Thor

"These Thors are smaller than the Odin but they handle better -- and they still hit hard."

- Rory Swann

The thor is a huge and powerful terran mechanical walker. Despite the thor being smaller than the Odin, the thor is still heavily armed and armored, and known to be one of the most heavy and powerful mechanical units in the Dominion Armed Forces.

Overview
"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, the thor is a class of siege-walker.

Thors only require a single crew member, and those in service during the Second Great War were more maneuverable than the Odin incarnation.

Weapons
The thor is equipped with different types of heavy weapons. It is armed with four "Thor's Hammer" particle accelerators (two are fired from each arm) and once possessed Javelin missile launchers for use against aerial opponents, though these were phased out during the Second Great War. On its back reside four 250mm Strike Cannons.

It can optionally be outfitted with 330mm barrage cannons and ATVX has developed an "immortality protocol," allowing a thor to repair itself in the field as long as its hull remains intact.

History
The thor stemmed from the Terran Dominion Thor Project, a program that resulted in the creation of the Odin. By 2502, the thor had been developed and 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. During the Second Great War, the Terran Dominion utilized the thor in defending areas such as New Folsom Prison.

The Odin, a particularly powerful prototype, was developed by 2503. A Protectorate shadowguard stole intelligence on the Odin, which was later taken to Valhalla.

The Raiders' chief engineer Rory Swann reverse-engineered a schematic of the thor from examining the Odin prototype. He refined a design that had millions of credits of R&D poured into it. His efforts focused on making it cheaper. The Raiders received their first thors during the attack on the UNN Studios.

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

Combat Roles
A thor's primary role is to act as the spearhead: a big tough unit that can push past an artillery barrage or fortified positions or push into an enemy base and lead s 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 like s, but the attack is not as effective against heavily armored air units such as s.

The thor is countered by range, mobility, and certain anti-armor units. It doesn't deal splash damage to ground units, therefore, it cannot effectively deal with massed units such as marines, s, and s.

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

Wings of Liberty
The thor can be unlocked after playing the mission "Media Blitz", and made available after Rory Swann scanned the schematics of the Odin and made it less expensive to produce.

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.

Heart of the Swarm Changes
At BlizzCon 2011, players were only be able to build one thor in Heart of the Swarm. It had stronger defenses, lost its anti-air attack and dealt more anti-ground damage. It had a powerful area-of-effect bombardment ability, but this required a setup time. The thor was moved into the late game, requiring a fusion core. The new thor cost 600 minerals.

By June 2012, the thor had reverted to its previous incarnation.

During development, Blizzard considered giving the thor an aerial spider mine ability to allow it to better defend mineral clusters. This was not implemented however.

As of December 2012, the Heart of the Swarm version of the thor lost its 250 mm cannons and became larger. Instead, it can switch between two modes, a process that takes 4 seconds:
 * High-Impact Payload: The regular mode.
 * Explosive Payload: It fires 250 mm Punisher Cannons against air units; they have 10 range and deals 24 damage.

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft II Thor Quotations

Known Pilots

 * Sandin Forst