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Boarguts — SC2: Protoss Photon Cannon
Published: 2011-02-14 04:36:18 +0000 UTC; Views: 9680; Favourites: 53; Downloads: 185
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Description
Starcraft 2: Protoss Photon CannonModeled by Phill Gonzales, final texture pass by Ted Park!
The redesign of the Photon Cannon has a little history to it. The original update looked very accurate to the Starcraft 1 Photon Cannon, complete with the silly little telescope in the center. The design team was testing the idea that the Photon Cannons could relocate to different Pylon power radiuses buy switching to a travel mode. The travel mode was visually represented by the new sphere in the center of the Photon Cannon slowly moving to a new location on the map.
The balance for this ability was painful. The most powerful base defese tower could relocate, and paired up with Protoss units warping into the same Pylon power fields it was nearly unstoppable.
The design was repurposed for the Zerg Spine and Spore Crawlers near the end of development, but the visual change to the Photon Cannon remains as a reminder of those dark times.
© 2010 Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Comments: 12
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Somehow the floating sphere makes more sense to me visually than the telescoping piece in SC1's cannon did, although personally I would probably have made the floating bit look more cannon-shaped. The sphere just seems to say "detector" to me instead of "this is a weapon, and you're facing the wrong side of it, sucker!"
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Maybe that OP photon cannon ability will return as an upgrade in the campaign of the Protoss expansion. It could happen.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Actually, the ability to "unsummon" protoss structures and recover a fraction of their cost like the Scourge in WC3 can do makes more sense to me. That way, as you expand your territory, you could warp out unneeded pylons and cannons and "recycle" the regained vespene and minerals into summoning new ones elsewhere. (I don't know if protoss can do this already in SC2 because I haven't played any protoss missions yet, so I apologize if I'm mentioning something that the dev team already came up with.)
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Haha, that's ironic, 'cause now the players themselves sometimes jokingly propose that photon cannons should be able to relocate
spine crawlers move and bunkers can be scrapped, they say, so what's wrong with us, protoss?
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Photon Cannons are just too great. Most cost-efficient base defense with detection, ability to shoot everything in range, and easy to churn out early in a match.
Granted, the relocation would be fun come Protoss story mode in the third installment of SC2.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
cool! they could make a mission you have to win with cannons only
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Or give you a set amount of cannons and make you move them as the mission progresses. Fun stuff. :v
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Photon cannons shoot air and ground units for a flat cost? Bunkers require units to be placed inside them and don't detect, and the spine/spore crawler only do one or the other.
👍: 0 ⏩: 2
Good point. Making protoss cannons mobile and detectors _and_ anti-air/anti-ground all at once just makes them too powerful IMHO. Now, if they were separated into a mobile detector structure and a mobile non-detecting turret, that would make more sense from a game balance standpoint.
Then again, I never liked the fact that protoss structures couldn't be repaired in SC1 while the terrans' could and zerg auto-repaired themselves, so... (Yes, I know that protoss have shields while the other two races don't, but still, if you spend that much on a structure, you should either be able to salvage it like the undead of WC3 can or repair it, or both. )
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
true, but people seem to be forgetting this
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