Idea (3 unique resource mechanics for Terran, Zerg, Protoss)

I noticed that there are lot topics on, the resource mechanics issue like vespene gas restoring or Zerg not having enough micro, so I hope to contribute some of my own ideas, something fresh and exciting:


- Terrans:

Terrans could have an upgrage which requires most of the buildings to be built before it could be used, example :
Terran Replicators, cost 500 minerals 300 gas (Req. fusion core, planetary fortress, orbital command) Timed event for 7 min. cooldown 5 min after it is finished:
Mineral requirements for terran units and building is decreased by 50% and vespene gas requirements are increased by 150%
Refineries gain fusion drills ability.
Fusion drills: You can spent minerals to refill vespene geyser ( like the original geyser mechanic) gaining 600 gas per 100 min. and a lockdown of 45 sec.
Units like Thor and Battlecruiser and other strong teir units have different ratio min. req decreased by 25% vespene increased by 100%

- Zerg:

Zerg could do the opposite ability:
Radioactive biomass, cost 600 gas 250 minerals ( Req. 3 Hives ) Timed event for 7 min. cooldown 5 min after it is finished:
Vespene gas requirements for Zerg units and buildings are decreased by 75% and Mineral req are increased by 100%
Overlords gain spray biomass ability.
Spray biomass: target 1 mineral field with the overlord wait for 30 sec, the field will turn in yellow mineral field and have the same amount of min. left but now in better quality which means much more when harvested, Also this will cost 1000 vespene gas which is spend at the end when the process is compleate.

- Protoss:

Protoss can have something that unique like :
Archon temple, cost 3 archons (Req. nexus and mothership) the nexus and mothership integrate in to new building archon temple. Timed event for 13 min. cooldown 5 min after it is finished after which the mothership and nexus are formed again and the temple is gone:
Archon temple can produce small archons (warp archons) cost 100 min 100 gas build time 30 sec
Warp archons : can target 1 mineral field or 1 vespene geyser and merge with it adding 600 units to the resource pile . Also they can target 1 yellow mineral field which will explode leaving 3 blue mineral fields behind with each of 75% of it`s original units.

 

@ Terran: Ney!!!
-That would be very very imbalanced in overall aspects. The general outcome would just result for terran to have too much w/c is very unlikely. Btw I think you mean 600 gas per 100 sec. and not minutes

@ Zerg: ???
-Wouldn't you think that once the 7 minute timer is over the player would still be having 1000 gas at his disposal? What if he doesn't? Does the units created during the time process gets destroyed? I think this one raises too much questions. The possibilities though for radioactive biomass enables is quite dramatic if a player do manage to get it done. It's really hard to pull off (3hives?) and this is something more of a macro mechanic rather than a resource mechanic.

@ Protoss
hahaha. This is weird....

--- I think overall it's not so bad to have these kinds of ideas and implement them yourselves once we got the map maker to see how it would affect the game generally. Honestly, these ideas are kind of like a suggestion of a super ability w/c requires a huge list of late tier structures/units that disregards the thought of having a resource mechanic, due to the reason that one might not even reach the late phase of the game to make this happen at all.

5/10 ^_^ try it yourself, I think you know the results already...

 

Wait, you want to sacrifice a Nexus, Mothership and 3 Archons to get 600 gas?

 

I like your ideas. But if it was me I'd have it this way.

Terran: An add on for a building. That has a tech you can research. And when you research it it allows you to have one of 2 things for all units (and not buildings).
-50% minerals and +50% gas cost
-50% gas cost and +50% minerals cost.
And it would say take energy from the building to activate this. And it'd only last say 3-5 minutes but take like 10 mins from when used to get enough energy for another shot at it. So that is 3-5 mins with the ability then 5-7 mins without it then you could use it again.

Protoss: A unit you can build. Yes you can build more than 1 of these. They'd be expensive. And what this unit does is, it moves around and also can modify itself into a kind of building like a pylon. Like a siege tank. Can move between forms. The mobile form is just for moving. And the stationary form is just like a pylon. But instead of allowing a building to function in it's radius. it does this to buildings in it's radius:

Grants the building one of 2 abilities that are researched and that take energy like the Terran one and lasts for the same time too.
Units from the building are built 50% faster but cost 50% more minerals and gas to be built
Units from the building are built 50% slower but cost 50% less minerals and gas to be built

Well you could just make this an ability for all buildings, built from a new or existing building. That might work too.

Zerg:

They get an ability that can be researched at the hatchery/hive or whatever. And it lasts the same time and has the same energy coast as the above but you get one of these 2 options when you use it.

Minerals takes 50% more time to harvest but gas takes 50% less time to harvest.
Gas takes 50% more time to harvest but minerals take 50% less time to harvest.

I think all of these abilities for all races would work well cause they'd take advantage of all the times when you're like, gee I have so many minerals and hardly any gas. Or hey I have loads of minerals and gas but I need units out fast. So you pay extra for the privilege. Like a panic button. Oh **** I need minerals now or oh **** I need units now.

 

I only skimmed the OP but from what I've read it reminds me far too much of some of the mechanics in the lesser RTS and I hated them in those. Therefore, I'm going to give this one of the biggest two thumbs down I've ever given on this forum.

' A ' for effort though.

 

I like it how did you manage to let’s say upgrade my idea, (the8thark) Also I can add that they should put some renewable minerals mechanic with that and it’s full time battle for not to worry so much about resources.

 

You would kill StarCraft if you were a developer at Blizzard.

 

There's no need to pay out the original poster here. Bad ideas are good too. Cause sometimes bad ideas can lead eventually to a good idea. And they get the creative juices going.

And to the original poster:

I liked your idea you had in your first post here. Well in theory. It's a nice idea. But a little too complicated I think. And for my liking they are all just ways of getting more resources in a burst for a short amount of time. But the execution of your idea with all the buildings you used not so good. So I took the concept you are tried to get across with that post and simplified it. Just a panic button to get more of one resource, be it minerals or gas or units built faster. And to keep the balance I added a roughly equal but negative effect to each of the abilities too.

The hardest part was thinking of 3 totally different ways to have what is in essence just a panic button. And make each of the ways relevant to the way each race is played.

And to your renewable minerals mechanic idea. I'm not such a fan of that idea. Starcraft has always been about finite amounts of resources. So you can have lots for a money map and a small amount for a tight game. And when they're gone that's it. Like a real war resources don't grow on trees and when you've sucked the area dry- that's it no more.

I prefer abilities that help with resources management over resource generation abilities.

 

I support that too, but what if they make small amount of minerals in each field
and some ability to recreate the fields once they are depleted. For example Zerg would need to infest terran command center, or Protoss will need to merge their archon with zerg queen or Terrans could invade a nexus to search for protoss artifacts I don`t know something difficult that requires to invade 1 of the opponents base and take something instead of racing for the supper mineral fields the player will be forced to take action to recapture 1 of the enemy bases… in order to gain the extra resources, and on top of that imagine a map with 1000 minerals per field or even low 700 minerals per field…

 

Well I can see where you're coming from. And you're thinking of an idea where you don't destroy the enemy buildings, but instead you get them to red damage then you kind of scrap the burning ruins of the buildings. And salvage all the materials you can to re-melt them down and use them again. And this recycling would give you some more minerals.

Actually that I think is a good way to stop the scouting for mineral deposits phase of the game. But really it'd take forces to clear the enemy areas before you could scrap their buildings. So at best you'd only be getting a portion of your minerals you used to take the area back. But hey it's better than nothing.

Lore wise though. I can see the terrans doing this. And even maybe a mission could be based around this and by sheer co-incidence they learn some useful information while scrapping a certain building. The protoss might do this if they look back to their days on Aiur and realise they can't just abandon the ruins on any planet they call home cause then they will run out of planets in the area to use. So they might try to conserve one planet they like, and use the scrapped minerals to build more of their own buildings to bring balance back to the planet.

And zerg? If there was a chance of a few trapped peoples of the enemy race left in the buildings they might want to take them alive so they can assimilate them or at least have a live snack. And scrapping the buildings and not destroying them would not kill suck enemy peoples.

Sure that's thin at best. Something to think about. But all in all a little complicated for my liking. I think the SC games are based on the "easy to play and hard to master" concept. And SC for me was the easiest RTS to learn I ever played. But was I an expert at it. Heck no. Just no annoying game mechanics to get my head around before I could get to enjoying the game.

I think Blizz knows not everyone who will buy SC 2 will be RTS pros. And they have to make it accessible to people not too cluey about the whole genre. A simple concept works best.

And about re-capturing enemy bases. Hmm better left to the command and conquer style of games. As all of the forces there are human and humans can use human things. But here a human could not use a zerg hatchery. Well you could get a psi emitter or something like mengsk did but apart from that they can't. It's just too alien. So in theory your idea again I really like it. But lore wise doesn't fit so well.

And I think people like you would be good for a game dev team. Sure maybe the ideas are a little hit and miss but they always need someone who can think outside the box.

 

Not so much related to this thread but my sense is that people overall still see zerg as being under powered or weaker than the other races.

So I still think, as I mentioned in another thread that they could do one of these options.
Decrease drone build time
Increase drone HP
Increase regen rate of drones
Increase minerals per trip from 5 to 6

Then again some type of converter structure for resources may be a good idea.
the structure costs both minerals and gas but once complete you have the option of converting one resource to another.

Like
143 minerals for 100 gas
or
143 gas for 100 minerals

just an idea.

 

Well, I was thinking more like the enemy bases that you capture, will give you more than their original value something like combining the 2 techs of different races, I`ll go with Zerg first as example,

infested Terran center = can be converted to 2500 mineral field which needs to be collected

Protoss infested Nexus = 500 minerals and 1000 gas and it`s destroyed .

For Terrans,

Zerg hatchery = converted to 1000 gas geyser Lair = 2000 gas geyser hive 3000 gas geyser Because of the biomass kind of cool effect : )))

Protos Nexus (thorn down by some marines which can enter it at low health) = converted to 1000 minerals.


For Protoss

Terran com center (on low health can be merged with archon) = Produces 4 minerals per sec can be salvaged for 750 minerals and 350 gas

Zerg hatchery, Lair or hive (again on low health can be merged with archon) = produces 2 gas per sec for hatchery 3 per sec for Lair and 5 for hive, can be salvaged for 250 minerals and 850 gas.

Well I did not put the upgrades of comm. Center but maybe someone could add on…

 

I disagree. I do not think Zerg are underpowered at all. Sure unit for unit the protoss wil have more powerful units. But since the zerg's idea is to use the hordes to win it all balances itself out.

 

@ste maybe instead of a building worth 50/50 you could sacrifice a drone (not uncomen) and 50 gas and kill it on one mineral patch and the dead drones body jucies and stuff decompose the minerals allowing for a faster mineral harvest time.

And the killing other player bases, kinda hard to do. I have seen one pro match where they infested the enemys cc, but he mostly did this as a harras, like leaving it there and until he killed it or gloating and putting it some where, in that match he infested around 3 cc's. I've never seen any other match that had any infestation.
I guess since you get something more then an exploding unit that doesn't get to the target you might want to try to get it more but I think it's a step in the wrong direction.