Swann (GOLIATH ONLINE)

Overview
Rory Swann is a Terran Commander with a focus on mechanical units.  Not just a preference either - he cannot produce barracks at all!  Fortunately, accommodations have been made to account for this.  He's also got multiple turrets that can handle base defense fairly well.  He's better suited for defensive style of missions, but that doesn't mean he just builds turrets all day and play turret defense.

Units
Hellbat: his basic unit.  Also a unit you don't have to ever build technically, strange enough as that sounds.  I've personally never built them, but I've had some allies build a few to start for some defense.  They can transform to hellions too, but some odd reason you cannot train hellions themselves.

Siege Tank: functions as you would expect from multiplayer.  They also gain an upgrade that allows you to rebuild them after death at the location they died for a gas cost.

Goliath: all-purpose ground unit.  Has excellent anti-air capabilities, and decent ground attack as well.  Also has some upgrades to make them almost overpowered, making other units almost unnecessary.

Thor: slow, hulking mech unit.  Powerful ground attack, great anti-light anti-air attack as well.  I never use them though due to how slow and expensive they are.

Cyclone: the new LotV mech unit that can lock on to a target and deal serious damage while on the move.  It's pretty good in the train mission, and has some applications, but are a bit more expensive than goliaths.  I don't use them, but they aren't conceptually bad.

Wraith: instead of Vikings he gets these air superiority fighters.  They get to cloak, and can also be upgraded with better air-to-ground.  However you won't be making these for their ground attack anyway, and I think goliaths are more easily accessible for anti-air.

Science Vessel: your mobile detector and caster in one.  Very useful for healing, which can be upgraded to be casted for free too.  Also can get defensive matrix to protect high value units.

Hercules: a huge dropship from the WoL campaign.  Can carry a lot of units, and is perfect for transporting siege tanks.  A nice perk, but not really necessary.

Perdition Turret: short range AoE flame thrower turret.  Great against zerglings and zealots in the early game.  I usually make 2 of these at a choke point to start and salvage them later.

Devastation Turret: single target long range ground-to-ground turret.  Better against Protoss, and somewhat against Terran early waves.  I make 1 at a choke point and salvage later.  I sometimes almost make 1 near my expansion to clear out rocks.

Missile Turret: I would only make these if I need detection at certain areas against a Terran enemy.  Defending against air units usually is not a thing in co-op.

Initial Traits and Abilities
- Drakken Laser Drill: A giant turret you get for free, being able to attack a single target anywhere on the map where you have vision.  Can be upgraded as you level up for additional abilities in the form of linear AoE that is also map length, or a nuke-like attack to quickly decimate an enemy position.

Level Upgrades
1) Vehicle Specialist: your factories and starports are built 20% faster, and there is no gas cost for factories. In case you didn't realize, Swann is a mech Terran player.  He can't even make barracks at all.

2) Combat Drop (240 second cooldown): Call down 4 A.R.E.S. units anywhere you have vision, lasting 60 seconds.  They can be used to defend early on the moment they are available, and can clear rocks at expansions too.  They also stun any enemy they land on when you call them, so aim properly.  A power spike in essence since it's an ability to speed up whatever needs to be done, whether it is defending or expanding.

3) Betty and the Gang: improves all of your turrets in some manner.  Halves the costs of perdition turrets, gives +3 range to devastation turrets, and some AoE to missile turrets.  All quite nice in a single package.

4) Pulse Cannon: initially, you can upgrade your laser drill to increase its DPS and gain the concentrated beam ability.  This lets you upgrade it again to buff its DPS once more and gain the ability to nuke a large area.  Just another perk for your pew pew laser.  Not a huge buff, but nice to have another wave clearing ability.

5) Vespene Harvester: allows you to spend 100 minerals to place a drone on a friendly gas extracting building, giving you and your ally an additional 2 vespene every 6(?) seconds.  An immense power spike, as with this ability, you swap from being gas starved to mineral starved.  The ability is used by your CC with no cooldown, so you should have 1 for each gas harvesting structure (8 total assuming 2 bases each from you and your ally).

6) Thor: allows you to build Thor.  I've seen these in play multiple times, but they are still just as slow and clunky as ever.  I'd personally go with goliaths for anti-air and tanks for anti-ground; there are specific upgrades for those units that make them a lot less unwieldy to use.

7) Factory Cache Upgrade: unlocks additional unit-specific upgrades for goliaths, cyclones, and tanks that are researchable from a tech lag.  A power spike; the goliath one in particular makes them all-around useful in every situation, and the siege tank one buffs its primary damage target by a lot.

8) Improved SCVs: allows you to use multiple SCVs to build structures faster (like how Humans in Warcraft 3 could do so, but to no additional cost to you), and repairing uses no resources.  I don't play Swann that much, but I can see some builds taking serious advantage of this to get expansions up very quickly.  An upgrade that makes life just a bit easier.

9) Armory Cache Upgrade: unlocks upgrades to increase the range of all of your vehicles by 1, and self-repairing.  The former can allow Goliaths to outrange static defenses if you also have their unit-specific range upgrade too I believe, as well as the ability to snipe the Pirate ship in the Rifts to Korhal mission with no resistance (it's "aggro" range is less than the goliath's anti-air range fully upgraded!)

10) Tech Reactors: instead of deciding to make reactors or tech labs, you can now build these from the WoL campaign.  At 75 minerals and 75 gas they are a bit more expensive than the obsolete add-ons, but well worth the ability to dual-train any mech unit.  I'd say it's enough to be considered a power spike.

11) Engineering Bay Cache Upgrade: allows you to research more structure upgrades from the engineering bay, like the auto-repair or shriek turrets for bunkers.  Just gravy upgrades really; I rarely even make an Ebay.

12) Immortality Protocol: allows you to "rebuild" destroyed tanks and thors on the battlefield for a gas cost.  The rebuild time is pretty fast too.  Feels more like a convenience, but you do save on minerals, and works well with your vespene drones as a gas dump.

13) Starport Cache Upgrade: allows reserachable upgrades for your wraiths and sci vessels.  Double air-to-ground damage for wraiths isn't anything really noteworthy as it's naturally weak, and the sci vessel can gain the defensive matrix ability.  It's ok, but not necessary; the free-healing upgrade doesn't require this level unlock and is much more useful in my opinion.

14) Six for the Price of Four: just like it says, your combat drop will have 6 A.R.E.S. instead of 4, making it 50% more powerful.  Not much to say really.

15) Mechanical Know-How: increases the life of all of your mech/starport units by 20%.  A power spike for sure.  Just a straight buff, not much to it.

Pointers
- You are given the ability to make different turrets for a reason.  Usually you can handle the defense of the initial waves with them, and salvage them later so you can build an army, unless you're doing the Temple mission and you need them for the whole duration.  You can also build 1 devastation turret to clear out rocks at expansions and salvage it later

- You can build your expansion CC early and just float it to its proper location once you clear the rocks.

- Goliaths will be your main general purpose unit.  They can handle any threat coming their way, and become way better once you get their upgrades.  I wouldn't even bother with wraiths for anti-air, as they are more expensive to make than goliaths and come from starports, which do cost gas to build.

- Tanks are only really good on defensive missions or the train mission.  They also help a little bit in the Lock and Load mission when you need to leave some troops behind to defend your locations.  You can use the Hercules dropship to show off if you want.

-  A few science vessels are perfect for healing support and detection.  Anywhere from 6-10 should be enough.  They cost 200 gas per sci vessel though, so keep an eye on your gas count.

- My standard build is 14 depot 15 factory 15 gas, then build my 2 perdition turrets and 1 devastation turret at the choke point when minerals allow.  I don't make hellbats in general, and only being making goliaths after starting their upgrades.  At around the first wave of enemies is when I consider making an armory to upgrade the laser drill (while it is upgrading it still functions as normal).  If you have an ally that can cover defenses even better (Karax for example), you may be able to skip on the choke point turrets and expand even quicker.

- Once you get access to tech reactors, you should not need more than 3 factories and 1 starport.  Earlier though, you could go with 4 factories.  Goliaths can be reactored out, but you need one factory with a tech lab to get their upgrades.