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This is the second part of three articles to describe the changes undergone to units in the StarCraft 2 Alpha, and is part of the StarCraft 2 Alpha Guide series of articles at StarcraftWire.net. The first part was Preparing the Protoss for StarCraft 2, and the last part will handle Zerg changes. You can also read more of the changes to the unit models in Kalos' Polygon Parallax articles.

Similar to my last article, I'll repeat my disclaimer that this isn't the absolute list of every little change that has happened during the Terran development cycle. While I have tried my best to find and record as much as I can, I welcome any feedback on those that I have missed.

Terran StarCraft 2 Alpha Changes Overview
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Terran Intro Terran Buildings Terran Art Upgrade	SCV Marine Marauder Ghost Reaper	Hellion Siege Tank Thor Viking	Medivac Dropship Nighthawk Banshee Battlecruiser

Preparing the Terrans for StarCraft 2


The Terrans have had a difficult time in the events leading up to StarCraft II, suffering massive casualties while caught between the warring Protoss and Zerg and dealing with internal conflicts involving the Dominion and Terran Confederacy. Nevertheless, they are a resilient and technologically advance (though not as much as the Protoss) race with a lot of psionic potential.

Before we get into the units, I thought it would be interesting to quickly cover how some of the structures for the Terrans have changed over the past 24 months.


Terran Buildings




We'll start off with the Missile Turret, the anti-air defense that could only detect cloaked enemy units when inside the range of a Sensor Tower. This was quietly reverted to the StarCraft I counterpart in time for the GDC 2008 build.

On the topic of the GDC 2008, it was reported that the Engineering Bay could no longer uplift in this build either. This was also mentioned in the Through The Nydus Worm article over on Team Liquid.

The Terran demonstration video also showed us how the Sensor Tower could upgrade to a Radar Tower that enhanced the detection capabilities to include red exclamations in the fog of war. This upgrade feature was dropped in time for the WWI 2008 build.

Another new and interesting idea for the Terrans was the addition of the Starbase upgrade to the Starport. The concept was that the Starbase would be capable of producing aircrafts while uplifted, however this idea was removed in late September 2007 with the Q&A Batch 15.



Bunkers received an art upgrade, and size and durability increase in early October 2008 as part of the Q&A Batch 16 in an unknown effort to either reduce the Terrans efficiency to turtle or enhance the defensive capabilities of this structure.

Finally, in mid November 2008 as part of the Q&A Batch 46 it was revealed that the Planetary Fortress upgrade for the Command Center now dealt splash damage.

Also worth noting is the addition of the Orbital Command to the Terrans in mid February 2009, replacing the Surveillance Center as an alternative upgrade for the Command Center. This new upgrade brings with it two new abilities, Calldown Mule and extra supply, along with the already familiar Scanner Sweep.


The Art Upgrade

There was a lot of concern over how the Terrans looked in the early builds of StarCraft II. Whether it was seen as too blocky, or "cartoonish", the Terrans quickly received an art overhaul as confirmed in the Q&A Batch 32 to add an extra layer of grittiness to this battered race. Kalos touches on this in the article StarCraft 2 Polygon Parallax. This art upgrade has been further carried through to the Protoss and Zerg, as evident in some of the more recent screenshots. Since Blizzard generally don't release every single art update on a unit, we don't know exactly how far they have come with the upgrades for Protoss and Zerg.


On Page 2, we start with the Barracks (and Command Center) units.

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