Hell, It's About Time: Let's Play Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty Campaign Mode! (DONE)

[Eldariel]

fan-fic...

yeah...it is, actually...I've become a fanfic writer...

*spirit crushed*

Oh, come now, just because 99.9% of fanfic is trash (and 99.9% of that is found at fanfiction.net) doesn't mean there's anything inherently wrong with good fanfic (yeah, I'm making terms up)

[Talanic]

You're significantly outdoing the normal storyline of SC2, so...good job!

[The Glyphstone]

there's anything inherently wrong with good fanfic

good fanfic

good

fanfic

These words, I see them on my screen, but next to each other they make no sense at all. I will console myself with an UPDATE!

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Update 21: In Which A Doctor Proves Unable To Heal Himself

The Moebius Factor

Spoiler

Show

November 21, 2504:

Dear Diary;

Ow. Ow. Ow. I'm never drinking whiskey again. I haven't had a headache this bad since the morning after my graduation party. How Raynor hasn't dropped dead of liver failure from swigging that stuff on a regular basis, I can't guess.

I wasn't able to stagger out of bed until almost mid-afternoon, by which time we were already en route to the Tyrador system. I’d only been there once, back when I was scouting out potential colleges; ended up sticking with Korhal U. (go Scantipedes!) and never came back till now. Going to the bridge was a mistake…the noise, the light, the pain…but I wanted to know what was going on. Raynor and Captain Horner were talking away with a wrinkly old scientist over the com-screen. From his caption, he was one Dr. Emil Narud, head researcher of the Moebius Foundation that’d been sending us on treasure hunts for weeks. From what he was saying, Tyrador was under direct attack from the Zerg – evidentally the Queen of Blades had figured out who was sending the Raiders after these artifacts, and was looking to cut out the middleman. All his distress calls to the Dominion Navy had gone unanswered, so he was hiring the Raiders to come extract him and his personnel. Just a quick evac mission, didn’t sound like too much work.



When we got there, of course, it was a different story. The outer system was swarming with Zerg, and the fleet was already making inroads on the ground. Worse, Dr. Narud had changed his mind about the evacuation…sort of.



As part of bailing out, the Foundation had been systematically burning out their data cores, destroying all their classified and secret information. That sort of took me my surprise at first – talk about taking “publish or perish” to the next level! – but then Dr. Narud explained that not only had his people been driven out of the city by advancing Zerg before they could wipe all the cores, but some of the surviving cores contained the suspected locations of the remaining artifact fragments. If Kerrigan got her hands on that data, bad things would happen. Not that anyone bothered to explain to me what those bad things were, but I’m used to it by now. He wouldn’t leave until all of the remaining cores were destroyed.



Raynor set up our base camp on the outskirts of the Moebius Foundation campus, while the Hyperion kept the Swarm off our backs in orbit. The plan was to let the Zerg gorge themselves on the Tyrador orbital defenses and militia while we built up a raiding group, snuck in, and bombed those computers sky-high.



But that would have been too easy. We weren’t the only ones after those cores; Kerrigan herself showed up minutes after we did, putting a bit of a time cramp on our schedule.
The adjutant described her as a ‘class 12 psi signature’, which didn’t make any sense. The psi index only goes up to 10 – I’m a 1.2 myself. A 12 is, well, off the scale. And we were racing her to these computer cores.



At least the first of them was close by, just a short hop across the river. The seething hordes of Zerg between us and it by land were going to be a bit of a nuisance, though.



Someone pointed this out to Dr. Narud, and he decided that Raynor could use the Foundation’s intact Medivacs to haul our troops around. Why we needed some glorified dropships when Swann had just finished overhauling a couple of Hercules troop carriers was beyond me, but free stuff was free.



And for free stuff, they did an awfully good job of airlifting us right past the Zerg ground defenses.



A small group of mercenaries wasn’t far from the core either. Raynor’s Raiders weren’t the only mercs the Foundation employed – apparently, they relied on mercenaries for all their security, instead of trusting Dominion police – and when the Zerg launched their attack, pockets of defenders had been cut off all over the city. With their contracts already paid, they were happy to tag along with us.



Pity that their hacking skills weren’t worth mentioning – but you didn’t hire mercenaries for their technical expertise. You hired mercenaries to kill people and blow stuff up, which they proceeded to do with gleeful abandon. One data core, purged of data the old-fashioned way, and two to go.



Meanwhile, Kerrigan was busily tearing apart another data core, one the Foundation had already purged and abandoned. At first, I didn’t know why she was wasting her time, but the Obvious Stick whacked me on the head a few seconds later. We knew which cores were active, because we were hired by Dr. Narud. She had to work her way through every data core in the city that hadn’t already been burned to the ground, and that’d buy us time.



Time enough to punch through to the second core, at least. The Zerg seemed to sense that something was up, even if their Queen-In-Chief wasn’t paying close attention. As soon as we started demolishing this building, they swarmed over us, but mercenaries who hadn’t spent their paychecks yet turned out to be awfully determined defenders.



More mercs had fortified themselves on the rooftops, waiting for someone to come get them. With Kerrigan a good bit behind us, there was time to detour and pick them up, as well as go after another opportunity that presented itself.





For some reason or another, Kerrigan had brought a Brutalisk with her, and promptly abandoned it on a small island in the middle of the river. Maybe she just didn’t want it running amok on her precious data cores. It made some delightful squishing sounds when it died, almost drowned out by Egon’s cheering at the thought of more Brutalisk samples to experiment with. He was growing something in a tank last time I was there, but I didn’t get a good look at it.



And as luck would have it, the last intact core was smack in the middle of the Zerg’s primary hive in the city. Without the accumulated mercenaries, it would have been impossible to break through those defenses, but Kerrigan didn’t seem to have been expecting that sort of land-based assault.



No one wanted to stay another second after the last core went down, and we bailed right out without even stopping to pick up our spare parts. As soon as we lifted off, Kerrigan realized what we’d done, but the Hyperion outran her fliers and got us safely into warp.

Armory Time. Bleh, medivacs…Medics are better healers, Hercules are better transports, and all they do is give enemy AA something to shoot at.

Armory Upgrades (320,000 to spend)
+40% Firebat attack spread (40,000)
+2 Firebat armor (85,000)
2x Hellion attack spread, 40,000)
+10 Hellion damage vs. light armor, 60,000)
+75 HP to Missile Turrets, 50,000)
-Missile Turrets do AoE damage, 80,000)
-Hire Devil Dog Firebat Mercenaries (25,000)
-Diamondbacks +1 Range (75,000)
-Diamondbacks +50 HP (90,000)
-Cerebrus Mines (Spider Mines have +33% blast radius and trigger radius = 50,000)
-Replenishable Magazines (Vultures can rearm Spider Mines for 15 minerals/mine) = 60,000
-Terran Buildings extinguish fires and repair to 50% life = 90,000
-Goliaths can fire at air and ground simultaneously = 50,000
-Goliaths gain +3 missile range, +1 cannon range = 80,000
-Hire Spartan Company - (2 Elite Goliaths) = 40,000
-Wraiths start with +100 energy = 80,000
-Cloaked Wraiths deflect 20% of incoming attacks = 125,000
-Thors gain 330mm Barrage Cannons, Aoe stun+heavy damage (130,000)
-Immortality Protocol (Dead Thors can be rebuilt in the field (140,000)
New: Rapid Deployment Tubes (Medivacs deploy troops instantly) = 50,000
New:Advanced Healing AI (Medivacs can heal 2 targets at once) = 115,000
-Save Everything (0)
-Save Surplus (0)

Supernova is next. I think I’ll do a ground-based push for the LP update, and get the Bancheese achievement in a separate run.

[Thiyr]

So, you kinda doubled up on a picture in there, and I am unfamiliar with this "Dr. Nurad" fellow in the first paragraph. Is he Narud's brother? Is he going to agree when I say to Save Everything? Only You know the answers.

[arguskos]

"Terran Buildings extinguish fires and repair to 50% life = 90,000"
This, plus Save Everything. It's super effective for All In.

[The Glyphstone]

So, you kinda doubled up on a picture in there, and I am unfamiliar with this "Dr. Nurad" fellow in the first paragraph. Is he Narud's brother? Is he going to agree when I say to Save Everything? Only You know the answers.

Whatcho talkin' bout, foo?

[Eldariel]

These words, I see them on my screen, but next to each other they make no sense at all.

I said I'm making terms up!

[Runestar]

Supernova is next. I think I’ll do a ground-based push for the LP update, and get the Bancheese achievement in a separate run.

I believe it is possible to manage both. I used marine-ball, backed up with 4-6 seige tanks and supported with banshees (6-8). Pretty much steamrolled the opposition even on Brutal.

With extra energy, your banshees can stay cloaked just about forever. Infantry tanks the stalkers/cannons/scouts/carriers, while tanks and banshees take care of immortals/collossi. Just be sure to hold your troops back and let the banshees mop up.

[Inhuman Bot]

If you want to make things easy on yourself, get 330m Barrage Cannons, and then Immortality Protocal.

If you don't want to, get Spartan Company and don't upgrade Goliaths any further.

[Talanic]

Supernova's one of my least favorite missions. Partly because it's built around bad technobabble - the effects of the 'supernova' are so ludicrously far from reality as to be on par with the work of Ed Wood - and partly because it's so cheeseable. Just wait for the wall of fire to kill almost all the Protoss and swoop into the last base. Easy that way, even on Brutal.

I admit a bit more bias because the first time I ran through it, I didn't do that, and didn't hire any mercenaries, which makes the mission about 400% tougher.

[Runestar]

Supernova is my least favourite mission as well, but more from the way it is designed. I hate those "racing against the clock" type missions which have you in a fluster, leaving little opportunity to sit back and appreciate the gameplay.

As for upgrades, none really appeal to me, but then again, I also went with minimal upgrades and ended the campaign with a huge surplus. I would recommend both banshee upgrades and the banshee mercs after Supernova though.

[The Glyphstone]

Supernova is my least favourite mission as well, but more from the way it is designed. I hate those "racing against the clock" type missions which have you in a fluster, leaving little opportunity to sit back and appreciate the gameplay.

Precisely. It makes taking screenshots a real pain, because I can't sit back and look for good opportunities to advance the story.

[Runestar]

I have always wondered, is there no way you can record the mission the way those people on youtube do? Then, you won't be distracted when playing the mission, and have ample opportunities to gather screenshots when rewatching it later.

Blizzard really should have a replay system for campaign missions.

[The Glyphstone]

I'm sure there is, if I wanted to go install FRAPS or something. But that's more work than I'm willing to invest in this right now.

Compiling Supernova may take a few days. I've got travelling to do, assignments I put off for Thanksgiving week, and above all, I need to completely rewrite the mission's concept so that I can do a narrative without my brain going on strike from the !SCIENCE!. Any ideas?

[Toric]

The scientist describing the phenomenon is revealed to be an intern and someone admits that nobody really knows HOW the firewall works?

[arguskos]

Blizzard really should have a replay system for campaign missions.

There is one. The mission archives let you replay any mission you've already done.

[The Glyphstone]

There is one. The mission archives let you replay any mission you've already done.

That's not what he meant. He's talking about how in multiplayer matches, it automatically makes a video recording replay of the match that you can review afterwards.


For Supernova...I think I'll just blame it on the Tal'Darim.

[arguskos]

That's not what he meant. He's talking about how in multiplayer matches, it automatically makes a video recording replay of the match that you can review afterwards.

Ah. Yeah, that's annoying, but meh.

[thorgrim29]

Maybe the supernova was somehow controlled by the Protoss and the containment is failing (sort of like the doctor who episode where the sun explodes) , causing the slow wall of fire.

[Talanic]

The best solution I have is that the star in question is old (which is canon) and has gone to supergiant phase. Old Xel'naga tech protects the planet in the form of a shield, which the Tal'darim open up in an attempt to burn away the Raiders.

And it's Matt who declared that it was a supernova (wasn't it him?) - and as the captain of a starship, he really should have known what to expect. "Supernova...getting the hell out of here!"

[The Glyphstone]

I'm going to go with something similar to that. Tal'Darim are crazy nutso fanatics, so in this continuity, the fire wall is going to be a psionically channeled blast of plasma/flare from the star, called out by the Tal'Darim to try and fry the Raiders, or at worst, destroy the artifact so they can't steal it. Adding in the magicpsionics element solves all the ugly little problems like convection smonvection and why it doesn't just sear the atmosphere away and leave everyone gasping in space.

[WeLoveFireballs]

Any idea when the next update will be?

[The Glyphstone]

Minimum three days or so, sadly. I have a final paper to write, but then I'm home free for a few weeks.

EDIT: Whelp, I lied. The paper deadline got extended by 5 days, to next Tuesday instead of this Thursday, so I'm going to try and crank out an update tonight due to utter lack of ability to focus on anything educational.

Update 22: In Which Physics and Smokey The Bear Both Cry Themselves To Sleep

Supernova

Spoiler

Show

November 23, 2010;

Dear Diary:

Dr. Narud and his eggheads split almost as soon as we’d made it out of the Tyrador system, leaving the Zerg to rampage around behind us. Most of their personnel had made it out, but they’d left a lot of equipment behind. He wanted Raynor to go off and pick up the fourth artifact fragment, while he went for a meeting with some of the Foundation’s financial backers to get some new stuff. A rendezvous location would be arranged once he’d replaced his missing equipment and hired more security for the collected fragments.



In the meantime, we headed off to a miserable little rock called Typhon. It didn’t look like much – Tychus happened to say what I was thinking, though I’m pretty sure it was a coincidence. Even Captain Horner was looking upbeat, thinking about an easy extraction and a fat paycheck.



By this point, we weren’t surprised to pick up Protoss emissions from the planet – more of those crazy Tal’Darim, singing campfire songs around the artifact or whatever it is Protoss fanatics do in their spare time. It was surprising, though, when they transmitted a message to us. There was posturing and threatening, naturally, solemnly sworn oaths that Raynor would not ‘defile’ another ‘holy relic of the gods’. That they would die to protect it, and would rather see the cleansing fires of the sun called forth to burn it to ash before Raynor could steal it away.

Wait, what?



The message cut off, and alarms started going off all over the bridge. At the same time, I heard what I can really only describe as a howl echoing down the hallway from the cantina. That was the sound of someone in a lot of pain, and I knew the voice…that lying Spectre Tosh. Captain Horner was punching buttons on his console, and when he looked up, his face was pale. The main viewscreen was showing us a new angle of the planet, one where we could see the sun – and the unnatural column of star-plasma-fire-stuff boiling off its surface towards Typhon. Somehow, the Tal’Darim had triggered the sun to let off a sort of solar flamethrower, concentrated enough to reach all the way to Typhon and start burning its surface away. It had to be some weird psychic effect, and a damn powerful one by the way Tosh was still yelling down the hallway.



The artifact bits we’d gotten so far seemed to be indestructible, but we hadn’t tested them by throwing the things into a sun, and Raynor couldn’t take a chance. We were going to have to go in, break past the Tal’Darim still mindlessly defending the artifact, and snatch it up before Typhon’s rotation brought that side of the planet into crispy barbeque temperatures.



To clear a landing zone, Raynor sent in some Banshees. Dr. Narud had given us the blueprints as a thank-you gift for keeping him from becoming Zerg chow. Technically treason, I think, but I wasn’t going to throwing stones anytime soon on that front.





The experimental cloaking generators that Swann had cobbled together worked just great, though – seems the Tal’ Darim weren’t big on stealth tactics, or how to defend against them, and we set down a small camp not far from the artifact vault.



The Tal’Darim’s stalling tactics were working, though. Their pathetic excuse for an air fleet was keeping the Hyperion tied up in the upper atmosphere and preventing it from giving us close air support. Meanwhile, the planet-wide forest fire set off by that monstrous flamethrower-spell was coming closer.



All sorts of relics were scattered around the jungle, as it turned out, and who knows how many had already been atomized. When Dr. Narud had left us, he’d said that any other relics we could ‘acquire’ would be worth a little extra money on the side, on top of our contract to get the ones he really wanted. And they happened to be between us and the Tal’Darim, who were between us and the important artifact.





At least Typhon was a really big planet, with a slow orbital rotation. But the fire was still creeping in on us, and when the air got too hot to keep our armor helmets open, Raynor ordered everyone to relocate further ahead. To where, though?





Turns out the nearest Tal’Darim outpost was rather lightly defended, and pretty much wide open to an attack by invisible Banshees. They swooped in and tore apart the base’s defenders, clearing out some prime not-on-fire real estate to set up shop in.



Resources were scarce, though, and the Banshees had overflown another Tal’Darim base on their way to this one, which had already been evacuated. The SCV pilots drew straws to see which of them had to go scavenge up as much salvage as he could carry before the fire liquefied everything.



The Banshees kept going, tearing the helpless Tal’Darim to shreds. It was getting so easy, they weren’t even bothering to stay cloaked. A handful of Vikings were enough to chase away the battered survivors of the ‘space battle’ that came down to cause problems.





Finally, the artifact was ours, and we disappeared faster than Swann on laundry day. Killing the Templars inside the vault had stopped the ‘flamethrower’, but the forest fires were still advancing, and Egon had been saying something about the star’s coronal something-or-other undergoing dangerous destabilization from the ritual. All I got out of it was that they had tampered with the star enough to possibly make it blow the hell up.



No one wanted an up-close and personal look at a supernova, so we bailed, leaving the Tal’Darim behind to enjoy their light show. They didn’t seem too pleased, but no one cared what they wanted at this point, so screw them.

Well, that’s the best I can do for this logical travesty of a mission. Giant magical psionic flamethrower suicide ritual instead of natural supernova.

Please, start spending my cash. Save Everything won with a whopping 2 votes last time, and now we have almost 500,000 to spend. We need at most 290,000 if we’re going to buy both Battlecruiser upgrades after Maw of the Void (370,000 if we also buy Jackson’s Revenge), and MotV itself brings in 165,000, so spend away! (That’s a total spending budget now of 275,000 at minimum, to save you the math).

Armory Upgrades (480,000 to spend)
+40% Firebat attack spread (40,000)
+2 Firebat armor (85,000)
2x Hellion attack spread, 40,000)
+10 Hellion damage vs. light armor, 60,000)
+75 HP to Missile Turrets, 50,000)
-Missile Turrets do AoE damage, 80,000)
-Hire Devil Dog Firebat Mercenaries (25,000)
-Diamondbacks +1 Range (75,000)
-Diamondbacks +50 HP (90,000)
-Cerebrus Mines (Spider Mines have +33% blast radius and trigger radius = 50,000)
-Replenishable Magazines (Vultures can rearm Spider Mines for 15 minerals/mine) = 60,000
-Terran Buildings extinguish fires and repair to 50% life = 90,000
-Goliaths can fire at air and ground simultaneously = 50,000
-Goliaths gain +3 missile range, +1 cannon range = 80,000
-Hire Spartan Company - (2 Elite Goliaths) = 40,000
-Wraiths start with +100 energy = 80,000
-Cloaked Wraiths deflect 20% of incoming attacks = 125,000
-Thors gain 330mm Barrage Cannons, Aoe stun+heavy damage (130,000)
-Immortality Protocol (Dead Thors can be rebuilt in the field (140,000)
-Rapid Deployment Tubes (Medivacs deploy troops instantly) = 50,000
-Advanced Healing AI (Medivacs can heal 2 targets at once) = 115,000
New: Cross-Spectrum Dampeners (Banshees can cloak 2x as long) = 80,000
New: Shockwave Missiles (Banshees deal line AoE damage) = 110,000
New: Hire Dusk Angels (Elite Banshees) = 60,000
-Save Everything (0)
-Save Surplus (0)


Also, vote now on one of the following:
Belly of the Beast: Disable the Zerg’s Nydus Network and prevent swarms of ground units during All In.
I Am A Commie Mutant TraitorShatter The Sky: Blow up some stupid space platforms and take out the Zerg air support during All In.

It won’t happen for another 3 missions, but I need to start laying the plot groundwork now. I also reserve the right to arbitrarily overrule the outcome of said vote, though I probably won’t…

[Edge]

Cross-Spectrum Dampeners, Shockwave Missiles, Dusk Angels, whichever of those two missions you would prefer to do.

[The Glyphstone]

Somebody likes Banshees, don't they?

I'll chalk you up as a vote for Belly of the Beast then.

[Edge]

I have never played Starcraft in any form. I only know second-hand that banshee harass is useful.

[Guancyto]

Cross-Spectrum Dampeners, Shockwave Missiles and Terran building autorepair.

And Belly of the Beast, because I want you to SUFFER on the last mission Of course, the main threat being air units does make the super-upgraded Banshees a lot less useful...

[Demon 997]

+1 for Belly of the Beast

Would missile turret upgrades be useful for air defense for All In?

[Forbiddenwar]

Much better than the original!
Cloak upgrade for banchee, dusk angels, base auto repair and belly of the beast

[GolemsVoice]

Cross-Spectrum Dampeners, Shockwave Missiles and Terran building autorepair.

Yes! Maybe add the missile turret upgrades if you feel like it. And go Shatter the Sky, you poor fool!