Missile turret

"I hate these things. They can sense me even when I'm cloaked. We should take these out."

- Sarah Kerrigan

The missile turret is a terran defense building designed to destroy air units and detect invisible and burrowed units.

Overview
Missile turrets are inexpensive structures that fire the Longbolt Missile. The system may be computer controlled to automatically engage aerial targets. A secondary manual control mode allows the system to fire at ground targets as well. Turrets are also equipped with a tracking scanner that allows powerful sensors capable of detecting cloaked vessels to center in on an identified target. Running on a set of power cells, a missile turret is able to operate independently for at least forty years.

The characteristic diffusion of information between the terran factions, frequently through clandestine or illicit methods, made the missile turret a standard defense system in the Koprulu Sector. Refinements to the system continued to be disseminated in a similar fashion.

By the Second Great War, the turret could be fitted with additional weapons. Hellstorm batteries fired a swarm of shorter ranged missiles.

StarCraft
The missile turret is a detector and has no ground attack. Unlike the photon cannon and spore colony that deal normal damage, missile turrets deal explosive damage making them less effective against small targets like mutalisks.

In the early game, missile turrets are a cheap and effective means of air defense. In the late game their lack of upgrades makes upgraded goliaths more attractive. Upgraded goliaths deal damage faster and, most importantly of all, have the mobility to concentrate against enemy air fleets.

Missile turrets are only a serious threat against a determined air attack if built in clusters. Otherwise their immobility means they can be destroyed piecemeal.

StarCraft: Ghost


In StarCraft: Ghost, Nova was able to manually operate missile turrets in singleplayer.

StarCraft II
The missile turret may strike protoss colossi.