Cavez, StarCraft 2’s lead game designer, and Karune, Blizzard’s RTS community manager, have each posted comments to threads in Battle.net, revealing some interesting information about the current build.

Cavez talks about the role of the Evolution Chamber in StarCraft 2, which, according to the latest information about the Zerg, is now almost useless:

Zerg evolution, or upgrades, only affect one unit. For example, the Zergling has 3 levels of evolution: Level one grants it more speed, level two provides +2 to damage and +1 to armor, and level three +1 to damage and +2 to armor. No word has been given about the favorite crack upgrade, which transformed Zerglings into insane machines of destruction in late games of StarCraft 1. The upgrades are researched at the unit’s building - in the Zergling’s case, the Spawning Pool.

Cavez tells us about the new change:

We cut the Zerg upgrade per-unit idea. It didn’t really work. You had significantly fewer choices by upgrading them individually. It made the game feel a little more predictable (in a bad way). The Evo Chamber is doing what you remember it doing from SC1.

The Evolution Chamber now provides global upgrades again, like in StarCraft 1. Three upgrades are available - Melee Attack, Ranged Attack, and Carapace [armor rating] - and three levels for each.

The StarCraft 2 Evolution Chamber also provides the following benefits and upgrades:

• Burrow - allows ground units to burrow
• Generate Creep - allows Overlords to use the Excrete Creep ability and increases the rate of creep expansion
• Enables Creep Tumors to evolve into Shriekers
• Slime - allows Overlords to use the Slime ability

Moving on, Karune clarifies the effect of the Ghost’s Snipe ability:

Snipe does a lot of damage to ‘light armor’ units that are biological. To an Ultralisk, it will do nearly nothing.

Snipe will mainly be useful against high profile targets, such as the Protoss High Templar and the Zerg Infestor, which it will be able to take down in one shot. Other, larger targets, like the Ultralisk, will shrug off a Snipe shot easily. It’s worth noting that the new, and apparently quite potent, Nullifer will not be affected by Snipe at all, as it is robotic in nature.

Snipe has obviously been designed to complement the Ghost’s passive radar ability, which allows it to detect spell-casters. These key units are usually small and fragile - perfect for the Ghost, who can cloak, move in for a fast kill, and get out - crippling the enemy force which accompanied the caster.

10 Comments to “StarCraft 2 News from the Blues”

1. Lipton — June 25, 2008 @ 1:46 pm
   

   Interesting, this makes the Evo chamber a higher priority target to take out in SC2 then in SC1…

2. WayneInc — June 25, 2008 @ 2:54 pm
   

   2nd that

3. Lonia — June 25, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
   

   Then hatcheries don’t have any more upgrades? That’s no good news unless I can evolve my zerg with multiple upgrades in one chamber!!-

4. Joe — June 25, 2008 @ 10:26 pm
   

   Yeah I agree this is a good thing. Nice to know they tried the per unit upgrade idea. Although now Generate Creep and Slime upgrades seem out of place in there, as the other options apply to unit types, rather than specific units.

   I’m not too clued into the function of these overlord specific abilities, but maybe if they were combined? (Lvl 1, Lvl 2) They would sit better in this building.

   I think I’ll need to build more evolution chambers than before… is this a good thing?

5. meo123 — June 25, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
   

   So for the Ghost’s snipe ability, will he be able to kill a roach with one hit?

6. JMM — June 26, 2008 @ 2:25 am
   

   Aww, I kinda liked the per unit upgrade. It was different.

7. Rob — June 26, 2008 @ 3:44 am
   

   I can, already at this point, imagine very well how much a protoss gamer will be pissed after his only five templars are being sniped by cloaked ghosts with one shot each.. seems kind of too powerful to me.

8. kpollo1 — June 26, 2008 @ 10:50 am
   

   this is way off serg topics

   my question is about the prottos collosus the new attack for it do all the beams it shoots out deal the same damage??????

9. redrach — June 26, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
   

   Wait, Burrow is in the Evolution Chamber now? What the hell, is Blizzard trying to give pro-gamers less reason to get it now than before?

10. Starcraft 2 Fan — July 1, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
    

    Zerg is definitely my race for Starcraft 2 too!