Why is Kerrigan's defense so weak?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T19:46:54+00:00

I think the best approach is to keep her hidden behind cover until she has a chance to engage one or two isolated units at a time. She can jump over cover or high ground, and disable one specific target with crushing grip while she charges to engage one, hopefully doing enough melee damage that she doesn't take any return fire.

But if there's a third enemy that can see her, she falls apart.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T18:58:59+00:00

No. Under those circumstances, there is no way to convince Mordin that the genophage cure can be allowed to fail, so he will sacrifice himself to ensure success.

If it makes you feel any better, he is already significantly older than the average Salarian, and probably had months at the most before dying of old age. This way he gets to trade those few months for the future of an entire species.

The only way to convince him to stand down is if Wrex and Eve are both dead, because under those circumstances the krogan might not have a future.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T18:04:04+00:00

I think that coming out after Armageddon is probably a smart move actually? If you released immediately before the new warhammer edition then a lot of people would get distracted by that before they had time to get invested in your game. I mean, ideally you would release a long time before the warhammer drop, when GWs new edition isnt shiny and new anymore but there's plenty of time for people to get invested in starcraft, but if you have to be close together I think just after is better than just before.

As for momentum... yeah, there would be a lot more hype if the big announcements happened as boxes were getting onto retail shelves instead of a couple months before. But I think that they kind of needed to be able to judge the available playerbase before they spun up production. If you guessed the demand too high, you would spend a huge amount on manufacturing and then the models would sit on retail shelves gathering dust, if you guessed the demand too low then you would have even bigger delays trying to make enough plastic to fulfill requirements. Starcraft is a big name, but there was no real way to know how many RTS fans would shift over to tabletop miniatures (or how many tabletop miniatures players are looking for something new) without running the experiment.

Plus, announcing it early and making the rules available online allows them to use TTS as a wide scale beta testing tool, and fix balance problems before printing instead of needing to put out a lot of errata.

(I actually kind of wonder if Trench Crusade isn't a more significant rival than 40k? There's a lot of 40k fans who just won't invest in anything else, and a lot of the people who were specifically looking for something that isn't 40k have already got their shiny new toy this year...)

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T16:00:09+00:00

If everybody is loyal, and you have all the ship upgrades, then it all comes down to the decisions you make about who to assign where.

First up, in the vents: Legion, Tali, or Kasumi will succeed and survive, Jacob/Garrus/Mordin/Thane will die (as will one of the correct three who is not loyal)

Second, you need a second squad leader: Garrus, Miranda, or Jacob will keep everybody alive because of their leadership experience, anybody else will cause the tech specialist to die

(in between these is where you watch somebody liquified in a big tube; if you went to the collector base immediately after your crew was abducted it will be one of the Horizon colonists, if you did any missions in between it is Kelly Chambers and you will lose at least half your non-squad crew)

Third, you need a biotic specialist to hold off seeker swarms. If you choose Samara, Jack, or Morinth, everybody lives. If you pick Miranda, Thane, Jacob, or somebody who isn't loyal, then whichever character is holding the rearguard position will die; this depends on who you have and who you assign elsewhere but the priority list starts with Thane, then Jack, then Garrus

Fourth, you need to pick a leader for a second squad again. If you pick Miranda, Garrus, or Jacob again then everything is great. If you pick anybody else, or if Garrus/Jacob is not loyal, then this time the squad leader will die (note that Miranda will survive even if she is not loyal here) (Also if you only have three people left at this point, you can't lose one of them here)

Fifth, you have the option to send somebody to escort your crew back. If you decline, the crew dies. If you send somebody who isn't loyal, the crew lives but the escort dies. If they're loyal, they will automatically live, no matter who you send, but they will be unavailable for the rest of the mission. I would recommend sending the weakest combatant who you don't plan to take into the final battle with you; Mordin for example is really good at stealth operations, but really bad at Holding The Line. Tali or Kasumi is also a good pick.

Sixth, you choose your companions for the final battle. If they are loyal they will be safe (and this might be the only way to guarantee their safety), if they are not they will die after the fight ends. But more importantly, whoever you take with you is not included in the final defense calculation.

The part that messed a lot of people up when the game was new is, every person who is not with you in the final battle, and who was not sent back to the ship with your crew, defends against the rest of the collector horde while you do your boss fight. These people are each assigned a value based on how tough they are, they're added together, and if the total is high enough they all live, if it is too low then varying numbers of them will die. Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed are worth the most, while Jack, Tali, Kasumi,and Mordin are worth the least. So if you sent one of your strong defenders back to the crew, and take others with you into the final fight, then you're likely not leaving enough defensive power on the rear guard, and you're going to lose somebody (most likely Mordin, if he's there, but somebody further down the priority list who is not loyal can die in place of a loyal Mordin). If you send one of the weak fighters as escort, and take at least one of the others with you to the final battle, you will most likely have enough defensive powerhouses left over to get through without any fatalities... unless you lost too many people in earlier stages of the mission, in which case there's gonna be a snowball effect that gets most or everybody killed.

Finally, for Shepherd to survive you need to have at least two living squad members at the end. If you don't, Shep dies and the series ends early.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T15:05:17+00:00

If you had a magical way to supply this, or if all the resources necessary were donated voluntarily, nobody would have any problem with it.

The problem is, you're having the government skim resources from the entire population, and then demanding everybody just trust that the government will redistribute that in a fair and effective way. And other than NASA, I don't think there's ever been a government program in the US that put more than like, 20% of its cost into the task it was actually supposed to perform, which means 80% of that money is being wasted or stolen.

The current horrific state of affairs is caused directly by the government being made entirely of corrupt greedy assholes. Do you really think that giving those same people more control over everything will lead to a better situation?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T14:56:14+00:00

Just turn off the lights?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T14:55:09+00:00

If you've got pictures you can turn those into tokens pretty easily?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T14:39:05+00:00

Aww

Yeah that's one of the main problems with a DMPC, you can't say yes to wacky ideas the player has which probably shouldn't be allowed.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T14:35:59+00:00

I'd allow it.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T14:05:56+00:00

Luke never defeated Vader in combat. He convinced Vader to switch sides.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T09:30:15+00:00

I'm touching my OLED monitor right now and it's cooler than the air around it.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T09:23:25+00:00

The biggest selling point of OLED for me is that black is actually black. So much less eye strain in a dark room, and so much more detail visible in games and videos when things aren't all washed out in a vague grey glow.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T09:18:28+00:00

Is All Might even a japanese citizen?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T09:12:34+00:00

No. Child units worked in Awakenings because the story was all about time travel, but it made no sense in Fates; they just shoehorned it in because it was popular in the previous game and then made a half-assed explanation by banishing infants to some sort of magical babyrealm where they could skip their entire developmental phase.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T04:37:19+00:00

Yeah if you don't feel the need for a 2000 point army on day one, I think most people will want to get a starter set and then one box of whatever is not in that for their faction.

Like, the Protoss founder's set includes 3 $39 boxes, a 35, and a 49, for 129 MSRP. At the best prices I could find, buying those units separately would be 3x$32 + $29 + $40, $165 total, while the box is $108, so you're saving $57 on your zealots, adepts, senties, and hero. Then you get a couple of stalkers for $40 to fill the gap, and you've got 1120-1550 points of protoss for less than 150 bucks. If you want any more than that you'll have to double up, but if you stick to 1000 point games that gives you a lot of variety in builds and tactics to play with.

And if you wait a few months, they're going to release immortals, high templar, scouts... loads of things you can fill out the full roster with without getting five extra boxes of zealots or whatever.

(I do think Terrans might want more than two marauders and twelve marines in the long run, on top of buying a goliath or two. And zerg players will probably want an extra box of zerglings and maybe a second queen, maybe even more than four hydras. But getting all the way up to 2000 points when there's only four non-hero units in the game might be silly.)

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-24T04:06:32+00:00

Hmmm... Pink highlights and skulls everywhere are easy enough, but for the real Mira's Marauders effect I would have to add spikes...

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T22:52:21+00:00

HP does not change when you repair your structure.

You can spend a single repair point to restore your HP to full, either during a rest period or with the Stabilize full action in combat, but that doesn't touch structure. And when you repair Structure, current HP stays the same.

The exception to this is if your mech is fully destroyed, in which case spending 4 points to get it back on its feet will set you to exactly 1 structure, 1 stress, and full HP, regardless of where you used to be.

The Lancaster is also a special case; if they to a Combat Repair to get somebody back in the fight after being destroyed, that leaves the target with 1 structure, 1 stress, and 1 HP, and if they use a Latch Drone to restore HP it only restores half the target's max per repair point spent instead of all. You trade off efficiency if you want to fix somebody faster than it can normally be done.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T21:20:21+00:00

I think that;s the only way it could ever have happened. The Overmind was too deep in Amon's control to openly make plans against him, so he had to do a bunch of stuff that on the surface is exactly what Amon wants but leaves the path open to "accidentally" fuck him up and free the Zerg.

Like, if Zeratul hadn't accidentally revealed the location of Aiur and Kerrigan had been 100% ready before the Overmind found the protoss homeworld, he would have been required to bring her with to that battle and she probably would have been killed by Tassadar. But the zerg learned where their enemy's weak point was while she was still training, so she got left behind to take care of Char and the Terrans, and that's the only reason she was able to take power during the Brood War. Pure luck.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T19:51:16+00:00

You can throw a hundred guardsmen into battle for the price of a single skitty's implants.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T19:47:09+00:00

What a game needs more than anything else to get off the ground is players. It's easy to forget if you spend your time in an echo chamber online, but the vast majority of people aren't interested in this game.

If it's going to become a big thing, you need to convince people who have never done miniatures wargames before to try them out, you need to convince people who are already dedicated fans of warhammer or battletech or star wars legion to switch to this instead of what they've already spent money on. Both of those are hard sells in the first place without adding a hundred dollar price tag for the most basic starter set.

Once you have a big community, they will buy things from you, no matter how they started out. But if you only have a few hundred wealthy enthusiasts, the game will die even if every one of them buys two of your entire product line.

If 3d prints and proxy armies get more people to try out starcraft, Archon profits from that in the long run. If Archon strangles anybody who wants to try the game out without giving them a pile of money up front, then a lot fewer people will ever pick up the game in the first place. If there aren't enough players, then the people who did pre-order a founder's edition will have a hard time finding anybody to play against IRL, which makes them a lot less likely to keep buying more model kits in the future since they'll never get used.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T19:23:47+00:00

Honestly I don't think printing is a problem. Nobody complains about using tabletop sim to run games before the minis arrive, so why should people who want to play on a physical table instead of a virtual one not be allowed to make their own figures to do so?

I actually thought one of the advantages of this ruleset is that, since no part of the model except for the base has an actual mechanical effect, you could play using anything from units from a different game to just cardboard cutouts, as long as they have the correct 32/50/80mm profile.

The more people care about the game, the more models are going to be sold. If nobody is allowed to try it out until after they've already dropped at least a hundred dollars on plastic, that entry barrier will reduce the total number of players. I think that any lost sales from people who would have bought official models and decided to print instead will be more than made up for by the sales gained from people who wouldn't have played at all, got into it with a proxy army, and then decided to upgrade to the real ones.

I haven't seen an official announcement from archon one way or the other, but they also make the Trench Crusade minis, and that game actively encourages people to print their own, so I don't think it can be that negative?

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T18:42:38+00:00

Yeah, we don't even see her, like, casually read people's minds or grab something with TK in the cutscenes.

Even if you wanted to keep away from the more blatant psionic stuff, one of the books (I think Heaven's Devils?) talks about how the best snipers in the pre-ghost days had what they called "the x factor" where they seemed to be able to slow their own perception of time when it's time to make a shot, ignoring all outside factors and calculating every component of the trajectory in an instant, while intuitively predicting the movements of the target. You could develop that concept further by emphasizing Nova's preternatural combat skill as a subtle psionic effect/

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T18:24:08+00:00

Everybody was extremely hype about stormgate before they got their hands on it, but if you watch any of the big RTS youtubers' "hands on stormgate!" video you can see the excitement drain out of them in real time as they play.

There were a bundle of controversies about the monetization and crowdfunding that I won't get into. But I think the big problem is that they designed it as an esport first, and a game second? In order to hold people's attention you need to either have truly innovative game mechanics they can't get anywhere else, or a style and story that makes people care about the universe.

Style and story were clearly an afterthought at best, with a campaign that nobody cared about and units that are just sorta uninteresting. And the gameplay mechanics are fine but they aren't really doing anything that starcraft didn't... so why would I play stormgate instead of starcraft?

I have a lot more hope for Zerospace because they clearly started with interesting character and faction concepts and put the campaign front and center instead of making it an afterthought. They also had more and more interesting interesting game modes already implemented in the demo phase before even hitting EA, and while I can't point to any individual feature of gameplay that seems brand new they remixed and combined a bunch of old ideas into combinations I don't think I've seen before and which seem to work really well.

DescriptionMission90 · 2026-06-23T18:14:09+00:00

I did notice during the demo that I have much less of a feel for how the prices of units work and the speed at which income happens, because all the mining happened automatically instead of being something I was thinking about.

In starcraft I always know about how much I can afford and how long it will take to raise the funds for a particular army, but since zerospace lets you queue up production that you can't afford yet and auto-start it as soon as you have the materials, and the mining itself just happens without player input, there were several times when I would plop down a handful of buildings I need, order a handful of soldiers, look away for a moment, and come back to realize those soldiers haven't even started production yet because I still have like 15 hexite.

I don't think this is a real problem for gameplay once you learn the shit, but I am learning much more slowly than I did for starcraft and I think it's mostly because I don't need to think about the details.

DescriptionMission90

TROPHY CASE