Resource gathering systems

Any reference to my Warcraft 3 statement? Boohoo.....

Maybe the mining system currently was the most efficient for all 3 races. I mean, probes with more strength just cost more, SCV super strength cost more, return time is longer and gas may be lost should gas leaks happen. That's why gas is brought back in gas sacks, for safety. That's why all races adopt a same mining system.

 

Again... there are to few changes to the game to make it a sequel. Minning is one of them. My ideeas are far from being the best. But different mining should b implemented. You all say alot of shit about strategies. Starcraft is far from a real strategy game. Its a little strategy +some keyboard/mouse speed + cassual based fun. Real strat games are total annihilation or sup. commander. But starcraft2 still has the chance to bring a greater depth to it's gameplay. At this moment the game will get boring imediatly after campaign finish. The mineral gathering thing is something small. Lots of other things should be also added. (including the sea warfare - haveing the possibility to battle over another another terrain type is a + to strategie). Most people just wan't good old starcraft in a new cloath. That is lame and ussles. Why the hell did they waited 10 fu..ing years for the game to be made. At this moment starcraft2 offers verry little for what it should. VERRY VERRY LITTLE!

 

all those people complaining about war3, war3 resource gathering system is not bad, so why can't sc2 have similar systems, as for all those comments about rip-off, they are made by the s a m e c o m p a n y

 

I suppose spaceships in water make a good game....
Wow, didn't know that (sarcasm)

Face it. Starcraft 2 should not have marine type units because....
1) How is it going to reach water?
If your answer is this:
Get a building this is in the water/build a building in the water
2) How is that building going to get there? No building can be build underwater/overwater/on a cliff.

3) Some maps have only empty space, some maps have lava. Where do all the marine warfare go? In the lava? Spaceships in space that can't go on land?

To me, starcraft should NOT have spaceships in water because melee units can't reach them. That's really going to upset balancing issues (Anybody wait 5 more years for completion???). Your zerglings can pwned by the enemy because he build ships. Your zergling and hydralisk army. Isn't that stupid? And if ships outrange your units it's like a siege tank, and we don't need more similiarities between the races.

AND maps usually do not always have water near battlegrounds (Or any important areas). What use would marine warfare have? To duke it out and then later find out you have absolutely nothing to do while your opponent pwns your base?

Assuming the map is island type and has water. You prepare to attack his base. Suddenly he sends out a lot of ships and kills all your AG spaceships. Then your AA ships are slaughtered easily without support. The ships are just allowing more accessibility at the cost of an airfleet. They perform every task much more easily, since in the middle of the ocean ground units will receive less dmg (unless the unit is specially air to mass ground, and only banshees can do that).

Water warfare is just not good when everybody is trying to get starcraft 2 done. If water warfare is implemented, it would change the dynamics badly, cause imba and rebalancing to be done, delaying release. It just does not work because more units means more precarious balancing.

 

i atleast hope that there are some waterunits in the campaign that i can use for my maps

 

There should not be any marine units. They're ok in island maps (only about the movement part) but if the map is a land map with small rivers all over the place, then your ships will just be stuck in that river, with nowhere to go, floating back and forth...

If they can attack ground, then the range of the ships should be equal to a marine's or a hydralisk's range because if it is longer, it is like Larvitar said, it will become another siege tank. But if the range is too short, then nobody will build ships, because they're likely to cost more, attack with the same range but only can move back and forth in that small river, waiting for the opponent to come down and kill it.
in island maps, if marine units are included, then everybody will just be massing ships, and the whole idea about island maps will be lost.

Also, look at the basic storyline of Starcraft. The races are constantly planet hopping, battling on different terrains. Not all terrains support marine units. Also, how are they going to transfer the ships? Ground units can be transported by dropships, warping or by the strange warp hole thing the zerg uses. Air units can just fly to the next planet if its near enough or get transported the same way. Sea units? If something goes wrong, and they get transported onto ground or something, then the whole unit is wasted. If they get left behind, that is a total waste of resources.

 

People for f..ck sake think more before you post al these thre shouldn't be things. Have you guys played age of empires? I don't remember a swordsman being able to pawn a fregate. Or a fregate being able to fuck up your swordsman army or archer army. Also there are types and types of maps in it. Some have only a river others don't have water all. That didn't keep us from building docks on the other maps. So again water warfare would be just as posible in sc2 as in any other game ( btw try to make a map in war 3 with shipyards and ships and you will se how fun the game becomes. ). But the marine battles are just one of the many changes that should be done. I say this again and i will always say it : at this point sC2 offers verry little more than a copy of sc1 with new units. For f..ck sake what is the difference between sc2 and any other sc1 clone except the 3d engine.

 

i would like to see water units in single player and UMS maps, beacuse they have a setting and it would be possible to make it work, but there's no way it should get included in multi-player melee games

 

Warcraft 3 had many terrain levels. Don't forget you could also have buildings on ramps. Seen that in SC1? Think you'll see it in SC2? Warcraft 3 sea battles were fun, but that's only because the engine allowed for it, with water here, deep water here, and land here that blocks the ships. And ramps for naga units to descend into water.

Starcraft had no such thing. Starcraft has only 1 layer of water: deep. There aren't even any ramps that allow you to go into the water. This rules out tiny infantry amphibious units. Starcraft just does not have enough variable Terrain to manage water. If Starcraft ran on the Warcraft engine it would make better sense because ramps can let you into the water. And buildings can be built in shallow water, unlike starcraft engine, where the water is always deep.

 

ever heard of improvement?

 

Improving and changing aren't the same. Improving is changing, but changing may not lead to improvement.

 

Dude you just want the old SC1. Again when project revolution will be out you'll get it. Most of us strategy players want something more than just a stupid old remake. There not using a sc1 engine, they've made a new engine from zero. So basicly it wouldn't hurt for that engine to allow sea battles. If you don't want to fight over sea use a god damn no water map. Again why on earth wait for 10 fu..ing years to have a stupid old game with a lets say good gameplay put in 3d. Do you find the way SC2 is at this moment nice? Seriously, do you think that adding a couple of new units, a few mechanics and new story plot and characters enough for a game of SC's calibre than you are just a cassual player. SC2 should me a great strat game with great chalange and all - from what i see right about now, getting minerals and building a big army is enough. I know it's still beta but come on terran and protoss are kinda finished as for zerg they are probably finished as well. And as it is now, it's gonna suck big time. It is going to be the biggest dissapoinment in the history of games.

 

The way i see it SC2 would have a chance for verry good only if : new species are added ( say hybrids and xel'naga ), lots of new mechanics not just 2-3 /specie, complete uniqnes in every aspect of each specie, and warfare over all terrain types : air, ground and sea. Also lots of new weapon sys. , improvement to gameplay in terms of : better defences (for some species more than just one), that would make you think more before you send your siege your enemy base, more importance to siege weapons (comes with difences), and a need to use all type of units for a secure win. From my point of view heroes would have been a great addition but only in a much different way than the one in war3. But this is just my point.

 

Excellent thread.

the real question here is tho, how do we balance this? 

Perhaps this little note could trigger a lightbulb in someones brain.


For the sake of balance, lets just pretend that in a given minute, 60 seconds, under completely balanced conditions, All 3 races Gathered the EXACT same amount of resources, gas, minerals.  in 60 seconds, they all gather, say, 500 minerals and 200 gas from a standard base with 2 refineries.


So then, for the sake of UNIQUENESS, perhaps the method in which an opponent DISRUPTS the players economy throughout the game is what would separate the races form one another.



I would prefer to use YOUR concepts for this excesses

>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>++>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>+>>>>


just for clarification purposes, let me get the arrow straight.


*******
ZERG
*******
+Zergs are cocooned in a defensive egg, but are connected by a supply line.  It takes time to morph into the egg I'm guessing, but the bonus is that the zerg have a steady supply line, going up such as.... 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, ect.
<<my thought>> this supply line can be easily ruptured if attacked by a non ranged attack.  this means taking a firebat, ling, or zealot type character and severing that line, could result in a hold up for the zerg player.  however, they maintain their drone.  But now have to be macro'd out of the egg, and rebuild.  Perhaps the supply line could creep along the ground of the map to a zergs base, this could look REAL cool in game i think. and because the supply line is direct, and somewhat slow-ish, a zerg player could get refineries that were far away, but then would reveal their location through the "ambilical cord" from the egg to the base... would loooook coool yes?


******
TOSS
******
+Although slightly ripping off of C&C the idea of teleporting resources back to a base is a cool idea.  I like the fact that you said the only way to do this would be while inside of the phase prism, this would eliminate a player being able to build many of these "resources-teleporters" and sending them all over the map and winning huge.  However, a unit like this would be cool because it is unique in that there is no supply line, and it doesn't take time to return the resources
-to balance this powerful unit, perhaps it could be slightly more costly than other gatherers and as well be very vulnerable to an emp attack.  I picture this unit taking a time of about 20 seconds to gather its resources, and then instantly teleporting them back.  If a player got emp'd, or lost several of them in a quick period from a good raid, in the midst of those units teleporting resources back, a player would be very crippled.  they would have been expecting to get 200 minerals, but the tele-gatherer (that's what i wana call it now) got destroyed while it was carrying 49 minerals [tele's the minerals at like 50 ect]

******
TERRANS
******
hey, this is where i gotta say, keep it the way it is.  if it ain't broke, dont fix it.


thanks, tell me what ya think dude?

 

i kind of like the idea of toss probes working in the refinery, but i'd like it modified.

this is just what i'd like, but if you could have workers (race unique or not, doesn't matter) that work in a geyser gatherer, not to gather minerals, but to increase the amount collected by the gatherers.


i also like jamay's idea witht eh zerg, it sounds better then what i planned. have arms/branches/tendrils extending froma building, and these whatchamacallits (...that's a word? why isn't spellcheck underlining it?) would...eat away at the resources. it would make distance meaningless, but it would be immobile under attack. whether it should be above ground or burrowed, whichever works best

 

hey dude, cool, thanks for the feed back, its always rad when people ACTUALLY READ before they post. cool

 

I like the idea of a unit that directly warp minerals back but it should be deployed by a special building or a probe and only operate inside the psi grid dieing if it leaves unless carried in a phase prism.  Also it will continuously warp minerals slowly like 1 mineral a second instead of sending it back in los.

I have an idea actually.  An extension of my previous idea.  You can build a mineral node to allow you to mine without building a whole nexus and given an upgrade will allow probes to hover over mineral fields and open a warp point over a mineral for say  field slowly sucking in the minerals.  They can only do this in the psi grid as long as there is an upgraded mineral node within one screen distance.  If the node is lost or the psi grid taken offline over the fields the warp points will close.

The cost for the warp nodes will be 50 minerals 20 gas (slightly higher than the probe) but will take up no population slots allowing you to build a bigger army and will also allow your probes to be used elsewhere.

Also an assimilator will warp gas back to any nodes within range at a rate that would be about the same or slightly higher that 3 probes working one with the nexus at minimum distance.

This upgrade will allow for faster gathering (more fields accessible/ vespene is deposited more quickly) while lowering expansion costs slightly (no nexus need be built but extra pylons/prisms will be required to cover the fields)

 

I like your idea BirdofPrey! owerup:
But wouldn't it be much handier to just create some sort of upgrade for the pylons, instead of a whole new building type?

--> Standard pylon : 100 minerals
--> Upgrade for the pylon : 90 gas
--> Explanation : A probe normally costs 50 minerals and has 20 SH / 20 HP, a pylon has 300 SH / 300 HP when you normally create your suplly line, as I call it, you will want to have a continuous line of probes to and from your mineral deposits, but when you have the upgrade, you will no longer need so much probes in order to have a good income. So with the upgrade recource gathering would not only be faster, it would be A LOT cheaper than normal to, so that's why I'm saying this upgrade should be way more expensive, AND not to be paid in minerals because you will gain so much minerals from the upgrade.

 

except the weird modelling, good idea,

i like jamaylotts idea best, welcome buddy, however i think they should have some sort of permanent teleporter for every probe near the beggining base so that base raiding still is efective

 

If you would need a seperate building for every probe neer the main base ijffdrie, wouldn't your main base become kind of stuffed with these warp things? It would encourage players to only use this ability when really needed if you needed a building every 3-5 probes, but for EVERY probe, nah. A Terran player would just nuke the main base and recource flow from all over the map would come to a halt, and that isn't very balanced if you ask me.