Thor

"Hear the thunder!"

- A thor pilot

The thor is a huge, powerful terran mechanical unit.

Overview
BUTTHOLE "If there's one thing we've learned over the years, it's that sometimes you just need someone who likes to smash things."

- Dominion recruitment file.

Named after the Norse god of thunder, a thor is armed with a pair of "Thor's Hammer" particle accelerators (fired from the arms) and missile launchers (for use against aerial opponents). It only requires one crew member.

History
The Thor project was the most ASS significant Terran Dominion military development since the Brood War. It was developed at the Simonson munitions factory on Korhal under a complete security lockdown; the workers were effectively all under arrest to prevent any leak of information. As the project came closer to fruition, Umojan Protectorate spies observed an increasing flow of high-ranking Dominion officers coming and going from the plant. Their hacking of cargo manifests showed deliveries of battlecruiser-weight neosteel armor and their sensors showed regular seismic shocks. Nonetheless, their information was extremely limited. Umojan agent Ulli Trey snuck into the facility and, using an array of stealthy drones, finally acquired the information the Protectorate had sought; the secrets of the Thor Project were bared; a vehicle armed as heavily as a battlecruiser. The Protectorate feared that no counter to this weapon would be discovered.

The incident was covered up by the Umojans; they planted information laying the blame at the feet of the Koprulu Liberation Front.

Thors are also tested at Valhalla. The Odin prototype was taken there.

By 2502 the thor had become public enough that the Dominion's best thor operator, Sandin Forst, became famous. Forst took part in an anti-zerg operation on Mar Sara that year, where he vanished.

The Dominion continued to go to great lengths to keep the thor secret.

Game Unit
The thor can be transported by the medivac dropship. One thor fills up the transport's entire capacity, transforming into a cube-like shape and hanging from underneath.

Combat Roles
The thor's primary roles are to act as the "tip of the spear", a big tough unit that can push past an artillery barrage or fortified positions or push into an enemy base and lead marines into battle.

Its other primary role is to defend allied units from air attacks with its powerful anti-air weaponry. It works well against light air units, but the attack is not as effective against heavily armored air units such as battlecruisers.

The thor is countered by range, mobility, and certain anti-armor units. It doesn't deal enough splash damage to effectively deal with massed units such as marines, zerglings and zealots.

A popular strategy with the unit is the "thor harass" (sometimes called "thorship"), similar to the reaver harass of StarCraft 1. It involves pairing the thor with a medivac dropship, combining the thor's power and mobility of the latter.

Thor vs Siege Tanks
Some features that existed on the thor in previous builds led to a concern that its role was overlapping with that of the siege tank. Unlike the siege tank, the thor is an assault unit rather than a siege unit. Its ground attack has much less range than a siege tank's 120 mm cannon, so it is exposed to enemy fire while attacking.

Another difference from the siege tank is that the thor can also function as a ground to air attacker.

Development
In early builds, the thor could be constructed by SCVs in the field, though is now built from the factory. The Thor "structure" used to cost 300 minerals/ 300 gas/ 6 supply/ 100 seconds, hotkey T.

The thor had a slow turning speed in the BlizzCon 2007 build, enabling units such as the Cobra to destroy it easily with micromanagement. It now turns fairly quickly, and the turning speed is no longer a balancing factor.

The thor was scaled down in size as it was vulnerable to micro-ing from smaller units that could be built in only a fraction of the time and resources required to build a thor. In StarCraft II beta patch 12, the thor was shrunk from a 1.375 base to a 0.8125 base size.

As of March 2008 the thor has been shrunk from its original size and can move faster in order to suit its anti-air role better. However, its anti-ground attack was weakened.

Previously the thor could not be transported.

Mechanical Rebirth
The thor lost this ability as of May 2009. Blizzard's internal playtesting showed the ability to be impractical.

250mm Cannons (Previous Version)
Artillery Strike was a powerful long-ranged area-of-effect attack. To use the Artillery Strike, the thor had to expend energy, then it "stabilized" itself as the cannons on its back were lowered. The four 250mm bombardment cannons alternated raining damage upon the area. This ability needed to be researched. The ability was later removed as it conflicted the with the 's splash damage attacks.

Wings of Liberty
In StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty's single-player campaign, the Hercules dropship can be used to carry three thors at once.

The Thor Mission
The "Thor Mission" will feature the thor in a "cool" way, and Tychus Findlay will also feature in it.

The hero thor may have a different death animation. It will probably take place at Valhalla.

Known Pilots

 * Sandin Forst

Trivia

 * Walter Simonson is a comic book writer and artist who famously worked on the Marvel Comics title The Mighty Thor. It appears the Simonson Munitions Factory was named after him. Simonson is also the author of the World of Warcraft comic series.
 * The unit portrait resembles Chris Metzen, Blizzard's vice president of creative direction, who has used the alias "Thundergod", and "Lemmy" Kilmister.
 * The unit voice has a thick, stereotypical Austrian accent and quotes many lines from Arnold Schwarzenegger films. He also wears a Thor's hammer pendant around the neck.
 * A new version of thor, named the "Super Thor", will appear instead of the standard version in the Collector's Edition of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. It is identical in terms of gameplay. The Collector's Edition also offers a mini-thor pet for World of Warcraft.