This week will be our first ever Not Enough Resources Game Night! Join us on September 27th at 8PM EST to play StarCraft II, a free to play PC title that can be downloaded here. Even better, we will be streaming this event on Twitch for everyone to witness our tomfoolery live! We setup a very basic, very simple discord server for everyone to use, which includes both voice and text chat. You can also add Ryan and Dylan on Battle.net. Ryan can be found at the handle RyanMHolt#11539 and Dylan can be found at Scampi#1197. While it may seem daunting to try a brand new game, don’t worry, we have got your back!
The Basics
StarCraft tells the tale of the Koprulu Sector of the galaxy, which centers around the ongoing conflicts of three races: the Terrans, the Protoss, and the Zerg. While we won’t be playing the story mode, each faction has their own drama and smaller conflicts amongst themselves. If you feel so inclined, the first StarCraft II campaign is included in every free to play download and focuses on the Terrans, following Jim Raynor on his quest to save his mutant girlfriend.
So how do you actually play StarCraft? In the simplest terms, you build an army to defeat the other player. You do this by building various combat units, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and hope you can destroy all of the opponents buildings before they destroy yours.
Building units require a few different things. There are tow main mine-able resources in StarCraft, minerals and gas. Gas requires you build a building on top of a gas geyser, and minerals just require a worker unit. Once you have enough minerals you can start building other buildings and combat units. More advanced units require more minerals and gas and different buildings.
Once you get the hang of that all you have to do is pick a race! First up, the Terrans!
The Terran Army
Terran units can be built from three main production facilities, the Barracks, the Factory and the Starport. The Barracks makes infantry units like Marines and Reapers, the Factory makes tech units like the Siege Tank and Hellion and the Starport makes air units like the Battleship and Medivacs. The key to winning is finding a combination of units that use the advantages of each unit effectively. One of the best and simplest compositions for Terran is a heavy mix of infantry with some Medivacs for support. This composition is very squishy against siege units like Banelings and Siege Tanks, so if you start losing army fast maybe switch over to some Factory units.
One thing to keep in mind, while things like Ghosts and Battlecruisers sound like a good idea, don’t rely too heavily on them. They cost a lot of gas and put you in some pretty tough situations if you lean too heavy on him. One thing Terran excels at is holding down the fort and letting the enemy come to you. Always build a wall at the top of your ramp using a Barracks and a couple of Supply Depots early on in the match to keep people out of you base.
Terran in Co-Op
In the Co-Op mode the default Terran commander is Jim Raynor, and he plays the closest to what Terran players experience in multiplayer. Lots of infantry units! Swann focuses on Factory units and has a giant special laser canon that you can target any enemy unit on the map with. Mira Han and Matt Horner play like ying and yang, with Mira providing fun infantry and busted up airships while Matt brings the full Terran fleet down when needed. Nova plays like a super unit mixed in with tactical high cost units. Tychus is the latest added to the bunch and he comes with a squad of bad ass mercenaries each with their own specialty, but you can only call a small bit of them.
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