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janzz · 5 years

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day 3: its 3:47am on day 4 and i forgot to write my daily post

really really really trying hard to make this a habit (just for april)

so fail but lol

here’s my post for today

i went to a yoga class tonight in santa clara and it was the yogi’s first time and she was so good omg!

not quite as good as my fave instructor of all time (the bae lauren at moxie yoga in sf)

but yeah kimberly at corepower santa clara square might make me a regular!

(which honestly is super great because i went to class with norma and it was awful LOL) (she played like hardcore edm at a chill class??) (to be fair it was also a level 2 class and i was struggling a little and kimberly’s class was a level 1....)

(oh i went to whole foods in the same plaza right after and ngl im starting to really enjoy just physically being in those fancy ass supermarkets. i went to a new to me nob hill after orangetheory surprisingly also in santa clara ----theyre just nice and clean and beautiful. however spending $45 to get way less stuff than a 99 ranch or something still feels way wrong. i got bananas cashew milk chia seed refill 18 brown eggs (anthony likes the brown ones idk) natural deodorant (cause native has been sucking hard) ginger tofu mushrooms orange juice fancy sprouted bread shredded cheese actually ok when i list that all out its a decent amount for whole foods. the stuff is just smaller yknow like the presliced white mushrooms were $1 for easily like 3 or so oz less)

anyway i find this funny because when i started dating anthony in 2015 he would go to nob hill markets and always claim it was his favorite market (because the chicken he would buy from there would never go bad etc). i thought he was like idk rich af -- to be fair he went to stanford 2x and has his masters and is 2 years older so yeah he is definitely more privileged than me. like i didnt have a preference for cage free brown eggs like i never had the money to spend the extra $1 or 2 on that shit when i was slaving at starbucks AND a second office job.

its really weird how money changes your life. its 2019 and i finally hit the 100k 6 figure mark. it’s honestly been a STRUGGLE to get here, but i’ve learned a lot along the way -- primarily that you HAVE to negotiate and generally just get paid more to improve your life. anyway yeah money doesn’t solve problems but it generally reduces your mental calories and makes things way more convenient.

before when i was poorer, i would have to go out of my way to make sure i was getting the cheapest shell gasoline in the area (still gotta have standards and not give into that arco bullshit). i would never go into whole foods or places like that because my dollar had to stretch further. whenever i would go out with friends before i’d have to be SUPER mindful of what i ordered and i would be EXTRA annoyed when you go out in a group and when splitting venmo people wouldnt pay the extra gratuity and i’d factor in me covering it because as a barista and server its bs when ppl dont tip well

now -- idgaf if i go out to eat a lot or splurge when im out w friends. dropping $50-$100 randomly cause something is on clearance at lululemon is not a big deal. im not anal about my boyfriend and i splitting everything exactly 5050 down the middle cause meh whatever i dont need to be given money back for like the minimal difference. if whole foods is convenient for me to go to after a workout ill go in without batting an eyelash.

it is weird tho being poor and then having money -- like ill go to lululemon but absolutely CANNOT buy anything full price. i still like watching movies but 99% of the time go on discount days cause spending $20 when i could spend $9 feels wrong. whenever i do basic things with my boyfriend, like going to the grocery store or mall, i’m most definitely the most cost conscious -- checking against the value per oz, whereas he just picks whatever and gives no thoughts to it (i think he makes like 240k a year thereabouts, definitely more than double but i dont know the specifics). i drive a 2015 toyota corolla le he drives a nicer but still affordable more luxury sedan hyundai sonata souped up with seat warmers navigation and he’s installed a dash cam and stuff. my car is definitely a commuter car that’s just one level up from the s basic model. when i htink about buying a new car i dont know if i could buy a lexus but yet i sometimes think about getting a tesla instead of a prius

another weird one is getting mad at myself for leaving reusable grocery bags LITERALLY in the trunk and then having to pay the $0.10 per bag. I’ve easily spent at least $15 on bags prob. Before i would be kicking myself hard cause i’d need to pinch pennies. another thing that ive noticed makes me feel “rich” is i can sustain my craft coffee/boba habit just fine and not give a fuck. before i got more mindful of it i htink my my coffee boba budget was like $100 a month. ive always loved craft coffee, but it has to be RIGHT if i was gonna spend $6. when i was living w my parents in san diego going to a new coffee shop and driving up to encinitas or whatever was like THE trip. now i get philz off my mobile app whenever i head out of class or if im feeling like it and its not that special

but yeah, im not rich by any means but it was huge to go from like $16 an hour at my office job/$15.70?? w/ benefits I think that was my starbucks shift supervisor rate/annual salaries of 20k ish to $39k at a law firm in downtown sac (grossly underpaid but at least rent was only $300 at a family friends) back to the law firm job up to $70k. there i got a raise at the same job from 70 to 80k and then 80k to 86.

THEN cause i was privileged enough to have been able to save money making more when i hated my job i just up and quit (i think i had like no more than 5k in savings at the time --it wouldve been more but i spent 3k on prk/lasik). anyway yeah i was lucky af and got a new job in a month -- and the offer for this job was 100k base, 10k bonus, some amount of stock (i still suck at this stuff) and a stupid amount of perks like $1000 gym reimbursement and basically free health insurance -- if i annualize all my pay+perks, assuming i get my full bonus, its prob like 120k.

so i have like 5x ed my income in 4 years since graduating from college.

the crazy part is people that were more privileged than me STARTED at 100k as new grads, including 401ks and what not. im lucky becuase i started mine back when i was 18 at starbucks.

income inequality and access to knowledge/resources has become something ive become more aware about and passionate about over time. me and my boyfriend clashed a lot earlier i think because we literally were in different planes of our lives and income levels. we’ve been together 3 years, but have known each other for 4. we broke up for 1 year in between -- and yeah ngl had i never improved myself or actually reached my income/earning potential we likely would not have gotten back together. additionally him supporting me when we got back together raised me out of not the poverty level but yeah we met and i made 39k. i took the plunge and moved out to sf for myself and lets be real for him too and made 70k which was a huge jump. and in a short 15 months or so i jumped again to 100k base.

im never gonna make as much as he does (men/women blah we can get into that) but yeah even having access to money adjacently is so powerful. anthony never outright gave me money and im too much of a hardass independent person that ive NEVER borrowed money from him, never intend to. i really vehemently despise the idea of free loading but because of him just being around yeah my life has been improved.

when we met in 2015 in our young 20s we were in our have fun phase. i was too poor to have gone to thiings like coachella or out to a concert. he got me into music and made it easy for me to experience because he’d buy the ticket, drinks, pick me up and pay for sf parking. i would likely get dinner ahead of time or something small and generally we would switch so if he got tickets one time i’d get them next. but he ALWAYS paid for drinks and lets be real the occasional not drinks :P he had introduced me to music in such a way that i was willing to drop $800 or so on coachella + car camping + take pto days even when we were broken up 10ish months or whatever it was the first time we dated but if you think about it he likely dropped at least 1k on me during those 10 months without batting an eye lash. i made 39k at the time working in downtown sacramento and he made 90k base (maybe 115k total comp) living in SF.

despite just basic things like me being immature for 23 -- a big reason i think we broke up at the time was the income level inequality. it was both our first jobs out of school (first job out of stanford grad for him, he immediately got his masters out of undergrad). i did a round of uc davis, community, uc davis.

he told me he was breaking up with me because when we met i had originally wanted to be a lawyer and then didnt end up pursuing that path and he saw it as a lack of ambition/drive. what he didnt see was general growing up and not having access to lawyers as i grew up, just me working at this really top tier A+ law firm and feeling out of place as an asian woman working with rich WASPs. me wearing pencil skirts and having major impostor syndrome. what he did end up seeing was an insecure version of myself in our relationship with me bending over backwards to make him happy.

when i moved to sf and made 70k it definitely was a huge ego boost to make that additional 30k, but to be real, here in sf and paying more rent than i was in sac and SD/just general living being expensive 70k wasnt that much. what it did for my confidence though was priceless (i was an ea to a ceo at a tech startup). i really grew into myself and was more confident in my abilities -- and honestly a lot of that was just getting older and knowing that i was good at things, bad at certain things and i wasnt going through my quarterlife/post grad crisis anymore.

then those raises to 80k and 86k made me more ballsy. these things were obvi practiced with anthony as i had a partner to discuss and practice with/an educated thought partner. at this time anthony was making $150k base or so (after realizing he had been grossly underpaid as a PM for the 90k initial salary)

all of this set me up to basically make my position what it is now AND for it to be 100k. tbh im a glorified low level coordinator at a big company. i honest to goodness for the first three months probably worked a total of 2ish hours a day? this role should probably max out at 90k. and by max out i mean this role likely shouldve started at 75k with incremental raises to get to 90 in like 3 years. i STARTED at 100 and can likely if i play my cards right be promoted to a program manager in a year (or less). that’ll prob bump me to a base of 120 or so if i’m aggressive.

i always shitted on sf when i moved here because i hate the tech bros, the elitist ppl, the vcs who think theyre out here changing the world but seriously being surrounded by people that went to ivy leagues or the UC’s that were better than mine have honestly, like my boyfriend, just uplifted my status. something as small as casual lunch time conversation being more intellectual makes a huge difference for me re: how stimulated i feel and how much more energized ive become because of ppl around me. i def still have impostor syndrome all the time but its been so much growth from 23 to 27.

30s should be great because ill be well into my career by then and making even more and closing the gap even more w my boyfriend. its funny too cause hes 29 now AND FINALLY getting that postgrad quarter life crisis. his privilege was able to offset him to have this crisis later on in life where he made more money and could make smarter choices. privilege really is the thing that keeps on giving and im grateful to have started poor and really appreciate it. as i make more money i also care more and more to give back. if i ever do run for office in my 50s or whatever im gonna push for more access to education and arts. i had an interest in this as an undergrad but couldnt pursue it because itd be a lifetime of poverty, but yeah who knows.

dang this went long but it is really interesting when i think about money and how much its effected me. im lucky i was able to raise myself out of the level my immigrant parents brought me and my sister to. them moving out of the philippines was the best thing that ever happened to me. the second is them fronting the bill for my university education. the privilege i have is extremely special and important and i want to honor their sacrifices because im sitting on a 100k because of decades of hard work and frugality on their ends.

im fucking lucky.

we gotta pass on the resources and uplift those around us if we are fortunate.

...another rant altogether but i wish the leadership in the United States thought the same way.

(end: 4:36am, why do i do this to myself)

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operationrainfall · 5 years

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Title Mechstermination Force Developer Hörberg Productions Publisher Hörberg Productions Release Date April 4th, 2019 Genre Run and gun, platformer, boss rush Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Mild Fantasy Violence Official Website

I think by now I have to admit something about myself – sometimes I like hard as nails games. I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a masochist, but I do find the reward for beating a challenging title to be a heady drug. Which brings us to today’s review, Mechstermination Force. Developed and published by the same group behind Gunman Clive, Hörberg Productions, it’s a very different beast from that Western platformer. Instead it’s strongly inspired by Contra, with towering boss battles against deadly MegaMechs. Throw in a little more inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus, and you have a pure boss rush against mechanical bosses that get progressively harder. The question then, is Mechstermination Force worth the price of admission? Or is it too hard for its own good?

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First, let me clarify that while there is a plot in the game, it’s just there to set the tone. The world is besieged by MegaMechs, and only a small band of freedom fighters remain. You’re one of them, and it’s up to you to put the robot menace down. That’s pretty much it, other than some clarifying details for why lone soldiers stand a chance where planes and tanks didn’t, which is explained if you talk with your compatriots. But the focus here is really on the action, and there’s a lot to be had. Essentially it’s broken down into 10+ boss battles, and between each you can use cash you get from slagging them to improve your loadout. You only start with a small amount of health and a machine gun, but you can acquire a bunch of other weapons, ranging from a flamethrower to a pulse weapon. Once purchased, you can switch between them at will. You can also buy more health, either permanently or spend less cash to get temporary health boosts before battle. My best advice is to invest in the spreadshot as soon as possible, since it makes every fight a little bit easier when you don’t have to worry as much about your aim. Also, if you find you’re low on funds, you can always replay fights to farm more cash, which is a nice concession to make the game a bit easier without completely eliminating the challenge.

Besides these optional upgrades, you also get progressive ones at set points in the game to provide you with more maneuverability. Specifically, you’ll get the Magnet Gloves, which allow you to cling to surfaces, and later on the Boost Boots, which provide a much needed double jump. You’d think this would make the game easier, but really it just opens up subsequent boss fights to be more complex and dangerous. The flow of the game is relief whenever you beat a seemingly impossible fight, quickly followed by dread that the next one will be a bit harder. But instead of despair, this just led me to gird my loins for the next battle and to try and learn the attack patterns as quickly as possible. Though the game doesn’t give you any real hints for how to beat the bosses, their design and attack patterns are constructed in such a way that the answer becomes obvious if you think critically and pay attention. Furthermore, it helps that one thing each boss has in common are weak points.

The yellow weak points are vulnerable to any weapon, and can usually be dismantled by concentrating fire on them. The tricky ones are the red weak points, since they can only be hurt by your sole melee weapon – a multi-directional baseball bat. You use this to shatter the red points, but keep in mind it takes a second to aim, and the MegaMechs don’t just wait for you to kill them. They’ll buck and twist and generally make your life miserable as you try and put them down. But other than those weakpoints and the way the bosses try and avoid getting hurt, each and every fight is entirely different and generally unexpected. As you damage their weakpoints, the robots will lose limbs and often transform into new, deadlier forms. Don’t go into this with the zombie headshot mentality. Often you’ll decapitate a boss only for it to sprout a new head or utterly change forms as it tries to rip you to shreds. It’s a lot like fighting against angry Decepticons with a bloodlust for pulping humans. And trust me, each and every boss is fully capable to reducing you to a gooey stain in seconds if you’re not careful.

Having said all that, I would still say that Mechstermination Force is fair. It’s tough, and requires patience, but it’s never completely unreasonable. There are certainly a few bosses that strain that rule, such as the most horrible escargot ever, a skyscraper-climbing ape and what I can only refer to as a death skull, but otherwise they all felt balanced. Which isn’t the same as easy, cause the only easy boss is the tutorial one, and things start to get really challenging about 4 boss fights in. But in a boss rush full of death bots, I feel they toe the line pretty well. And if you really feel overwhelmed, I strongly suggest you farm money by taking on old bosses again and buying all the upgrades you can. I ended up beating the game after buying several health extensions and most of the weapons, but in retrospect I probably could have beaten the game with fewer health upgrades and just the spreadshot.

Another of the reasons this game manages to avoid being totally unfair are some nice concessions. First of all, there is no instant death if you fall into a pit or get singed by lava. Instead, if you fall into a pit you will teleport to another part of the stage after losing one chunk of health. Meanwhile threats like lava damage you, but then the game will raise a platform to stand on from underneath it. You can also get pieces of cake to recover your health during battles, but there was seemingly no rhyme or reason for when this occurred. The one frustrating aspect of that is that often the cake would spawn right underneath a giant MegaMech, and by the time I could get to it, it would have disappeared. Also, while each fight involves a hail of bullets and gymnastic feats, you can beat most of them in under 5 minutes. At least once you’ve memorized their attack patterns. That applies for both the tiny bosses and the large ones. And when I say large, I mean boss fights that are almost their own level. A good example is fighting the Cerberus mech, which involves you jumping in their mouths, avoiding getting chomped, blasting your way through their throats and then rinse and repeat. By contrast, the smaller bosses almost felt like mini bosses, but they also provided refreshing breaks from the more hectic battles.

There’s a lot I enjoyed about Mechstermination Force, but now I need to touch on some frustrations. Because the foes you fight are often huge, the camera has to shoot a broad angle as you fight. The problem with that is you’re so tiny, it can often be hard to tell where you are, especially after the boss sends you flying with a giant fist. In the fight against the mechanized snail, every time you damage his head the game randomly sends you flying, and often I took damage just cause I hadn’t gotten my bearings before he started bombarding me with flaming debris. Also problematic was the ability to freely aim your weapon of choice. That’s great in theory, but to aim you need to duck down, and when I tried aiming with my joystick, bullets wouldn’t end up exactly where I wanted. My workaround was to use the directional buttons instead, and that offered more concrete angles that allowed me to more frequently hit my targets. I almost wish it had stuck to Contra’s tried and true method of only offering set angles of fire, but I suppose that would be harder to accommodate in a game where each boss is constantly moving. And while I loved the Magnet Gloves for scaling giant MegaMechs, there were times they didn’t work properly. And I even encountered one glitch in the Cerberus fight where I somehow phased through a solid space, though that actually ended up helping me.

I did get a chance to try out the local co-op in the game, and though it’s a fun idea in theory, it was messier in execution. While it played without any lag, all the problems I had with single player were exaggerated with two players. The camera was even more problematic, and it’s very difficult to coordinate as the robots bear down on you. It also was tricky having my friend essentially look over my broad shoulders to see the screen when played portably. I suppose I should have played while hooked up to my TV. Also, I wish two player allowed some popular conventions such as sacrificing some health to revive your buddy. That isn’t an option, so once someone dies, the other person is entirely on their own. As far as I’m concerned, Mechstermination Force is much better as a single player experience.

Visually speaking, there’s a lot to love about Mechstermination Force. It has big, bold colors and bright visuals for your weapon fire. Each and every MegaMech is a work of art, featuring layered dimensions that slowly evolve as you fight. It’s really cool ripping the armor off a foe to scale them, and watching them transform as you deal critical damage. Though many of the bosses qualify as humanoid, there’s also some great ones patterned after creatures, such as a centipede, the aforementioned snail and even a large arachnid. You won’t get bored with the visuals in the game, that’s a guarantee. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the sound. While the music is fine, I really wish there were more varied tracks. Though there is a handful, many of them sound very similar to each other. I would have loved more variety, like some hard rocking tunes to mix things up. As for the sound effects, though they work, they also felt a bit muted. The way your character grunts when damaged didn’t really do justice to the amount of punishment they’re taking. The sound effects are thankfully better for the weapons. Overall, the visuals are the better aspect of the game, but the sound design is alright.

By the time the credits rolled, I had spent about 4 and a half hours and gotten 80+ deaths in Mechstermination Force. While I rather enjoyed it overall, there were some features that held it back from perfection. And also, though the final boss is beyond epic, it too suffered from the same complaints I had about earlier battles. But for the base package, I feel you get a lot for your money. My main frustration is that once it’s over, there’s nothing left to do, other than trying to beat the bosses without taking damage to acquire medals. Thankfully I’m not quite that masochistic, so I think I’ll pass. That said, for $11.99 it’s easy to recommend to fans of hardcore games, though I can’t say the same applies to those who identify as more casual gamers. But if you love giant robots and are up for a challenge, Mechstermination Force is the game for you!

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″]

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REVIEW: Mechstermination Force Title Mechstermination Force

#Contra #eShop #Hörberg Productions #nintendo switch #oprainfall #Review #Shadow of the Colossus

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raymondchougaming · 7 years

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The Terran Late Game (vs Zerg)

This post will cover 3 phases of the modern Terran vs Zerg matchup, namely the mid-late game, late game, and endgame.

We will begin the discussion with remarks on the Zerg late-game unit composition, as well as the possible Terran unit compositions en riposte.

Zerg’s ultimate goal is to reach Brood Lords, Ultralisks, (I almost said defiler), Infestors, a lot of Corruptors, and perhaps Vipers (maybe with ling/bane support, especially as a means to replace army after the big engagement). In other words - units that kill our shit really easily, because if we’ve been going bio-mine all game, our units are quite volatile (glass cannon strats). If he maxes on his perfect composition...we’re going to have a hard time, guaranteed.

Before I talk about deterring the Zerg, let’s first figure out how to (if, at all possible) go head to head with this army, and brainstorm the ideal unit composition, or perhaps a few, and then I’ll talk about this more after I explore unit tester. Terrain will most likely be key.

The battlecruiser should be the centerpiece of our unit composition. It’s beefy, has a lot of health, and deals a massive amount of damage. It has that epic teleport ability, and a skill that can pretty much one-hit any Zerg unit. Furthermore, Zerg has no strict anti-spellcaster (Terran has EMP, Protoss has feedback), so Yamatos will be just that much more powerful. Plus, the battlecruiser has the added bonus of being an air unit - and Ultras, Brood lords, and ling/bane cannot shoot up.

I’m not too fond of marines in the late-late game, since 55 health isn’t a lot, and if you consider the sheer amount of micro it takes to keep all of them going - it will detract from other things. Ultras shred through marines, fungals (especially since most maps don’t have that many open spaces - and open spaces in some sense favor the Zerg), and Brood Lords ruin the effectiveness of marines by creating a “wall” and reducing our maneuverability. Even though they have such effective DPS, I’m a firm believer that once tier 3 is reached, Terran should start to move away from Marines, and maybe even marauders as well. We saw this in the Brood War meta - strategies began shifting from 9:00 pre-hive 2 base timings to a quick third and then a killing blow before the Zerg could get 4 operating bases to 4 barracks into mech switch .This was because once the Zerg got Guardians and ultralisks, Terrans simply could not hold them off, particularly if there were a decent amount of defilers out. Irradiates on ultralisks hurt the Terran more than the Zerg, and chitinous plating +5 armor was just too much. People cite DPS all the time as to why the Marine should remain a late-game unit for the Terran, but the BC/Banshee does much better for the amount of health. The DPS is useless if you can’t keep the marines alive, and with the sheer amount of splash Zerg will have in the late game, it’s just not worth it.

Perhaps a few marauders for the ever-so-useful concussive shell?

The ghost was a very popular late game unit in Wings of Liberty, from what I saw. I’m still catching up on how the HotS meta evolved, since I wasn’t around, but the ghost was used quite effectively. I’m not too fond of the new snipe ability, because of how long it takes to set up, but it does a ton of damage. It is, however, far too easy to kill the ghost unless there is something preventing the Zerg from getting to them (I’ll get to this later). If the Zerg makes a lot of infesors/vipers, I believe ghosts are important, but they’re just a good unit in general. They do a fair amount of damage, and allow us to pressure Zergs with nukes. Brood lords are slow, and defensive nukes are very good for the zoning game we’ll find ourselves playing.

The liberator is crucial - once sieged, the DPS is just INSANE, though it severely lacks mobility, and is very vulnerable to corruptors. The range upgrade, however, just makes the unit borderline unfair, particularly on maps with a lot of cliffs. Unsieged, the splash damage may be useful against corruptors, but I’ll have to try that out in unit tester. I think the liberator will be another crucial unit against the Zerg army, unless they decide to go full air as well.

The Viking is an essential support unit for battlecruiser - not much needs to be said here.

In the later game, Banshees once again become effective, since Zergs will now be moving their gas away from mutalisks and onto the later game units. Mutalisks sort of lose their utility in the later stages of the game, since they take up a lot of supply and make the Zerg endgame force that much weaker. The mobility they have is really, really good, but Terrans will make a shit ton of turrets, and leave a few mines/thors at home.

Ravens are good, but I don’t know about making them en masse. A lot of people do that, and I’ve seen it utilized to great effect, and this is something I’ll have to play around with. HSM seems really good on Brood Lords/cramped corruptors and can force positions, and PDD is almost unfair in Viking vs Corruptor fights. This ties in nicely with the Banshees and the BCs, since it means we’ll have tech lab’d ports, and the DPS from autoturrets is pretty crazy as well. Autoturrets can also serve as protection for the Ghosts as well. The only caveat is the sheer amount of gas they cost.

Thors are very good because of the splash damage against corruptors - but that’s about it really. They’re slow, clunky, and kind of just die really fast, particularly if they’re not in range of anything. They are, however, a very good meatshield for the ghosts.

Widow mines lose their utility once Zerg gets a lot of ultralisks out, since ultralisks are quite large in size and the mines no longer do splash damage. They could potentially DESTROY Brood Lords and corruptors (especially with drilling claws), but if Broodlings occupy the space they need, I don’t see them getting very far. When Zerg begins replenishing their army with ling/bane, however, I could see their effectiveness returning.

Siege tanks - almost useless once Brood lord/ultra is out.

Cyclones - LOL

Hellions - Actually, surprisingly useful in low numbers, a very small resource investment for potential HUGE economic damage, have great mobility and vision all over the map. Just don’t make too many. A great response to mass ling/bane as well. Hellions can even kite ultras. The only problem I foresee is the potential infrastructure switch required.

GOALS WITH OUR LATE GAME:

-Reach a solid endgame, particularly with our base-racing advantage -Be able to kill the Infestor-Broodlord-Ultralisk-Corruptor (and maybe viper) force, even if the fight is terrain dependent -Have sufficient infrastructure to support a rebuttal to the remax on lings/banelings -Be able to defend our bases

Compositions to try:

So immediately, Ghost/Liberator/Viking/Eventual BCs/few Ravens is sounding particularly attractive - but with smaller ghost counts. The snipe function on the Ghost will shred through those Brood Lords (provided we kill the Overseers), but infestors are a large worry, considering that they can just fungal all of our air units in place repeatedly (unless we snipe them first), so keeping a good spread will be important. (None of those stacked Vikings!)

I’ve decided to ditch the thors for now, since HSM + PDD with liberator splash sounds really good. I need to unit test to see how liberators fare against mass corruptors/Brood lords (probably very poorly). Honestly...Battlecruisers fare pretty well against corruptors as well.

If they make a lot of ultralisks, we’ll get a lot of liberators, but we need something on the ground to stop their progress. Ultras shred through thors pretty quickly, but so far that sounds like the only option I have. So if I see ultras, I may get a few thors...but then this will add to the amount of micro we have to perform, since we’ll need the thors to target fire the air units.

It seems like no matter what, we are always at the APM disadvantage...

Raven/BC/Liberator with Ghost/Viking/Thor Support is starting to sound good, but we have no real means of spending our minerals. Perhaps hellions? They can kite the ultralisks, and amassing them early would be really, really good for potential ling counterattacks.

There is another style...where we go mainly MMMM with Liberator/Viking Support, but this style is much more APM intensive, and simple control mistakes could cost us the game. However, in terms of infrastructure, this is a significantly better style.

INFRASTRUCTURE CONSIDERATIONS

Let us suppose that we are going into Sky Terran.

So the biggest problem Terran has against Zerg in terms of switching to Starport tech is the problem of upgrades. Terran seeks to get 3/3 Bio in the midgame, simply due to the power of bio-mine (or other bio based compositions) in the midgame - there is so much DPS, mobility, and other things that makes them too good not to use. Only when Zerg really starts to get enough DPS that they can kill the bio units before they are able to become very effective do we need to make a transition.

Zerg is, however, researching +1 armor or +1 attack on air units via their Spire if they get a lot of mutas...(usually +1 armor, from what I’ve seen), so it will be of great benefit to us to research plating early on.

The second problem to look for is the mass amount of Barracks we’ll have...if we open bio-mine, we’ll find ourselves on 3 bases with like 8 Barracks, 1 factory, and 1 starport. Our Barracks will mostly be inactive if we suddenly switch to Starport tech, and we’ll have to invest significantly more resources in infrastructure if we want to support our “ideal compositions.” The only thing the barracks will really be useful is for producing Ghosts...and I mean I guess if we want to mass ghost that’s really good, but the space-blocking features of the Broodlings are a little too much for them to be useful. Perhaps old Brood War style 4 rax into mech styles may be useful, but navigating a successful against a scary Zerg does seem quite difficult.

We could easily, however, transition into this style of late-game using Mech, so this will depend.

I think, for either style, what we should do is to get a large amount of Barracks (for MMMM), or a large amount of Factories (if going mech), and start adding Starports (aiming for 6 Starports or more) in the mid-game, with no addons at first. We are doomed to have a reactor on one of those Starports, just by the nature of our openings, but whatever it is, we should seek to get a large amount of Starports, and then slam down tech labs on all of them later. We could produce Battlecruisers 6 at a time!

We should definitely research Vehicle/Ship plating as either style, since it will protect our Liberators/Medivacs/Vikings, and be useful later on. A second armory I think will be key into the late game.

If Zerg chooses to remass on lings, we switch back to medivacs (and a few liberators), and MMMM once again if we went mass barracks, and mass hellions with a few mines if we were going mech.

I think pre-emptive Vikings are essential as either style, once we see corruptors being made, so that we can amass a decently large Viking count for the final engagement, and begin replacing marines with Ghosts, and keeping a moderately high Marauder count. Concussive shell marauders actually fare quite well against the ultralisks, and with superior control in Liberator zones, we just may come out on top (assuming our Vikings are decimating everything in the skies).

Zerg will have the infrastructure advantage in the sense that they are spending less resources on “production facilities,” but Terran has the significant advantage in the sense that we can sacrifice our workers to free up more supply, which will enable us to have a larger army during the big engagement.

So I have come up with a tl;dr:

THE BIG ENGAGEMENT:

Get battlecruisers

If they try to Viper drag you, then just teleport back LOL

High corruptor count? Viking support. You will have more units than him because of the supply lead. If the corruptor count is absolutely ridiculous, try to bait them into a few thor shots. Liberators can help out, and so can PDD.

Infestors? The ghosts will chase them out, or you can Yamato them, or just spread your shit out and drop mules for repair

A lot of Brood lords? We barely have ground units - just run them away, or drop a defensive nuke

A lot of ultralisks? Liberators/Banshees. Just a few banshees - maybe crit mass liberators with Viking support can destroy corruptors (unit tester!). If mech, kite with hellions; if Bio, kite with conc shell through liberator fields and Ghost snipes. This is HARD. Alternatively, you can kind of just Yamato the ultralisks.

Win

Essential to:

To be continued

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