CMC-660 Heavy Combat Suit

[Perfecttear]

In the current build the marine has the combat shield upgrade which gives it 15 hp.
But i'm not satisfied with lore and graphics of the upgrade, the marines look like riot cops :s



So i'have come up with a solution that makes lorewise sense and has a superior design, the best thing about it is, that it wouldn't take
any time to implement, and disturb the game
production, since they already have it. I will explain:



Normal marines:
http://www.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?s=104

Combat shield upgraded marines:
http://www.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?s=93

My solution is to replace the combat shield upgrade with the CMC-660 upgrade.
CMC-400 Powered Combat Suit is the standard armor of marines and CMC-660 Heavy Combat Suit was the standard armor of firebats.


The ugrade would give the marines 10 hp and 1 armor, so that the CMC-660 upgraded marine has 50 hp and 1 armor, instead of the 55hp shield upgrade, making them the same as sc1 firebats.

50hp and 1 armor is actually better than 55 hp, since 1 armor makes a difference vs zerglings and zealots.


You may think that this is a nice idea, but don't wan't the change since it means more work for starcraft2 programers and would delay the game even more ,or that it wouldn't graphically show the upgrade, since blizzard stated that they wan't upgrades to be visiable, so your enemy knows just by looking at your troops if they are upgraded.
But here is the best part, they alredy have a animation for the CMC-660 Heavy Combat Suit :


CMC-660 Heavy Combat Suit upgraded marines:
http://www.starcraft2.com/screenshot.xml?s=77


You can clearly see the difference between normal marine armor and tauren marine armor,so the upgrade is visiable and it would took only a few days to implement this, since they alredy have an animation for the CMC-660 armor. And the CMC-660 makes much more sense lorevise and is in atleast my opinion more pleasing to the eye.

Afcorse the tauren armor should be scaled a bit down, to marine size.
If the tauren armor doesn't work they can take the sc2 firebat armor from lastyear for the upgrade, before he was scraped.(can't find pics of firebat)

I'm not saying that the shield upgrade is bad, infact it's very good, but the armor upgrade would be better. The CMC-660 HCS armor upgrade just screams TERRAN , but i can't say the same for the shield upgrade.


For the people that wan't to know more about terran combat suits and evolution of them:
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/CMC_Powered_Combat_Suit

the CMC-660 HCS upgrade is in my mind a superior design, since all people would like it . How can you like terran and not like combat suits
/cough... marine , reaper ,marauder , ghost.



Thanks for reading.

Discuss

[TheEconomist]

A shield makes the most sense lore wise. It's cheaper and far more effective. Why would they waste valuable resources on something that does basically the same thing?

Also, Blizzard wants to have very visual indications of upgrades and such. For example, the Zergling only has wings after it gets it's speed upgrade. Armor, no matter how different, wouldn't be as visual.

[Kimera757]

The CMC-660 is specifically designed for firebats, and it's old technology. It's also heavier and probably slower (in lore) than marine armor.

Id' expect the Dominion to create a newer type of armor, something lighter than the CMC-660 but just as strong or stronger. (The marine combat shields are new technology; any replacement should also be new technology.)

And I'd expect it to give 55 hit points, since Blizzard probably came to that figure using balance.

[sandwich_bird]

We already have an heavy armour unit, the marauder. Why have another one? The shield is fine imo.

[Perfecttear]

I'm sorry but lorevise the shield upgrade just doesn't make any sense to me. I ve never seen any modern army using shields,the sc2 shield upgraded marines remind me of warcraft3 footmen and Ra3 peacekeepers and noot the iconic sc1 marines, sigh.

[The_Blade]

Vote for the shield.

Its quite best for lore and looks great.

Even if it means they look like riot cops; because ,come on, they need it against melee units.

[sandwich_bird]

I'm sorry but lorevise the shield upgrade just doesn't make any sense to me. I ve never seen any modern army using shields,the sc2 shield upgraded marines remind me of warcraft3 footmen and Ra3 peacekeepers and noot the iconic sc1 marines, sigh.

Well imo the main reason why no one really use shields nowadays is because using a shield require that you use a one handed weapon with less recoil and that the shield we could make are not strong enough. The marines in StarCraft don't have that problem since their combat armor is probably strong enough to make them able to carry the same weapon. minimize the recoil and still have terrible accuracy. Also their combat shields are probably made of super resistant materials or something.

[TheEconomist]

Just because it looks like a unit from WarCraft 3 shouldn't mean anything. A shield makes perfect sense in lore because it's cost effective and efficient. Think about a decision like this being in real-life. There are more important factors than look such as resources and build time.

There's also the emphasis on visual upgrades. That's important as well.

[SpiderBrigade]

Even if it means they look like riot cops; because ,come on, they need it against melee units.

Yep, precisely. The reason you don't see modern day armies equipping shields is that their enemies are other guys with rifles and grenades. Any shield you could carry wouldn't really help with that.

However when troops are sent against enemies who will try to attack them at close range with clubs, knives, teeth, &c they do equip shields (riot cops).

So basically against Zerg and Protoss there is something to be said for a shield.

[The_Blade]

Not just that

in current warfare everyone is ranged and attack ranged (nifes are not valid)

still in the sc universe there is a group of melee fighters that are dedicated to it. and marines cant wait to see how many they can shot down before they get rushed by them and cant do crap to them.