Another look at the Mothership, Thor, Queen

Each of these units were introduced to make each race more distinctive. We all have a general idea of what Blizzard hopes to do with these units. So far the effort hasn't been satisfactory to me and I doubt Blizzard is satisfied either, considering how many revisions the these units get.


Changes like the following would put each unit in the right direction.


Mothership

Only one ship per Protoss player.

Special abilities
Building Hallucination - Creates a fake building that lasts longer than the unit hallucinations.

Castable Cloak - Can make units and buildings cloaked. Movement creates a chance where the unit or building can be spotted briefly.

Phase shift - By manipulating atomic boundaries; the mothership can influence matter to go through each other.* When a unit/building stops being under the effects of the field they lose 50% of their health.

*This means several things for units and buildings.
They can stack on top of each other while the shift occurs.
They can become immune to attacks and spells fired at them after entering the phase shift.
They can bypass geographic barriers like walls and maybe elevation barriers like heights and water.

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Queen

Only one queen per (evolved)Hatchery.
If the Hatchery that spawned the queen gets upgraded the queen also gets an upgrade of some sort.

Special abilities
Spawn Creep tumor - Same as known ability

Mutant Larva - For 200 energy, can spawn 1 mutant larva from a(n) (evolved)hatchery.^ The larva can morph into any unit a larva normally can morph into without the tech requirements.

^A queen can make 3 of these larva at the same hatchery and these 3 don't count against the normal larva spawned by hatcheries.

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Leviathon Class Starbase

THor is discarded.
Starbase is a building.
Only one per Terran.

Special abilities.

When this building comes into play all terran buildings except supply depots and refinaries can fly with a speed increase mildly above the old speed.

Units can be built while terran buildings are in flight but ground units can't get out until the buildings land or get picked up by dropships. Terran buildings can hold up to 8 small units.

SCVs can be upgraded to use mining barges. Ships that can fly and carry a lot of resources.

It comes with an upkeep cost based on buildings performing actions they normally couldn't do without the starbase present.

So a Planetary Fortresses flying has an upkeep.
Training SCVs while flying increases the upkeep.

Even the SCVs using their mining barges has an upkeep.


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I also have an idea for a unit that makes up for the loss of having a factory unit that could fight against air unit. But I want the first post just to focus on the special units.


With these changes Terran in the late game could have mobile bases.

Zerg from the start have a way using more complex opening strategies.

The Protoss now have the ability to throw off the perception of where and when they'll be at a certain location.

 

the purpose of the Thor, Mothershop, Queen were not originally to be super units, or hero units.

Starcraft 2 is to have no super units, mothership is really the only one that would make sense to be 1 per player because the protoss have the aspect of "few high powered units"

 

Personaly i dont like the Building Hallucination, its no use. The only thing that would come in use are Cannons and i would rather a unit be copied then a building. Buildings arn' t intimidating, units are. That ability is useless and wont be used.

Whats the point of Phase shift? Plz explain why this would be Game breaking for protoss in anyway? I'm guessing this would make units and buildings transparent so other units could walk thought them? are the units still attackable? Does the ability have a cast range or is it under the Mother ship? Id rather stop non melee attacks with time bomb then use your ability. doesnt the high templar have an ability like this aswell. We dont need the mother ship doing this.

and on a last note MANY PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE LIMITED UNITS. if we wanted to play a game with heros we would play WC3. Sadly to say blizzard is having a hard time getting this right and its a turn in the WRONG direction. We dont want to babysit a single tird unit. I just dont want to be bothered with constantly pressing Hotkey 1 to make sure the damn thing didnt get raped by 10 vikings or 10 angry void rays.... Lets not also forget hero units will coast a SH*T tun of money. money i would rather not be targeted down with almost no form of defence as you have made your version WITH OUT time bomb... id rather a mass buildable unit be made for less money. Why cant the Mother ship be a large Arbiter replacement?

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ok i agree a little more with the queen, but i think it should be 1 per Hatchery. its not like someones gonna built 200 hatcherys.

Your Mutant larva coast TOO much energy. The other abilities wont be able to be used if that ability takes up all the energy. Just set it to 100 or below and it will be fine.

IDK where blizzard has creep tumors at but i dont think a unit besides a drone should be in chage of this. Unless drones and queens can do it i wouldnt put your base expansion space on a weak unit that can be targeted down by ranged units like murauders and stalkers. I think drone should build them until you get to a queen where any of the 2 can do it.

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I dont get it? are you saying the thor should be scrapped all together? Sounds like a bad idea to me. The current thor turns into a pile of rubble that drops its targets after it dies. If you have them hot keyed rebuild them during combat and they'll be right back up in a short time tanking like they should be. There mass AA so insted of spamming 10 missile turrets just put 2 thors there and forget about it. you'll get the same results if the enemy thinks mass air is gonna walk on thors sitting on a bunch of SCVS

The STAR BASE. this unit was scrapped for a good reason. As it stand you'll need the addon to build any units and a moving star base doesnt have an addon.... Blizzard also complained before the star base was being a messy critter leaving addons everywhere. thats not cool... As for the other effects i just dont seem them being all that useful in game play vs REAL players. The upkeep just scares the hell out of me and i'm sure it would other players. God forbid you play vs master harrassers and cant keep up the money to maintain all this. you'll be in so much trouble.

But the idea of all building holding units is an idea in the right direction I think the building should be able to hold units that are made under its selection like shuttles. A factory can hold 4 hellions or 2 tanks. and u can mix and match. it would be cool to fly a command center 2 barracks and a factory with vikings in an enemys base and just Invade it while transforming the command center into a PF. it would be halarious.

i dont wanna go into the idea or a mining barge. its just plane out unwanted. Theres no point of a mining barge when u can just play the command center there and have it mind.

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1. Terrans are moble enough as it is and i would see terrans being less worried about that stuff late game. moving a base around early game is what will get you ahead for a victory like in the battle report.

2. zerg past a spawn pool have so much stuff its not even funny. they get hydralisk or roaches and even banelings. and like i said they wont be doing much with a mutant larva Coasting 200 Energy. 1 EXTRA unit every 200+ seconds... OOOOO THAT sounds SCARY!!!

3. You know even in SC1 protoss were more focused on unit power then base Force. Why in late game would they all of sudden Give to rat balls about there base?? Even in late game with a Mother ship WAY AT THE END TIER why would a base matter. I can tell you this much if you make it to a mother ship without the enemy finding you or even bothering to look for you then you BETTER WIN. cause protoss buildings dont move so once there found if you go back and there missing and the match isnt FFA i would know the Wool was badly trying to be pulled over my head and any smart gamer would catch this a well.

 

Lol, i post in a spanish forum a queen idea with the same mechanic in that sentence.
If i have time i will translate and post it.

I have the tecnology tree of that idea + others.. lets see if is how do u imagine.

http://www.dark-star.com.ar/Fotos/ZergTreeAL.jpg

Mutacion automatica = auto mutation.

PD: in your idea, 200 energy by larve it seem a lot.

 

There are a lot of things that make phase shift interesting.

The first is that any unit or building under the effects means they can attack anything outside of the area of effect while having nothing to worry about dying.

The big drawback is that the moment they leave the field or the field expries they lose half their HP. Since shield points are different from health points protoss aren't as heavily affected as the other races.


Phase shift also allows protoss to bypass ramps and other chokepoints because they can walk through up walls buildings if the Mothership parks itself over a geographic barrier.


Building hallucinations plays into the theme I'm suggesting of making the mothership a deception tool.

When an opponent scouts and sees an army or expansion at one location, if they don't have detectors, they can be tricked into believing what they see while the units and buildings cloaked by the mothership are elsewhere.

I'm suggesting making the mothership all about information warfare.

Phase shift plays into this idea further as the ground units can move themselves in ways the enemy may not perceive correctly.


--------------------------------


The mutant larva ability is exactly like the original version sans the energy cost. Blizzard nerfed it; possibly because late tech units coming out in early game is overpowered. *shrugs*

Two ultralisks, mutalisks or infestors can be really useful considering their strengths vs the cost of spending the gas and minerals on early or mid tech.

As time goes on more hatcheries will be built.
---------------------------------

Don't look at the name and just look at the descriptions. You are making assumptions on the starbase that don't exist in the description.


Yes I'm suggesting removing the Thor entirely.


The mining barge is to take into account that all forms of command centers can fly.

Now you get a choice of keeping the Center close or upgrade the SCVs into barges so they can reach the bases while they are on the move for whatever reason.

 

I play Terran so I'll address that first; I was particularly unhappy about your ideas here. First off, the thor won't be scrapped - it's too important to balance atm since we're so close to beta. Removing it would be crippling to the terran army. Anyway, I particularly like thor; it'd be a damn shame to see it go. The star base sounds useless; maybe good for economy but doesn't help with army strength, which is what the "high" units (thor,queen,mothership) are for. Upkeep in SC makes me want to gag.

Protoss: phase shift/building hallucination sounds kinda pointless. Would the units produced be hallucinations as well? Why even cast it? And I don't like the idea of stacked buildings - sounds messy and unorganized, visually. I'm not sure how Blizzard has in now, but imo cloak shouldn't be a cast. It's up to the terrans to waste energy scanning since they have the stronger army.

Zerg: I like the idea of one queen per hatchery, but you'd have to make spine colonies more expensive, otherwise general Zerg base defense would be way too strong. The spawning units without tech sounds... complicated and overall either unbalanced or pointless. If you get your queen too early in the game, you could just spawn one or a few ultralisks and have no chance of losing. If you get the queen too late, you'll already have teched anyway.

There are better (and more balanced/sensical) ways to make shields for your units. The protoss, for example, have a casting unit that makes temporary walls. Can you imagine how silly a fake building would look in battle, too? On the frontline, seeing a line of gateways dealing damage? Not to mention how unbalanced that is. "Building hallucination", mechanics-wise, is essentially a combination of cloak and a temporarily impenitrable shield. The mothership already cloaks, and there's no need for an impenitrable shield.

I see your compensation, but it's still an illogical mechanic. Why? What happens? Regardless of how you justify it, it looks and sounds silly.

This is a 3d game with real physical properties, not an Escher painting.

Why? Leave deception up to the player; use the units for general offense and defense.

I don't see the significance.

How would anybody percieve them? Sounds very messy. And overall, there's no need to make it so complicated. In really intense games, protoss players won't have time to play mind games.

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Depending on your timing, it's either too strong or useless. There is no sweet point for this ability. Starcraft is about gaining advantages within the same general gameplay guidelines as your enemy; your idea is like a shortcut. It doesn't work because it doesn' t follow the rules. If blizzard originally had it in, there's a good reason they threw it out.

And tech will be done.
---------------------------------

For the love of god, why?

SCV=person. You're ignoring logic again.

 

Phase shift-

From a gameplay perspective I've explained why it exists. That is to create a means where Protoss can move around their ground units while deceiving their opponent of where and what his army looks like.

That's its primary function.

Its additional usage as a situational shield for your units and buildings is bonus.
It also has the bonus of being an offensive weapon. Since it is an aura effect around the mothership the mothership could sweep across enemy units and buildings like a Sci Vessel and cut their HP in half.

From a lore perspective phase shift is no more radical than Com sat, psi storm, nydus worms, etc.

The phase shift is an event that occurs where the Mothership alters objects at an atomic level. The forces that prevent one mass from moving through another are temporarily manipulated by the mothership.


Hallucinations

The building hallucinations would act exactly like the unit hallucination. It's just a fake copy on the battlefield. It's not going to be a photon cannon camouflaged to look like a gateway.
Hallucinations take double damage. Understandable if you weren't aware of this since hallucinations aren't used competitively.

Starbase

I see atleast two reasons why a Starbase would be useful.

A Starbase gives Terrans more flexibility in territorial management.

If a game drags on long enough you and your opponent will have a main with no resources except a depleted geyser and possibly a dead expansion as well.

If one person can and does build a starbase, they can move their production buildings right next to their most valuable resource expansion. That player gains a considerable advantage in offensive and defensive options. To top it all off these buildings remain active training new units while en route to reinforcing the new main base.


A starbase would allow Terrans to perform guerrilla warfare because they can constantly keep their army and infrastructure on the move. It won't be easy for any race to stop dropships with an average of 1700 HP and building armor.
A Starbase could give Terran enough of an edge to perform reversals on severe losses of units and materials that would've made non Starbase users say GG.

None of these statements are logical. You failed to take into account what I've written already or what Blizzard has done in the past.

For example Queens already exist without anything to cap how many can built on the battlefield, spinecrawlers were made stronger by Blizzard after doing that by giving them the ability to move around.

Another is the SCV. Who cares if there is a person inside? An upgrade is just an upgrade. Besides SCV stands for Space Construction Vehicle (it's in the manual)

I'll let you think again about your missteps with the rest.

 

You could say that about any of the new units. I think this part of the argument is intellectually bankrupt. This should have been split into three different threads, one for each unit.

How can a building without physical substance block something? I see no reason why you wouldn't hallucinate a nexus and put its 1500 hp-equivalent hulk anywhere you want on the map, such as at a choke point. Repeatedly. How do you hallucinate a building at long range from thh building being copied? And if you can't do this, won't this be useless? Unless you can copy enemy buildings and somehow fool the enemy this way, which isn't in the least bit realistic...

Flavor problem only, but I hate cloaking buildings. Unlike units, they don't move. You shoot a building and it vanishes, you should still be able to shoot it.

There's already a phase shift ability.

The ability to remove 50% of a unit/building's health is flagrantly overpowered. It's like nuke without the downsides of having a fragile 45-100 hp unit (depending on edition) guiding it.

Phasing shouldn't make units immune. At the very least a phase unit shouldn't be allowed to attack.

What happens if a unit is passing through a barrier, like a big gap in a space platform, when the power fizzles out due to duration?

This is popular. It also sounds reasonably decent, if only from a lore perspective.

I think this needs definition, and what if the hatchery/lair/hive gets destroyed?

More of a criticism of the current queen than this one, but seeing how queens move so slowly off the creep, I think something needs to change. Creating creep is very important when it comes to creating expansions.

Poorly balanced. The energy cost is too high, yet the mutant larva can turn into an ultralisk at lair level? Or an infestor? What does this change accomplish? What didn't you like about the old mutant larva ability?

This has nothing to do with the thor whatsoever. So I will ignore anything about thors and just discuss the starbase.

This needs a lore explanation. I also think StarCraft II buildings currently fly too fast. Do you disagree? Why should they travel faster?

Okay so far. Still not seeing how one building can accomplish all these things.

Please explain. Do they actually get on the barges?

What is this upkeep cost? Resources? Supply?

 

I think that changing the mothership to have a few different abilities is stupid...they should just stick with Time-Bomb, Cloak and Plantet Cracker/Black Hole! I didnt know there were different queens for different stages of the hatchery but ty for the heads up! I'm keeping the ZergTechTree, it looks quite good. I think I have Terran and Protoss TechTree's at home somewhere, but they were from last year or before! The Starbase sounds good but why isnt the Thor in Sc2 now?? It was a great bombardment/siege unit and would have been a big part in destroying enemy fortifacations!

 

Gandromidar, this isnt' real, just changes Mutantmagnet would like to see.

The mothership currently has diverse and cool abilities like you wanted, instead of just variations on a theme.

There used to be different levels of queens but that was removed since October.

There is a thor still.

 

Hallucination

Before you criticize building hallucinations one should look back at hallucinations since SC 1 because they are the exact same thing except one makes fakes units and the other fake buildings.

Phase Shift

Only one mothership exists and it isn't fast. Phase shift may need to be looked at but the unit that has that ability has glaring issues ghosts don't have.

In the case of units and buildings that are still stacked after the phase shift is over, they die. The same thing happens if they fail to get through the walls or most other impassible terrain.


Queen
Hatchery just dictates how many Queens can be built. A hatchery destroyed is the same as Overlords dying, you have oversupply.

If a hatchery gets upgraded to a Lair the Queen associated to that hatchery gets upgrades. You don't lose upgrades after Ebays get destroyed. Same rule will apply here.

Mutant Larva

DOn't forget this larva is exactly like a version Blizzard had without the energy costs or any other limitations like a cooldown.

I already answered what mutant larva would do.

It opens up zerg opening strategies even more as they consider late tech strengths vs the cost of spending the gas and minerals on early or mid tech.


Starbase Lore

The Leviathon class is a new type of starbase for expeditions to other solar systems. With the growing threat of alien species. Terrans desired a way of more safely traveling the stars to build new colonies. The Leviathon class Starbase acts as hub providing affiliated structures with the additional power needed to allow them to operate normally while in flight. It also acts as an advanced communications and control center helping terran colonies perform complext tasks while on the move.


Starbase Abilities

Has building flight speed changed since SC/BW because I've never had the chance to watch a VOD where some tried using the buildings as flying spotters or anything else?


Mining Barge
It's an upgrade that puts the SCV into a ship they build with with the help of the Starbase.

 

Before I criticized building hallucinations I put a little thought into it.

No matter where on the battlefield the high templar goes, there will be units it can copy, most likely allied units that follow it around.

Except for some terran buildings (and a couple of zerg buildings) there aren't mobile protoss buildings in the game. You'll have to hallucinate buildings in the middle of a base, which'll just clutter stuff up.

"Mutant Larva

DOn't forget this larva is exactly like a version Blizzard had without the energy costs or any other limitations like a cooldown."

Your version costs 200 energy, that is an energy cost.

Also, it's far weaker, right at the beginning (since you can only make one). I haven't read anything saying you can automatically turn a mutant larva into, say, an ultralisk, you need to climb the tech tree first. It's a weird mix of under- and over- powered.

The purpose of mutant larvae was:

1) To create a macro style option. Players who like this style might enjoy "juggling" producing extra larvae and then dealing with them. A good macro player will always keep track of the number of larvae they have, whereas poorer macro players (like myself) will let larvae build up to their maximum number and waste a bunch of time before mutating them. This gives macro players an opportunity to demonstrate their skills in a somewhat more micro-oriented game.

In short, more larvae! Three more, not just one.

2) To use this technique, you must go to your base; you can't use it remotely. It gives people who spend time and energy doing this a significant time discount. For people who love the fast pace of switching screens, this is ideal.

3) To give them something that isn't busywork. They have to think about what to mutate the units into. This is a lot more enjoyable (IMO) than just having to go to your base and order worker units to mine something, etc.

4) People like me who aren't fond of macro style aren't being forced to use this technique. The previous method -- which can be used remotely with MBS -- is a perfectly valid option for people who like micro style and have my approximate skill level.

I'm at a loss as to why you want this change though. This doesn't accomplish anything. It really seemed like change for change's sake. This is why I was asking why you wanted this change.

"Starbase Lore

The Leviathon class is a new type of starbase for expeditions to other solar systems. With the growing threat of alien species. Terrans desired a way of more safely traveling the stars to build new colonies. The Leviathon class Starbase acts as hub providing affiliated structures with the additional power needed to allow them to operate normally while in flight. It also acts as an advanced communications and control center helping terran colonies perform complext tasks while on the move."

Okay, I can buy this.

"Has building flight speed changed since SC/BW because I've never had the chance to watch a VOD where some tried using the buildings as flying spotters or anything else?"

Hell yes they did. Command centers fly amazingly fast! Watch the very first StarCraft II video (the first protsos gameplay video from WWI 2007). A warp ray attacks a barracks, which lifts off in order to escape ... and it does so fast. Same thing at the beginning of the terran gameplay video from BlizzCon 2007.

"Mining Barge
It's an upgrade that puts the SCV into a ship they build with with the help of the Starbase."

I still don't get it. Why do this and how does it work? Do SCVs collect resources, put them on a barge and send that to the starbase? Do the SCVs go on the barge, or just the resources? (If the SCVs actually go on the barge, and can only carry 5-8 minerals, it'll be very slow.) Is this just to give SCVs a way to deliver resources to a flying building?

 

didnt they change the mutant larva to just build units faster and open up another larva spot.

and the as for the thor being removed thats not fair. The unit as it currently stand is useful. Dont let all the fourms fool you about the thor looking useless or seeming out of place.... Its not. This unit is like 3 or 4 golithes rolled into one. And u can rebuild it. Thats all it is.

as for your choice on your version of the mother ship. Its not fooling anyone. The mother ships tier IS 2 FREAKING HIGH!!!!!!! once u understand this you can figer out ALL OF YOUR BASE will already be explored by the eneemy. The mother ship is a Carrier Tier or higher if i'm not mistaken. Theres nothing you can hide that late in the game. Espically a protoss base. A base that has ZERO mobility and just doesnt fit the MADE U LOOK them. The funny part. is that getting a detector is so easy its not even funny onto of the fact the mother ship will still be visable.the building Hallucination just has to be thrown out.

and as for the star base. You see the problem with everything flying is that u could move the CC closer to the money and the SCV's would have a shorter distance destroying the balance of the game. This Will Never Happen.

 

The recent hallucinations arguments make no sense. Reword it please.

*scratches head* Of course mutant larva costs 200 energy in my version. That's what makes my version different from Blizzard's earliest version which had no energy cost or cooldown.

Besides you neglected to take note that my version also involves larva management since I'm suggesting the queen larva count be separate from the hatchery's normal larva count.

I saw that video before and I just reviewed it. Buildings do not fly faster.

Yep. SCVs in barges act normally as SCVs on the ground in terms of gathering.

Yep.

It's questionable how useful it is because there are so many unknown details.

I honestly didn't account for that intentionally; but coincidentally this isn't a problem because I did suggest that using mining barges generates an upkeep cost.


Thor
My reasons for the Thor to be removed are numerous.

1. It overlaps with the Battlecruiser and everything it does the Battlecruiser does immeasurably better.
Why build thors when in two minutes you could tech up to Battlecruisers which are vastly more powerful? Timing matters but the redundancy with the Thor being inferior to the Battlecruiser in every way except as a convenient wall to block chokes is bad.

2. It doesn't fit the Terran army.

How many times has Blizzard redesigned this beast? Too many times. The Queen also had numerous rewrites but every single revision opened up new possibilities for Zerg gameplay. The Thor only did that once when they were constructable directly by SCVs..

3. To make the Thor useful they turned it into a Goliath Clone because it previously overlapped with the siegetank.

Blizzard specifically said they didn't want to reintroduce the Goliath into the game; because it was too effective at its anti air job and wanted to try something different. Now we have a meatier Goliath on the Battlefield; because they couldn't find a way of making the Thor useful as a pure ground to ground while the Siegetank existed. :|

4. The Thor is being designed based on its visuals and not by what the Terrans need.

That is almost exactly what someone said in an interview about why the Thor exists.
There's nothing wrong with designing something with the visuals in mind first then seeing how it can be designed to fit in the game afterwards, as long as it can work out. The numerous revisions show that Blizzard never could make the Thor fit. This unit's drawing design is fundamentally flawed and Blizzard designers are wasting their own time trying to make it work because they've put so much effort in dev approved fan art.

Overall the Thor has various issues that warrant its removal.

I think the Thor could add something interesting to the Terran army. If it had something like the same turning speed issues it originally had but at the same time it gained the ability to move and shoot at the same time like the scrapped Cobra. Yet I believe we would be better off by seeing a different mechanical unit.


For example as I stated earlier I had in mind a replacement for the Thor that wouldn't make it a GOliath clone.
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Typhoon

A high speed hover unit capable of escorting any unit on the battlefield.

Has same speed movement speed as Hellions.


2 Damage x 8, Fast, spiked

Attack Range 3. Sight Range 6

Defense 2, Mechanical, Armored

125 Min 75 Gas

HP 120

Upgrades


Defensive Matrix - (100 Energy) Creates an energy grid anchored on a specific terran object. Any terran unit and building nearby at the same height level* is shielded reducing incoming damage by 50%.

*This means if you cast D Matrix on a siege tank, only units and buildings on the ground will be protected. If you cast that MAtrix on a floating command center then only units and buildings in the air will be shielded. If the command center lands while the MAtrix is active the protection will be applied to ground objects instead of objects in the air.


Grid Fire - (Passive) Integrates new targetting computers into the Typhoon allowing it to intercept missile attacks reducing damage.


The following units' attacks would be affected by Grid Fire.

Mutalisks' Glave Wurms
SPore Guardian Spores (but broodlings will still be spawned even though the attack itself is negated)
Carrier's Interceptors (It won't reduce the damage Interceptors deal but instead deal damage to the Interceptors themselves)
Banshee missles


Before I get into the examples I have to remind you of one important rule. To use Gridfire the Typhoon has to use its ground attack weaponry to perform that ability.

So a mutalisk and zergling attacks a marine standing next to the Typhoon. Gridfire has priority, so the Typhoon fires off 5 shots to completely negate the mutalisk's attack. Since the Typhoon has spiked damage (like the Battlecruiser) it will use the remaining 3 shots on the zergling.

If instead a Guardian attacks a marine near the Typhoon the Gridfire will have all 8 shots reduce the guardian's damage from 22 to 6. When the broodlings come out the Typhoon won't be able to attack them because it used all of its guns to Gridfire.

If the Typhoon has max upgrades and the same Guardian attacks without an upgrade the Guardian deals 0 damage but the brodlings still spawn. Since the Typhoon only needed 5 its guns to negate the spore attack it will use its remaining 3 guns to deal damage to the Broodlings.

In the case of interceptors Gridfire will activate as the interceptors do a strafing run that puts them extremely close to their target.


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Mothership Availability

You bring up a concern I had as well. I'm thinking it should be possible to get the Mothership as soon as you have a Stargate instead of the Fleet Beacon.

 

"The recent hallucinations arguments make no sense. Reword it please."

When you create a hallucination, it appears directly beside the original unit. This limits it usefulness. Fortunately, you can move hallucinated units. You can't move hallucinated buildings.

Bases don't have a lot of space in them, there will be little space to put fake buildings.

Hallucinated buildings have no reasonable offensive use. You can't launch a fake attack with mobile structures. If you hallucinate buildings inside an enemy's base, they'll obviously know the building isn't theirs, unless they have amazingly poor memories.

Hallucinations can be used for scouting. Hallucinated buildings can't.

Hallucinated buildings make overly good blockers, since they have a lot of hp and cover a lot of space. This gets ridiculous as hallucinations aren't even supposed to have physical substance. (Furthermore, IMO hallucinated zealots should not be able to block a ramp, since they have no substance.)

"Besides you neglected to take note that my version also involves larva management since I'm suggesting the queen larva count be separate from the hatchery's normal larva count."

Mutant larvae are separate from regular larvae already. They look different too, and cost 1 control to maintain.

"I saw that video before and I just reviewed it. Buildings do not fly faster."

Then you need to watch a bunch of videos, because they're fast, and I don't mean "if you squint, they look a bit faster".

"Yep. SCVs in barges act normally as SCVs on the ground in terms of gathering."

In barges? Are they actually mining stuff while on the barge?

"Thor
My reasons for the Thor to be removed are numerous.

1. It overlaps with the Battlecruiser"

Right. Because it can fly, use anti-air AoE attacks with energy or fire powerful beams that cost energy.

No, it can't do any of these things. It's role is similar to the immortal or ultralisk, acting as the point of the spear. Between its high hp and ability to quickly rebuild on the field, it does the job as well as the utralisk does.

"2. It doesn't fit the Terran army.

How many times has Blizzard redesigned this beast? Too many times."

There have only been two versions of the thor. The old, more powerful version with Artillery Cannons and the new version with rebuilding (very good for anti-ground) and anti-air AoE abilities. Any other changes are tweaks. (For instance, the thor's anti-air graphics changed. That's just a tweak.)

Saying it's been constantly redesigned is just propaganda.

"The Queen also had numerous rewrites but every single revision opened up new possibilities for Zerg gameplay."

Every rewrite has been removing things from gameplay. I don't see how the BlizzCon 2008 version of the queen is in any way better for the game than the WWI 2008 version.

The Thor only did that once when they were constructable directly by SCVs..

"3. To make the Thor useful they turned it into a Goliath Clone because it previously overlapped with the siegetank."

More propaganda, almost a year out of date. People cling to that old Karune quote. It's stronger vs ground than it is vs air. Goliaths were good at killing things like battlecruisers; thors suck at that. They're much better at killing smaller clumped air units, like mutalisks or Vikings.

Watch it in action vs ground here: http://www.sc2blog.com/2008/06/29/worldwide-invitational-2008-pictures-presentations-videos/

"Blizzard specifically said they didn't want to reintroduce the Goliath into the game; because it was too effective at its anti air job and wanted to try something different. Now we have a meatier Goliath on the Battlefield; because they couldn't find a way of making the Thor useful as a pure ground to ground while the Siegetank existed. :|"

So you think it's better at anti-air? Why don't you try looking at its stats? It does 40-80 damage vs ground compared to 16-24 vs air. For its cost, it's far weaker anti-air than a goliath.

"4. The Thor is being designed based on its visuals and not by what the Terrans need."

Ah yes, Blizzard isn't allowed to use inspiration. The rest of the arguments had problems. There have only been two versions of the thor. Plenty of better-received units have gone through more versions.

 

Ok I see some of your concerns. WHen I was thinking of building hallucinations I was thinking of it in terms of the hallucination being built without the requirement of having another building to target first. That's why with Hallucination and castable cloaking you can throw off your opponent if they didn't use a detector to scout.

SCVs are mining from the Barge.

The Thor does overlap with the Battlecruiser. Its ground attack is a weaker version of the battlecruiser's attack because all your divided shots are used on the same target. The Battlecruiser otoh can cycle its weapons so if it only takes 4 of its eight guns to kill the first target the remaining shots will be used on another target.

Its air attack reaches out farther than the Battlecruisers main attack but the BC's special ability (if it chooses that upgrade) does so much damage a couple of BCs using the plasma torpedoes(?) can make up for a clump of Thors.
Even if the Cruiser doesn't use the upgrade the main attack is sufficient. It's been months since I've read anything new about the Battlecruiser. Last few times I did it wasted everything in the air because most air units would be in range of the BC to attack it and among the rare few that weren't (Carriers) would have their interceptors popped too fast to do anything meaningful.

The Battlecruiser is also a meatshield against anything with ranged attacks making the Thor even more redundant.

The Thor can't fly so it could get in trouble with cliff/canyon tactics.

The Thor can revive itself but a D-matrixed Battlecruiser has nearly the same health as a Thor fighting twice without the downtime.

The Thor is so superfluous and outclassed in so many ways by the BC it's not even funny.

The Thor had many rewrites.

1. Built directly by SCVs, turning speed so slow it could get flanked, high damage against buildings artillery

2. Built directly by SCVs, building aritlllery, leaves behind wreckage on the battlefield so if SCVs repair it it is good as new.

3. built in factory, anti air artillery, wreckage

4. factory build, ground artillery, divided up its normal ground attack into smaller multiple hits

5. Back to anti air, divided weapon damage, built from factory and now the resurrection ability.


Propaganda indeed...


Mutalisks health and armor wise are barely different from the majority of air units because the Unit database on this site says Thor has a small bonus against armored. If the Thor is good at taking out mutalisks (which are light) it also is good at taking out, vikings in the air, banshees, medivacs, corruptors, warp prisms, pheonix and void ray (unless the Thor's bonus against armored units is outdated info)

I've seen the Thor in action on the ground. I like its damage profile but it is still surpassed by the Battlecruiser.

You have to be careful when stating the Thor isn't cost effective because it does low damage. The damage it deals is very similar to the Corsair in terms of how it works. It is a higher gas investment than Goliaths but it will waste air units lacking high armor like the guardian or carrier quickly. The gas investment isn't too severe because one Thor can last on a battlefield longer than 3 Goliaths.

Hmmmm

 

im not a total pro, and i doubt pretend to be able to disect pros and cons of each unit, but as an avid protoss lover i will say:

in order to limit the mothership it has to be based on its strength and abilities, if you make it an offensive monster then yes only 1. defensive? no we should have as many as we want then. best option: offensive/defensive essentially a unit that can handle small armies but in order to be efficient offensively have a good army to roll with it, limitations? eh dont make it 1 maybe 3-4 where 4 motherships can be extremely deadly, unless the opponent is as good as you then its whoever has better reflexes xD

 

Overall, your ideas sound like pointless additions (and for some reason beyond my comprehension, subtractions). None of these sound fun. None of these will be implemented. You can try to organize logic around your ideas (and fail half the time) but at the end of the day it all just sounds stupid. I can't see your version of the game being in any way, shape, or form, balanced - much less, fun. It would be a stupid mess.

On thor, specifically... not even taking into account the fact that the current version's balance hinges on

every

single

unit,

you haven't even explained why in hell it's a good idea to remove it. Are you currently beta testing in your mind; can you tell us exactly how a game would play out if you just removed thor right now? Do you have access to the brain power to write out the entire game's mechanics in differential equations? If not, the idea of just removing a unit and replacing it with a crippling economic system is pure nonsense.

Deception is up to the player. Having a dedicated skill would be a total waste. Besides, the units would just fall through the ground if this skill does what you say it does.

All of that sounds overpowered, and it would look stupid. The protoss already have a unit that casts a temporary wall; phase shift would overlap, and just look ridiculous in the middle of games. Nobody wants to see an army fighting a line of damage-dealing gateways.

Except for the fact that phase shift would, logically, send the units to the center of the planet.

Unit hallucinations are pretty useless and this skill would be even more useless.

Buildings can already 'fly' without the starbase; what you're talking about here is a minor speed increase. Also, it sounds like the Starbase might as well just be as series of upgrades since the structure serves no purpose by itself.

You can already move buildings without the starbase. And if you're playing correctly, you should already have three or more expansions before your main's minerals are depleted. You can just have an upgrade where factories/barracks build units in midair, though I don't see the purpose because it'd be faster to just build them at ground level and move from there (assuming units are faster than the barracks - which they should be). This also cuts into medivac territory because what you're proposing is that barracks and factories basically become mobile transports (since building while in midair wouldn't be all that official). I don't see the point.

It'd be faster and more productive to just build new buildings instead of moving old ones. While you're making units at one base you can be building structures in other places, not sacrificing any time in-between (always having reinforcements on the ground). If the base fills up while moving, you're no longer making, thus wasting time floating around. This "guerilla warfare" can be accomplished by using medivacs. You're suggesting moving around unit producers is beneficial. It isn't. There's no need to build units in midair or even move buildings elsewhere. Ideally, you should always be producing units from all of your structures at all times. If you have eight units midair, they're not on the ground. Why in the world would you want those eight units stuck inside a floating structure when they could just move themselves, or use medivacs to get somewhere? And again, buildings don't need the help of the starbase to move.

So? I wasn't being illogical. I was misinformed. Who cares? That's not what I was arguing about - I was arguing about the queen's ability. It's like a built-in shortcut to winning early on, and ultimately becoming useless in mid-game. Building units ahead of your tech assumes that the unit(s) you're going for is more valuable than lower-level units. Terrans and Protoss have no choice but to produce lower-level units as they don't have any built-in shortcut mechanics. Essentially, this zerg skill, depending on when it becomes available to you, either always win, or be totally useless. There's no in-between. Make it available too early and it would always win. Too late and nobody would use it.

Say, for instance, you're at the point in the game where a terran has 2 marines and the zerg has 4 zerglings. It's totally balanced, leaving the victor up to micro skills. Now let's assume that the terran player has 2 marines and you have one ultralisk. Unbalanced. 4 marines, one ultralisk. Unbalanced. 8 marines, one ultralisk. Unbalanced. 12 marines, one ultralisk. Wasted energy.

Why not just build the building? That'd make a hell of a lot more sense; this isn't transformers.

Oh, you're a laugh.

 

Do not know if i can be of help here, i do trust blizzard to do what is best , but like in the past ideas from the players as crazy as they are may do some influence or give another shape to one thing so here are some ideas pls do not judge me to harsh , as i saw the first post whell do no what to say i mean yeah i gues it can be something but it's just an idea it's not loked in nails,
Here are my ideas
Terran - about the thor - whell here as the unit for them blizzard allways loked for something new , do no about this one i mean at first when i saw the thor i was a bit like WAW cool but that is a general idea we all make when we see a new unit. and now the idea to take it apart and scrap it whell what can i say many things will change i gues but it was a good idea. - k ideas for it - first drop the idea of starbse it's just usless terran buildings can fly from start why make it better when it's the only one in the game that can do it + the other skills for economie well no need for them when u can take a command center with 5 scv in a mineral zone on a cliff from the first minutes of game wich is good for economi, introduce the thor again with just some other skills and maybee more adaptable to the game and i like the idea of it beeing build with an scv not from base, it was a new concept and it was grate here are some skills for it
- drop the artilary barage we have the allready a siege unit
- drop the walking factory idea
- research for it to drop mines if there isn't a unit that does that (good for defence) outpost or home base
- make it a good ground unit lots of hp good firepower ground and air
- make it a good suport unit like researching something like AoE repair wich can fix units in its range must stay still while activated and consumes some energy in this process

k now for the queen
first of all the queen in SC1 was something like a specialist not a hero unit so this one should act like one to
here are some ideas
- can create creep around it and (drop it from the overlord) just an idea
- make some t1 and t2 units or some special units like in a comando if u know what i mean something like a spy, a good atak unit , and a doctor something like that u judge here
- or we can drop the second idea and go for something like AoE influence on creeps near it something like + 20% on atack damage or speed or even increes in regeneration again u decide here

and last protos
i can't even imagine what that mothership whent through so many changes
- first of all yeah make it something like on arbitrer but remove the cloack field as this one can stai in battle for a long period of time it's like a flying tank prety hard to bring down
- why not make it do something like a protective shield like that time bomb or something like that around it and units , but this i gues will make it verry powerfull if attaking a strategic point so do no about this one
- of not that one i just said make it a good attack unit air and ground like thor , keep the time bomb shield or just go for a temporary shield around it
- and finaly make it a refresher unit, or recharger , research this and can recahrge shields like a recharger on SC1, in the field consuming energy based on shields recharged

these ar some of my ideas , not perfect , but just talking my mind , pls do not judge me to harsh and if u dissagree with me and some of you may find these ideas repulsive in all there ways just say , no do not like them k

 

Thor is redundant already. It's a crappier Battlecruiser that comes out one to two minutes earlier and sits on the ground with less useful special abilities. Even if it was pulled out and nothing replaced it noone would care, except the people who want a factory unit that addresses ground to air tactics.


Gateways don't deal damage.( I get you are talking about the visual impact of units and buildings under the effects of phase shift would allow this to happen but you are making this sound more important than it is)


Not all buildings can currently fly. In the time it takes for most units to be built before a building is filled up they can traverse medium sized maps quickly enough.

A need to have production buildings closer to your economy line is really dependent on the battle. The ability to move around your mainbase is useful. You have no understanding of territorial control.

You overstate the importance of high tech units. Haven't low, mid tech units acted as hard counters to high tech units in the past? Haven't such units in terms of supply or resource count held their own against high tech?

You can't compare 1 ultralisk to 4 marines because in the time it takes you to collect that gas the Terran player could have 3-4 Marauders and it will get kited to death even with proper support.

The protoss player would have mildly more options and swarm you with Zealots or use stalkers or combination of both.


I agree mutant larva has to be carefully considered on its availablity; but it is false to say that the only situation that can exist is that high tech was designed to be crushingly overpowerd so low/mid tech has little chance against them.

Concession accepted. All those other points you made were illogical. *shrugs*


@cougar
I would prefer the Thors removal but I find the mechancal rebirth to be neat. It's the only thing that makes the Thor standout so far.

The mining idea I'm not thrilled about because I prefered the synergy of mines with fast units like the vulture. Putting mines into a slow unit limits their role to just a delay tactic and limited expansion denial instead of their existing dual role of scouting tool and complete expansion denial.

The AOE heal for mechanical units is a step in the right direction of creating a useful mechanic even if it doesn't fit the visual style of the Thor.


Your ideas for the Queen have already been implemented in the Queen or Overseer and a revised Creep.

I agree that current Mothership is fine but I wouldn't mind if it was changed up to make it more distinctive in what it does for a Protoss player.