unique mechanics for the 3 races

The reason why blizzard gave pylons such a low supply count was to ensure that people would not have redundant pylons sitting around (yes I know the guy said because of this there are redundant pylons). But look at it this way. Banshees can smash down 1 pylon easily, hoards of Zerglings would smash 1 pylon down and reapers would pwn pylons any day with D8s. That's why pylons have a low supply count. It is to have non redundant pylons that in the case of a VITAL pylon getting destroyed other pylons would still supply power.
Example:
Your ship and unit warping buildings are supported by a main pylon. IF the enemy reapers came they would obviously blow up your pylon and cease your production line. Putting a phase phrism there might solve things, but obviously the reapers are going to shoot them down. And if your phase phrism does not provide power you would really have to wait for your power to go back up. But if you had several other pylons supporting your building, it would not be so bad. You could rebuild that dead pylon WHILE continuing to build more units.

Next, if your pylon had say, 40 supply. Only 5 of them would be needed. imagine if the reapers came and blew up a single pylon. How much supply would you lose? 40? And building redundant pylons takes up too much minerals.

Protoss would smash your pylons easily with masses of stalkers. Just teleport accorss your defenses and they are happily smashing down pylons. That's why pylons have a low limit count. To have backup pylons that also serve a primary purpose, to provide food.

 

reapers cannot attack air

that's why i said protoss players would need to make serious decision about whether to upgrade pylons, sure upgrading provides double the supply at half the cost, along with larger psi field and production bonus, but at the same time they are more vulnerable, and losing high level pylons would be a major setback, which is the trade off. having only 5 level 5 pylons only would not be advised, generally you should have a mixture of high level and low level pylons

if you are going to make high level pylons then you better make sure to protect it well.

 

nice idea, though very difficult to implement. I mean, you havta memorize what you get from every upgrade, and factor that into strategies. And a 200/200 hp pylon is still pretty darn strong. I mean, I don't see much of a point of upgrading if all it does is make people happy that there is some differentiating factor between terran and toss. Might as well stack pylons again since overlaps are better.

 

yes overlaps does provide a more secure power supply, but building new a pylon cost more than upgrading an existing one, there are other benefits to upgrading, like the increased rate in production. that's why there's a trade off and you have to decide depending on the situation.

 

They can't? I better be more observant. I just don't like the idea of a super pylon being upgraded from a normal pylon. It should come later in the tech tree, as a special structure that gives boost to exiled protoss units. (Think void supply)

Upgrading btw, I feel it should be for Terrans and Zerg only. Protoss should not have upgrading since they might as well warp in the advanced one directly instead of upgrading. Terran need to keep ahead of the race (and free that SCV), and Zerg evolve. Unless Pylons have multiple upgrades, then they should be able to warp in the advanced once directly.

 

as i mentioned, the problem with warp in the advanced one directly is advanced pylons would need to cost more for balance reasons, this means the protoss will have to gather more minerals before building their first pylon, which in turn will seriously delay the first gateway, meaning zergling rush will own protoss everytime. upgrading is a compromised solution.

as for your late in the tech tree comment, a level 5 pylon is late in the tech tree as it requires 4 pre-requisite structures to be built (namely the 4 lower level ones)

anyhow, owerup: for your constructive comments

 

interesting concept - i was kinda thinking an increasing cost mechanism could provide the dynamics you're after too... ie:

25min ---> 50min ---> 50min/25gas ---> 75min/25gas ---> 100min/25gas ---> 100min/50 gas --->
125min/50gas ---> 150min/50gas ---> 175min/50gas ---> 175min/75gas ---> 200min/75gas ---> 225min/75gas ---> 250min/75gas ---> 275min/75gas ---> 300min/100gas ---> 325min/100gas ---> 350min/100gas ---> 350min/100gas ---> 375min/100gas ---> 400min/100gas ---> 400min/125gas ---> 425min/125gas ---> 450min/125gas ---> 475min/125gas ---> 500min/125gas

So a full grid would be 6,325 minerals and 1,875 gas compared to only 2,500 minerals originally. This would put an extra constraint on later game Protoss armies, I don't know if that's really fair - but it would make players think about whether to stack pylons or not... and it wouldn't effect initial expansion that much because the first few pylons would actually be cheaper...

explanation could be that it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain the psionic grid as it expands or whatever without the support of Aiur temple focus points or something

 

That doesn't work :no:
Is there any other way?

 

after you search for starcraft2.com/*.swf google should display a few pages, don't click on the link of the page themselves as you normally do, but copy and paste the bold links in the text under the blue link such as "starcraft2.com/flash/global/unitsplayer_protoss_mothership.swf" into the address bar

 

Here's what I get. What now?

 

see that www.starcraft2.com/flash/global/unitsplayer_protoss_twarchon.swf link in bold?

paste it in your address bar, or better just click that link in my post

 

Very clever idea. You are mainly being questioned because people don't want to see things change, rather than any lack of clarity of your part :thumbup:

At first I was not too sure about your 'production rate increase' because you mentioned it with regards to the Terrans production rate increase, and expecting the Zerg to get one; i thought you meant to homogenize them. Now I see that you are using that example to justify why a rate increase would not be imbalanced.
(careful when you compare the upgrades of one faction versus another, you could be mistaken for those that want all to be the same. ^_^ )

Your ideas are well thought out, hopefully Blizzard will take a look at this. Such a change brings an incredible potential for strategy, and it goes inline with pylon power being the foundation of Protoss technology. I support anything that further diversifies the species.