Research Discussion

Right so in the Starcraft 2 Campaign there are Protoss Research upgrades and Zerg Research upgrades, 20 in total for each side, but you can only choose 10, and they come in pairs so you choose between 2 similar upgrades and decide what is best.

Basically the way it works out is that the "LEFT" side is the offensive option and the "RIGHT" side is the defensive option in a pair.

Firstly lets go on about Protoss Research

Ultra Capacitors - Your Attack upgrades now increase your unit's attack speed by 5% per upgrade

Vanadium Plating - Your Armor Upgrades now increase your unit's Hp by 5% per upgrade.

Now, this depends on your playstyle really, if you are ultra aggresive, I.E YOU WANT TO RUSH AND NOT TURTLE SO MUCH, then it actually turns out the life upgrade is better, it means you can move out that much faster.

If you want to turtle in your campaign, use bunkers, siege tanks etc to defend then the attack speed upgrade is better, because they mean you fire more often before the enemy hits you, and because you are in bunkers or your tanks are in entrenched positions, their hp doesn't matter so much.

This upgrade is entirely up to the individual player, I personally prefer the attack speed upgrade, I would recommend it if you like Siege tanks in anyway shape or form :D.

Orbital Depots - Supply Depots now Drop in "Instantly"

Micro-Filtering - Your Refineries now harvest gas 25% faster.

This research is more dependent on how "good" you are, if you are bad, like me, Orbital depots is BY FAR the best option, it means you don't have to constantly produce depots and can just produce 2-3 at a time by 1 scv every so often and not be supply blocked.

If though you are good at managing your supply, then Micro-filtering is better, but to be honest I have gone through all missions and there was no mission I really thought I needed my gas 25% faster, considering medic marine is like such a powerful strategy, you just don't need this upgrade unless you have no use for Orbital Depots because you are awesome :D.

Automated Refinery - Your Refineries now harvest Vespene Gas Automatically

Command Centre Reactor - Your Command Centres can now Produce 2 Scvs simultaneously.

Ok, this choice is pretty simple to me: AUTOMATED REFINERY, every time. Although the reactor is useful, the point is that on alot of missions you can't produce 2 scvs at a time at the start anyway because you don't have the mineral income to support it. Also the Automated Refinery means you usually get a few free scvs per mission because they were given to you to go on gas ideally at the start, but now you can put them on minerals instead.

There is also one mission, Supernova, that having the automated Refinery is just SO USEFUL. In my opinion this upgrade is mandatory.

Raven - Drops PDD, Turret and can use Hunter Seeker Missiles, Detector

Science Vessel - Can use Irradiate, Repairs Vehicles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Detector.

Now although you can't get science vessels in multiplayer, my god I wish you could, they are amazing, there is no choice here you HAVE to get vessels here in my opinion, the raven is just not worth the money in single player, it requires too much micro to be good, but to have a free heal on your mechanical units (IT DOESNT COST EXTRA MINERALS/GAS :D) from science vessels makes this upgrade pretty mandatory imo. Once you get vessels you will be making them, pretty much asap.

If you want to practice "TERRAN PLAYSTYLE" for multiplayer then get a raven sure, but science vessels are like 9000% better :D.

Tech Reactor - Combines the Tech Lab and the Reactor

Orbital Strike - Units from your barracks now arrive in drop-in pods at your barracks' rally point.

Now, this depends on your style, if you are protoss, or like their style over terrans. Orbital strike basically converts barracks into Warpgates, although you still queue, you get to reinforce anywhere, you can basically drop in a force anywhere on the map, which can be awesome for certain missions, Shatter the sky for one. It's also awesome if you basically only want to go medic/marine since you just need reactored barracks for that strategy (later on).

However, I personally prefer lots of siege tanks, banshees, medics and marines. So I would go for the tech reactor as it allows multiple siege tank and banshee production. It also means I don't have to buy the medic upgrade of course. This is really down to personal taste, neither of these are mandatory.

Right. ONTO THE ZERG UPGRADES.

Shrike Turret - Adds a turret to your bunkers that attacks ground and air.

Fortified Bunker - Adds 150 life to your bunkers.

There isn't much in this really, It really depends how you use your bunkers, if you use them primarily for defense, alone, then you are probably better with the Shrike Turret. If you use them, like I do, as like a stopper for your Siege Tanks to obliterate your enemy when defending then the Fortified Bunker is a better upgrade.

Really though, the differences here are minor, just go with what you feel like :D.

Planetary Fortress - Allows your Command Centre to be outfitted with a cannon at the expense of being able to lift

Perdition Turret - Flame Turret

This is again optional, HOWEVER, I will say that the final mission is MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH easier by going with the Planetary Fortress option, The Perdition turret is just really weak in the final mission compared to the fortress. The Perdition Turret has more uses in like other missions than the fortress does though, since mostly you can't expand on most maps in the campaign, where the fortress shines in multiplayer.

However I would personally go for PLANETARY FORTRESS, just because it makes the last mission so much easier.

Predator - Anti-Infantry Cat like Vehicle

Hercules Transport - Massive Transport that unloads units almost instantly

The difference between these 2 are minor, Hercules takes alot of tech to use and isn't that useful in most missions, however I would say it was better than the Predator because it means you can ignore medivacs in the campaign.

The predator is only really useful in like one mission (welcome to the jungle) otherwise it just isn't that great, you really won't make them once you can make siege tanks.

But again, it doesn't matter: neither play a pivotal part in the campaign, just go with how you feel.

Cellular Reactor - All units start with +100 Energy and +100 Maximum Energy

Regenerative Bio-Steel - All Mechanical units slowly regen life.

Basically: TAKE CELLULAR REACTOR, if you followed my advice and took the science vessel.

Regenerative Bio-Steel is kinda useless if you have a science vessel able to heal your units with your mech units. Cellular Reactor means all your energy units have 125 energy+ out of the gate, which is just immense and means they can use their abilities right at the start, it's particularly useful on the mission "Supernova" and on other missions aswell.

Hive Mind Emulator - Allows you to mind control zerg units in a SMALLLLLLLL!!!! radius around the target.

Psi Disruptor - Slows nearby zerg AND THEIR ATTACK SPEED by 50%.

Do not be conned by the hive mind emulator into thinking that it is cool, although you might want a pet ultralisk, on most missions they die too fast or don't go in range of your stinking emulator for you to be able to use it. Basically the Psi Disruptor is SOOOOOOOOOOOOO good, it means that the zerg units are 50% slower so your siege tanks have twice as long to kill them before they reach your lines, (Or even your bunkers).

So yeh take the Psi Disruptor, it is SOOOOOO useful, on sooo many missions (wherever you will be attacked by zerg) the hive emulator is too gimmicky to be of any real use D:.

a TLDR of Sorts will be listed here:

Protoss: Ultra Capacitors, Orbital Depots, Automated Refinery, Science Vessels, Tech Reactor

Zerg: Fortified Bunker, Planetary Fortress, Hercules Transport, Cellular Reactor, Psi-Disruptor.

Mission 05: The Evacuation

Ok, firstly onto what the Mission Introduces, gameplay style of the mission. This Mission introduces you to the Firebat (YAY BROOD WAR ONLY UNIT :D), however as i stated on the previous mission unless you fork out the cash they are really dire, especially against anything but lings, however if you do fork out the cash they are really powerful against zerg, they make excellent tanks and roast lings for breakfast. Just remember you marines are infinitly better, so don't make any firebats other than the 2 you are given.

The only other thing this mission introduces is the Mercenary Compound, basically when the mission begins a countdown begins and when it is up you can summon in the mercs, basically if I don't primarily state it call in these ASAP, skipping a round of unit production if necessary, they are simply your best troops and are worth it, they also produce instantly.

This mission is primarily an escort mission, the colonists are evacuating on the slowest truck possible (and indeed the weakest :D) and go whenever they want and not when you are ready, this leads to the weird scenario that the only difficult escort is the 2nd, instead of the last wave, which is stupid imo but ye.. inevitable.

Mission Objectives:

Main: Reach the Colonist Outpost

Escort Colonists to safety (50)

20 Colonists can't die

Bonus: Recover the Chrysalis (3 Zerg Research)

Achievements: Do not let a Colonist Truck be destroyed on Normal

Do not salvage or lose a structure on Hard Difficulty.

You Start with 2 firebats and 2 medics, and you see the colonist base to the west. It contains 1 CC, 1 Mercenary Compound, 1 Refinery, 1 Supply Depot, 1 Barracks with Tech lab and 4 SCVS.

These will eventually be yours, now an interesting thing you can do if you want to make the mission a little easier, is wait 5 minutes at the start with your firebats, the cooldown on the merc compound starts when you start the mission, so then you can automatically call in 6 troops and the mission goes alot smoother this way, regardless when you enter the zone with your firebats proceed west to the compound.

You have to fight zerglings and just attack-moving into them should kill them easily, if your medics get focused by zerglings, PULL THEM BACK!!!!!!, you don't want to produce any medics for the first 2 waves of escorts, and it is imperitive you don't lose one to a stupid zergling attack at the beginning. There are 2 cash rewards north of the road to the compound, 1 is gas and 1 is minerals, pick them up! and then proceed to the green mark on the ground.

Once you do this you get access to your base, put all your scvs on minerals and send your 4 man squad north of your barracks and slightly west and there is 1 100 mineral cash reward on the ground, pump marines and scvs exclusively.

Here is a somewhat flexible Build Order.

17 Supply Depot

24 Supply Depot

31 Supply Depot, Barracks

38 Supply Depot, Barracks, Reactor

44 Supply Depot, Engineering Bay, 3 Scvs in Gas

55 Supply Depot

61 Supply Depot (Constant), Reactor, Barracks, Attack Upgrade

73 - 2 Bunkers (1 at each choke already with a bunker)

91 - Armor Upgrade, Cut Scvs (you want extra to repair the bunkers, hence the late cut)

Macro (You may want to make the last Barracks a Reactor, but you will run out of Minerals before you can really make use out of the reactor though, so just 2 reactor, tech lab and no addon barracks are perfectly fine.)

Ok, so a few things, getting the normal achievement is pretty easy: the only time you will likely fail this is on the first/2nd waves. It's a similar story with the bunkers and the other achievement, basically the first 2 waves are much harder than the rest because you have a very limited force and only begin with 4 scvs (Seriously wtf...).

This is also the first mission that really taxes you to multitask, you have to constantly move your mobile force and macro, the build order above has lots of steps at similar times because basically they are good timings between waves to do stuff, a perfect player (not me) could do all this micro and have a better build order, but I try to be as simple as possible with the build order. If you find yourself getting supply blocked or just overrun just select your units with the convoy and right click the truck, they will follow it, just switch back when they get attacked.

At the end (after getting the chrysalis Bonus objective) Your money will spike, just don't worry about it, you want some spare minerals to repair the bunkers, if you run out of minerals just leave around 200 minerals in the bank for repairs.

Onto the actual Mission, at around 24 Supply the 1st Convoy truck thing will move out, take your entire force and rally your barracks to your units and produce on the way. Take an scv with you aswell, move up the road just staying around on the convoy, you will get shown that there is a bunker on the Road, Ignore this and continue to move up the road, a first stream of zerglings, and a Hydralisk will attack you.

Take them out but keep ahead and around the truck, pick up the Gas cash reward on the left side of the road and when you reach the path heading east another wave of zerg will attack you, take it out quickly and get the 1 mineral cash reward (DO NOT GO FURTHER IN AND TAKE THE OTHER YET).

After this RUSH AHEAD of the convoy and u will see another bunker, if you want the achievement send in your scv and repair it and take out this attack force quickly, after this there is a Hydralisk on the right side of the road next to a chrysalis, take it out along with some burrowed zerg and pick up the chrysalis and the 2 mineral cash rewards on either side of the road. Put 6 Marines in that bunker and leave your scv here. Make your way with the rest of your force back to base.

Hopefully you should have both your sets of mercenaries at your base or at least before the next convoy sets out, as soon as you have 6 marines (or 4 marines and 1 Marauder) head with them straight to the first bunker with an scv. The Rest of your force should be with the convoy.

Remember this is the hardest wave to Escort, make sure you bring an extra scv to repair the truck (this is optional, I didn't need it but if you want to be safe do it). Keep your Moveable force around the truck when you are moving, continue to rally all your unit producing structures to this force. On this wave the 1st choke gets attacked by 2 waves of zerglings (with the occasional roach/hydra).

After the 1st wave ends, ignore the next wave with your attack group, (your bunker can take care of it (DONT BE AFRAID TO STIM INSIDE THE BUNKER)) and rush again to that middle path, you will be hit by a wave of zerglings before you reach the path, and another once you reach the path, I think you get hit by mutalisks here after you go past the path along with a 3rd wave, remember you have a bunker at the third choke, don't rush to it until you have dealt with the waves from the middle path.

Once this escort is dealt with, you are through the worst of it, it's not that the waves don't get tougher, it's just you end up with like 80-100+supply for the rest of the waves so nothing can really stop that force the zerg send at you. Immedietly send 2 additional scvs, 1 to each bunker area, and make a second bunker (Don't block-off the south ramp entirely). Put in 6 marines (4 marines, 1 Marauder if you want) to each bunker. Also start producing Medics from your tech labbed Barracks from now on.

Just a small note on upgrades, mostly in these missions it doesnt matter what you upgrade first (until you get your research option) but if you are using lots of bunkers in missions it is more important to upgrade attack first for your infantry than armor.

Now, with your more substantial force, hopefully reinforced with a second set of war pigs and hammer securities (probably halfway through the escort on the marauders) move out, again there are 2 waves of zerg coming at the bunker, but this time there is a wave that unburrows on the left side of the road, take them out swiftly but DO NOT fall behind the convoy, zerglings will be streaming in from the east passage, take them out safely and keep up with the convoy, A final 2 waves of zerg will come streaming in from the north bunkers, and an additional force will unburrow directly north of these Bunkers.

Once dealt with it is time to get the chrysalises, Go to the Middle path heading east, and well head east and follow the path round to the south (DO NOT GO FURTHER EAST - there is a large Zerg base there) The Chrysalis is in the middle of the field, zerg forces will unburrow to defend it, just take them out with ease and head back out to the Road.

Now head to the south bunkers and head down the ramp, go further west and you hug the treeline and you will see the final Chrysalis, there are more zerg than before defending this, quite a few roaches but they should be no problem for your pretty large force. Grab the Chrysalis and head back to escort the convoy, which should be just about leaving.

During all this Matt Horner will be like ZERG HAVE ENTERED THE ATMOSPHERE, basically this means they will be raining zerglings at your convoy from above, this sounds scarier than it actually is, Basically in this 4th Escort you have the occasional 4 zerglings spawn from the sides of the road along with 2 waves of enemies from each path. (Note that the south and north bunkers have banelings attack them, these are suicidal zerg units that blow up and do massive aoe damage to both infantry and structures, focus these down if you want but they should never break your bunkers). This is a pretty easy wave really, just escort it and you will have 1 final wave to deal with.

This time Matt Horner is like WE HAVE DETECTED UNDERGROUND ZERG, these are basically Nydus Worms, these are a Zerg Structure that transfer units between them, on the campaign they actually spawn units, in multiplayer they are a cool way for zergs to transfer their units across the battlefield.

Again, this sounds much more dangerous than it actually is, there is only 1 dangerous Nydus Really, and it is only a Danger if you let it. Again, like the previous 2 escorts, you get 2 waves of zerg per path. You get a few of the dropped zerglings like in the 4th Escort but you also get Nydus Worms, take out the first Nydus Worm, which is at the bottom of the South Bunkers with marines from the overfacing cliff above it. (Just on the Road basically).

After this QUICKLY get ahead of the convoy to the middle path, STIM IF NECESSARY, do not hold back on stimming if you are far behind. A Nydus worm spawns in the path, take it out asap then run straight to the north bunkers, again stim if necessary.

Now a Nydus worm will spawn on the North path, DO NOT take this out. You don't need to take this out at all, just keep all your units on the right side of the road where a final nydus will spawn, THIS IS THE ONLY DANGEROUS ONE, take it out asap and then just sit back and finish the mission.

After finishing the mission you will gain access to the Ship's Laboratory and Research, I'm going to make a separate post about research options, which are optional and which are mandatory in a separate post.

Basically though you somehow should have 4 protoss research and 6? zerg research (I guess saving the rebels in the 3rd mission grants you 3 research). Which means you can choose between fortified bunker or Shrike turret, I would go with Fortified Bunker myself, but it really doesn't matter.

Onto the Armory and you have now unlocked the Firebat Upgrades

Firebat: Incinerator Gauntlets - 40% Bigger Aoe Damage

Juggernaut Plating - +2 Armor.

Basically if you want to actually use firebats, these 2 upgrades are mandatory, they turn them from nitpicky niche fighters to AWESOME TANKS, that take ALOT to kill. I would personally advise against taking their upgrades, unless you exploit the bug I told you about in mission 03. They are useful though if you get both those upgrades, if you don't like firebats, just ignore them: they aren't necessary for any mission other than a late mission, and thats only because you get them for free :D.

You should have 110,000 credits. I would go for Stabilizer Medpacks from the medics and skip firebat mercenaries. You don't need them for the next mission and having more efficient medics is just essential really. Definitly you want this upgrade, if not now then the next mission. Alternatively, if you want the firebat mercenaries, take the Combat shield upgrade for marines and buy the mercenaries.

Onto the next mission and Tosh O: :).