LOL: Can’t I play other games professionally?

Chapter 400 Interstellar Economic Development is the Top Priority
After finishing the match, Lin Ruo ignored the chat and opened a custom room. There was just too much for him to learn about StarCraft 2.

For example, in this custom room, unlike the monotony of League of Legends, there are many different modes started by players, and each mode has a gameplay explanation on the right.

That's so refreshing, completely different from the League which only has a few fixed maps.

Considering the difficulty of StarCraft 2, the official team also set up a game lobby in the custom settings, similar to a single-player training space, where you can add whatever you need.

However, after scanning the room, Lin Ruo noticed that due to the excessive autonomy granted by the game lobby, some players had used their strong hands-on skills to modify and create some rather unique rooms, such as those that allowed for playing Dou Dizhu (a popular Chinese card game).

Yes, Lin Ruo really didn't expect that playing StarCraft would lead to playing a few rounds of Dou Dizhu (a popular Chinese card game).

Indeed, the world of games is all one family.

There are also facilities for reviewing game replays, as well as paid items like skin chests that are actually shops but can be purchased.

After reviewing all the content on the main interface and playing a game against bots, Lin Ruo had at least gained a general understanding of how to use the Terran mode.

The difference between the viewers in the live stream and his Deep Blue skill point allocation might be too great. Apart from fans who have played StarCraft 2, most people are still in a state of confusion.

Simply looking at something without actually doing it is obviously useless.

Those who knew how to have fun were already marveling at Lin Ruo's terrifying talent, while those who didn't were urging Lin Ruo to continue demonstrating for them.

Lin Ruo was also quite bewildered by this.

No, I'm just playing a game normally, why do I have to do tutorials even when I'm just starting out...?

He came here to learn how to play the game, but now he's going to teach others how to play. Netizens are really not afraid that he'll take the wrong path and lead everyone astray.

Considering that she also needed to familiarize herself with the game, Lin Ruo created a custom room and started a test game of the normal mode to understand the basic gameplay of the three groups: humans, gods, and insects.

At the start, all three sides have their own bases. The human units, which are the peasants, need to build houses. The process requires a lot of piecing together. To be precise, these houses should be called supply stations, and they can be large or small. Lin Ruo only learned that supply stations could be lowered through system prompts.

Once it descends, troops can pass over it as if walking on flat ground; if it rises, they have to go around it. So it is clear that the rise and fall can play a role in intercepting terrain.

After the brief demonstration, Lin Ruo explored how to construct a Protoss house using Protoss units—a high-end crystal tower. Finding the right location with a hotkey took only a few seconds, unlike the many steps required for Terran house construction. The only difference between the Protoss houses and Terran houses was their appearance.

In comparison, the Zerg's supply depot is the most unique. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it shouldn't be called a supply depot, because what you build at the start is a giant Zerg, a giant Zerg that can move.

It can run all over the map under the player's control, serving as a human scout in the early stages; it's truly a mobile fountain now.

This giant insect is not created by Zerg units, but by the Zerg base. Players can easily control it by selecting the larva to mutate into an overlord using hotkeys.

After supply depots are established, it's time to cultivate the land, find food, and engage in production. This is when the three fixed resources come into play: crystal ore, high-yield solid ore, and natural gas.
The first two can be directly extracted, while gas requires the three races to build corresponding buildings such as refineries, absorption tanks, and extraction rooms before it can be extracted.

At the same time, each gas requires three working units to be effectively collected, which is much more labor-intensive than the previous two methods.

The combination of abundant crystal ore and high-energy gas can create a continuous stream of wealth. As long as the farmers mine well, they can easily establish a significant advantage in the early stages of the game.

So how can we mine more minerals to get more money and build more advantages?

It's obvious that it's not about having the best mining technology. To make big money, you only need to do one very simple thing: keep producing farmers and make them work day and night.

Population size is always the foundation for improving productivity, without exception.

Well, Lin Ruo had to admit that even playing a game had turned her into a capitalist exploiter.

The base has the number 16 on its sign. Lin Ruo humbly asked netizens about it and found out that it represents maximum work efficiency; one base can create 16 farmers for exploitation.

Then another conclusion inevitably follows: to ensure the economy, we need to create more bases to create more farmers to engage in production.

So this game eventually reaches a point where it tests your hand speed? That would be very beneficial for gamers.

It's fortunate that the farmers' production limit is two hundred, otherwise Lin Ruo felt her hands would be worn out from pressing so many buttons.

I didn't dare blink for a second, afraid I wouldn't understand.

[For the first time, I've been even more attentive than when watching online classes.]

Isn't it normal to be even more attentive than when watching online classes? After all, you fall asleep as soon as you start watching, and you won't learn anything from this.

[That's not necessarily true. I almost fell asleep during the game when they talked about economy and productivity.]

...

"Did you all understand? Now I'm going to start the real battle." Lin Ruo, who had been sitting for too long, went to the bathroom first before coming back to start the 1v1 mode to find victims, or rather, test subjects.

The character in this game was still the familiar human race. As soon as the game started, Lin Ruo quickly created a peasant and began to exploit the enemy at high intensity.

Lin Ruo clicked on the farmer to move him to the outer edge. In the lower right corner, there were two options: basic construction and advanced construction. Basic construction could create a command center, refinery, supply station, and engineering station.

Advanced construction remains unknown; currently, nothing can be manufactured.

Use farmers to build supply depots, increase your unit cap, and add eight population points.

Press the shortcut key BB, and after construction is complete, the production of troops will immediately begin in the barracks to protect the base.

After building the barracks, the base was naturally upgraded to an orbital control base, with various capabilities such as image scanning and orbital airdrop.

At the same time, farmers can be transferred to the orbital control base, which is obviously the best way to protect them in case of an enemy attack.

While pondering, Lin Ruo continuously built several more units to guard the outer perimeter. The opposing player was also using human units.

After a short while, you can unlock advanced buildings, the Ghost Academy, and the Heavy Factory. The Academy, which costs 150 mineral crystals and 50 high-energy gas and has a total construction time of 40 seconds, provides Ghosts with fusion warheads and upgrades for Ghosts in the Barracks.

Once the heavy factory is built, it can produce special forces that are different from ordinary soldiers, and are mainly mechanized.

Behind that is another bunker, which is also a space that can accommodate troops. Except for mechanical units, other units can enter inside.

The most reasonable aspect of the bunker is that it supports a seven-day no-questions-asked return policy. After manual recycling, it will return 75% of the crystal ore and high-energy gas consumed during construction, which greatly reduces the player's operating costs, and the discount is as large as you can imagine.

This way, the decision of whether to reclaim or reuse the bunker can be made based on the opponent's tactics.

Once the engineering station is built, many infantry units can be upgraded, and most buildings can be reinforced and developed, especially unlocking missile turrets and sensor missiles.

The former can attack air units and detect cloaked units and illusions, while the latter will display a red dot when an enemy unit approaches the sensor tower. Except for cloaked units, it is mainly used to defend against large-scale air drops and provide pre-battle early warning.

After completing everything, Lin Ruo's next step is to upgrade the base into a planetary fortress.

Compared to a typical command center, a planetary fortress, while unable to take off and move, possesses higher defensive capabilities and can use artillery to attack ground units. Therefore, planetary fortresses are often placed as defensive structures along major transportation routes.

In addition to its function as a command center, it can also be used to receive and collect resources.

It can carry farmers and protect them from being killed. After upgrading the technology at the engineering station, the carrying capacity increases from 5 points to 10 points. As a defensive building, it has an additional 2 points of armor enhancement.

After all that, Lin Ruo was either building or on his way to building, just like a tycoon constantly buying up properties and driving up the market price.

Many beginner netizens only know that Lin Ruo is very good at building, which naturally gives rise to the impression that he is very powerful, after all, he can build so many buildings in a logical and organized way.

Only those viewers who actually knew how to play Interstellar 2 turned pale and began a hysterical barrage of criticism and ridicule.

Because in their eyes, Lin Ruo was playing a complete mess. If Interstellar Travel were really a game where you could win by building whatever you had, then it wouldn't be a high-difficulty, brain-teasing game.

[Lin Gou is just messing around, doesn't he know what buildings should be built and what buildings shouldn't be built?]

[It feels like they're building for the sake of building, constructing whatever they can. If Lin Gou isn't just messing around, I'll eat my words. You'd think he's some kind of infrastructure maniac, building everything on the map, right?]

[This is a series that misleads newbies. Brothers, quit now and find a veteran's video to clear your eyes. Lin Gou is trying to lead you astray.]

[They're scattered all over the place; this is the first time I've seen Lin Gou play games like a complete novice. There hasn't been a previous time.]

[I don't think it's Lin's fault. It's amazing that he could build so much on his first time playing. Unlike me, who didn't even know the hotkeys back then. Look how fast he builds. He's born to be a construction worker. It's a shame he doesn't go to the construction site to watch.]

[It's not surprising, after all. Lin Gou has only learned the basics and hasn't studied military strategy or tactics. He doesn't understand true strategy and tactics, so it's normal that he doesn't know how to play. Also, the other side is probably a newbie as well. They haven't made a move for so long, so they're trying to peacefully develop and end the game in one fell swoop, right?]

...

Lin Ruo pursed his lips as he looked at the comments. Actually, he wasn't exactly messing around, although the viewers were right, they were indeed creating whatever they could.

To put it more vividly, Lin Ruo was familiarizing himself with the types of troops and various buildings. Since he wanted to be familiar with them, he had to try them all out to know.

With his memory, he could memorize everything after just one try. As for tactics and strategies, those were things he would learn later.

He's not doing well in his studies now. What's wrong with him? He's too lazy to study. It's tiring to use his brain late at night.

Even geniuses have to proceed step by step amidst so many complex units, but their speed will definitely be much faster than that of ordinary players.

After one trip, Lin Ruo had memorized most of the units and buildings.

For example, the most common Terran unit, the Marine, wields a machine gun that can fire in bursts, making it quite powerful against both ground and air units.

This reminded Lin Ruo of a scene from a certain anti-Japanese war drama. So machine guns really can shoot down airplanes! Art truly imitates life.

At the same time, Marines can also gain temporary attack speed and movement speed by injecting stimulants, which is somewhat like blatant cheating.

Then there's the Reaper, also known as the Grim Reaper. In battle, the Reaper uses a double-barreled Gauss pistol, which is fast and deadly.

For tough targets, Reapers are often equipped with dangerous and explosive deuterium-8 destruction devices, commonly known as D-8 bombs.

These devices can be thrown a very short distance and then explode after a short delay, just like the Bomberman's Q ability.

Additionally, the Reapers are equipped with light armor, making them unsuitable for head-on engagements. Their key to mobility lies in their personal jetpacks, which grant them exceptional agility, including the ability to climb cliffs and leap over rivers, crevices, and other obstacles.

The Reaper's combat tactics emphasize hit-and-run surprise attacks, making them better suited to dealing with enemy buildings and workers, allowing them to inflict maximum damage and retreat before the enemy can mount a counterattack.

There are more than ten types of human units like this in StarCraft 2, and it's difficult to master them without many games of practice.

But Lin Ruo only needs to use it once to memorize the buildings and units of that type.

But what awaits him are the Protoss and Zerg buildings and various basic units, which cannot be dealt with in just one or two games in one night.

The final result of this game was that Lin Ruo destroyed all of the enemy's buildings, including the remaining enemy bases and buildings in the corners or hidden places on the map, and destroyed them all without missing a single one, thus securing victory for his team.

This is the rule of StarCraft. Success is not simply about destroying the so-called main crystal. The greater requirement is to completely annihilate the opponent, leaving no trace of them. In other words, it means eliminating everything the opponent has.

Alternatively, an opponent typing "GG" and exiting the game can also be considered a way to win the game.

It felt like just going through the motions, with nothing particularly novel to experience. After finishing the game, Lin Ruo did some separate research on the Protoss buildings and units, which also required a lot of understanding.

However, this did not stop him from ending the broadcast at lightning speed as soon as the time came in the early morning, before he had even finished watching.

If you haven't finished watching it, you can watch it tomorrow. Going to bed early and getting up early will give you more energy for the live stream tomorrow morning.

(End of this chapter)