How you suppose the breeds of the extended Zerg swarms are composed?

[drakolobo]

Bile-launchers also serve as a heavy artillery station, but that's post-hots, spore cannons probably also serve a similar purpose, but they are listed as everything from message-launchers to anti-orbital batteries to artillery.

it is post broodwar no post hots
bile launcher and scourge launcher, was in the invasion of char in WoL

[Mislagnissa]

Before the advent of ravagers, I wonder what the zerg had that was analogous to artillery. Did they have something like plasma bugs?

From a "non-game" perspective, I wouldn't think that Zerg would need nor have artillery like a conventional army (which is based on ranged warfare nonetheless) since it's not as if they'd be concerned about minimising losses. If they had to siege a heavily fortified position they'd probably use "sapper" like units that utilise burrowing tactics to undermine foundations and such. They could also just get a Nydus worm into the heart of whatever base they wanted to assault.

If they needed something for the role of suppression and non-specific carnage over a wide area, Defilers could've easily done that with their plagues. Also, they have access to powerful and cheap suicidal units like Infested Terrans and Scourge that can easily be used for a similar role as artillery.

In regards to the colonies vs crawlers. Colonies seem to be much larger then their contemporary crawlers, so serve as more of a large fortification, wheras a crawler is a mobile security unit.

Sieging a fortified position can be done with guardians in sc1 era (field guide mentions a really extreme splash radius for their attacks, 100 yards I think?), or a combination of brood lords and guardians later. Swarm Guardians (hey, my point on cannon is if it was cancelled, it was prototype or just not used much, hence the grizzly, etc) were described as being almost the size of a battlecruiser, and considering their nature could be an orbital bombardment unit...

Bile-launchers also serve as a heavy artillery station, but that's post-hots, spore cannons probably also serve a similar purpose, but they are listed as everything from message-launchers to anti-orbital batteries to artillery.


Anyone think the broods in sc1-era actually had shell colours close to their ingame colour?

One of the unused unit concepts in HotS was a "spore beast" resembling a cross between a guardian and a devourer.

The Zerg canonically consumed countless species over countless millennia. Most likely the dozen or so breeds seen in the game represented a small fraction of the breeds available. We actually don't know how much of the Swarms throughout the galaxy converged on the Koprulu sector. It's entirely possible that there are many, many more Zerg elsewhere in the galaxy.

Judging by the fact that it took 60 years (Earth years?) to reach the Koprulu sector within the frontier border of the Protoss Empire (which spans from a couple hundred to a thousand worlds), but much shorter to reach Aiur from there (depending on how long you thought the campaign took, anywhere from weeks to years), I suspect that Zerg FTL speed is proportional to the amount of Zerg near the wormhole.

BW threw the cerebrates away, but I always felt that they had a reason to be giant psychic brains. Their brain mass allows them to coordinate the thousands to millions of Zerg that comprise a brood, while their link to all those Zerg provides the wireless power for their psychic abilities like creating super-ultralisks or invulnerable creep colonies.

But I digress. You could justify pretty much any concept besides combat optimized psychic powers as existing in the swarms for centuries. We don't see these in the game because of game balance and limited resources. StarCraft is not Impossible Creatures.

[Nolanstar]

I do know the unused zerg units given my modding, I still question the tentaclemonster, but hey, variety. We also have like 12 named zergling strains.

[ragnarok]

Before the advent of ravagers, I wonder what the zerg had that was analogous to artillery. Did they have something like plasma bugs?

Was that something in the original SC1 development? I don't recall that....

[Nolanstar]

Was that something in the original SC1 development? I don't recall that....

He means plasma bugs a la starship troopers bugs. Some sort of dedicated artillery unit.
Guardians seemed to serve that purpose, and defilers are able to also do an odd if decent siege job.

[Visions of Khas]

Pfft. Which makes me wonder why they eliminated the Defiler, seeing as how useful that breed was.

[Nolanstar]

Possible outsurpassed by the more sapper-esque aspects of infestors and fatty's/early infestor/blightbringer "prototypes" (Early design for it, hence why it probably was in its early stage an alternate to the borboru matriarch based infestor, but the infestor seemed more useful and I got shafted until later use with modifications. It had the ability to frenzy to buff allies, which is more situational then dark swarm, and it also had a disease ability in-between plague and fungal growth, plus other stuff.)

Dark swar seems more useful against lesser species and primitive civilizaions, not siege tank lines or reaver companies. AOE artillery man.

[ragnarok]

Pfft. Which makes me wonder why they eliminated the Defiler, seeing as how useful that breed was.

They wanted something better, except Blizzard didn't know the Infestor couldn't really replace the Defiler. They should have just kept both or something

[Zoar]

gotta love that the viper in lore is an evolved form of the defiler

[ragnarok]

gotta love that the viper in lore is an evolved form of the defiler

I suspect maybe in the Leviathan brood they tried to mix viper and defiler DNA together, though the skins only said the vipers exhibit more defiler traits than the other broods, despite the fact that the viper was one of the original zerg strains and the defiler wasn't.