Terran structures have two added advantages over the other two races. For one, terran buildings have the ability to be built anywhere the terrain allows construction. They are not restricted to building on the creep or near pylons like the protoss or zerg. Secondly, most terran buildings(the command center, barracks, starport, factory, engineering bay, and science facility) have the formidable ability to lift off the ground and hover to a new location. Also, terran buildings can be repaired rapidly, even in the midst of battle! But all this comes at a price as all terran buildings burn to the ground by themselves after thier health reaches the "red" zone, indicating extreme damage.

The terran command center is the focal point of all terran colonies. It produces SCV's for your gathering and construction needs at a rate of one at a time. It provides Ten control in the start of the game. The command center has a good stock of heatlh points but it doesnt hold up long without a good defense. With a command center the refinery, supply depo and the barracks are available to you.

 

 

 

The comsat station is an addon that becomes available to you once you finish your first acadamy. The comsat station has a maximum of 200 mana that can be used to sweep a certain area of the map and reveal it temporarily at the cost of 50 mana a sweep. You can even reveal cloaked units or clifftops so your units can open fire upon unseen enemies. Aside from the missile turret, this is the Terran's form of early detection.

 

 

The nuclear silo becomes available for construction at the command center when you have an acadamy, and a science facility with attached covert ops. Once constructed, you can arm it with a nuclear missle at the cost of 8 control and 200 gas and minerals. Only your ghosts can launch the nuke, so make sure it has its cloak and sight range upgrades before you attemp to drop a nuke. If an enemy destroys the nuclear silo, the minerals you invested to arm it are lost.

The vespene gas refinery is the Terran's way of turning raw vespene gases into a gatherable form. It costs 100 minerals to build, and only one SCV can be inside it at once-so remember to limit how many SCVs you have gathering from each gysher to about 3 or 4. The refinery doesn't make any new units or technology upgrades available to you; it simply gives you a place to gather vespene gas from. Be sure to protect any outlying refineries from enemy attack, loss of your gas resources can be costly.

 

The barracks is the first building that produces fighting units for your disposal, and it is probably the one that will see the most action. The barracks is capable of lifting of and producing infantry units such as the marine, firebat, medic and the ghost. It only produces one unit at a time, but you can queve up to 5 units for each barracks you command.

 

 

The acadamy gives you access to the construction of medics and firebats at your barracks. with the acadamy handy, you can add a comsat station to your command center for an emergency line of detection. The acadamy also has a few essential upgrades for your infantry. The first in the line is the U232 Shells for your marines gause rifles. This nearly doubles the firing range of your marines. The next is their stimpack ability. The stim pack temporarily doubles your marines attack and run speed, at the cost of ten health points a pop. The use of medics makes using stim packs a little more liberal.The Medic has three upgrades available-the Restoration ability that cures any battlefield ailment such as plague, paracite, lockdown, maelstrom, blindness, and acid spores. It also has a blind ability available for research. With this upgrade, the medic can blind a unit perminently with its optical flare. Last but not least is the basic energy upgrade that gives the medic 50 extra mana points. Also, without an academy, you won't be able to produce Ghosts to launch your nukes.

The engineering bay allows you to upgrade the armor and weapon levels of your infantry units. Also, it allows you to construct missle turrets for air defense and detection. You cannot upgrade your units past level one without the help of a science facility. The engineering bay does have the impressive ability to fly, so it can be moved out of the way is neccessary.

 

 

 

The bunker is your first form of stationary ground defense, available after you build a barracks. After constructing one, you can fill it with up to four infantry units of your choice, particularly marines and firebats. Marines for a ranged attack and a couple firebats for a strong counter for melee swarms. A bunker is destroyed easily if it is left unprotected so keep some units around to help it defend your base. A terran player without bunkers is soon a dead terran player. Use bunkers to block off bridges and choke points-anywhere where you are at threat of a land invasion. Siege tanks and missle turrets mix well with them to provide an excellent overall defense. If an attack is doing significant damage to one of your bunkers, bring in a few SCVs to repair the bunkers while the enemies try to destroy them. This makes the SCV work against the enemy, some times causing the buildings health to go up faster than it drops from the attack.

After construction of the engineering bay, you can build these anti-air detectors. They are an essential part of any good terran air defense. Use them in conjunciton with a bunker and siege tank to provide extra anti air protection and added cloak detection. They only have 200 hit points, so they are easily destroyed when they are alone. Bunch them in groups of three or four to send volleys of missles that deter any idea of a suprize air attack. Missile turrets are defensless against a ground target, so don't leave them in the battlefield alone if you wish for them to last. 

The factory becomes available after completion of your barracks. The factory produces all of your heavily armored terran vehicles such as vultures, goliaths and the famous siege tanks. The factory is what opens up the rest of the advanced terran structures. These buildings inlcude the starport and the armory. The factory also has the ability to lift off the ground and move to a new base of operations. But before you produce shiney new goliaths and siege tanks, you must build the machine shop addon for the factory.

The machine shop adds on to the the right side of the factory. It allows production of siege tanks and its an essential part of building goliaths. At the machine shop, you can research the seige tanks' siege ability, the vultures speed upgrade and thier spider mines. New to brood war is the goliaths Charon booster upgrade. This allows your goliaths to fire at air units from a much further distance. If you're planning on producing more than just vultures for your mech department, the machine shop is a must.

The armory is where you can upgrade the armor and weapons for your heavy ground units and your air units. It is best to have at least two of these armories to upgrade more than one aspect of your army at once. Also, the armory cannot lift off the ground, so put it somewhere where it will have protection all the time. The Armory also allows the construction of goliaths at the factory and valkalrie frigates at the starport. You cannot upgrade any one of your aspects past level one without the help of a science facility.

 

 

The starport produces all of your air units, with the proper buildings handy. By itself it can produce wraiths, but with the rest of the tech tree complete, you have access to science vessels, battle cruisers and valkalrie frigates. It has an addon, the control tower, where you can research the cloaking field for your wraiths, as well as a little energy boost for them. The starport itself can also lift off the ground and move somewhere else on your command.

The control tower addon is essential to building several of the more advanced terran air units; the science vessel, the valkalrie frigate, and the battlecruiser. Also available with the control tower is the upgrades for your wraiths. These include the cloaking ability and an energy upgrade.

 

 

 

The science facility is an essential building. Not only does it allow the production of the science vessel, your mobil detector, but once built, you are free to upgrade your armor and weapon aspects to the fullest. The science facility houses the upgrades for the science vessel itself, but it may also be a good idea to make two of these important structures, because both the covert ops and physics lab addons are essential, but you can only have one active at a time if you own only one science facility. If your resources are limited, the science facility can lift off, seperating from the addon you created for it, allowing you to construct the other addon.

The covert ops is a science facility addon that allows the production of ghosts at your barracks. Also, you can construct a nuclear silo on the side of your command center to go with your shiny new ghosts. The covert ops has four valuable upgrades for your ghosts. The first is the Lockdown ability, the second is the energy upgrade, then the sight enhancement(the sight upgrade is essential if you are planing to use nukes and still have your ghosts come back alive) and finnally the personnel cloaking ability.

The physics lab addon gives you access to the mighty battlecruisers- the terran capitol ships. At the physics lab, you can research the yamato cannon ability for your battlecruisers, as well as a little energy boost for them. It is possible to have only one science facility and switch back and forth between the physics labs and the covert ops when nessessary but it is more time consuming and ussually not worth the trouble when you could just build another science facility.

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