Terran Strategy, Lesson 1: Support Units and Organization
by mrxak

Terrans have some of the best units in the game, and it is key to use them to their full potential. I have played many players before that have chosen terran as their species and have failed miserably because of one reason: they didn't organize their attacks.

Sure, you can win with just marines rushing at the enemy's defenses, but that's only if you are extremely quick at building/upgrading, aren't wiped out instantly in retaliation, and use mass to your advantage (more on that later). Most players are unable to do that consistently, or simply want a longer game, so they instead try to go for lots of other units. This is a great way to win, IF you can organize your attacks well enough. This is something that a very small number of people are able to do successfully, and I too often fail, or am simply too lazy to try to do it correctly.

For this lesson (and the rest of the guide really) I would suggest you start up StarEdit now and keep it open until it is needed later, when you can quickly reproduce the examples I give and actually see it visually. Don't play it out though (in an actual game), since these will be mostly a few pieces of a larger scenario.

One of the best offensive and defensive units in the game is the Terran Science Vessel. It is of course a support unit, but few use it for that purpose. When fully upgraded, the Science Vessel has four special abilities. They are EMP, Irradiate, Defensive Matrix, and the ability to see cloaked and buried units. Mostly what I see with this unit is people either not building them at all, or not using them for support. Sometimes I will see lone science vessels irradiating a single unit and then leaving, and find myself saying out loud, why? A lot of players have never seen the full potential of this unit in action, or even thought to use it for anything more than just annoying another player or just let it sit next to their Starport forever.

The first thing you should do with a Science Vessel after it is built is send it to patrol your base. Think about it: the science vessel can detect hidden enemies before they can do any real harm, plus you won't need to waste energy from your ComSat Station. After all, if you are playing as zerg or protoss, don't you send overminds or observers on patrols (if not, you should)? You should also be wise enough to build Missile Turrets around your base too, which are also detectors like spore colonies and photon cannons (They also add nicely to your defense against air). Now that you have a couple of Science Vessels on patrol around your bases, you are in a good position to defend against cloaked enemies, which usually attack turrets first. For some reason a lot of players often ignore science vessels, thinking they aren't a real threat (but don't rely on them thinking that). As for the threat part, those people could not be more wrong. A fully charged science vessel is something to truly fear. Their EMP pulses wipe out the shields of protoss units, instantly exposing them to actual damage, and it can also effectively uncloak a terran unit by getting rid of all of it's energy. It can help your own cloaked units by neutralizing the capabilities of enemy ComSat. Don't forget the Yamato Cannon uses energy too, so make sure enemy Battlecrusiers never get a chance to fire at deadly range. Irradiate is good against large groups of zerg/organic terrans, but only if the owner of those units doesn't scatter them quickly or have them separated to begin with. Defensive Matrix is also great for defense, creating the terran equivalent of shields around a unit. Make sure you don't put a Defensive Matrix around an enemy, like somebody did to me once. I simply thanked him kindly, then laughed as I watched them attack my shielded battlecruiser, which with several others was wiping his base out. This of course leads me to another support unit, often thought of as a tactical unit, the Ghost.

The Terran Ghost is a very deadly unit. It can guide nukes to their good-as-gone targets, and can lock-down enemy mechanical units. Above all that, it can cloak. I think of these silent-but-deadly warriors as not just tactical units, but also support units. They are great for taking care of Terran Siege Tanks and other dangerous mechanical units like Terran Battlecruisers and most Protoss units. Just click on Lockdown and the enemy unit. You can let the rest of your nearby units finish them off. They can even nuke strategically to support your units when they're in the thick of things (if you're careful). As for the tactical side of the Ghost, there are even more possibilities. Take a squad of Ghosts (yes, a squad, they can be very deadly in groups, although few realize it) and cloak them. Move to surround a group of enemy units, which of course has some mechanical ones in it, lockdown as many as you can as quick as possible. If there are any medics nearby, shoot them quickly, and open fire at anything left. Most likely (although I can't truly predict what he'll do) the remaining units not locked-down will flee. However, he may scan the area or bring in a detector, so make sure you have other units nearby, however it may not be necessary if you have enough upgraded ghosts, who can believe it or not hold their own fairly well versus smaller units. You can also have them retreat and finish off the locked-down units with another battle group. This can be a great way to stop an upcoming attack cold, and force your enemy to rethink his plans (wasting more of his valuable resources and time). He will also be sure to have more detectors around, so be prepared to lose a lot more Ghosts if you try it again. A variation of this lock-down attack would be to lockdown the enemy's SCVs or Probes, effectively disabling his economy, unless he has a lot of medics really close by, and remembers to use them. Another thing to note is the length of time the lockdown exists is longer than the time it takes for a nuke to get launched and hit it's target (just something to think about).

I'm not going to get into to many other Terran units right now, as those are the most misunderstood units in the Terran's arsenal, and the others are not important to this lesson.

Ok. So you understand the importance of support units now. They are a lot more valuable than you originally thought. But how do you apply this newfound knowledge? Well, in writing this guide, I wondered just how I would teach the reader this. I have come up with the best solution I can think of: Examples.

The following are a few ideas you can play around with in your mind (and in StarEdit). I can't promise you'll ever run into situations like these I'm going to describe, but I think they might be useful in getting you to think for yourself about organization and effective uses of support units. This guide is all about getting people to think about their current tactics and the tactics of others, and learn to get better through that thought process, instead of some cheap build order. By the way, this is when you should use StarEdit, so you can effectively recreate the situations. Remember: You shouldn't create a whole scenario to play in the game itself, but building part of the terrain and placing units should be useful just to allow you to imagine the result of the careful planning involved, and you might even think of something new, not necessarily in this guide.

Imagine a small group of Terran Siege Tanks just outside of an enemy protoss/terran expansion. They are vulnerable to air and land attacks aren't they? That is what your enemy will think when he spots them after they first fire. However, what he doesn't know is that there are at least 6 Ghosts all around them, freshly cloaked. He will probably send in a few small fighters to take care of them, only to get each one locked down. The tanks will open fire again and again and damage a lot of his base's defenses, allowing your marines and whatnot nearby to finish it off. Make sure you also have several air units or goliaths nearby to get rid of the fighters the enemy sent at your tanks and to defend against other fighters/detectors sent from another base. You should also have a few detectors nearby and a few Comsat Stations hotkeyed. Speed is the key in this scenario, or you will have to abort the attack to avoid heavy losses in your tanks and ghosts, and the rest of your forces could get destroyed as well if you don't have good recon before, during and after the assault, and let the enemy flank you or attack from behind.

Ok, that was easy wasn't it? Good organization and even a few sneaky tactics. But what about the perfect attack? Wouldn't you like to stop the enemy from damaging or destroying a single unit, while you wipe out an entire (defended) base? Believe it or not I pulled it off once, against protoss as a terran. As proof I didn't get hurt at all, I'll tell you that I didn't have a single SCV or Medic in the area, so no repairs or healing was done during the attack.

I of course did plenty of recon ahead of time, and used Science Vessels with Defensive Matrix to do flybys over a small protoss expansion on a small hill, containing only a Nexus, two Pylons, five Photon Cannons, and two Dragoons, plus a whole bunch of probes. It was just what I was looking for, a fairly expensive expansion, that I immediately knew I could eliminate without losing any units. The reason for that was the small size of the hill, and the fact that the player had placed his cannons right next to his pylons. I kept up recon with Comsat occasionally, to make sure he wasn't adding any defense I would need to know about, and started to position 4 Ghosts at the only entrance, and began to build a third Nuclear Silo, and made sure that all 3 had nukes in them. I then moved 5 Battlecruisers to a space right above the expansion, where my enemy had not yet explored. I knew he hadn't because I had one of my Science Vessels there, and had been keeping a good eye on his main base with Comsat and the occasional suicide attack with a marine or two. I brought in a group of 7 Siege tanks near the entrance on the side and 5 more out of his sight above, where the Battlecruisers were. I then brought in two more Science Vessels nearby. Two more scans of the base showed a Shuttle dropping a Reaver in the middle of the base, then leave, heading south to his main base. I then moved a bunch of marines outside of his main base out of sight, in case I needed to distract him, make sure he wouldn't flank me on the ground, or take advantage of his trying to defend his expansion with the Scouts and Carriers he had at his main base. I also brought in a Ghost. I scanned one final time at both bases and seeing no observers or cloaked units, began my attack. First, I sent in three of my ghosts, which I cloaked, and locked-down all three enemy military units. Next, I ordered my 3 Science Vessels to EMP the entire base, wiping out all enemy shields on the bases and units. Next, I ordered my tanks into Siege Mode and manually targeted the 2 pylons, which I destroyed rapidly, since they had no shields. Once the pylons were destroyed, the cannons were useless, and I uncloaked my ghosts, who began to attack the Probes. I had 3 other Science Vessels heading over that way, and 5 of the 6 I had there put Defensive Matrix on my Battlecruisers, who were already attacking the remaining buildings. The lack of shields on the protoss buildings and units meant I destroyed them very quickly. I scanned the area just above the main enemy base, and seeing the enemy air units coming my way, I un-sieged my tanks and moved them away quickly, and ordered the Battlecruisers to attack-move out of the area. I was done with the attack before the Scouts arrived, and all of my forces were leaving, with the exception of the 4 ghosts. It was then that I cloaked the ghost at the main base and ordered it to nuke the outskirts of the enemy's defenses. I also ordered my marines away from the base, predicting that I wouldn't be needing them there. I cloaked my 4 Ghosts left behind and waited for the Scouts to arrive. They did just as my Battlecruisers were leaving their sight. I quickly scanned the area, and saw no observers, so I locked-down as many scouts as I could with my Ghosts, and ordered one to nuke them, while the others left. The Scouts not locked-down went to attack the retreating Battle Cruisers, and found that my 6th Science Vessel was there to EMP them, and the Battlecruisers still were protected by Defensive Matrix. The Battlecruisers wiped out the Scouts before they could get past the Defensive Matrix, and the first nuke at their main base hit the ground, either damaging or destroying several defensive buildings and units. A second later I went to order the ghost out, and as I did, I saw the reason the carriers had not arrived, they were going towards the area I had just nuked, hoping to catch my ghost. I saw the ripple of an observer, so I expected to lose my Ghost. However, the player was not paying too close attention, as he was losing his other Scouts to my second nuke, and it escaped. The second Ghost who had just finished nuking was already on his way home before the player got a chance to really appreciate what I had done to him. "nice 1" he typed, "you totally raped me". It was true too. I had pulled off the perfect assault. I soon destroyed his weakened main base, but I lost many units in doing so. It did not matter though, because there was nothing I really needed to do after I wiped him out, as there was nothing left to attack. The reason I lost so many units was because I didn't use my Science Vessels to wipe out enemy shields. Otherwise, I might have done much better. But sometimes you just need to use brute force.

Now that was a lot of luck, but a lot of preparation and planning went into it as well. It was actually that attack that made me want to write this guide. It was a great attack to show that Science Vessels and Ghosts are great at supporting attacks, and make you much more likely to succeed. It also showed the importance of recon, as I probably would never have made it away without a scratch without my repeated scans of both bases.

Now that you are thinking about supporting units, you should try to think of other scenarios in which you can use them to make deadly attacks just that more deadly. Once you have come up with several ideas of your own, go to the next lesson.