ZERG MINING OPTIONS

hey all,

yeah i was just thinkin, terran and protoss both refine minerals n'gas to turn them into structures and units n'what not.

zerg dont exactly go out and build scaffolding n'use torches and spanners to manipulate metals bla bla... from what i gather,...so......

zerg would likely absorb the minerals and gas, 'as if it were food'. Take your vitamin c tablets kinda thing.

I was wondering if anyone has any ideas on how this concept could be built on, to further distinguish the zerg from other races.

Different mining mechanics, perhaps create tentacles that grow from the hatchery to the mieral supply and latch on to absorb minerals or somthing.

Positive or negative stuff, i mean, maybe if the hatchery doesnt recieve minerals after say 30 minutes, its health slowly decreases, or it looses the ability to regenerate health.

i really dont know. I dont wanna go messing up current tactics n'all... but i just think there is an opportunity for the zerg to become more unique.

Does anyone have ideas?

***EDIT

Joneagle_X

your right, i shouldnt just be thinking about mining. so here's the new broader question.

zerg actually digests minerals and gas, unlike terran and protoss who manipulate the raw materials.

what mechanics could be created to further distinguish zerg from the other two races using this concept?

any ideas?

 

Well... if you're looking to make the Zerg more unique, I don't think mineral gathering is the place to start. Look more at unit mechanics.

And the Zerg DO digest (at least gas) resources as food. The metabolism of the Zerg is supposedly run solely by Vespene gas. To me this doesn't explain why Zerglings and Drones cost only minerals, but hey, there it is :-D.

EDIT: Haha. Good. It's a nice rephrase of the question and gives a broader discussion topic. Thanks.

My argument is that the Zerg are already pretty distinct and only new units and strategic changes will further distinguish them from the Terran and Protoss. It's the same with the other races. Their differences were already established in SC1 and just need to be refined to create even more distinct races.

Play up the reproducibility of the Zerg. Give them faster but weaker units that appeal to more of the hit and run techniques utilized by many Zerg players. Give us something... NEW I don't know what though. I will "brood" on it.

 

this is a rather odd thought....

what if a drone carrying a mineral batch, could take that mineral batch and somehow use it to quicly heal a unit or building?

that would be a whole new mechanic and give zerg a type of heal function which requires some micro skill,..

just another thought

 

Heres an idea.

Instead of requiring workers to gather minerals you have abuilding that you build over the mierals that slowly absorbs them directly into your possesion unti the minerals are gone.

 

Hi headstock, welcome to the forums. I don't have any ideas on this at the moment personally, but I do think what you've pointed out is indeed very interesting and thought provoking, at least for the Zerg lovers anyway.

I would like to at least build on what you have so far if you don't mind. I think having drones individually carrying around mineral/gas batches to heal units or buildings might be just a tad too micro intensive, it could prove to be tedious.

Instead, how about having Zerg units eat mineral or gas to heal themselves? Basically Zerg (ground?)units would go up to a mineral patch and/or vespene geyser and interact with it for a short time just like a drone mining mineral or gas. But instead of carrying back mineral/gas, the unit would heal their HP instead. The mineral patch or vespene geyser would still lose some mineral/gas from the grand total(the amount harvestable before depletion).

Each mineral patch or vespene geyser would only be occupied by one unit at a time, so if you have a unit eating from a mineral patch or vespene geyser, then drones wouldn't be able to gather resources from that same patch or geyser. So you can't just abuse this mechanic just because it's not money coming out of your pocket, because it would indirectly slow down your resource gathering. Conversely, a unit can only go up to a patch/geyser to eat and heal when it's not already occupied. So you can only heal as many units at a time as you have unoccupied resource nodes in the vicinity.

 

by doing that, would you consume the resourses too? I would prefer to wait 3 more seconds so the zerg unit regenerated himself instead. That wouldnt waste minerals and make you unable to get more minerals.

 

I like the idea. Almost as much as your Genetic Complex idea.

And yes, it would cost more, but technically you could RAPIDLY heal a large army for a relatively low cost. Of course, it would come at the opportunity cost of losing your resources for a while as well. But in the event of an imminent battle it might be a good idea.

And don't forget that you might be able to micro this ability within another player's base. You could technically use THEIR mineral fields to heal yourself. It would also offer a good way to heal units while on the move. You could utilize the mineral field in an unused expansion without even having to build!!!!

Remy, I would give you a powerup because that idea is AWESOME but you're already at 61, and you can't beat sc2forums by law.

 

using the ENEMYS minerals to heal? Sound just like that thread about being able to damage minerals. Its to imba to just destroy/heal up all the minerals of an expansion that is close to the enemy.
with zerglings and such, you could just make them hit eachother with some micro and then consume away.

 

I don't see this being a huge amount of minerals. 1 mineral = 3 hitpoints but takes a while to use.

Of course the balance to this would be the speed with which they mine the minerals.

 

I think that those are some very unique ideas, very Zergy. Would be kinda need to have a separate way to mine besides the same old 'extract and store' method. I don't really like the digesting part, but you could have something with that minerals being the life-force of hatchery kinda thing. Also, there could be some kind of energy regeneration ability with vespene gas? I don't know, just throwing it out there.

 

It reminds me of Earth 2160. The aliens in that game have no Base, they start with a base unit. This unit "eats" when near a resource. Depending how full it is you can choose to morph or reproduce it. They have no buildings but some morph options can´t move forming something like static defenses.

Like the aspect idea just that they rely entirely on it. You don´t have any resource reserves, they are in your units.

There are 2 base units one for ground and one for air, if you loose all your airforce you won´t be able to produce anymore. Same for the ground, if you loose all units capable of reproducing you have a problem (there is a higher unit that can lay eggs but it is still problematic).

It is quite a possibility for zerg, they "morph" directly from the lavra anyway. But it would be more like lavra -> zergling -> Hydra instead of lavra ->Zergling and lavra -> Hydralisk.

 

don't you think that Zerg will hurt their theet while eating these very hard minerals?
The idea sounds funny though

 

Maybe the Zerg extractor should extract a little gas over time by itself. And there would be an upgrade to extract faster. And for extracting minerals I like it the way it is.

 

Resource gathering could be diverse but unfortunatly (?) attacking workers is a central strategy in Starcraft. So it is unlikely that it will change.

 

I adore this idea. It's Zerg, to the very core. They're one of those races that come to a planet, stip it bare, and move on. This is very fitting with that idea.

Bird of Prey.....I like that first idea of yours too, but if they implement it, people will say it's too much like WarCraft III (If anyone's never played it, the Night Elf race's workers bond to the Trees and Gold Mines [The resources] instead of returning to a capital building.)

 

To start off, the here is what Minerals and Vespene Gas do to the Zerg. Directly from the Starcraft site. Note bold parts for information.

Mineral Deposits
The planets along the rim are often dotted with clusters of precious Mineral crystals, which are collected and smelted to create the armored hulls of starships, vehicles, and personal armor. Even the Zerg require Minerals to harden their carapaces and develop strong teeth and bones.


Vespene Geysers
Vespene gas has an unusually high potential energy rating, and as such is highly valued for use as a fuel in high-performance engines and energy reactors. The Zerg have adapted themselves to use raw Vespene as a source of nourishment to drive their greatly accelerated metabolisms.


Now, here is something on Creep.

The Creep
Zerg structures are effectively giant organs, making a Zerg colony a living creature. To provide the required nourishment and infrastructure, the Zerg produce a living carpet of bio-matter that invading forces have dubbed the Creep. Creep, produced by both Hatcheries and the aptly named Creep Colonies, will spread rather quickly across any fertile ground. The Hatchery is the only structure that can be built without the benefit of existing Creep since it has been genetically designed to automatcially produce enough to fuel its own growth. The Creep itself is extremely durable and capable of near-instananeous regeneration, only retreating from infested ground when a Hatchery or Colony is destroyed.


Now, the reason I bring this information is because of this idea. If the Zerg Drone could essentially heal units with minerals could it also subvert or warp buildings along with units?

I say this like this. This could be interesting for the Zerg Buildings.Drones as they mine and take back to the Hatchery for deposit into the Zerg Brood could add the Minerals as they do to the reserves of Gas and Minerals we see in the corner already. Then, if a Zerg Building is chosen is then transformed by the Gas/Minerals or Augmented by the Minerals/Gas. Such as, a Creep Colony that is not mutated into a Sunken or Spore Colony would be Augmented to have an increased area for the creep at the cost of a certain price of Gas. Or, say a Hydralisk Den is augmented with Minerals. Now the Den has a Harder Carapace armor and is now more resilient to attacks. Each of these would be individual for the Buildings. Some could have harder armor or some could have the evolutions to the Zerg swarm evolve faster. To make it so that every building is not a super building they would only be allowed one of the mutations/augmentations.

Now for units it could be essentially like this. Units would be able to be augmented/mutated to have different traits which apply to them as you upgrade them(Separately might I add.) Such as say for a Hydralisk. Mutate it with Minerals and the Carapace defense and Spine attack would increase. Or mutate/augment it with Gas and it would have an increased range of attack or faster movement speed. These are just a few examples.

Edit* Forgot the mention the process by which the Mutation/Augmentation works. As workers bring Gas or Minerals to a building/unit a small bar will appear within the stats. As the bar is filled in for one or the other resource the building/unit will slowly develop the prominent resources characteristic such as the above examples. The other resource would be recycled back into the main Mineral/Gas reserve( The one the player sees.) as the Mineral/Gas that is prominent in that unit/building will become a permanent augmentation/mutation to it.

All this being said healing units as well would come with this as a secondary option to the Drone making it in a sense a Zerg Medic secondary.

This mutation/augmentation of the Zerg would make them 1. Unique and 2. Vastly customizable every game ,thus, making them a radically unique race in SC2. This is not a new concept I don't think ,but, it would add a unique flavor to the Zerg that it needs. What do you guys think of it? 8)

**On a side note congrats Praetor Fenix on 2k Post. 8)

 

i think this idea's cool, and even though it's a bit like the night elf or undead's gold mining... it makes the zerg different. although, muta and reaver drops and whatnot woulnd't be that effective.

 

I think the problem on this thread is you guys are looking at new ways to use old mechanics rather than developing completely new ones.

Remy's post was an example of a completely new idea for a mechanic rather than an adaptation of an older one.

 

No. You only deplete the total mineral count of a mineral patch or the total gas on a vespene geyser. And personally, I've never thought of Zerg's passive regen to be useful. It's better than not having it, but I rather have it like the Terran and have active control over heal/repair but pay money for it instead.

What I had in mind was a small amount of mineral/gas depleted from the resource node compared to the amount of HP healed. The process of consumption takes time and each mineral patch can only be occupied by one unit at a time. So realistically, you wouldn't really be able to clear out all the minerals at an expo with it, because it would take all day. It wouldn't be much faster than trying to harvest the resource patches to depletion with workers. Not to mention how much you would suffer on macro because of the micro put into it. You have to individually command each zergling to hit a specific zergling, stop them before the target is dead, eat minerals, repeat.

Not saying that it's a great idea or what not, but it's just my idea pertaining to the topic of this thread. I would be satisfied if Zerg just got fast regen on creep.

Genetic Code Index, but yea... No need for power ups btw. I personally don't want to be too close to the admin's level either.

 

Genetic Code... sry... My memory has gaps after a month or so .

I'm glad to see you online. It really does lift my spirits... I was stuck with just Ych9 there for a while..... :'( lol.