Starcraft 2 Terran Structures List

Starcraft 2 Guide --> Starcraft 2 Terran Guide --> Starcraft 2 Terran Structures (you are here)

In this guide to Terran buildings in Starcraft 2, you will find a beginner's guide to Terran construction as well as an easy to read graphic depicting the Terran tech tree.

In the middle of the guide, you will find a detailed yet concise table providing all the key stats of each Terran structure, including cost, build time, prerequisites, the units that can be produced there, and the units that are unlocked by that particular buildings construction.

Finally, we will end with a section detailing the types of structures you should build and at what point in the game you typically want to build these structures.

Table of Contents

Use the following links to jump quickly to the section you are looking for:

How Terran Construction and Building Mechanics
Terran Structure Tech Tree
Terran Building Table: Cost, Stats, Prereqs
Which Terran Structures to Build and When to Build Them

How Terran Construction and Building Mechanics

Unlike the Protoss or Zerg, Terran players must use their workers to physically construct their buildings. While a building is being constructed, the SCV that is building that structure is unable to move or do anything else until the structure is finished. If you pull the SCV off of its construction duties, construction will be halted.

If the SCV is killed by the enemy before the construction of a structure is complete, the construction will stop, but the building will not be cancelled. If the incomplete building is not destroyed by the enemy, another SCV can step in and complete the construction.

Terran Add-ons

The Terran race is also the only one with "add-ons". Add-ons are small ancillary structures that can be built onto the side of Terran production facilities to add access to higher tech units, increase production capacity, or even perform research. There are two add-ons: the Tech Lab and the Reactor.

The Tech Lab gives players access to the more advanced units associated with a particular structure and provides opportunities for research. The available research depends on the production facility with which the Tech Lab is attached. A Tech Lab attached to the Barracks will offer research that upgrades infantry whereas a Tech Lab attached to the Factory will offer research that upgrades mech units.

A Tech Lab must be attached to each production facility if you want each facility to be able to produce high tech units. For example, the Siege Tank requires a Factory with a Tech Lab attached. If you have two Factories, one with a Tech Lab attached and one with no attachment, only the Factory with a Tech Lab attached can produce Siege Tanks. Having 1 Tech Lab does not unlock units across multiple structures.

The Reactor allows the production facility to produce units two at a time. Choosing a Reactor of course means that the production facility will not be able to produce any units that require a Tech Lab.

Lifting Off and Supply Depots

All Terran production facilities have the capacity to lift off. When a structure lifts off, it becomes an air unit with a slow movement speed that can float around the map, allowing it to move to a new location. This includes the Command Center, Orbital Command, Barracks, Factory, and Starport. Note that the Planetary Fortress (upgraded from the Command Center) cannot lift off.

The primary function of this is not actually to move the Terran base but instead allow production facilities to switch add-ons. Add-ons do not lift off with their attached Terran structures. Imagine you have a Factory with a Reactor attached as well as a Starport with a Tech Lab attached. Perhaps you are playing against a Zerg player and opening with Hellion or Hellbat harass into cloaked Banshees. Your plan is to harass the Zerg initially with these two attacks and then transition into a standard Bio-Mech build consisting primarily of Marines, Medivacs, and Siege Tanks.

Once the Zerg player thwarts your harass and gets a handful of Mutalisks out on the field, you likely are not going to want to continue using Banshees. You can then lift off your Starport and swap it with the Factory. This will allow you to produce Medivacs two at a time out of the Starport while the Factory can start adding Siege Tanks to protect your Marines from Banelings.

Note that Supply Depots can be lowered and raised. A raised Supply Depot acts like a regular building that blocks player ground units, whereas the lowered supply depot can be walked over top of by ground units. Terran players often wall their base, particularly against Zerg, as the Supply Depots can be raised to prevent unwanted Zerglings from entering the Terran base and subsequently lowered to allow friendly Terran units to go out on the offensive.

Walling off with Supply Depots and using the Lift Off function of buildings can be used together in order to help the Terran player secure their expansions. The Terran player can create a Supply Depot wall at the entrance to their base and start building a Command Center behind the safety of this wall. When the Command Center is completed, it can be lifted off and floated to the target expansion. This is a much safer method for expanding than trying to build a slow-constructing Command Center out in the open at an expansion.

Terran Structure Tech Tree

Here is an overview of the Terran tech tree. This chart provides a quick overview, while the tables found in the next section provide the specific details about each structure:

As discussed in the previous section, the Tech Lab and Reactor are add-ons that can be attached to the Barracks, Factory, and Starport. These add-ons are the same for all of these buildings and are interchangeable. Note that the Barracks requires a Supply Depot before it can be built. Terran proxy Barracks rushes were deemed a bit overpowered in early Wings of Liberty so the Supply Depot prerequisite was added to the Barracks.

Terran Structures Table

Below, you will find a Terran structures in Starcraft 2:

Terran Structures: Which and When to Build

While Terran players build very slowly, they are also much more flexible in switching between tech trees. Unlike the other races, which tend to focus on a particular tech line early in the game, Terran players will almost always opt to get all 3 of their primary production facilities early in the game.

There are two reasons Terran players always get their 3 primary production facilities relatively early in the game. First off, no matter your composition, Terran players will ultimately always want to add on a Starport, and to get a Starport, they need a Barracks and a Factory. Even if the Terran's army consists primarily of units that come out of the Barracks, Terran players get a Starport for Medivac support. If the army is primarily Factory units, Vikings are added as support.

The other reason Terran's grab all most of their tech early is that these are very cheap. Even when you factor in the Tech Lab or Reactor, building a Starport is a lot faster and cheaper than the Spire or Templar Archives. It is hardly any investment at all for Terran players to go right up to Starport tech, so they frequently do just that.

The biggest mistake newbie Terran players make is not producing enough production facilities to keep up with their income, especially in the late game. Once the Terran has multiple bases, they can easily stockpile 1000s of excess minerals due to MULEs. If the Terran then trades armies with the opponent, a large number of production facilities is required to re-macro and make use of those excess minerals. Marines or Hellbats make a great mineral dump in the late game.