Protoss Martyr Concept

Liked all of it except two things. One, burrow, um... too zergish, needs a protoss name, but that's up to bliz, and two, killing the crystals, that's wayyyy too cheap and removes minerals fast. Think that's 1500+ minerals per average blow. (I'm accounting for the 500 and 1000 as well as high yield) I see no reason not to just kill the workers and that's that, protoss doesn't seem like the type to blow up their crystals.

 

ok instead of burrow it would immerse into the crystal and then operate in stasis.

and now i think about it, CD is right that it shouldn't damage the crystal at all, the explosion would be some sort of psionic shock wave which only damages units and not buildings, while leaning the crystal intact. kinda like the effects of the neutron bomb.

 

man... the whole point of the idea was to think about something new.. namely a new type of economic warfare... not just make a different kind of base raider.

I know taking out map crystals is a giant effect... but that can be balanced by keeping the potential numbers of these units low via - long cooldown to build, high cost, etc, etc...

and yeah, Protoss wouldn't blow up their crystals - but they aren't their crystals... they're the enemies' crystals

here's another potential rework on that theme of reworking the molecular structure of the crystals: The Martyr "Immerses" into a map crystal and goes to work, after a timer runs it's course the crystal's structure is changed - the player who ordered it can see a visual difference but enemies can't - instead of skimming from enemy miners or some such, it makes it so the minerals from that patch are like fool's gold - the enemy can still mine from it, and it looks the same, but when he drops it off at his building, he gets no minerals from the chunk

so if the enemy wasn't watching his resource count he'd keep mining away and not get anything.... he'd need a detector to find the Martyr immersed in the map crystal - and if he destroyed it, it would take a timer before the crystals were useful again - also the Martyr when damaged starts a self-destruct sequence, (exact number can be figured out later for whatever is balanced) and if it gets to end of the self-destruct then the map crystal implodes - taking it from the map, and doing a moderate blowback effect, just a lil more than a firebats range say.

 

*sigh* nate is right and NO burrow is going UNDERGROUND not into uperground crystals. And it merrges with it by changing its molecular structure. And Finnaly it takes away only 100 minerals from the crystal when it blows up. It does not destroy the whole thing. And the width of the explosion is 1 and a quarter the size of a nexus.

 

Messing with the economy makes no sense, but another base raider does. While your other units clean up the mess you don't have to take away DTs to mess with the probes, or, you can do a reaver/martyr drop and leave the martyrs there waiting for the new workers. Also, instead of using probes to spy on outer bases, send a martyr there, although the tech-tree height may change that one.

Minerals are supposed to be spots fought over for the resources, taking them away gets rid of the 'hot' spots. SC1 had a problem in that minerals and outer bases weren't really fought for, if someone blocks the entrance to their outer base with a pylon and gateway then that's that, you don't send your entire army to take it because it would be stupid and you may get your main base killed. I think with the high yield minerals Blizz is trying to change that, however having a unit taking out minerals would be counter-productive.

Although I do like the making a crystal do nothing idea. I think the player who used the unit can decide when to blow it up, but if it's destroyed it does nothing, much like a spider mine.

 

Yes that would be true but this unit is more leaning towards you opponents main base minneral deposits and not the outer region and outposts of the enemys minerals. Because the mainbase is the LAST place they look at if they are looking for a unit to kill. Remember mainbase is the last place.