Anyone have info on this terran unit, maybe even the sprites? There seems to be very little out there about it, all I can see from the beta shot is it has dual machineguns and doesn't seem to be an early vulture or tank.
imo it looks like a tank but ripping the game engine for hidden sprites usually doesn't help as they would likely remove something like this from the game unless it was prior to release.
Thx for the replies guys, I'm just thinking what role it could have had as a Factory unit, if the Vulture, Siege Tank and Goliath were already in, even though it might have replaced one of them in that build.
-Outline is similar to tank and wireframe (2nd image dropship seems to be carrying the pre beta tank...
-The tank in this picture looks like a cross between the current tank and the tank in the picture (although it might just be pixelation...)
-It looks like the head swivels
-There is almost a splash damage radius like tanks (since its aiming at it general direction
-If you look at it the place where the colored (blue) is similar places to where the current tank is colored... (note the 2 swatches of the left and right (although the head is not colored
Looking at picture more carefully there is a tube extending outward from the head which from a topdown perspective makes it hard to see... however once you see this it makes it more likely that it could be the tank...
once you notice this it starts to look a whole lot similar, this is even noticed in the wire frame i provided... at first i thought the wireframe the tube looked like it was jutting out and was not attached to the head that swivels but in fact is actually because the middle part is thinner.
-Round cannon extending outward to the whole length of the tank (Picture) -splash radius without need to go into seige mode (Both picture/video) -Tread tires on the side (Both picture/video) -square like figure (Both picture/video)
EDIT: the tube is hard to see becuase in the middle of the tube there is a chrome reflection that makes it see like it is detached... (picture)
Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Feb 4 2012, 1:40 pm by Tempz.
I don't think it's the tank from the cinematic, but it really does seem like an old version of the siege tank now looking at that beta pic with the stats (good one), it just has two machineguns (autocannons) in tank mode and the old siege cannon ("mjolnir artillery cannon") in siege mode.
Btw in the action pic I doubt the tank is splashing anything, that explosion on the ultralisk is either a nuke (unlikely) or a grenade launched by the marine pointing its gun at it.
I've been interested in the beta for a while now, so this is one of the things I've put research into. Unfortunately, I don't have any definite ideas as to what it was, however I have some ideas.
As for our 'mystery unit', I think this is just the old Beta design of the tank. However, I heard somewhere that it was an 'upgraded' tank called the Centurion or something like that. You could bring certain units to the Factory and enhance them into a better unit for a price. I don't have a source for this, though, so I might be way off.
According to the SC Wiki, that thing in the cinematic is a "Mobile Artillery". It's described as being "propelled on twin caterpillar tracks, with a wheel jutting out from the front." Our mystery vehicle, from what I can tell, has two sets of caterpillar tracks on each side, and no wheel in the front, so I don't think it's the same model.
I dunno. From looking at the tank in the first picture, it seems to have overall four caterpillar tracks. The one in the cinematic has overall two. And, the one in the picture doesn't have the wheel in front. The weapon is completely different, too, it looks like.
There is literally no similarity between the mystery unit and the cinematic unit, other than the mode of transportation (caterpillar tracks). Even then, the number of tracks differs.
DarkenedFantasies -- Probably just didn't care. For example, at some point before release, they've updated the graphics of some of the Protoss buildings (Forge, CyberCore, Citadel, Observatory, Arbiter Tribunal), but instead of properly re-rendering them with edited 3D models, they did crappy copy-paste jobs on the rendered graphics.
Ultraviolet -- I suppose we'll likely never know, but my guess would be that they already saw it operating successfully and there was no monetary incentive to finish the original work. And the dev cycle in old school Blizzard was so hectic, it's possible it just got forgotten about after the original game got released. Plus there's an element of existing MPQ files that were packaged with the original discs becoming outdated if they updated it. And it's not like they remade the original MPQs, they just made new ones for BW specifically
[2026-6-21. : 4:26 am]
Oh_Man -- so that makes me think maybe the theory they are unfinished is not true and its a deliberate design decision, coz why not finish them wen ur making brood war?
[2026-6-21. : 4:25 am]
Oh_Man -- the thing is thos buildings are from classic. that means they went ahead and made brood war without ever finishing the 'unfinished' buildings
[2026-6-20. : 6:15 pm]
Ultraviolet -- Yeah he's talked about a lot of that stuff in his casts before. It seems plausible. Especially knowing how Blizzard of yesteryear operated.
[2026-6-20. : 3:47 pm]
NudeRaider -- to clarify: couldn't recall the behavior for every single Protoss building but I was aware the disparity exists.
[2026-6-20. : 3:43 pm]
NudeRaider -- Contained nothing new for me. Didn't know all building's behavior, but very much all unit's. Also Terran balance whine - also nothing new
[2026-6-19. : 9:57 am]
Oh_Man -- makes me wonder if SEN knows anything about the topic