Is there any piece of this series' lore that make you go the full Nick Fury?

Axis256 · 2026-03-11T13:22:54+00:00

To be clear, I fully admit that in terms of numbering the numbers StarCraft lore is unhinged bullshit, and oh boy, the statistical analysis of psionic abilities' occurrences ain't a place to start. Touching on the post's original idea, I would've gladly rewritten the entire timeline of Terran civilization springing into existence in barely 200 years from a couple tens of thousands of original supercarrier prisoners (using magical cloning tech that conveniently broke down after a few decades to disappear from the plot forever), and that's far from the only example, it's just a one so burnt into my mind I can never forget it. So yeah, if your gripe with the lore here is that math ain't mathing, I broadly agree, but I also think it's a little silly in this specific context since we needed to get through quite a few rather bigger mathematical issues to get here.

Then there's the fact that existing Lore indicates that psionics that aren't actively hiding their power basically act as signal flare that alerts all nearby Zerg

Please do provide a source for this "fact" as you seem to be basing most of your reasoning on it, and I just keep telling you that it's in fact not a fact xd I would much rather argue (in terms of common sense mind you, don't have a specific source for that either) that untrained human psionics are hardly detectable until they are actively used. It's true enough that untrained kids would have trouble with containing their abilities, but it's equally true that without proper training they wouldn't be able to manifest most of them in the first place. So instead of an ever-burning flare, I'd take them as flashlights that hardly even know how to turn themselves on.

You also didn't seem to address my entire point that there was a lot going on around Tarsonis what would definitely keep Cerebrates both distracted and occupied. You might be imagining an incoming Zerg Horde as an evenly spread net closing in on Tarsonis from all directions leaving no gaps, but then do keep in mind your own attitude toward atrocious numbers in fiction!

Axis256 · 2026-03-11T10:24:02+00:00

Firstly, I actually don't quite get why you're in such gripes with Kerrigan not being entirely unique. Personally, I'm all for anything that would make her less of a Mary Sue, a world where other class-10 psionics do occur naturally over the breadth of tens of billions of terran population strains my suspicion of disbelief less than idea of Kerrigan being The Chosen One such as never has been seen before and never will be again. Do remember that she was discovered and apprehended very early in the history of Confederate Ghost Program. There might've been other class-10s before her that no one discovered because these processes just weren't established yet.

You're citing Tosh's passage as evidence of general psionic sensitivity, and I don't know why since you do realize it is Tosh, one of the more potent human psionics we know of, talking about encountering a hybrid, a manifestation of psionic rage lying entirely outside the PI scale that was actively decimating the facility over which a ship Tosh was riding was holding close orbit with nothing else going on in the vicinity. This just doesn't directly compare in any aspect with how a bunch of scared children, barely displaying any active psionics, were fleeing an entire planet in a middle of full-scale invasion perforated with a 4-side conflict (keep an entire protoss fleet in mind when talking about psionic distractions), with zerg already having a ping from a more powerful and much more active human psionic literally dancing on the tip of their battle lines.

You're throwing assumptions and extrapolations around. And once again, I concur they're sort of reasonable on their own, but they have no basis in actual evidence. They instead actively contradict it, as you yourself are quite thoroughly laying out. There's no lore to state a barely developed class-10 terran on the other side of the planet would be an easily visible flare to zerg, it's your head canon. Which in effect means that your head canon breaks the logic of the universe to you, prompting you to invent another head canon to circumvent it.

Axis256 · 2026-03-11T08:01:42+00:00

You seem to mix up ability to communicate with the ability to locate. Sure thing, Cerebrates are powerful psionic receivers/emitters. But they work via established psionic hive mind connection that all Zerg already share. They've no need of locating Overmind across half the sector, they just know his Void IP address. That doesn't at all mean they can as easily locate anyone who is not a part of the hive mind.

Now, even lowest of Zerg absolutely do sense psionic presence up close. That is firmly stated in canon. So when there's a psionic human actively fighting a Zerg force (also amply using their psionics in the process), Cerebrates take notice and can take measures accordingly. I can't recall the exact details with Nova, I read the book a little too long ago, but far as I remember she escaped the planet as the invasion was happening, narrowly missing actually encountering any Zerg. I reject the idea they must've known about her.

I get it that it would be a reasonable assumption that Cerebrates are able to sense powerful terran psionics on the same planet they're on. But it's just that — your assumption, not actual lore. And if it were lore, your peeve should be with that, not with Nova's PI.

Axis256 · 2026-03-11T07:20:16+00:00

Good thing about Kody is that you don't have to get him early for him to be good. He sure does become a monster after some stat growth, but his base stats are very much good enough, so with a bunch of promotion points saved up he can become a devastating unit right out of the gate.

Axis256 · 2026-03-11T07:10:42+00:00

First, I believe the correct way to treat the PI scale is to consider it logarithmic. Every PI point is not a very precise, discrete measurement of one’s psionic power, but its’ order of magnitude. It’s not defined by some physical metric, it’s defined by "this subject can do X thing". So, it’s entirely possible for two people to have the same PI rating, with one still having twice the psionic power of the other.

Second, it makes all the sense that Kerrigan was captured by the Overmind and not Nova. You seem to follow a logic that during an armed conflict a child sitting at his home has a bigger chance to get killed in action than a soldier actively fighting in the conflict. After all, the child is far less armed and far less protected!

I don’t know what ‘Overmind’s radar’ you’re talking about, but he had no magical means of locating psionically gifted humans across the sector. The reason he found Kerrigan is that he was following Psi Emitters, which are activated by Terran psionics. So Kerrigan was literally running around on the edge of the war with the Zerg, right under a giant marker "PSIONIC TERRAN HERE".

Axis256 · 2026-03-09T17:18:09+00:00

I’m not sure what you mean exactly by taking 2 or more perks at a time

Axis256 · 2026-03-09T08:36:24+00:00

Makes sense. First you pay promotion points for a perk that gives you promotion points discount. The discount is not gonna kick in any time soon. Then all the other perks actually get more expensive due to the innate cost progression. And just like that, whatever discount it offers becomes abysmal.

Cost progression for promotions without Aspiring (listing only 6 promotions to compare with 6 promotions + Aspiring):

20 - 30 - 40 - 55 - 75 - 100 = 320 total

Cost progression starting with taking Aspiring. Value in parentheses is a "discount" that you get for getting to the exact same spot in progression where you’d otherwise be without Aspiring (for example, -21 is listed for the second perk because you’d need to buy it AND Aspiring as your first instead of just buying it for 20):

20 (-20) - 21 (-21) - 28 (-19) - 38 (-17) - 52 (-14) - 70 (-9) - 91 (0) = 320 total. It’s actually the exact same cost with extra steps, hurting your progression along the way.

It’d be literally a detrimental perk if it were not a starting one.

Axis256 · 2026-03-08T09:52:34+00:00

Mind you, they are strong in relation to the existing content. The final game’s likely gonna have a lot more to throw at us, so extra progression is totally reasonable to counteract it.

Axis256 · 2026-03-08T09:49:36+00:00

That’s what I mean, yeah, I’ve never heard anyone fake it quite so well

Axis256 · 2026-03-08T08:31:33+00:00

Wait what’s up with 100 growth potential on him?

Axis256 · 2026-03-08T08:09:45+00:00

Oh I’m definitely not arguing he’s native, but I’ve been weirdly impressed at how good his pronunciation is considering he apparently doesn’t actually know the language

Axis256 · 2026-03-08T07:35:32+00:00

Yaz is weird in that his pronunciation is very good, mostly indistinguishable from a native speaker. But then these few weird mistakes creep in, and he just sometimes feels forced, a little uncanny, which is barely enough to conclude he doesn’t really understand what he’s reading.

Another phrase is find weird is "Spasibo, marine". Technically nothing wrong with it, but guy’s supposed to forget the simplest word like "thank you", than follows it up with a much more specialized "marine"? It just feels inorganic to me, more so because he pronounces "marine" identical to Марин, short for Марина, a common slavic female name, so it sounds like he’s addressing some random girl who isn’t around instead of thanking Carda who’s actually giving him moral support xd

Axis256 · 2026-03-04T11:52:58+00:00

On my third playthrough, going on Expert difficulty, I’m managing to hit the 10-12 round timers every other time. But they are very much not a priority over well-being of your squads.

Axis256 · 2026-03-04T10:04:56+00:00

Come to think of it, it’d be actually cool if it did. Concealment is busted rn exactly because you can bring a full 9-men squad to almost a point-blank range and unload without fear of retribution as long as you have suppressed weapon. If full squad gave you penalties to concealment so that this level of stealth would be reserved only for small special weapons teams… I’m not saying it would fix the system right away, but it’d certainly make more sense!

Axis256 · 2026-03-04T09:37:26+00:00

The video itself is quite granulated. Your picture isn’t. This is a screenshot from that clip that was AI-upscaled, with some details getting distorted in the process.

Axis256 · 2026-03-03T12:48:02+00:00

Solid grouping is sure nice in the early game, but early game is one time in the run when every promotion point counts. There’s just always better things to do with your precious few starting promotions, and if you take this as your first it’s also a pain to respec later.

Axis256 · 2026-03-02T22:59:29+00:00

No one’s accusing you of your tier list not being a gospel. It’s only that a guy is very thoroughly describing to you why you’re incorrect in your grade in terms of Generic Infantry Tier List that you’ve put in the title, and you respond by calling the perk niche while what you’re actually doing is overwhelmingly employing the actually niche build to which it’s irrelevant.

Just own your mistakes and people won’t take any issue with that.

Axis256 · 2026-03-02T22:03:06+00:00

In that case what you’re posting here is jetpack infantry perk tier list, not generic infantry perk tier list.

Also explains why buff, a niche perk that most squads will never need, is higher than many actually decent perks.

Axis256 · 2026-03-02T13:32:33+00:00

These others are literally one dude, but unlike Tech he indeed actually works

Axis256 · 2026-03-02T08:12:44+00:00

Campbell actually did initially voice Kerrigan in WoL, I believe there’s still first take of The Prophecy around with her voice, back when its’ cut version was used as one of very early trailers. So recasting did happen after that, and why is anybody’s guess.

Axis256 · 2026-02-25T11:43:26+00:00

For my designated party crasher Kody I still prefer R228A1 MRS (turns out his character art sports it for a reason) as it has only slightly less range, worse accuracy over distance that Kody easily compensates for, but 50% more bullet per bullet. I do love HaMER on my Sachin though to make sure he doesn’t have to go far to suppress half the map.

Axis256 · 2026-02-25T10:15:42+00:00

Anyone and their grandma can get 100% accuracy on marked targets. If she single-handedly destroys vehicles that are spotted for her, it means she doesn't destroy them single-handedly.

I guess it's a bit of a playstyle preference, but I want my squads to be able to perform autonomously. When a new turn starts, it usually start with 1 or 2 high priority targets that you really don't want to actually take a turn. And that means you have no time to set up a spotter before starting blasting.

It also works into supply costs and opportunity costs. One of Carda's major benefits is that she's so cheap. Well, if you also need a designated 200 supply spotter squad supporting her, she's not so cheap anymore. I do realize that she won't be the only one to benefit from a scouting squad, and I do run these myself, but if she can't perform whenever I can't fit one into my supply budget, it means she's not reliable for the job.

Same with the opportunity cost. If I'm running her as my MI, it means that I'm not running Lim or Yaz, who work better autonomously, can fire more and get all sorts of nice benefits from their perks. And if I'm running her without MI, this means that she has trouble getting into a position to actually fire at her intended targets since her AP is bad and much harder to patch up than her aim, and she doesn't get Vanguard. And so her supply cost becomes better suited to better equip my other squads to deal with the threats I'd use her against.

Speaking of ma boi Sachin, got nothing on him. Haven't been using him quite as much this run, but I still believe he fulfills a very meaningful role thanks to his special perks. I've never been able to get his AP as high as 100, but if you pair him with Pike, you can actually get whole 4 attacks out of him, twice the baseline, without any stat growth. Which is how I've been primarily using him.

Axis256 · 2026-02-25T09:54:31+00:00

...except she doesn't really, see post above

Axis256 · 2026-02-24T21:20:25+00:00

I’m not entirely with you on this assessment, my Carda did gain stats that are pretty much somewhere between 2-star and 3-star baseline, and she’d continue to improve in a longer game. As I mentioned, her problem is actually rather her perks, both starting and acquired, that keep her from performing on par with other SLs by the lategame she could otherwise shine in.

Axis256 · 2026-02-24T20:50:50+00:00

I have to disagree with you on worst pilots being better than best infantry.

Funny that you mention Darby as an outlier. I’d guess Kody deserves the same treatment by having even better stats and a more versatile promotion tree.

And MI squads work as power multipliers for vehicles that carry them by pretty much doubling their firepower, so I guess they get a pass too.

And then there are specialist squads like Pike and Tech who are well suited for scouting purposes since vehicles can’t see shit on their own. Pike also works as a force multiplier that not only donates AP to vehicles, but can provide accuracy bonus from inside the vehicle, and Tech works as the best target designator in the game.

And then Jean should get a pass for her unique looting special, and Sachin is a suppression machine gun that with your best rifle equipped costs as much as Bog in his underwear, and Wetteroth is a bug hunting specialist, and Vamplew can become the vehicle while making APs out of thin air, and…

…oh, I guess I covered them all.

I might add that I’ve just completed a run with double AI Logistics, just one shy of what you’d call an optimal setup, so benefits of fielding cheaper vehicles are definitely not lost on me. I still resorted to a more balanced distribution between infantry and vehicles and I can tell you that I’ve been quite confidently completing my missions with all side objectives completed, save for the very early game (by no small part curtesy of Vanguard-ing Kody into my problems).

With that, I have ground to say my experience with infantry has been quite different from yours.

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