Supply Depot

[sagrado_corazon]

Well, we all know how the supply depots can now submerge underground for tactical purposes. But I was just wondering, what would happen if an enemy unit would be walking or standing right over the submerged supply depot and you decided to put the supply depot back up? would it go flying and die? would the unit on top simply be on higher ground??? would the supply depot be incapable to go up again?

any thoughts?

Bonus 100 minerals for a thought-provoking post.

[ninerman13]

I would guess that either:
A) The supply depot would not be able to go up.
B) The unit on top would simply 'slide' off to the side.

Although the higher ground thing would be pretty tight.

[BaneOfHumanity]

I dont know about this idea for supple depots...it sounds like they want to encourage turtling....

[PowerkickasS]

isn't that a good thing?
starcraft has yet to have an effective winning strat based on turtling :P

[ZiiDriX]

To overpowered.. If someone attacked whit a bounch of zergling, you could just get them stuck on higher ground. And then get few marines and just shoot them.

[ZiiDriX]

Or Zealots ofc.

[sagrado_corazon]

yeah, I highly doubt that the enemy units would be stuck on higher ground. I guess that the idea of simply sliding to the side sounds more likely to happen.

[10-Neon]

To overpowered.. If someone attacked whit a bounch of zergling, you could just get them stuck on higher ground. And then get few marines and just shoot them.


Except the Zerglings can then tear away at the Supply Depot itself, and probably kill all of the Marines as the building collapses. Against ranged units it would be less effective, perhaps making its role as a secondary Bunker acceptable.

[capthavic]

Seems obvious (or very likely) to me that it just wont be able to surface untill the unit(s) move.

[Major Willy]

It launches the unit(s) up into the air and they don't come down for 30 seconds and die instantly upon landing.

[headstock]

I reckon its great, so many times ive gotten in a tight situation at a choke. Id have the supply depot n'barracks preventing anyone from getting through, using the barracks as a gate. But then somthin goes wrong, you need to get dudes out the front so ya lift your barracks, but then it cant build!
So yeah, now you'll be able to submerge the depots and still crank out units.

[Nikzad]

To overpowered.. If someone attacked whit a bounch of zergling, you could just get them stuck on higher ground. And then get few marines and just shoot them.

I don't think they would do that, but Blizzard would probably make sure to classify it as a different type of higher ground than a cliff, something that 'lings and 'lots could jump down from...

holy crap, just think about how cool that would look if the zerglings could just climb all over the supply depot and make it impossible to see by covering it, like those big swarms of ants that just cover everything in their path! obviously imba but it would be cool to watch. Not to mention zealots...imagine a bunch of marines hiding behind a supply depot and the zealots climbing the supply depots under fire, getting to the top, then jumping down and slicing the marines in half as they fall to the ground and land on one knee...I get carried away with these scenarios some time, I should be in the cinematic development team for Blizzard

[zeratul11]

yes i think you should. and tell them to include all new units in the cinematics. i wan to see the thor and colossus etc in a movie version ^^

i think lings running or climbing over depots and zealots jumping from a depot cannot be done in starcraft 2 maybe in starcraft 3. this kind of mechanics are reserve for the future games. but i wish they put some extra effort and do it now. hahah.

[Nikzad]

I was just looking at this picture:

http://www.starcraft2forum.org/gallery/4_20_07_07_2_33_53.jpg

and got to thinking...are supply depots that are underground susceptible to attack? I can't tell if those zerglings are attacking it, and it doesn't look like it is on fire like everything else. Or maybe it is just not susceptible/as susceptible to nukes, like real life bunkers that people made in their backyards in the '50s. I always found it annoying that I could lift off so many of my buildings - except for the supply depots - when I got rushed. Maybe this is the alternative. It would be a nice thing to be able to sink all of your supply depots just as you see the nuke dot on your base. However, I think they could only be immune if not in the immediate vicinity of the blast (a nuke on top of it would clearly smoke it to dust).

[DontHate]

you're right, but maybe the supply depos are out of range? that one nuke can't hit those other burning buildings. keeping them invincible would be way too... cheap.

[Nikzad]

well maybe they would be invincible to ground units, but not air units, like buildings that have lifted off are safe from melee forces? or maybe make them immune to melee but not to ranged units. just a thought

[Dxun]

The little bit of info we know from the german mag i think it was... is that submerged depots dont take AoE dmg so unless the nuke can cause direct dmg (idk i dont play terran) then your depots are safe from the nukes.

And in the screen shot why would zerglings attack a supply depot if theres plenty of stuff shooting at them?

[capthavic]

yeah that sounds about right. They definitly won't be invincible cause that wouldn't be fair.

If you look at the un-submerged supply depots to the NE of the blast you can see they aren't on fire so maybe the nuke radius is much smaller.

[ShdwyTemplar]

I think in this screenshot the only part of the Nuke that has gone off is the impact animation. As if you remember in SC1 the Nuke took a few seconds to do actual damage to the buildings. My reference for this is that you can see if you looks in the New Nuke Ground Zero Blast the shadowed figure of a Zergling. Is it just me or would a Zergling be OP if it could survive a Nuke... anyway. I think the New Nukes effect has not effectively gone off yet. So we can't really see if the New Nuke has any effect in this screenshot. Now if we had a Post New Nuke screenshot... well things would be different.

http://www.battle.net/scc/terran/tspecial.shtml In this link is what the Nuke in SC1 does. If it is coming back with the same damage then I would suspect a Supply Depot would be destroyed regardless if its underground or not. Or the damage it takes underground is severely reduced , noting, that it is most likely titanium that shields it while underground.So I believe we won't know until we see both the New Nuke and Supply Depot in action imo. ;D

[AdmiralAckbar]

I dont see why it would be invincible underground; zerg can burrow underground and they can still be damaged. Also, I think the supply value will be shut off when they submerge, otherwise there would be no incentive to keep them above ground.

[ImaGiNe.]

It would be unfair and imbalanced if a submerged supply depot remains unaffected by area of effect damage, let alone a nuclear detonation. It's possible that they do receive damage but it is not directly visible as the supply depot is submerged. Also I agree with Shdwy's post, it may just be the impact animation as the Zerg Zerglings near the depots are not exploding in a violent fury of nuclear destruction.

[TheFearless]

hmm, if ground-based units can't attack the submerged supply depots, what can ?

[Wlck742]

Also, I think the supply value will be shut off when they submerge, otherwise there would be no incentive to keep them above ground.


The reason Blizzard made the supply depots submergeable was to make walling easier. There would be a huge incentive to keep them above ground. If it was underground units could travel over them, thus nullifying the reason you wall in the first place.

[Chris Benoit]

At the end of the Protoss gameplay demo, the "epic battle" is interrupted by three nuclear strikes. Then, three Ghosts uncloak from the exact spots the nukes hit, and a bunch of Zerglings in the area unburrow. I found it confusing because it's logical that the Ghosts and Zerglings would have been killed by the nuclear strikes.

[Wlck742]

It was probably scripted so that the units appear after the nukes.

[Ghost]

If the depos would be immune while submerged it would be quite annoying for the enemy as you could build them al over expansions and submerge them to preventing him from building at an optimal range from the mineral node.

[GuiMontag]

submerge could work like cloak, only attackable when observers are nearby.

[Nikzad]

Also, I think the supply value will be shut off when they submerge, otherwise there would be no incentive to keep them above ground.


The reason Blizzard made the supply depots submergeable was to make walling easier. There would be a huge incentive to keep them above ground. If it was underground units could travel over them, thus nullifying the reason you wall in the first place.

he was assuming that they were invulnerable when sunk into the ground

It just seems wierd to me for units (melee especially) to attack a flat piece of ground

you think zerglings will attack downwards and stand on top of it, or will they stand near the edge of the building even when it is submerged

[Ghost]

I hope that that thats the only benefit, I love the idea of walling with supply depos but how wallable will they be? will they be more wallable than before? I mean will they only take up one gridunit in order to prevent from small units getting by.

[Wlck742]

Since they'll be square this time, and not rectangular, I'd imagine it would be easier to wall, regardless of size.

[dewmonster]

I was just curious as to what would happen if you were to unsubmerge a supply depot while there is a unit on top of it.
Would it prevent the depot from rising out of the ground? Would it simply push the unit aside, or would it kill the units standing on top of it?
What do you guys think?

[MarineCorp]

Probably it will just move/slide the unit away or maybe it will go through the unit i was also curious about this kind of topic as well

[BnechbReaker]

the most like thing to happen is you will not be able to raise the supply depot, like you can't land a terran building with a unit underneath it.

[thrif]

Ye, most likely it won't be possible. I smell abuse otherwise. :)

[-LT-]

the most like thing to happen is you will not be able to raise the supply depot, like you can't land a terran building with a unit underneath it.

/agree

[surr]

be cool if u can put marines on top of it.. when it unsubmarge ull have a marine of a higher ground...
imagine being able to build on a already submarged depot and rise them both so they stack higher and higher.. and if ur a zerg player u can burrow and be on the bottom of the depot??? or go throug hin the inside of it not sure. Just a crazy thought.

[-LT-]

I don't think that would be possible.

[surr]

ya ya i figured lol

[LJYLJ]

Ye, most likely it won't be possible. I smell abuse otherwise. :)


/agreed

imagine useing "ally supplies" the same way u can use ally mines...annoying abuse.com

[MarineCorp]

True
It will be like:
'Hey move your men'
'No say please or else I'll TK you'
'Never'
'Then die!!!'
'... i just got pwned' :P

[Ghost]

be cool if u can put marines on top of it.. when it unsubmarge ull have a marine of a higher ground...


The idea sounded reasonable and awsome to this point.

[Joneagle_X]

I'd rather them make some kind of adjustment to the bunker rather than the supply depot....

Moving over it is good enough for me... eliminates the need to use a Barracks and lose its production ability.

[PancakeChef]

There was however a version of Starcraft I remember, they long since fixed this but there was a glitch where you could land a command center atop of a seiged seige tank thus giving the tank a shield over top of it meaning have to kill CC before you could get to the tank, and it didn't destory the tank or anything.

Also there was a way you could permentaly cloak zergs that could burrow and if you permentalty cloaked a drone and built a building with it the building would also be permenently cloaked. I'm sure they have fixed these though with updates because its been years since I seen anybody do it.

[Ghost]

Wow, those sound cool lol. They are bound to have been fixed thought. Whp thinks we might enounter problems like these with SC2?

[BnechbReaker]

yeah i remember those glitches, the flying drone and zerglings turning into mutas were the best ones

[Gasmaskguy]

holy moly! how did THAT glitch work? the one about turning lings into mutas.

[Joneagle_X]

Used to. Very early glitch. I always assumed the game developers put it in so they could pwn people.

[Gasmaskguy]

yeah, but how did you actually do it? iam just curious thats all...

[Joneagle_X]

I take that back. I was mistaken. It was not a mutalisk it turned into, but it was some sort of glitch in which the zergling could fly and attack like a mutalisk.

It supposedly was in the second patch ever released for SC.... Not sure if that was 1.06 or not.

EDIT: I can't find anything on how it was done. I assume using burrow and a hatchery ;)

[Gasmaskguy]

lol okay thanx anyway. wonder how many SC2 patches there will be... lol imagine the crazy glitches some pro´s might find:D

[slugonice]

it wasnt a glitch

it was some cheat the BLIZZARD guys put in just in case they they played in a bet

[Bizarro_Paragon]

@BnechbReaker-
I feel that I should take some time out of your day to point out that the best glitch, by far, was the mobile Nydus Canal exit. Sure, flying lings was great, but arbitrarily moving fleshy building-things popping out seemingly random Zergs is one for the ages.

@slugonice-
Please, please, please stop posting all in bold. Every time you post is like an assault on my cornea.

[MarineCorp]

yeah i agree slugonice stop posting in bold it's rude and flying lings sounds really funny ha ha ^_^
Nydus Worm comes up
Lings falling down like rain ^_^
so Bizzaro_Paragon welcome to the forum! *giggle*

[Shadowdragon]

I don't remember any glitches right now. But I hate it when people use them... it always feels the same as cheating.

[Bizarro_Paragon]

@MarineCorp-
Thanks, this forum is a welcome change of pace. The only other forum that I'm a member of at the moment is Sherdog.net... it's a Mixed Martial Arts forum, and... well, let's just say this forum is a nice change of pace. Plus, I have a bank account! Score!

@Shadowdragon-
Probably because it's the same as cheating. :P

[paragon]

you can't post here bizarro, it violates your contract because I didn't post here first.

[Shadowdragon]

I think the universe just imploded...

[Blackskies]

I was interested by the supply depot being able to submerge. But heres my question. Does it protect it against attackers? Like can a siege tank or any other unit attack it if its burrowed.

[Yrcrazypa]

You can still perma cloak zerglings, and I would assume drones too. I've done it recently in one of those 'Can you do X amount of tricks?' games. And I somehow won even though I hadn't done that type of game in a year or so.

[Joneagle_X]

According to Blizzard the supply depot can still be targeted by units even when submerged.

[Gasmaskguy]

the best thing would be if only ranged units could target submerged depots

[Joneagle_X]

What difference would that make??

Just because melee couldn't hit the building wouldn't really affect the gameplay. It's not like the melee units will be stopped by submerged depots. So either your supply depot gets attacked or the melee units flood into your base.

Plus, its not really "submerged," it just allows units to go up and over it, like a ramp.

[Gasmaskguy]

still leads to intresting strategy choices. instead of letting them destroying your "wall", you could let them in! they will run into heavy siege tank bombardment(you have placed them a bit behind your base), and if they try to escape, just raise the supply depots! These kind of strategies could be funny against zealots and lings

[privateparts]

Can it be seen when submerged?
(Like Zerg burrow)

Can it lift up when something is above it?
(To cut attacking armies in half, etc)

If it can, what happens to the units above it?
(Pushed aside or killed?)

Thank you,
Private Parts

[GuiMontag]

these questions were answered in karunes Q&A

1. yes, it can also be attacked while submerged
2. yes
3. it pushes units aside

[Unentschieden]

Can be seen, units above it get pushed apart.

[eskudero]

where did you see/hear that units get pushed apart?i thought you couldnt lift it with units on top of it.it creates multiple strategies,though :) like dividing zerg rushes into small groups hehe

[GuiMontag]

Karune: "Units on top of the supply depot get pushed to the side they are closest to."
source: http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=sc2-general&t=19090&tmp=1#post19090

[SOGEKING]

Good strategy to divide zerg rushes. you create a wall of two or three supply, and then you close the "doors" when the zerglings approach you, and then, once trapped, you nuke them ! 8)

Humm :no: The supply depots can be destroyed, even if hidden. So the zerglings will destroy my walls, and flee, and I will lose my nuke >:(

[eskudero]

i dont think you will have many nukes to defend against zergling rushes,at least,i never had the chance to...!

[kuvasz]

[...] Humm :no: The supply depots can be destroyed, even if hidden. So the zerglings will destroy my walls, and flee, and I will lose my nuke >:(

LOL I'd love to see that! By the time the nuke drops there isn't a single Zerg to be found and you destroy your Supply Depots closer to you plus a few units behind it :D

[Lemmy]

Good strategy to divide zerg rushes. you create a wall of two or three supply, and then you close the "doors" when the zerglings approach you, and then, once trapped, you nuke them ! 8)

The words "rush" and "nuke" dont mix.

[-LT-]

Why? I think it's a great idea. Maybe build two walls so the zerglings can't escape?
#- Supply depot
.- Zergling
*- Ghost
===- Cliff

==
===
=============
#:.: # Base
# :.:# Base
#. :.# * Base
#:. :# Base
# :.:# Base
=============
===
==

[kuvasz]

Well they can't mix because they're at different phases of the game. Rush happens very early in the game while nukes come much later. Samir probably meant groups, flanks.

And LT, that's a pretty picture you got there :P But no Zerg player would fall for that plan, submerged Supply Depots are visible and can be attacked without the need of a detector.

[-LT-]

Well the zergling rush can come in any part of the game. :P

[ijffdrie]

nice drawing

[-LT-]

Thanks :powerup: me? LOL Maybe you shouldn't use nuke? Maybe bring the flying units to finish off the zerg? It's all up to your creativity.

[Duke]

yeah, that'd be awesome to like build a perimiter somewhere in the map and when the enemy goes over it, just raise it and they'd be trapped. until they destroy them that is.

[Gasmaskguy]

and that is, in a few seconds... sadly. So, this is a tactic to be used when you have something to attract fire with. You dont want all your depots destroyed.

[Unentschieden]

Well if you submerge them the enemy has to decide to waste time to destroy them or ignore them and risk being trapped. It is quite an interesting mechanic. And loads better than the boring old Depos.

[Gasmaskguy]

it sure do. btw, blizz have told that depots can be attacked by both melee and ranged, the submerge ability is just a way to wall yourself in without getting stuck.

[Joneagle_X]

I wouldn't risk letting ANY Zerg melee units into my Terran base with the current traits of units...

No melee :(

I know that I'd just sit outside your base and eat your supply depots.

[Indigent]

In reality this is what is happening inside the base.
#- Supply depot
.- Zergling
*- Ghost
===- Cliff
O- Overloard
,- Marines

                              ================                 
                        ===      O    ..  ,,  , ,     
=============            .  ..,  ,          M 
    #:.: #                  .    ..    .  ., ,          I    
    # :.:#                    .  .  . . ,.Base.      N           
    #. :.#  *              .    . ..  .    , ,. .        E   
    #:. :#                .      . O  .  , ,          R
    # :.:#                O  .  .  .    .  ,Base .  A         
=============          .      ,,, ,            L
                        ===            ,    Base    S   
                          O  =====O=========
                                    O                  O
Ling drop FTW.

[Wlck742]

Ling drop, dunno how good it'll be. By the time you get a Lair and research ovie speed and transporting, you should have hydras. The Terran would have more than Marines or Ghosts as well. Possibly some factory units could be present. Hydras normally are safer bets to drop, or better yet, Lurkers. Zerglings without Adrenal Glands and fully upgraded armor and attack don't last all that long.

[Indigent]

Lings themselves don't really last that long lol.

[Protosscommander]

Supply Depot now in Starcraft2 is so awsome compared to the Supply depot, in Starcraft and Starcraft Broodwar, because in starcraft2 youcan now low them under the ground, not like in sc1 you need Terran Dropeship to get your Terran Units to get them in the STOCK situation , am i right my fellow freinds :)

[Gah345]

yes definately

both the other race supply units had special uses,
overlord = transport / detection
pylon = psi matrix area

but terran supply depots had nothing
(obviously in real life one wouldnt put thier supply structures out on the front lines)
but for the purposes of this game they will be awesome!!!!

[Protosscommander]

Im happy you are agreed heheh :)

[ijffdrie]

the first thing im gonna do is create me a mod with supply depots that can be used as bunkers too

[Gasmaskguy]

what? lol! what will happen to the marines when it submerges? Will they still be able to shoot?

[ijffdrie]

of course not

[Gasmaskguy]

ok, sounds promising :good:

...do you think this site will have mods ´n maps and such after the release? I sure hope so....

[Gah345]

IT MUST

mods and custom maps and usemap settings for online play are what have made starcraft last so long

AOE does not have them foronline use and so has died out a lot already

Blizzard would be stupid not to allow it

[DontHate]

i like this becuz b4, the terrans had to lift thier rax if they wanted to hide their tech, which is stupid because barracks aren't ment to be gates, but the supply depo idea is sweet.

[Protosscommander]

Of course you are right my friend :) well i really hate in Terran is when my SCVs are stock in the middle of my supple depot :) waste time to call drop ship to save him :) right friend :)

[Gasmaskguy]

Ab-so-lutely(siege tank voice :P)

i usually just get pissed when that happens and execute them with rines ;D
(one time i used siege tanks just for laughs(bad for the buildings around the SCV though :P))

[Vindicatormsc]

i hated when my SCVs got stucked in the middle of supply depots.if anything,the ability to submerge the depots is very useful to rescue SCVs

[MarineCorp]

Yep same goes for me, i get so annoyed and my plan get ruined :(

[Wlck742]

I doubt that it'll happen as much now with the new pathing system and all.

[ItzaHexGor]

I reckon if a Supply Depot was put back up with a small unit standing on top of it, then the unit should be destroyed and the building should take some damage. After all, the creature/infantry could fall into the mechanics of it while the building is being raised, obviously killing the unit and damaging some of the interior mechanics of the Supply Depot.
Medium units should be similar except that they don't instantly die. Just say they aren't big enough to fall into the mechanics but would still make a rather loud 'thud'. So they would damage the building more, and take around 1/2 health damage.
Larger units, like Ultras shoulldn't be too affected by the raising of the building, so would only take minor damage, while the Supply Depot would be nearly irreparable, so maybe it would get injured to it's 'burning down' stage.
However, if a Colossus is on one when it is brought up, then it would either go into orbit, or be pushed into a planet or sun! They're so freaking big!!!

[Trooper_Lozer]

lol, i dont think they should recieve damage, neither of them.

[Unentschieden]

Units on top get pushed aside, wich is imho the most sensible solution.

[Gasmaskguy]

or, like when trying to land a lift-offed building onto a unit, a error message is displayed/can be heard.

[DontHate]

if ur able to lift ur supply depo when enemy units are on it, it's pretty damn cheap. even if it does not damage and just pushes the enemy aside, if the enemy gets pushed into the base, it'll be trapped behind enemy lines, sort of like the same way a statis feild works. The best way to settle things is say "zone occupied" or whatever the adjutant said about landing zones being occupied.

[Unentschieden]

Why would it be cheap? SD are not invisible, also they can be attacked while submerged. Also Karune himself noted that a SD line can be used to divide the enemy forces.

[DontHate]

oh nvm didn't see that one.

btw, i'm sure karune meant that if a bunch of units went in then no units were on top of it, it could be lifted and cut off hte forces. i dont think he meant that u can cut off reinforcements while the armies storming in.

[Wlck742]

Hmm, I never thought about that strategy. It sounds pretty effective. But unless the attacking force is weak or you have a very strong defense, I don't think it'll last that long.

[DE.50]

I think it would be fair if the supply depots could cut off enemies while they are passing over them. If the person attacking doesn't realize this and just tries to get into the base without killing a low hitpoint structure it would just be his own fault.

[Vindicatormsc]

supply depots plays a much more strategic role than before.it really would be foolish to try to invade a base without destroying them first.it would be fair to allow the SD to cut off enemy lines,it just adds to the strategy,and,well...you can destroy them...


on a side note,it would be fun as hell to begin a custom game using the terran,activate god mode,let some enemy units enter in your base and then surround them with supply depots ^^

[The Watcher]

My guess is that, if a unit is ontop of it while its submerged, it will simply imeaditly go up once the unit is off it. good for having ranged forces behind the first wall, and when the are killed it will imdiatly go up, making it a good defense against a ranged force

[Patlidzan]

I think submergable depoes are useles because you can do the same thing with racks the racks cost 150 minerals (they did in sc 1) and have 1000 hp, and u could of easily lifted em to gain entrance and grounded them to block.....and the depoes only have 500 hp.....

[GuiMontag]

it doesnt really matter what you use to block, giving supply depo the ability just diversifies each races population buildings even more.

[10-Neon]

Well, using a Barracks is all fine and dandy... unless you happen to need it to... build an army. Supply Depots don't do anything but take up space, but now they can strategically take up space.

[string_me_along]

/\ that is unless they destroy too many of them and then you have a lower population cap. There is a potential problem with them being destroyed. But I'd rather have them go than my command center.

[Wlck742]

If you're blocking with supply depots, it's just common sense to not rely on the ones you used as barricades and build additional depots in your base. You pretty much have to pretend that the ones you used for walling don't give a population cap bonus.

[Unentschieden]

Simply have them submerged. The enemy will either attack them anyway and waste time or go past them and get caught.

[Vindicatormsc]

it would really would be common sense to any Terran player not to rely on the barricade SDs for the food cap.it would be like in Warcraft 3,where you used farms as a bait to warn you of an enemy attack.

[string_me_along]

I'm not gonna lie, I've done it. Used supply depots as (sadly for SC1 permanent) shields but then forgotten to build new ones as my troops increased and got stuck with too few supply depots. I'm just glad you can submerge them now so that they don't take up your entire base to get to the 200 cap. But while this may be a noob error, I feel I'm certainly not the only one who's done it. And I won't be the last, in my opinion. So I feel it is something worth bringing up.

[Patlidzan]

Well u have the racks working on units.... and when u need to let units out of the base than u lift it, if u dont want the enemy to enter than keep em down have a couple of scv fixing it and its gona last a long time.... it has like 1000 hp and costs 150 min and the depot has 500 and costs 100 min.... so its much more usefull to block entrance with racks than with depots... they should make depots cost 75 minerals or let em have 600 hp

[Gasmaskguy]

one other thing; the barracks takes up more space! That way it blocks more of the pass/bottleneck.

[Bizarro_Paragon]

Patlidzan, the fact of the matter is that it takes time to lift the Barracks. Time that could be much better spent producing units. If you want to let units through, you have to cancel the whole build queue (losing all current progress on the latest unit,) lift the Barracks, wait for the units to pass through, land again, and restart the queue.

Now, to you or me, that's not a whole lot. It really doesn't matter. But as the people you play against get better and better, that little amount of time and the little amount of extra minerals is a HUGE deal. Any and all advantages you could potentially gain on your opponent could be enough to swing the tide of the game in your favour. So, when people on this board say it makes no sense for you to use Barracks to block instead of Supply Depots, we're really saying it makes no sense for the pros to do it.

For people our level, though, you can definitely get away with building the Barracks, and, because there's more leniency with the mistakes in the micro game, you may even get an advantage having your Barracks so far forward that you wouldn't have gotten with Supply Depots. Both strategies have merit, but the Supply Depot fits better with more advanced styles of play, and is, by proxy, more advanced, and a colloquially better strategy,

[Vindicatormsc]

the barracks does have more hp,but the sd are really better as barricades.yeah,they only have 500 hp,but now they can go down,and that's something very useful,because it's much faster to get s sd down than it is to lift off a barrack and put it back on the ground again.

[Zymeth_01]

Supply depots now are awsome based on what i saw in the demo.

[BloodHawk]

Since theres already so many pretty pictures:

---- =Cliff
D =Depot

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DDDD
DDDD
DDDD
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Ok, maybe a 3x4 grid of depots is a bit much.

------------------------
DDD
DDD
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or
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DD
DD
DD
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Same idea, more practical.

It may yet be more effective than using a single barracks (plus one depot) as your gate. Each building has much less surface (attack) area than a barracks. Fewer melee units per depot should allow them to last longer. If you can get your lines of depots deeper would be even better as the enemy would have to clear the front completly to really acces the mid/back lines. Better yet, watch em funnel through a choke one depot wide while getting splattered by your tanks splash damage.

Attacking more than one depot at a time should work, but it would take much more micro/concentration than sending your lumped group at one building. IDK for sure if this that great of an idea as I have yet to play SC2 or seen a single Zerg unit(God Damnit).
I also wonder how sliding off a barracks would work when when they are lumped like this. Blizz said you can have multi buildings selected (and hot keyed) so I would assume you can command them to reemerge all at once.