SC2Mapster

Hello, everyone,

Today I present FactionCraft (not the final name), an interesting, mostly balanced, enable-semi-everything mod.

Basically, what differentiates FactionCraft from, say, SC Expanded is that you choose your faction from the start, and while there are not a lot of them, they are very polished and present new, interesting strategies. (Not trying to offend SoulFilcher, just differentiating) as well as attempting to fix some things that Blizz enjoys leaving Under/Overpowered. Each faction has a special building they can construct to aid them.

We plan for there to be at least four "factions" per race, meaning at least 12 races you can select at the loading screen. However, there may be 15, as there is an extra set of Zerg models (Primal Zerg) that we didn't plan upon. Anyways...

I will be posting exact details for each protoss and zerg, although some casters need abilities.

Dominion are like multiplayer HOTS Terran, but with a 1000HP Battlecruiser called the Loki. Their special building is the Sentry Gun, which can be constructed fast, takes up 1 square meter, and is hidden when not attacking. Great for protecting key points of the battlefield when you don't want your army stretched thin.

Terrans from here on use the following format: NAME: Marine, assault infantry, Medic (Dominion has no medics), Reaper, infantry caster (Cloak, anti-bio ability, anti-mech ability, Nuke) light vehicle, Siege Tank, Goliath or Thor, Warhound (or ARES), Widow Mine Viking, Banshee, dropship (with a special ability), aerial caster (Auto Turret, another mech unit, special ability), some battlecruiser thing with 750 HP (Loki has 1000) and it's own special ability

Raynor's Raiders: Marines, Snipers (weak but with high range and damage, can gain a stun hit chance with upgrade, can stim), Medics, Reapers, and Spectres (they have a Mindblast-style spell that works on bio units only and one other ability that is anti-mech)

Diamondback (AoE damage and primary target slow, can gain AoE slow), Siege Tank, Goliath (goliaths have the multi-lock upgrade), Warhound, Widow Mine

Viking, Banshee, Shade (Spec Ops Dropship with cloak), Science Vessel (Auto Turret; a Seismic Thumper deployable building that drives away nearby ground units; Defensive Matrix), Behemoth (Hellstorm Missiles, which rains down a seemingly endless barrage of withering fire)

Special Building: Calldown Beacon (the model we used was a Gate Control), which can "link" with a production building in such a way that all built units appear there (also with a reduction in time taken to train the units).

KEL-MORIAN COMBINE:

Marine, Ripper (Team Color Tychus, I think, with a fast attack that has a chance to deal critical damage), Medic, Reaper, Revenant (Kueken's Napalm Strike but smaller; and Shock Dagger, which stuns the target mech and prevents it from dealing damage afterwards)

Vulture (faster than a speeding zergling, can carry troops from one destination to another very fast and, while manned, has chainguns; upgrade to use chainguns without having a pilot), Siege Tank, Goliath, Warhound, Widow Mine

Viking, Banshee, Hercules (but faster, smaller, and lighter), Nomad (Auto Turret; a deployable Seismic Cracker which plants mines nearby and then burrows, which will then replenish lost mines at the cost of unburrowing; Mineral Solvent, which heals a mineral field and grants it more minerals), Behemoth (Redline Reactor)

Special Building: Command Centers can build add-ons called Processors, which can specialize in Minerals or Vespene intake. Everytime a Command Center recieves 25 minerals/50 vespene, the attached processor gains 1 energy. Upon reaching 10 energy, the Processor grants you an additional 100 minerals/vespene.

UNITED EARTH DIRECTORATE: Marine, Hammer (marauder-like unit that fires kinetic blasts of energy, can gain a knockback effect), Medic, Reaper, Gestalt (anti-bio and anti-mech need suggestions)

Predator (heals as fast as a Protoss Shield, can improve EM shock radius), Siege Tank, Thor, ARES (Anti-infantry and anti-mech modes), Widow Mine

Viking, Banshee, Warp Ship (we used SoulFilcher's camo dropship model, and it loads/deploys troops from afar), Ark (not sure what model we'd use; Auto Turret; Nano Repair; a Laser Drone is sent to the target location, firing bursts in all directions [something I saw in a Weekly Data Exercise video]), Ark (battlecruiser with a shield generator, so 750 shield/750 HP, but the shield can only be enabled by the consumption of energy)

Neural Resocializer- long-range mind controller

Of course, we would like suggestions and someone to pick the project up for us, since we have NO data skills and it would be more efficient for a skilled team to do it than to teach people with maybe an hour of time a day.

Whoever/Whichever group picks up the project, feel free to change anything here.

Who wants me to post Zerg now? Or Protoss?

No offense taken. I had thought about different faction systems before, but as I didn't have free time to work on them I kept the original one. Feel free to borrow ideas and data from my mod, and if you do I may want to borrow some from yours ;-)

My 2 cents here: Neural Resocialization was used by the Confederacy and is used now by Mengsk. There's nothing that suggest UED used it, so I think you should give it to the Dominion.

And I'm excited about primal zerg too! New zerg faction delivered right to our table! I'm curious to see what you have planned for Zerg and Protoss.

Wait, you can see what the Primal Zerg models look like, right?

By any chance, is this a primal?

From what I know of, Neural Resocialization takes place inside of a thing that looks like a stasis tube. However, I will first present some facts about the UED and then my opinions as to what happened to them:

By the mid-2000s, Earth is resource depleted. Presumably any other colonies Earth possesses are already being extensively drained.

Then the Terrans are shipped off to the Koprulu Sector, which Earth thinks is rich with stuff. It is. Minerals burst from the ground and Vespene abounds.

UED sends and expeditionary force to claim their wayward experiment 500 years later only to have Kerrigan "wipe her @$*" with it..

FROM HERE ON, THE FACTS END AND SPECULATION BEGINS

That leaves 80% of a resource-and-power-hungry UED still intact, and possibly expanding on their own now.

As the UED could monitor the Koprulu Sector, they see that the Expeditionary Force has died.

They come back into the conflict.

BACK TO FACTS:

An Expeditionary Force happened to have super-advanced medics and valkyries. The medics had tech nearly rivaling that of what we view as protoss tech (but is mostly Xel'Naga tech).

So, it stands to reason that the UED as a whole has stuff like robots and blah and also a long-range mind control.

Because the Dominion was -is- not as advanced as the UED, they probably still use NR stasis tubes. It doesn't exactly make sense to stuff an Ultralisk in a tube just to get control of it when you had 50 marines that easily could have dealt more damage, all dead now thanks to the Ultralisk.

@SGTMeowmers9: Go Unfortunately I can't. There are only a few models in the beta and most are for the melee units. That one isn't included.

In any event, I'll do Protoss second because so far it is the shortest list (due to the lack of models)

Protoss Changes: Mothership has a Planet Cracker which it can use while moving, however, moving makes it deal half damage. The Mothership will no longer be an JUST an oversized arbiter. It will also have it's damage upgraded. Stalkers, Oracles, and Void Rays would be changed to a dark model as we had planned the fourth faction to be platinum/blue themed.

As Oracles' Entomb can easily be countered and becomes a waste of energy, Entomb is replaced with Insanity, which causes workers in the area of effect to run around crazily. This would require that workers have their own attribute (attributes are things like Psionic, Light, Armored, etc.)

DAELAM: Multiplayer HOTS protoss. Seeing as Protoss have lost the late-game carrier edge, the special building is a deadly Psi-Link Spire (name will probably be changed) that fires a burst into orbit, then falls to target area, reveals, and deals 250 damage to everything in the area. However, it is far in the tech tree.

Protoss Faction Name: melee infantry, Stalker, energy manipulator (force field, aura, utility), templar (AoE, Feedback, Archon Merge), DT Observer, Warp Prism, armored anti-armor, Colossus anti-air, Void Ray, capital ship, Oracle, MC/Mothership

FIST OF ULREZAJ (dark protoss, specializing in ambush) Slayer (dark zealot that has less HP but is hidden while not moving, and has an upgrade [we named it Warp Battery] that deals 2x the Slayer's damage if it hasn't attacked for the last 2.5 seconds), Stalker, Stasis Orb (FF; here is an evasion aura that we have no name for; Summon Enigma, a powerful Hybrid Destroyer [half the campaign stats] that lasts for 60 secs or until killed), Night Templar (Void Lance, based off of another Kueken spell, which deals damage by manner of a sweeping lance of void energy, then slows the targets; Feedback; Archon Merge), DT

Observer, Warp Prism, Hungerer (a fast, half-HP-of-campaign version of the Hybrid Reaver that gains health based on the amount of damage it deals, and it attacks fast and light to avoid the unwanted Hardened Shield response), Colossus

Corsair (with Disruption Web that deals damage in the innermost circle of effect), Void Ray, Annihilator (no idea what this would do but it uses a Team Color Dark Void Seeker), Oracle, MC/Mothership

Rip-Field Generator, enables area control, tier 3 (requires RoboSupportBay

TAl'DARIM (a malevolent organization of protoss survivors on invaded planets, T1 kills most T2/3 and T2/3 kills most T1) Centurion (heavy zealot that uses GhostNova's Zerg Buster model, has a hardened shield researchable effect that caps at 15 and is slightly more durable but more expensive) Stalker, Nullifier (FF; Acceleration Field, which speeds up Centurions so they can catch pesky stimmed MMM; Null Bomb, where a target area is slowed and all enemy missiles inside are slowed for 10 secs, then missiles die), Praetor (Maelstrom, which is like vortex but can only hold X units at a time, and the units can be targeted; Feedback; Archon Merge), DT

Observer, Warp Prism, Reaver (uses energy, not minerals and are somewhat faster, though easier to kill; scarabs deal 65% less splash to allies)

Vanguard (we used the Urun model; slow, powerful anti-air attacks and can cast Plasma Blast, which deals damage to target ground units in an area based upon the current shields of the Vanguard), Void Ray, Carrier (w/ spell-immune interceptors), Oracle, MC/Mothership

Shield Batteries- tier 1 defensive structure that also auto-repairs Photon Cannons in range.

@SGTMeowmers9: Go Workers have their own flag, no need to worry about that.

And now for Zerg!

Zerg changes: Overseers' Contamination also spawns broodlings. Queens' Spawn Larvae can be autocast. The fourth and potential fifth factions, the Advanced Biological Division and the Primeval Zerg, are undeveloped, seeing as I have no access to Primal Models and evolved zerg models do not reveal what they do. All Nydus Worms can Burrow, destroying them but granting X% of their cost back (we couldn't decide between 50% and 75%). They are invincible while unburrowing to the surface.

SWARM: the Zerg. They are Zergy. Special Building- Spore Cannon, which launches a giant spore into the air, towards a visible area. When it falls to the target area, it will deal generate creep. You can also load units at the Spore Cannon, which will reappear at the target location of the spore burst. High tier building.

INFESTED: Drones that mutate into Infested Buildings survive afterwards.

Infested Clutch (an egg mutated from a drone, which turns into 3 Infested Terrans [speed of a zergling] and 1 Infested Marine; can be upgraded to make 4/2), Cobralisk (uses L2D Hunterling model; can cliff jump and can be upgraded to deal poison damage, making it a raider unit), Infeste Terror (Baneling with a cosmetic change to look like an acid-filled IT), Queen, Overlord

Hydralisk, Mutalisk, Avenger (name may change, acts as ground caster unit w/ Infested Drop Pod (calls down Infested Terrans to aid the fight), Fungal Growth, and Toxin Shell [deals DoT and 1 other effect]), Aberration (support-role unit), Devourer (attack that reduces armor, and can place 1 venom cloud per Devourer that deals DoT to all enemy ground units in range) Nydus Worms

Spotter (Disables Target), Infested Bunker (This unit depends upon the infested bunker model being released, otherwise I will make a request; Dulled Senses [Frenzy]; Bunker Form), Coatl (Consume, Creep Cloud (weakens enemies in cloud), Infestation Spire (bursts from the ground and knocks units away))

Special Building- Virophage; target allies in AoE damage are healed and gain speed

DAGGOTH’s BROOD: SC1 Zergling, Hydralisk (w/Hydra upgrades but more spammable), No Queen, Baneling

Mutalisk, Scourge (Deals AoE damage to ground upon explosion), Defiler (Parasite, FG, Spawn Broodling), Lurker (+Range), Nydus Worms

Plague Host (Consume, Dark Swarm, Plague), Torrasque (Bladed Shell (deals damage to all nearby enemies +Frenzy, Burrow Charge), Guardian

Special Building- Creep Colony (Spawns additional creep tumors as well and spawns larvae and acts as a defense)

ADVANCED BIOLOGICAL DIVISION: using evolved zerg models, but since not all of them are released, balance cannot be implemented and unit roles cannot be fufilled

PRIMAL ZERG: using the upcoming Primal Zerg models, but since we can't see them, we know not what they do

SkyToss is being revamped because of the most recent beta change.

In any case, Terran Mech also has to be changed. This is the way it works now:

DOMINION- Hellion, Siege Tank, Thor, Widow Mine RAYNOR'S RAIDERS- Diamondback, Siege Tank, Goliath, Widow Mine KMC- Vulture, Siege Tank, Laser Tank (needs a cooler name, deals constant damage that ignores armor), Widow Mine UED- Predator, Siege Tank, ARES, Widow Mine

Protoss Aerial:

DAELAM- Phoenix, Void Ray, Oracle, Tempest, Carrier, MC/M FIST OF ULREZAJ- Corsair, Void Ray, Oracle, Tempest, Annihilator (which stuns units in a small AoE when it hits), MC/M TAL'DARIM- Vanguard, Void Ray, Oracle, Tempest, ??? (Hmm..................., help appreciated), MC/M

May bring back Entomb spell, it depends upon how much Blizzard buffs/nerfs the spell.

Locusts will still have 3 range.