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Mech, the brute force of the Terran army, albeit slow and vulnerable but when used properly an absolutely lethal force. There is a tl;dr near the bottom in bold.
Having been browsing this forum and bnet since the HoTS Beta release I can't help but feel like a lot of people are not happy with the current state of Mech in HoTS. Siege tanks remain but some people think they need to be buffed, Warhound were scraped when frankly they probably could have been balance by changing them to do their full damage vs Mechanical units rather than all unit types, Widow Mines in a constant state of change and the 2 supply issue seems to be really a sticking point for balance discussions, Hellions/BHs seem be fitting their intended roles well, and Thors in need of a little TLC in regards to their energy/strike cannons.
IRL version of Rocket Artillery aka MLRS.
+ Show Spoiler +
Anyway enough of that and onto the idea - a Rocket Artillery unit. For now I will be calling this purposed unit the 'Stinger' taking it's name from the FIM-92 Stinger. Another suitable name could be the Hwacha paying homage to Korea.
The idea of the Stinger came from other various RTS, Siege Tanks, and Missle Turrets. A lot of RTS games have Missle Tanks, but SC2 isn't your run of the mill RTS and this is where I get creative.
Siege Tanks take time to setup, position correctly, and leap frog forward so this is a key element for the Stinger and they would function exactly like a siege tank in this regard. Something to note here is that the attack range of Stingers would also scale like Siege tanks do. Something along the lines of 6 unsieged to 9 sieged (ground) 4 to 7 (air - read below).
Missle Turrets are extremely good anti-air and it's something Mech really lacks at the moment unless you get vikings out. Yes, Thors have anti-air capabilities but tactics such as magic-boxing can render it useless. Therefore I believe it's important that the Stinger also has an anti-air attack that's slightly weaker than Missile Turrets. This attack would not have AOE damage, but would be a very high rate of fire comparable to Hyrdas.
A potential ability for these Stingers could be detection upgrade-able from armories. If something like this was put into the game it should only work when the Stingers are in their Siege Mode on the basis that the detection equipment has to be deployed every time the Stinger sieges.
So having laid out my idea I know it seems - eh, less than perfect and somewhat confusing but overall I'm happy with the concept but allow me to fill in any missing pieces and give an quick overview of the Stinger.
TL;DR/Overview
* Unit Name - Stinger or Hwacha (pays homage to Korea)
* Builds from Factory - requires tech lab
* Movement speed slightly slower than Siege Tanks
* Siege Mode exactly like Siege Tanks - shares and requires upgrade to use
* Attack Range Scales based on if in Siege mode
- Ground 6, 9 when sieged
- Anti-Air 4, 7 when sieged
* Damage may or may not scale based on Siege mode. I'm undecided - preference would be that it doesn't so that the Siege mode just adds an attack range extension similar to what Tempests had.
* Upgrade in Armory to add detection to Stinger only when sieged turning them into somewhat of a mobile Missile turret.
* Separate attacks for ground and air - damage and speed wise.
* HP, Supply, attack damage, cost - all undecided.
That's the idea - feedback is certainly welcome, if there's anything in regards to the idea of Rocket Artillery in SC2 you'd like to discuss please do so here, that's why I put [D] in the title.
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No。just no.
Missiles do not work in space.
Banshee are exception due to their use in atmosphere setting.
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Sorry but no.
Not because of "missiles do not work in space". No because mech doesn't need a immobile AA. I'm not sayin "Mech AA should be über fast". Its just have to move in and out without a siege mode. Mech AA have to move around with around 2- 2.25 movespeed.
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On October 01 2012 17:28 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
No。just no.
Missiles do not work in space.
Banshee are exception due to their use in atmosphere setting.
Vikings shoot Missiles, Nuclear Missile, Marauders shoot gernades, Thors anti-air is a missile attack >_>.
Come up with a better reason 
On October 01 2012 17:38 Aceace wrote:
Sorry but no.
Not because of "missiles do not work in space". No because mech doesn't need a immobile AA. I'm not sayin "Mech AA should be über fast". Its just have to move in and out without a siege mode. Mech AA have to move around with around 2- 2.25 movespeed.
Thor is a 1.875 movement speed, I don't see why something along the lines of 2.0 couldn't work.
Banshee is 6 attack Range, BC 6, Brood Lord 9.5, Mutalisk 3, VR 6, Tempest 15, and Carriers 8 with a 14(?) leash range. If unsieged most Air units could poke and prod your army but once sieged they could effectively zone anything but BLs Tempests, and Carriers (all Tier 3 units) which still gives Viking a late-game role. You also have to remember that the immobility also is a key weakness to Mech. It's supposed to be immobile.
The thing with any unit in RTS is that there are trade offs - Tempests,Carriers, and Thors for instance have very long attack ranges and but move very slow - all 1.875-1.88 if I'm not mistaken. Point being with the shared siege mode ability they are meant to be somewhat immobile and be used for zoning. If the attack range was to long or they were to fast it could completely shut down any form of air play which isn't the intended use. Vikings and Thors would be much better for shutting down air play entirely but they also have their weaknesses - movement speed + magic box (Thor), HP/over building Viking.
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Its anti air role is overlapped with Thor. And its anti ground attack is overlapped with tank
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Isn't this a C&C unit.
Hide this before Browder sees it 
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On October 01 2012 17:55 one-one-one wrote:Isn't this a C&C unit. Hide this before Browder sees it
The basic concept yes, Missile Tanks aren't that rare in RTS - C&C I do believe being one of them. Others to name the few I know being Airmech and Dune 2000.
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Russian Federation216 Posts
sooo you just add another tank to terrans. thank you!
better just lower supply of existing tank to 2 and mech will be ok -_-'
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On October 01 2012 18:03 Fen1kz wrote:
sooo you just add another tank to terrans. thank you!
better just lower supply of existing tank to 2 and mech will be ok -_-'
I agree. The tank needs a workover . To begin with it should to full damage to protoss shields.
2 supply and a lower cost would also be nice but is not a must.
Instead I would like to give tanks a smokescreen ability, an upgrade of course.
In real life tanks have the ability to fire smoke grenades to reduce visibility on the battlefield.
This could offer a novel method of zone control where tanks + vikings can deny vision behind smoke screens to make ranged opponent units unable to attack them.
Together with widow mines it could play out really sweet.
Potentially it could extend the viability of tanks in the lategame vs both protoss and zerg.
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Blizzard seems to have a few design goals in mind for Terran. Firstly, they want to add a way to break tank lines (alleged function of Warhound). A long-range missile is a good way to do that. However it doesn't need to be a factory unit (and indeed shouldn't be if it counters mech).
Secondly, Blizzard wants to stop some imaginary "terran deathball" despite the fact that terrans haven't really got much of a deathball except for MMM. Still, Blizzard wants to encourage splitting forces, which is a good thing- they should just do it for all three races. The way to do this is to make smaller forces more powerful, and less effiicent scaling with numbers. The best way to do this is to add defensive functions and abilities that do not stack or scale. A few Lurkers with a Dark Swarm on top is very powerful, and can hold off, or at least fight a much larger enemy army very efficiently.
Here is a brief composite of a few suggestions. First, give the Viking a researchable missile ability with excellent range that can attack air or ground targets in either mode. Missiles do 35 damage (inefficient to target workers) and replenish once per 30 seconds, each Viking can store two at a time (spawns with none). This is the siege breaker.
Secondly, give the factory the Goliath, or some other basic but effective anti-air unit. This could be combined with removing the Thor anti-air and making it a serious assault mech instead of a ridiculously expensive, chunky, and pathetically weak anti-air unit.
Thirdly, reduce tank supply to 2, and increase its damage. This will discourage deathballs, as you will be encouraged to split your tanks to attack and to defend multiple areas. They will be effective enough individually that you don't need to keep them all together in order to avoid being completely wiped out. This is the fundamental reason why deathballs are ubiquitous- units that are relatively ineffective individually or in low numbers, that become very strong in larger numbers, and which cost a lot of supply, limiting how many you can get. If they were more effective in lower numbers, and cost less supply, then smaller groups would be used, and you could get more of them and have multiple such groups.
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Just a side note on your choice of name: The FIM-92 Stinger is an anti-air missile which would not disable/destroy heavily armored vehicles. The missile is optimized for speed and maneuverability and not penetrating power. So I'd give it another name that's not used by a real life weapon.
Otherwise, I like the idea, it fits nicely with the concept of mech.
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Russian Federation216 Posts
sorry guys, no new units to terrans, blizz said this when they removed warhound :>
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This has already been discussed:
Give the warhound a similar and effective long-range anti-air attack as originally conceived, but give the warhound a "siege mode" to go into this anti-air mode. Blizzard could even make this "warhound siege mode" a researchable upgrade on the tech lab, giving more avenues to balance the unit. Also make the warhound be completely immobile when in this mode, just like the siege tank. Leave it with an anti-mech type of ground attack similar to what it currently has as well, but make it it's default attack (and probably slightly weaker).
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=366455
This kind of theory crafting is yucky, take it to bnet.
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Starcraft doesn't need more CnC units, because pretty much all the new Terran units in WoL are from CnC, except for the Thor which comes from WoW.
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On October 02 2012 04:43 Deleuze wrote:This has already been discussed: Show nested quote +Give the warhound a similar and effective long-range anti-air attack as originally conceived, but give the warhound a "siege mode" to go into this anti-air mode. Blizzard could even make this "warhound siege mode" a researchable upgrade on the tech lab, giving more avenues to balance the unit. Also make the warhound be completely immobile when in this mode, just like the siege tank. Leave it with an anti-mech type of ground attack similar to what it currently has as well, but make it it's default attack (and probably slightly weaker). http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=366455This kind of theory crafting is yucky, take it to bnet.
Theory crafting is exactly what this forum section is for. Nearly every thread you go to has some sort of a suggestion for a way to balance X. That is by definition theory crafting. Also, yes you are right this has been discussed some via the Warhound. The Warhound was originally meant to act as both AA and anti-mech until Blizz decided the uber Thor was a bad idea and kept them as is.
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On October 02 2012 06:01 lost_artz wrote:Show nested quote +On October 02 2012 04:43 Deleuze wrote:This has already been discussed: Give the warhound a similar and effective long-range anti-air attack as originally conceived, but give the warhound a "siege mode" to go into this anti-air mode. Blizzard could even make this "warhound siege mode" a researchable upgrade on the tech lab, giving more avenues to balance the unit. Also make the warhound be completely immobile when in this mode, just like the siege tank. Leave it with an anti-mech type of ground attack similar to what it currently has as well, but make it it's default attack (and probably slightly weaker). http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=366455This kind of theory crafting is yucky, take it to bnet. Theory crafting is exactly what this forum section is for. Nearly every thread you go to has some sort of a suggestion for a way to balance X. That is by definition theory crafting. Also, yes you are right this has been discussed some via the Warhound. The Warhound was originally meant to act as both AA and anti-mech until Blizz decided the uber Thor was a bad idea and kept them as is.
Theory crafting existing units and abilities is one thing; playing Fantasy Designer 101 and throwing a haphazardly designed unit into the mix is another thing entirely. If everyone did this, HotS forums would be overrun with threads suggesting ridiculous units that have no chance of making it into the game itself.
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I kind of like the idea of having specialized anti-armor and anti-infantry seige tanks.
Which isn't what your idea is, (mobile missile turrets? lol, awful) but still.
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On October 01 2012 17:28 Hattori_Hanzo wrote:
No。just no.
Missiles do not work in space.
Banshee are exception due to their use in atmosphere setting. Haha, that's why space shuttles have attached wings.
Anyway, it's not really good idea of an unit.
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No, the just need to fix the units that they already have. Making a new unit will completely break the game.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
Sorry but this thread doesn't stimulate discussion about mech, rather is just an evaluation of your idea. That is better placed on the bnet forums.
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EPT
