Some Game Changes Pre-Beta to Now

[Kazarus]

When they first started coming out with the Gameplay Videos and later the Battle Reports, I watched them all eagerly.  Now with the Beta, I've noticed a lot of things that have changed since those videos.  This is natural since the game is only in its Beta stage.  I just wanted to share with you any changes I noticed.  Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or add something I missed.  Since there was little coverage of Zerg Pre-Beta, only a couple of Battle Reports, there's not much to compare with and so no changes were recognized.


=Terran=


Command Centers cannot carry SCVs.  Orbital Command center can Lift Off, but cannot hold SCVs.  Planetary Fortress command center can hold SCVs, but cannot Lift Off.  Originally, a CC could pick up SCVs, fly to a new expansion, land and unload them all.

EDIT: I made a mistake here. Un-upgraded Command Centers can both load SCVs and Lift Off with them. It's once you upgrade to either an Orbital Command or Planetary Fortress that you can no longer load SCVs and fly off to a new expansion (though OCs can Lift Off, and PFs can hold SCVs, neither can do both).

Sensor Towers used to sense cloaked units and then upgrade into Radar Towers to view unit movement within a range.  Instead, they have the Radar ability from construction.  They do not sense cloaked units.

Thor is made inside of the Factory, not outside of structures like it was originally.

Thor's Strike Cannons are not area of effect anymore, they are a single-target attack.

Battlecruisers can only be upgraded to use the Yamato Cannon.  They no longer get Plasma Array - an ability that can shoot multiple missiles at ground units.

Reapers do not have Demolition Charge anymore, an ability that would let them throw bombs down that detonate after a few seconds.  They do throw charges when attacking structures in contrast to using pistols against units, but these charges are not the same as the Demolition Charge ability.

Ghosts cannot summon Drop Pods any longer, an ability that could drop down infantry anywhere the Ghost commands.

There is no longer a vehicle unit called the Cobra.  Cobras were hover-tanks that could use rail guns to fire while in movement.  The Hellion might be a mix between the Cobra and old Vulture unit, but does not have the fire-while-in-movement ability the Cobra had.

The unit called Raven used to be called Nighthawk.

There used to be a stand-alone structure called Merc Compound that would allow you to make Reapers and upgrade Marines.  This was replaced by the Tech Lab addon.


=Protoss=


Phoenix does not have the Overload ability anymore, which would let it fire many blasts quickly at the expense of going offline and being vulnerable after.

Mothership does not have Time Bomb, an ability that could slow time so missiles would fall down instead of impacting.

Mothership does not have Planet Cracker, an ability that blasts downward towards ground units and structures using multiple beams.

Mothership does not have Black Hole, which would suck in enemy air units forever away from the battlefield.

Temporal Rift and Wormhole Transit were also names used for these Mothership abilites once.

The unit named Sentry was once called Nullifier.




=Member Contributions=

And before they were known as Nighthawks, Ravens were a dry-dockish looking vessel called the Nomad.

The Starport used to be able to be upgraded into a Starbase, which was a permanently flying building which could construct units while moving.  Mobile Starport basically.

Battlecruisers were also going to be able to have more than just the Plasma Torpedo and Yamato Cannon as their skill - they would have been able to use an ability called Missile Barrage (Air-to-Air version of Plasma Torpedo), and the Defense Matrix from the old Science Vessel (but it was self-cast only, meaning only the BC with the skill would be able to use it).

There's a good deal of scrapped units that you can find with a fair bit of googling.  Some of them kinda stupid (Soul Reaver) and some of them pretty neat (Star Relic)

[paranoid]

Thanks. Interesting summary.

What bothers me most is the extreme nerfing of the mothership.
They could have kept it extremely powerful, but harder to get and maybe have added a warning for all players like in the case of a nuclear launch.
That way, people can try to prevent it being constructed.

In Lore: The protoss send out a broadcast message to call home the motherships. Such a broadcast message, which needs to reach far into space, could be intercepted by enemy forces on the planet.
Ok, well, then they still couldn't prevent it from arriving... 

Anyway, I'm disappointed. It was supposed to be powerful and now it's just a unique arbiter.
On the other hand, I never "needed" it so far against the AI and have no idea how it plays out in real multiplayer.

[Kazarus]

To be honest, I thought the Mothership was properly balanced having its energy restrictions.  It may have had three powerful moves, but it couldn't use more than one without having to wait a long while for energy to replenish.  This means you'd be able to go into a battle and whip out an amazing ability, but then have to run off to come back later.  Being a big and slow and more importantly, a primary target, these sort of hit and run tactics aren't easy.

[Kazarus]

As a friend put it, they're taking away a lot of the new micro-managing.  When they first unleashed previews upon the world, there were so many really cool new abilities that required micro-managing.  Now most of them have been taken out, so you're left with a lot of macro-managing only.  I can send-attack units with little to no new micro involved.  There's still stim-packs and other older abilities, but a lot of the new ones (Plasma Array, Demolition Charge, Drop Pods, Overload, etc) are all gone.  Given, they did implement new ones to replace the Mothership ones they did take out, but there's still a loss.


Of course, we're only in Beta.  Things can change.  And you never know, could be that they're deliberately withholding some abilities from the public eye until actual game release.

[Gamewiz]

A Command Center (not orbital command) CAN load up SCVs then lift off to another location....

[Rain[sun]]

You can be sure they won't be doing major changes after release. I mean to say, they won't add abilities or any major stat changes, just bug fixes.
Point of a beta is to test in a closed community your abilities, and figure out what works and what doesnt. If they drew up an ability on paper then on release it didnt pan out, they couldnt really fix it, theyd get tonnnnns of bitching and what not

[Kazarus]

A Command Center (not orbital command) CAN load up SCVs then lift off to another location....

Yeah, I was just pointed out my mistake by another individual as well.  Going to edit original post now, thanks!

[Thane]

Sensor Tower *don't* sense cloaked units? I could have sworn the description said they did.

[Rain[sun]]

/So did I, odd

[madrussian190]

wtf is the purpose of the sensor tower anyways... i could never find i use for it

[Masaki]

Where do you download the patch anyways?

[cloak123]

wtf is the purpose of the sensor tower anyways... i could never find i use for it

well for one you can see your opponents apporaching regardless fog of war, and its a nice detector as well if you dont want to spend extra mins for a turret

[Theta][Sigma]

And before they were known as Nighthawks, Ravens were a dry-dockish looking vessel called the Nomad.

The Starport used to be able to be upgraded into a Starbase, which was a permanently flying building which could construct units while moving.  Mobile Starport basically.

Battlecruisers were also going to be able to have more than just the Plasma Torpedo and Yamato Cannon as their skill - they would have been able to use an ability called Missile Barrage (Air-to-Air version of Plasma Torpedo), and the Defense Matrix from the old Science Vessel (but it was self-cast only, meaning only the BC with the skill would be able to use it).

There's a good deal of scrapped units that you can find with a fair bit of googling.  Some of them kinda stupid (Soul Reaver) and some of them pretty neat (Star Relic)

[Kazarus]

Sensor Tower *don't* sense cloaked units? I could have sworn the description said they did.

/So did I, odd

The description doesn't, I just double checked.





It reveals the location of units, and enemies can see what range you are detecting in.  It doesn't mention revealing cloaked units.  It used to reveal cloaked.  You can still see the old description on site that mention it does, but that was before they changed it.


But if anyone could test this out in-game and see if any cloaked units get revealed, I'd appreciate it.  It's possible that a cloaked unit will also show up as a red exclamation point like all enemy units moving, but it wouldn't allow you to actually see them and attack, so I wouldn't count it as decloaking units.

[ooni]

Purifier/Soul Hunter: they fired one missile and as they kill more biological units they could fire upto 3 missiles at once.