Transport mining now viable?

The addition of high-yield minerals to StarCraft adds to the strategic possibilities in expansion placement as well as increases the importance of scouting, however, does it also open the door to the transport mining technique? When Blizzard acknowledged the existence of these "yellow" minerals, they noted that these expansion points would be in high-risk locations, which would increase the risk and cost of setting up base there.

Would the micro-intensive technique of loading 8 peons in a transport, taking them over a chasm to mine a mineral patch and then bringing them back to base now be viable if the peons take doubled from 8 to say 16? I know it's a bit of a stretch... Also, wouldn't it be neat if this could be automated?

 

This seems to me that it would be benificial to doing this action (This is if the crystals are worth THAT much more), but I don't think that it would become an automated option, though it would be neet...

I have also heard around that the yellow crystal clumps have very few uses in them compared to normal crystals so we will have to see how much the new commodity will actualy effect the game.

 

My guess is no, transport mining won't be worth your time.

I don't really like this whole idea of high yield minerals...

 

neither do I, I think it is going to make a lot of unnecessary battles over overly-coveted resources

 

That's a lot of microing. Move peons into dropship, move dropship to minerals, wait, unload peons, mine, put peons in dropship, return to base, wait, unload peons, return cargo, repeat.

If you have time for that many clicks, just go expand there.

 

to clarify my earlier post, I meant that I think that people are going to try so hard to get these "special" minerals that they are going to end up spending all their minerals defending their expansions and spread themselves too thinly just to be like "omfg i got teh yello minrulls!!!1"

 

I just don't like the idea of the game passively telling me where to expand.

I know I could still expo where I choose, but it's always gonna be in the back of my mind that if I don't expo there the other guy will.

 

While "teh uber 1337 mega haxxors" are getting their yellow minerals I'm moving my Siege Tanks into their main.

 

It'll not be viable for the Terrans and Protoss to do so. Maybe for the zerg with the nydus worm, but it would still require too much microing to make it work.
Even though it's in a high risk location, I think it could be worth taming that position if the situation allows. It will though make the strong players even stronger a lot quicker, while the weaker players will die or gg quickly, so that's probably a bad thing. Having the gold minerals is like having a money map within a normal map, so I suppose it's good for longer games.

 

Its going to make opponents more predictable, I hate the idea.

 

i think it will make you and your opponets more predictable cause i mean who would say "Yellow, Yellow, Yellow,... Wow! is that Blue crystal? lets go over there!

but as for user created maps it could be a whole different strategy if it was only yellow minnerals i mean you would get money faster = you have to think faster

 

2x money maps... ugh, I don't even wanna think about it.

We're gonna have more people who suck at SC2 than we did for SC1 because of it, great.

 

I understand Blizzards trying to expand the game and i have faith in them but im starting to get a bit worried that there going to change to much of it. Changeing a lot of the units anoyed me a little..

Exchangeing minreals like on WC3 and haveing yellow minreals ... i dono im starting to get a bit worried there going to make it a new game instead of an upgrade from SC1.

They dont need to change much from SC just updated it not remake it if that makes sense... Dont fix stuff that isnt broken!

 

...that sorta thinking is why we arent advancing =P.

oh and having that double money thing and using transport mining is an idea if that place becomes like a no-man's land and you just want that extra income or something...


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

 

I doubt transport mining will be viable, but I wish it were. You can do so many cool things with resource collection, but for some reason people don't like games centered around resource collection(note: I am one of those weirdos that would find a first-person mineral-harvesting game to be fun) so they make the whole process really simple. It just means that such strategies as remote-mining are less viable, and only emerge in times of desperation.

 

No one really knows how hard it would be to get these yellow minerals. For all we know, they really might be on some random platform that is only accessible to mining by that technique. Bliz however mentioned that they are trying to include many ways for the gosu players to really stand out, so this could be one big advantage for the more skilled players.

If you are forced to do this however, you would still build a cc as close as you can to those minerals so the transport distance isn't as long for the dropship. It could lead to many interesting strategies, even making that arbitor recall on minerals glitch a possibility if enough probes gather around.

 

Lets be honest, this is a lil absurd lol
It would require far too much micro to do this. Im sure they will make it where u can make a cc and collect them normally.
Maybe if they could make it automated which i highly doubt (then again if the AI cant detect any way to reach the minerals they could do this.) then it would be viable. But personally id rather just go to blue minerals and expand. Safer and easier. Also note that they always showed VERY few yellow minerals in each patch. So all you would be doing really is reducing the number of drones/SCVs/probes required to harvest.

 

Okay, something I would like to restate is the fact that these yellow/gold crystals are hard to come by in hard to control areas (or at least in Blizzard maps) so you would have to fight others to keep it like others have said.

Also though, it is rumored that these golden crystals have small crops (not many crystals in a group). The only difference would be that you get it faster and run out sooner. This I believe may become a great advantage to the Terran with their comand center movement ability because they can quickly mine the golden crystals to get a quick start and then be able to just relocate at another crystal site elsewhere for money in the long run.

 

Awesome idea. Depending on things, this might be one of the first maps I make. One where 50% of the expos are gold minerals, with normal crops (1500 or whatever standard blues have), but don't have enough room to build/land a CC/Nexus/Hatchery on, so Transporting is the only way to access them. If the AI is smart enough to figure this out, it'd be great.

 

It would be easier and safer to just get the normal minerals... Who cares if someone else gets a little more minerals, just blow apart their base while they're trying to expand.