Chapter 2: Cruisin' for a Bruisin'
Sometimes I miss the good old days of my newbieness. A friend of mine who long since retired from Starcraft introduced me to the game in July of '98. We both worked at McDonald's at the time and for 5 weeks, every night after work we logged onto battle.net. He taught me a killer strat and once I learned it, we rarely lost. We'd play 2v2's on Island Hop and we'd both pick terran. We'd build 4 quick wraiths and double someone crippling their economy, then we'd both quickly build 12 battlecruisers. It worked so well against pubbies. We rarely lost.
Its at these times of nostalgia when I think back to those glory days that I feel the need to return to my roots. Now the battlecruiser is obsolete. Very few people can use the behemoth without getting scorned off the battlefield. Storm, plague, carriers, devourers, and corsairs have made the battlecruiser useless in competitive play. But even with all these things factored in, perhaps there are still a few newbies out there who will fall to the wrath of the mighty battlecruiser.
Rules of the Game
Okay, I know what you're thinking. Dref you dumbass, any idiot can build a bunch of battlecruisers and beat down a newbie. I agree. That is why I've decided to handicap myself. I should at least give the newbies a chance right? So here are the rules.
- I can only build one battlecruiser per game.
- I cannot build any other units (except for SCVs, dropships, and science vessels).
- If I lose the battlecruiser, I have to surrender.
All right, now that we understand the rules, let's get this thing underway.
Flight of the Enterprise
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[Dire] Straits, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Drefship Enterprise. Its five year mission, to explore strange newbie worlds, to seek out newbie life and newbie civilizations. To boldly go where no battlereporter has gone before (Insert catchy Star Trek theme here (Some flash would be nice eh?)). |
And so, my mission began with a planned exploration of Anubis-101. According to my science officer (the American Heritage Online Dictionary) Anubis is a "No entry found for Anubis". Not much information there so I decided to send a transmission to Anubis for the purpose of gathering further intelligence.
It sounded promising, but one could never be too sure. My base was in the northeast corner of the map and I quickly set to work building a rax/refinery, then a factory, then a starport, then a science facility, then two more starports. With careful planning and spending, it wasn't long before I had 1 battlecruiser with yamato technology and 2 science vessels.
The blackness of space called to the hardy captain of the Enterprise and I sent him south with his two science vessels tailing closely behind. Meanwhile, I expanded for vespian gas purposes. The Enterprise flew over the tip of the southern island and suddenly, straight ahead, two photon cannons came into view. Red alert was sounded and the Enterprise veered sharply to the right to avoid the cannons. She almost passed unscathed, but one single photon smashed into the ship's hull causing minimal damage. The captain heaved a sigh of relief and wiped away the beads of sweat that had formed on his brow
But the fun was just beginning. Onto the viewscreen appeared a giant dome-like structure.  One of the officers on the bridge gasped. It was a Fleet Beacon! Right next to the Fleet Beacon, a Stargate was anchored and warping something that was as yet unknown. A Corsair was standing guard over the Stargate and it started firing its pesky weapon at the Enterprise.
"Shields up!" yelled the captain and was satisfied when he saw the protective layer surround the ship.
The corsair's weapons bounced off the shield like a bouncy ball off the Great Pyramids and the Enterprise's laser cannon swatted the corsair out of the sky sending it hurling to the ground.
But even as the corsair hurtled out of view into oblivion, the blinking of the Stargate stopped and the captain gripped his armrests with white knuckles, knowing full well that the Enterprise would be no match if a carrier were to come through that gate. But there was nothing to fear. It was only another corsair, and this one was beat down just as soundly as the first.
"Captain, Anubis is hailing us," announced the communications officer.
"On screen," said the captain.
And then, before the captain had a chance to respond...
To Explore Strange Newbie Worlds...
With the startling success of its maiden voyage, the Enterprise was ready for another grueling mission. Rumors were flying in the Federation about a fellow named RainWarrior who was trying to set up a faction that would eventually rival the Federation itself. His base of operations was on Dire Straits.
RainWarrior, it sounded Indian to me. I didn't really understand the name, but it made more sense than Sitting Bull.
I once again set out for Dire Straits and this time started in the northwest corner. Using the tried and true formula from the previous mission, I once again had a battlecruiser and two science vessels after a short time. My second scan found RainWarrior in the southeast corner of the map. The captain and his crew were itching for a fight and so I sent them out. They headed out across the map at maximum warp speed (.000000000001 centimeters per hour (It's 2400 AD, of course they're using the metric system)).
Finally, the Enterprise reached RainWarrior's island. As she did so, she suddenly came under fire by 8 marines. An ambush!
"Shields up!" yelled the captain.
The shields coalesced around the hull of the Enterprise and her laser cannons started  to pick off the marines one by one. Instead of firing at the Enterprise the marines began chasing after one of the science vessels. Unfortunately for the marines, the science vessel flew faster than they could run. It ran in circles around the Enterprise while the Enterprise was able to take free shots at the marines. RainWarrior's eight marines got plastered doing very little damage.
With the marines dispatched, the Enterprise flew into the heart of the RainWarrior's base. There were 2 barracks, a factory, and two starports. The lights on one of the starports was blinking as was the control tower meaning cloak was soon to follow. The Enterprise began firing on the starport. But every few seconds, a marine would pop out of one of the barracks and start firing on the ship. The Enterprise would be forced to avert its attention for a few seconds to silence the marine's pesky machine gun. This annoying delay tactic bought RainWarrior time and he managed to get a wraith out of his starport. By this time the Enterprise's first shields had worn off.
"Raise those shields ensign!" shouted the captain.
However, a mishap occurred. The second science vessel miscast the shield and instead of the glow surrounding the Enterprise, it surroundded the other science vessel. Missiles from the wraith rocked the Enterprise and she returned fire with a fury. The lasers succeeded in blowing away the wraith, but not before the Enterprise's hitpoints had dropped to 240 out of 500. To make matters worse, neither science vessel had enough energy to cast another defense matrix.
The captain of the Enterprise gripped his armrests nervously and ordered his ship to recommence firing on the Starport. Suddenly, instead of continuing to produce wraiths from his Starports, RainWarrior panicked. Everyone on board the Enterprise let out sighs of relief as RainWarrior not only lifted off his Starports, but all of his buildings and began to float them off in various directions. SCVs loaded into a previously made dropship and the "speedy" transport vehicle was able to outrun the slow-moving Enterprise.
The Enterprise stayed behind to kill a couple of supply depots, then flew off to the west where a majority of the buildings had flown. Unfortunately, the Enterprise crew ran into more difficulties. An unexpected turret started blasting into the hull of the ship and once again, the ship's hitpoints began to drop. The Enterprise was down into the red with only 97 hitpoints remaining before the turret was destroyed.
The crew was a little nervous about trying to complete the mission with their systems in such critical condition. However, 3 more science vessels joined the fray and the two original science vessel's had recharged energy giving the Enterprise a total of 5 shields.
With renewed confidence, the Enterprise flew over the southwest island where  RainWarrior was attempting to reconstruct a base with a Starport, Engineering Bay, and Command Center. Slowly but surely, the Enterprise's laser battery battered the Starport until it exploded. One cloaked wraith escaped the explosion, but with the help of the shields, the wraith's missiles were ineffective and it exploded spectacularly. Then the Enterprise moved on to the Command Center where it blew away the SCVs and then yamatoed the Command Center. Finally, after a lot of hard work, the Command Center was destroyed and the Enterprise crew cheered and prepared to celebrate the successful completion of their second mission.
Its Continuing Mission...
Unfortunately for the crew of the Enterprise, it was not to be. A routine scan by the science officer showed that another command center had been started in the opposite corner of the map. RainWarrior must have noticed the scan because he sent a transmission.
Upon hearing this transmission, the crew groaned, their hopes of a leave dashed. The Enterprise then slowly lumbered across the map towards the new expansion. It reached the new expansion without incident and began firing its deadly lasers into this new command center. I sent a dropship with 6 SCVs over to the Enterprise and while it worked on destroying the command center, the SCVs did much needed repair work.
While the Enterprise worked on cleaning up, I diligently worked on menial tasks such as base management and expansion. I had 3 vespian gas expansions up and running when suddenly, a siren started ringing loudly in my ears.
YOUR BASE IS UNDER ATTACK!!
In confusion I looked around for the source of the announcement and there, right in the middle of my main base stood 8 marines laying into my buildings with their machine guns. They had medic support and they were having a fine old time blowing away buildings and SCVs.
Doh, the bastard had managed to get his barracks all the way across the board undetected and landed it in the northeast corner of my main. While the Enterprise had been chasing RainWarrior's other buildings around the map he had quietly been producing troops out of one barracks for an all or nothing assault. I sent out a distress call to the Enterprise who had just finished blowing the Command Center in the northeast to smithereens. But would the Enterprise be powerful enough to quell this threat?
The Enterprise approached from the south. Machine gun bullets began to bounce of the hull.
"Shields!" shouted the captain in a hoarse voice to his exhausted crew.
The crew, pissed off from having to fly to the four corners of this ungodly map aimed their lasers with a veangence hoping that this would be RainWarrior's last stand.
The two medics healed the marines as fast as the lasers hit them and another shield was forced into place as the first one wore off. The marines were using drugs to speed up their fire rate knowing that this was desparation time.
First one marine fell, then two, then three. The bullets were fewer as the marines hot guns began to jam. Finally the last marine fell to the ground.
The Enterprise then flew off to the corner of the island and began to fire on the barracks that still stood there killing another marine in the process. As the hitpoints on the barracks dropped, a transmission from RainWarrior came through. He was surrendering at last.
To Boldy Go...
And so, my one battlecruiser of death managed to wreak its havoc. The skill, the micro, worship me! Newbies beware, Captain Dref T. Kirk is coming for you...
Cheers,
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