrade vs zerg = teh win if they go banelings or mutas. (unless you are in gm, a zerg running banelings into your pf will fail terrible and be like wtf, or fail at turret sniping with mutas suddenly loosing so many)
Medivac energy upgrade. really nice to have against protoss or zerg, you can stim way more often, totally worth it, especially if you open banshees, normally people don't have a techlab on the starport, thats why they don't get the reactor. If you tasted medivac energy once you will love it  . (you have to be more carefull though on your choice of which medivac to use for dropping etc not wasting an energy one). On another point against toss it forces you to be ultra aggressiv, otherwise feedback will get a problem.
I research bunker cap vs a toss prefering storms, 6 marines that are immune to storm and not getting damage from zealots (+2 armor ftw) is pretty strong. The bunkers will deny hts from moving ahead to storm your army otherwise they would be sniped. so you can concentrate your full damage on all the zealots.
Against colossi you can protect your vikings pretty good if there are 3 marauders in a bunker sniping stalkers trying to snipe the vikings.
Also it enables you to do some nasty mineral stealing on the opponents side of the map <3. 10 workers in a cc yay. or fungal pf ? If i see your infestors move a muscle 5 workers will move into the pf and come out on the other side and repair there.
I don't recommend to get it every game, but if you start bio heavy getting a second ebay for some wallin is always nice. Its a bit annoying that people see it asap if you get bunker cap. But if you play bunker heavy its nice to have. (i get 1 bunker at my expos as anti air, better then turrets and the zerg never knows if its 1 marine or 6 ... (6 are more scary then 4 :p))
Use one marine for faking let the muta attack but retreat noticing its only 1 marine. Sneak in 6 for their next attack stim and see how mutas melt.
Anyway, while the neosteel and medivac energy depend on your gameplay and the neosteel is more a less get 3 for the price of 2. (less hp but you get the cc and pf load in + and bunkers have less attack space)
The armor upgrade is the horror of any zerg unit except roaches/ultras. Its interesting that especially in korea this upgrade is quiet unused, but well they prefer their unit upgrades and go for the my bases are save if my units put the opponent under pressure.
All i know is neosteel throws protoss really off and they probably won't attack you without range colossi.
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oh also forgot to mention the number one trait of bunkers that makes them so powerful: unit spread means nothing. those marines or marauders all have identical range circle around the bunker, so there cant be some in range and some out of range.
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Actually bunkered units also receive +1 range. They're very good and all but it means sacrificing your mobility and doing some sort of contain which in my experience doesn't work so well. So I don't know...
But I feel bunkers might be underused for the moment People throw them down when they see an incoming attack early game but usually stop doing that later on. Scouting gets a little harder too. When you think of it, late game bunkers aren't very common.
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Hmm, maybe there's a way to exploit the bunker capacity upgrade with a contain if the map allows? I just play Zerg so idk.
The medivac en energy upgrade looks pretty useless, though, seeing heal takes so little energy. I don't know the situation when you can expect your medivacs to die non-stop, but I guess it would be good for those. Then again, it is cheap.
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It's not so uncommon to see drained out medivacs. How much is a +25 starting energy going to help ? I really don't know.
I guess it's more of a protoss situation but going against a MM force backed up by 14 or more medivacs is pretty scary. They can escape through huge storms and still fully heal up afterwards (although it drains a lot of energy).
Of course if you can't seem to use up all your medivac energy the upgrade is completely useless without discussion.
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On September 19 2011 22:12 DkVZ wrote:
It's not so uncommon to see drained out medivacs. How much is a +25 starting energy going to help ? I really don't know.
I guess it's more of a protoss situation but going against a MM force backed up by 14 or more medivacs is pretty scary. They can escape through huge storms and still fully heal up afterwards (although it drains a lot of energy).
Of course if you can't seem to use up all your medivac energy the upgrade is completely useless without discussion.
In TvP or TvT maybe, but I don't think I've ever seen a drained out medivac in TvZ. Then again you can't go pure bio in TvZ.
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I used to research neosteel frame in steppes of war when slowly pushing out to zerg with tanks and bunkers. caduceus reactor research is also used albeit briefly just to fake a cloaked banshee against terran or zerg when starport is scouted by scan/overlord.
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On September 19 2011 20:39 FeyFey wrote:
i get 1 bunker at my expos as anti air, better then turrets and the zerg never knows if its 1 marine or 6 ... (6 are more scary then 4 :p)
out of curiosity... how is a 6rine-bunker better anti air than the 4 turrets you could build for 400mins?
each marine has 7 dps which leads to 42 dps per bunker. turrets have like 28 dps each, same range and a better hp/cost-ratio. seems to be an odd choice for me to prefer the upped bunker over the turrets. also, they build faster. ;->
i guess one could argue that bunkers offer a little more flexibility in terms of target variety. marines can still shoot ground and leave the bunker if need be.
would like to see feyfey's arguments on that one :>
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Neosteel Frames is probably only useful during mid-late game slow-pushes with insane amounts of bunkers. Caduceus reactor, well besides from the fact that you normally build medivacs from a reactored starport and not a techlabbed one, I honestly don't know why it's so underused... sure you're more vulnerable to feedback, but still, there ought to be some use for it
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EPT
