"Starcraft" Exam Trivia Quiz

Answer: Wraiths

Wraiths are air units, which Siege Tanks cannot target, whether in Siege Mode or Tank Mode. Any air unit will slaughter Siege Tanks, provided they're not backed up with goliaths or some other unit with anti-air capabilities. Cloaked units would also work against Siege Tanks, as they are not detectors. Hydralisks and Dragoons are ground based units, and would probably lose one-on-one against a Siege Tank. Scourge can only attack air units.

Answer: Detector

There are detectors in each race. Each race's version of a stationary turret is a detector, which includes Photon Canons, Missile Turrets, and Spore Colonies. Also, each race gets a mobile, flying detector. Each one has slightly different properties, though.

The Protoss have Observers, which are cloaked themselves, and are relatively cheap. The Terran have Science Vessels which aren't the fastest flying machine, but come equipped with a number of abilities that can be used in combat, so you don't want to just throw away Science Vessels for the sake of having a detector. Keep them alive and protected. Finally, the Zerg get Overlords, which are quite valuable to the Zerg, meaning you don't want to send them on suicide missions.

As well as being detectors, they can ferry troops, and they augment the population limit.

The Protoss have the best deal as far as detectors go. They have a cloaked flying unit, which is also quite agile, as well as Photon Canons, which can attack both ground and air units. Zerg and Terran turrets can only attack air units and are vulnerable to ground attacks.

Answer: They detonate

A Carrier can hold four Interceptors at first, and eight if upgraded. Interceptors cost 25 minerals each. They dart out of a Carrier and strike their targets, and then rush back. They then repeat the process until all enemy targets in the vicinity are destroyed.

They're difficult to hit on their own, and there's not much point. Their weakness is the Carrier itself. If the Carrier itself, which has no onboard weapons, is destroyed, all Interceptors belonging to it will be lost.

Answer: Psyonic Storm

The Ghost is quite a versatile unit, but only if upgraded. Originally, the Ghost has a rifle and a few hit points, and nothing more. However, you can upgrade The Ghost to give him a Cloaking ability, which renders him invisible to all enemies unless in the sight radius of a detector. Cloaking costs 25 energy at first and will sap it away for the duration of the cloak until it reaches zero.

The Ghost can also gain the Lockdown ability, which costs energy. It fires a shot that only affects mechanical units (so don't bother with this upgrade if you're only facing Zerg). Mechanical units under the effects of a Lockdown are unusable for a long duration, meaning it cannot be moved, defend itself, or use any special abilities, while the ghost can slip by without being hassled.

This is most effective against units such as Science Vessels that could otherwise see a Ghost. The most well-known ability of a Ghost is the Paint Target ability. This does not take energy to use; only a Nuclear Silo (attached to a Command Center) and a missile created within it.

The Nukes are fired from the silo and strike the painted location. It takes around ten seconds from painting a target to actually striking it. If the Ghost is killed in that time the launch will be canceled. Your enemies and allies alike will be alerted to a nuke launch, and will probably start looking for a Ghost right away in the most likely locations, to kill it before the nuke kills them. You will lose your Ghost in a nuclear strike unless they have Ocular Implants, allowing them to see things farther away.

Answer: Broodlings

The Queen's Spawn Broodling ability is particularly nasty. The Queen, when it has enough energy, can target an enemy biological unit with the Spawn Broodling ability. The enemy unit is instantly killed, and two Broodlings come out, and are somewhat like Zerglings. Broodlings, however, slowly have their energy drained, and when it reaches zero, the Broodling is lost. Broodlings have weak attack power, no attack range, and extremely light armor.

Answer: Two

Carrier units have eight spaces. All units take up wither one, two, or four spaces. Small units, such as worker units, small humans, and Zerglings take up one space. Larger units, like Goliaths, Zealots, and Hydralisks take up two, and the really big units, like Siege Tanks, Reavers and Ultralisks take up a hefty four spaces.

Answer: Ground

Guardians are large air units with impressive attack and defense scores. Their attacks have splash damage, and en mass, can decimate armies and bases with relative ease. However, they can only shoot downward, meaning if they are attacked by air, they have no fight. Guardians are created from Mutalisks. First you have to mutate a larva into a Mutalisk, and then a Guardian. You also require a Greater Spire, which is mutated from a Spire.

In "Brood War" you also have the option to evolve Mutalisks into Devourers, which are strong air units like Guardians, but can only attack air units. Mutalisks, the basic units, can attack both air and ground units, but have lower attack and defense scores.

There are no seaworthy units in "Starcraft".

Answer: Engineering Bay

Quite a few Terran buildings that latch onto a parent building. Attached buildings require a parent building to function. You cannot, for example, use a Comsat Station when it is not attached to a Command Center. Each attachable building can only attach itself to its own type of parent building, meaning you cannot attach something such as a Nuclear Silo onto a Starpad. Also, attached buildings will not be destroyed if the parent building lifts off.

It will merely unattach itself and become neutral, meaning any other Terran players, enemy or ally, could come along and claim it for themselves.

The parent building does not have to be the one attached to the new building for it to function. If you lifted off a Science Facility and left behind a Covert Ops, you could come back to that Covert Ops later with a second Science Facility and render it useful again. All attachable buildings can be made at their parent buildings, provided there's space on the ground for them to be made.

This may require that you move your parent building before you can create an attached building.

Answer: Blue

Minerals will probably be your most valuable resource in "Starcraft". They come in large clusters, normally near a Vespene geyser. Everything in "Starcraft" requires minerals: units, buildings, technologies. You'll probably end up having many worker units on one set of minerals, and will probably end up trying to claim outlying, neutral mineral patches before anyone else does.

Answer: Scarabs

The Reaver is a heavy unit that has no weapons of its own, but instead fires Scarabs, which detonate upon impact upon their target. Scarabs cost a small amount of minerals (15), which you may find unfair, to have to pay for each single attack. However, scarabs are normally well worth the effort.

They do major damage to their primary target and have decent spash damage. If fired into a group of Hydralisks, the target would be destroyed, as well as those immediately beside it, and then it would severely damage any outlying units. Considering how much each Hydralisk costs, scarabs are well worth the effort.

They also have more range than most units, and can hit enemy units before they're in range, giving your ground forces a better chance at dealing with those that get too close. Reavers also have more range than Photon Canons, Bunkers, and Sunken Colonies, so they can decimate base defenses from afar.

There are drawbacks to the Reaver, however. It has a slow movement speed and attack speed.

It also lacks an anti air ability, so it's susceptible to air attacks. Even if a Reaver was to decimate half a group of Zerglings, the remainder would easily get past, even though they may be damaged, before the second shot and hit the Reaver hard and fast, destroying it.

Answer: No

The Zerg Queen can only infest Terran Command Centers to create Infested Terran. The Protoss are immune to the Queen's infestation abilities. Too bad.

Answer: Battlecruisers

The Physics Lab attaches itself to a Science Facility. The Physics Lab is required to produce Battlecruisers, also. At the Physics Lab you can increase a Battlecruiser's energy, as well as give it it's main weapon, the Yamato Gun. The Yamato Gun is a super shot that takes up more than half the Battlecruiser's energy, even with the upgraded energy reactor, so you cannot use it in rapid succession. Battlecruisers also have a normal attack that can hit both air and ground, so it's not completely defenseless when recharging.

Answer: Scout

The Scout is the Protoss' version of the Terran Wraith or Zerg Mutalisk. It has both anti-ground and anti-air capabilities, although its strengths lie in anti-air. It's best used as an escort for larger ships like Carriers, and is especially effective when used in conjunction with Carriers, Arbiters, and Corsairs.

It's also a good idea to upgrade weapons, armor, and shields too. All protoss have shields, and they're all the same kind, meaning there's not air specific shields, or ground specific shields. All Protoss units, air, ground, and building, equally benifit from the shield upgrade in the Forge.

Answer: Nydus Canal

Nydus Canals are interesting structures. A Drone mutates into the first one, and then you can commence growing the exit anywhere you want on the map without using any more resources. To move through a canal, select a Zerg unit and right click the canal. Units using the canals have no wait time; they instantly appear on the other side. Nydus Canals work both ways to; there isn't just one entrance and one exit.

Answer: Drones

Whenever you tell a larva to mutate into a Zergling or a Scourge, two units will come out of one egg. It is quite easy to whip up an army of Zerglings or Scourge if you're in desperate need of an army. Scourge and Zerglings are also cheap, and only constitute one unit for every pair. Upgraded Zerglings (upgraded attack power, defense power, movement speed, and attack speed), make them especially deadly, because that powers up each individual Zergling.

Answer: The Arbiter

Arbiters are extremely expensive and take forever to make. To make Arbiters, you need an Arbiter Tribunal, which has almost every other Protoss building on its dependency list. Finally, once you get the Tribunal, fork over quite a few resources, and be prepared to wait a long time. You may want a second or third Stargate to continue producing air units while your Arbiter(s) are in production. Arbiters provide cloaking for all units around them, making it easier to sneak in with a large task force relatively unnoticed.

The only problem is that the Arbiter itself cannot cloak, or be cloaked by a second Arbiter, so if your enemy catches a lone Arbiter flying toward his base, he'll know something's up. However, it's a lot less noticable than an entire strike force. Also, cloaked units cannot be attacked unless revealed by a detector, meaning, if you're attacking a base with no detector units, your enemies will only be able to attack the Arbiter itself while the rest of your force decimates the enemy.

Answer: Two

Creep Colonies are quite useful buildings. They primarily expand the creep on which you can mutate your Drones into more buildings upon. Alone, they're defenseless; however, they can be upgraded to give them defensive capabilities. They can be upgraded into Sunken Colonies, which truly work best at choke points into your base, as they attack ground units by running large pointed appendages through the ground to come up and stab their targets. Sunken Colonies do not have an anti-air attack, however.

The other possible mutation is a Spore Colony, which has anti-air capabilities, but is also useful because of its status as a detector. If you line your base with these, it makes it difficult for enemy carrier units to come in and drop off units. Be careful for units that have greater range, though, such as Guardians.

Answer: Wraiths

At the Control Tower, which is a building that attaches itself to a Starpad, you can give your Wraiths upgrades. The only upgrades that actually appear are cloaking and extra energy. However, these make Wraiths truly deadly. Individual cloaking can allow them to slip into enemy positions and wipe them out before detector units can come and counter them.

The best way to employ cloaking is to have a few Battlecruisers out of the way that can use their long range Yamato Gun to destroy any Turrets, Spore Colonies, or Photon Canons (all of which are detectors with anti-air attacks), and then send in cloaked wraiths the kill off all the undefended units that can't detect them.

Answer: Dark Archon

The Dark Archon can get the ability "Mind Control" which gives you perminant control over he unit you convert. This takes a lot of energy, but is normally worth it. It works on any unit, including enemy Carriers and Battlecruisers, which can be great assets. Also, if you convert an enemy carrier unit, you also gain the units it's carrying.

However, the best part is the ability to take over worker units. You could convert a Drone or and SCV and commence creating a new base, which will function the exact same way as a normal Terran or Zerg base. You could have an army of a Zerg swarm, the special weapons of the Terran, and the precision tactics of the Protoss all under your command at one time.

The best part, is that when you make a new base, your new units don't take up Psi, but their own respective population.

This means you could have a maximum population limit of 600! There is still a communal resource stockpile, though.

Answer: Green

Vespene Gas is the second resource in "Starcraft". Its geysers are normally near mineral patches. Vespene geysers need to have buildings built on top of them before worker units can harvest the gas coming out. Refineries of Terran, Assimilators for Protoss, and Extractors for Zerg. Vespene Gas is truly useful later on in the game for those advanced buildings, technologies, and units, especially for the Protoss. You can have as many workers on minerals at a time, but you can only harvest Vespene so fast, as only one unit is able to fit in the building at one time, so you'll want to get your Vespene up and running as fast as possible.

Answer: 200

The Protoss call it Psi, the Zerg call it control, and Terran call it supplies, but it's all the same. The max population for any race is 200. Most units, however, take up more than one slot. Units take up different amounts of population depending on their size and power. Workers and basic marines and Zerglings take up only one, while larger units, like Dragoons, or units with more value, like Ghosts, take up more. Make sure you have enough shelter (Supply Depots, Overlords, Pylons) for all you your units, and when you reach your cap, don't short suit yourself by having just a handful of large units without any small escort units.

Answer: Three

The Zerg Hatchery regularly puts out Larvas to be mutated into whatever the Zerg brood needs. When it reaches three larvas, it will discontinue creating larva until there is an extra space for a new one. Larva are needed for everything the Zerg need to survive and grow.

They can mutate into Drones, which can gather resources or mutate into buildings, or the can evolve into military units to fight for and defend the Zerg brood. You probably want to keep the slots open if you can, or else you're not going to be using your resources as fast as your enemies are, and that may end up killing you.

Answer: It stops working

An unpowered Protoss building will merely cease to function, whether that means warping in a unit, or researching a technology. They will remain like this until a new Pylon is built that encompasses the building in its power radius. However, chances are that building's already dead if it lost its Pylon.

The enemy force will probably just save it for later, as it can't hurt them without power. Protoss are not able to commence warping in a building outside of a power radius.

Answer: Queen

Wraiths and Ghosts can research personal cloaking, and then require energy to keep it active. They can turn it on and off at will. Dark Templar as excellent units. They have a permanent cloak, and otherwise function much like a Zealot, but are a lot more powerful attack-wise. You can decimate enemy bases and units with just a small force, but they're quite vulnerable when exposed, which is bad, as they're quite expensive. Queens cannot gain cloaking in anyway, but have enough unique abilities to still make them a pain to deal with.

Answer: Defiler

Larvas are most versatile of the bunch. They can mutate into Drones, Overlords, or other units, making them quite useful, in a sense. Drones are able to mutate into buildings, to help expand the Zerg base. Mutalisks can mutate into Guardians and Devourers, both of which are specialized air units. Defilers are stuck as Defilers for the rest of their lives, but that isn't so bad.

They have a score of nasty abilities to help the Zerg swarm.