Click here to get the guide quick before he changes his mind.

My studies in xenobiology had never gone too deep; I was out of school, out from under my father’s thumb, before zerg physiology was really taught at a scholastic level. From what I’d been able to piece together from the dumbed-down boot-camp vids, the zerg Overmind used an adaptive form of DNA to incorporate other useful bits from distinct, unrelated organisms into its own genetic palette. This made my fruit fly gene sculpting look like child’s play.

What if whatever consciousness was controlling this population had recognized a unique dilemma in this terran holdout on Sorona? What if my father’s theory was true? What if the inverse relationship between a population’s survival rate and random mutations was a concept not only understood by this consciousness, but also used to overcome obstacles when all other tactics proved useless? Was our desperate holdout providing a damn testing ground for the enemy?

Oooh so exciting check it out!

StarCraft II Beta – Patch 3 (version 0.5.0.14219B)

Balance Changes

• TERRAN
  • Engineering Bay
    • Infantry Armor: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Infantry Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  • Armory
    • Vehicle Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Vehicle Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Ship Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Ship Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
• PROTOSS
  • Zealot
    • The maximum shield capacity of this unit has been decreased from 60 to 50.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Infestor’s Neural Parasite ability could cause Reapers to lose the ability to move.
• Fixed an issue that could use an incorrect HDR format on some ATI cards.
• Fixed a crash that could happen on some ATI cards.

StarCraft II Beta – Patch 2 (version 0.4.0.14133)

Balance Changes

• Terran
  • Banshee
    • Cloak: This ability no longer requires Fusion Core to research.
  • Barracks
    • The build time for this building has decreased from 65 to 60.
  • Factory
    • The build time for this building has decreased from 65 to 60.
  • Reactor
    • The build time for this building has decreased from 40 to 25.
  • Reaper
    • The build time for this unit has increased from 30 to 40.
    • Nitro Boost: The build time for this upgrade has increased from 90 to 100.
  • Starport
    • The build time for this building has decreased from 55 to 50.
  • Tech Lab
    • The build time for this building has decreased from 30 to 25.
• Protoss
  • Mothership
    • The build time for this unit has increased from 120 to 160.
    • The food cost of this unit has increased from 6 to 8.
    • The number of shots fired by this unit has decreased from 8 to 6.
    • The shield of this unit has decreased from 400 to 350.
    • The health of this unit has decreased from 400 to 350.
    • The acceleration of this unit has decreased from 1.3125 to 0.3125.
    • The deceleration of this unit has increased from 0 to 1.
  • Nexus
    • Chrono Boost: The duration of this ability has decreased from 30 to 20.
• Zerg
  • Corruptor
    • The damage done by this unit has increased from 12 (+8 massive) to 12 (+10 massive).

“We were targeting three to five months for the beta, we’re really at a three month period of time for the beta at this point,” StarCraft II production director Chris Sigaty said in a recent BlizzCast podcast. “We are still targeting the first half of this year, so with that in mind, it really shortens the window of time with our major content patch coming out pretty close to the end whether it’s even worth it putting out the map editor at that point.”

Blizzcast Podcast

You gotta hear this update to the Blizzard podcast. It’s a Starcraft 2 Beta special so you’ll dig it I’m sure.

You can listen here.