Possibility to recycle units?

Hi all.

I don't know if, like me, you have the problem to have too many units you don't use because they are useless.

When I play with the Terran and I choose the expansion strategy, which means that I build 3 or 4 CC with a total of about 30 or 40 SCVs, I finally finish the game with a lot of SCvs that are useless cause there are no more resources.
That's a problem. I would like to send those SCVs to the CCs to "recycle" them. Result ? The SCVs go back to the CCs, disappear and then you get minerals back.
One SCV costs 50 minerals, so once they go back to the CC to be recycled normally I should get 50 minerals again. But ok if I get 40.

In that point I take back over 1500 minerals to build other units !

(Discussable : Another scenario : you chose to build a lot of marauders (a ground unit who just attacks ground units) but the enemy has air units that can hit ground units. That's a problem. So the marauders can go back to the Barrack to be "recycled" and you get back minerals AND gas (because you needed gas to build marauders). You don't get back the totality of the resources you used to build them but you can make another strategy in building anti-air units to attack enemy air units).

Of course, maybe we could just recycle the peons, I mean the SCV, the Drone and the Probe only ! Not the other units. Of course it would be too simple to 'convert' the strategy in our advantage

When I play with the Zerg I find the same problem with the drones. I have too many useless drones at the end of the game, when finally I finish with just one zergling, one survival that can't attack the enemy overlords. I logically win the game, but I can't finish it. So I lose.
Which structure can "recycle" (I'd like to say "assimilate") them ? The debate is open ! The Hatchery, the Lair, the Hive. Or maybe the Queen ? How can drones be convertible into minerals ? Ok, that's a game. Normally they should be converted into energy. Because only the main structure (H,L,H) builds all the units so logically this structure mus assimilate the drones. But we can also think about giving a role to the Queen too.

When I play with the Protoss I find the same problem with the Probes I have too many at the end and I don't know what to do with them. I want the Nexus to "re-use" them. So the Probes go to the Nexus and they are converted into minerals. They are mechanical like the SCvs, so they must follow the same logic than the SCVs.

Dear members, let's debate about this important question. Starcraft 2 is not finished yet, so I am sure they can add this option before the release.

 

Well, I like the idea, but an SCV is basically a man in a mech suit, a Drone can morph into buildings, and a drone is the strongest of the 3. They can attack a litle.

As far as recycling other units go: you took the risk to build those units. Swapping them back is like, cheating. No refunds in war. However, salvaging, remorphing and warping back buildings seems kinda cool. We also do that in real life.

Sorry SogeKing. I am just not a big fan of recycling stuff. -in games-

 

I take back this idea of recycling units, little and huge, from another game : Homeworld 2. It was also a 3D game with wars in space, between ships, vessels, cruisers, battlecruisers etc ....

Also, another idea from this game was to take back the rests of destroyed vessels to use as resources, but this idea is impossible for Starcraft 2. I don't ask to make a plagia, but some ideas from other games and other genres are good.

Hey, all the cars have 4 wheels, one engine, etc ... etc .... The builders don't make plagia. Maybe on specific options.

Well about this recycling option I find it great ! This will resolve an old problem we all met with SC1. Maybe some members will think that it is cheating, and other ones will say another thing like "no, you had not to build so much peons (SCV, Drone, Probe)".

The debate is open ...

 

how about just the ability to sell buildings instead of units

recycling units sounds too Yuri's Revenge for me

 

it was possible in CoH to recycle the dead hull of a vehicle with engineers/pioneers and convert it into ammunition funds.

I don't think however this feature will be present in SCII. It would be a major change to the gameplay.

The ability to retire/sell units it welcomed though. Its annoying being stuck with a bunch you have no use and take up space. If not sell, you should be allowed to retire them.

 

The game becomes a bit too difficult and easy at the same time with this recycling system.

The attacker could be prepared to attack a base where he easily overwhelms the defenders army. The defender could easily "recycle" all his worker units, protecting a massive amount of his economy by getting a bunch of minerals back.

Also, dying worker units can be "recycled" in order to ensure you always have full health workers. Not to mention, this makes worker rushes and defense a plausible strategy. A player can spam workers if the enemy harasses him/her with zerglings, and since zerglings are weak, the player could quickly build multiple worker units for DEFENSIVE purposes, then quickly recycle them once the player is able to begin building his/her own offensive unit.

This strategy also offers a large advantage to the person losing the game. If the person realizes he is low on minerals, and that his bases are beginning to be surrounded and contained, he can easily recycle all his worker units (ALL worker units, and I'm assuming around 30 + workers in total, which is already enough to build quite a large army). This would result to a surprise attack to the winning player, since there will suddenly be a horde of army attacking (or a horde of army that keeps coming out if the player reached his max units), overwhelming the winning player. By the time the winning player holds off the army, he would either have lost a bunch of his own workers since he had to create emergency reinforcements as well, or he would have lost the advantage in the game since the losing player has already pushed out and capped a few bases with the push.

Basically, recycling units gives the losing player too much chances to plan a comeback, and it's not wise thing for the winning player to recycle his or her own worker units when he has the advantage in the game ( for obvious reasons).

Remember, there is a unit cap, and both players are even in terms of units if they max that cap. A losing player can quickly max his unit cap to even out the armies by getting mineral back from recycling worker, making it a game of micro. Starcraft requires a lot of micro, but excellent Macro > excellent Micro anyday in a game. Worker recycling only makes the game fully micro.

 

@Ursawarrior. Selling structures for a 100 % refund is already in the game, for Terran.

 

Why should the players give a chance to "take back"? SC is a game where mistakes are punished.

 

Well mentioned Furrer: mistakes must be punished.

So all of you indirectly council not to create too many workers to spare minerals and UNIT LIMIT.

Okay. I'll be careful not to build too much.

 

But what about retiring, getting rid of unneeded units for zero refund?

This should be in.

 

Why? That makes no sense at all. If you realy don't need a specific unit anymore, use it as a scout. Even if the unit is just a worker. -erm, especialy if the unit is athe unit-

Also, you could use an obsolete unit as cannon fodder, to lead fire away from your caster units. Or even better: put them in capturable buildings, like the new watch towers. If even that is not enough, then just let your own units force fire on your obsolete unit.

 

Often in some scenarios all your units are killed. You have 30 or 40 workers. No attackable units at all.

I will always remember that match I played against a player. He was Zerg, I was Terran. Most of my structures were destroyed and his too. He had just a couple of overlords. And I had so many SCVs. They couldn't attack those overlords. The match was nul. I destroyed his last buildings and .... nothign, the game continued ! I had to kill his overlords.

That's why I started this debate. I want a possibility to recycle those SCVs to convert them into, maybe, valkyries (if I had a starport).

But ok there is a problem with my suggestion : it gives advantages to players who lose the game to remake a new strategy to counter the winner's strategy. Couldn't this problem be fixed ? And how ?

Another problem : the enemy strategy will be to attack the main structures (CC, Nexus and Hatchery, ...). Normally the race that had this problem was the Zerg. Only the hatchery, lair, hive builds units so ANYWAY we must destroy those main Zerg structures. Not for the Protoss and the Terran. We must destroy the barrack, the starport, the portal, (all T and P buildings that creates units)
Now with this suggestion to recycle units the enemy will have to destroy the main buildings at any price. But this will be a strategy of the end of the game. Once the game starts you will not run to destroy the CC. No, This is the latest strategy to recycle units (normally) and to attack the main structures.

 

not bad idea for certain things. but to recycle more offencive units is bad idea. it would take away from actually scouting out your opponent and making the right decisions to build the right counter units. and as said befor it would be cheating. like oopps wrong unit so i'ma get my minerals and gas back and build some battle cruisers instead. just isn't going to happen. but i could maybe like to see it for scv's or something becuase i dont like it when your playing a money map for like an hour and so you already have like 20-30k resources. kinda useless to have scv's at that point.

 

isnt the game supposed to end after you killed all of the buildings?

 

Yes ... normally .... ?? It had to be finished. But no ! How strange. Maybe ther was a bug. It was tiiiiiiime ago, maybe 5 or 6 years ago, I don't remember, time is running out so fast, isn't it ? And I forgot to write I was jammed because I had no more resources anymore, 0 mineral and 0 gas, because I used the repair a lot. When you repair units and buildings by SCVs the resources reserves diminish. And I finished the mission with a lot of SCVs ... good for nothing.


@Muncie16 : I wrote before that it was discussable to recycle units except workers, but this idea is bad. So : no more question about recycling 'offensive' units. Just workers. Plus, once the workers are recycled, we 'earn' more minerals, but no gas, because the workers don't initialy cost in gas.

And when we use 50 minerals for a worker (SCV, Drone, Probe) it gives back 40 once recycled.


What I said is to recycle workers (SCV, Drone, Probe) inside the main building (CC, Nexus, H/L/H). Just the workers. For the Terran and the Protoss it's okay. The T or P player will have to defend his last CC or Nexus at the end of the mission if the enemy tries to counter-attack.

But for the Zerg ? How to do ? May this strategy of recycling of workers exist or not, as I said before, we all know the main zerg building (H/L/H) creates ALL the units, so anyway the enemy will concentrate his forces to destroy the main building at the very beginning of the mission. So normally the Zerg player had to have a good defense to protect the main building. And with this new strategy I propose it will not be different for the zerg player to play because he will have to protect the main building from the beginning to the end of the game. Not for the P and T player who will have to protect the CC or Nexus just at the end of the game to allow the workers to be recycled.
Maybe for the Zerg, the Queen can play the role of the recycler. It will maybe free the main zerg building from supporting another strategy, so another pressure !

PS : is there the consume ability back in SC2 ? You know the consume ability from the defiler and from infested Samir Duran, who killed a zerg unit to get more energy. Just think a second again : couldn't be this idea be given to the Queen to assimilate the Drones to give minerals back ?

 

My messeage was pointed at your example with the marauders, but i awaited this very stupid answer.

Why not take another base? And my statement actionally also works towards extreme lategame. Save your resources, dont waste them on the wrong units so you dont have money left, and use gas-heavy units.
And who the hell only has 40 scvs for 4 bases? should be more like 80-100.

 

I said before that this example about the marauders is bad. Read my last post. It was discussable, a suggestion, a bad one. I just ask for using this mechanic with workers only.

There is something I don't understand : if you have 100 workers (one worker costs 1 point of supply), that means you are limited to 100 points of supply because the maximum limit is 200. You can just build a maximum of 12 battlecruisers and you will have 4 points left. So if there are no more resources on the map we should recycle those useless workers to get resources back (1) and to build some other units (2) thanks to the fact we have more points of supply once the SCVs don't exist.

And imagine you have too many resources in reserve, that there are no more resources on the map, and that you have, I exageres, 200 SCVs ... what will you do ? Of course a newbie arrives to this situation, or a masochist. That's not the question. If I want to build some units I will have to recycle them just to get points of supply, and I don't care of the resources they can provide to me

 

thats called limits! For your next example:

Normally when we see a situation in a PvT where protoss has outexpanded the Terran he will be willing to waste units 2:1, because he knows he can ourproduce the Terran. If its an equal game with the map cut in half, I would call it a draw.
Why not just suicide the units? if you can recycle you can "takeback", and im against that. Its your own mistakes that have bring you in a position where you cant win, not the game.

 

Of course, there must be a "justice". If I used the resources badly I must not win the game. I don't deserve to win it. But I want a balance anyway. A last chance.
This strategy of recycling workers gives a new styrategy to SC2. It does not change this game at all, it just adds a 'plus'.

Suicide units ? Why not ? To gain points of supply. It is debate-able.

What do you think about the second half of the 15th post ?

 

A good concept, but im against recycling. IF it should be implented, the queen consuming the workers sounds ok.