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I like that, you won't be spamming it because in the long run you get the same amount of minerals or even a bit less, but it gives you a short term boost that allows you to do timing attacks and quick teching and so on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Operatoring
Imagine the kinds of builds that could be done. You could rush to certain Techs, get a huge boost, and try and catch your enemy by surprise. Or maybe you just got hammered by an attack and you need Minerals fast to rebuild units and defenses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Noise
That would be interesting, Spawn Larvae for choice, Calldown MULE and Proton Charge for short term boosts.
-Psi
Calldown Mule for consistency? What does this mean?Quote:
Originally Posted by PsiWarp
I am a little behind on the Mule Mechanics, can anyone catch me up? I know that CC's can be turned into some building that gives them like 3 separate abilities. One is Calldown Mule, one is Scan, and I think the other is Calldown Supply (Lame). If you ask me, unless I am missing something, that the Mule is pretty much the same type of mechanic as the Proton Charge... Which means it needs to be fixed...
Whoopies, got that backwards. MULE is the short term boost, due to 15 mineral per trip, while Proton Charge is consistent for unchanged Probe count.
-Psi
"Unlike the protoss of Aiur, the dark templar draw their strength from the all-encompassing void. All of their powerful Dark Obelisks reach out to this chaos and thus all their potentials are linked together as one, into a single pool of boiling energy."Quote:
Originally Posted by DemolitionSquid
or somesuch. As ever the lore can be made to fit.
I agree that it is a bit complex and it could be hard to reprent visually but it could be done.
Honestly I don't see how a shared mana pool is complicated at all. You have multiple buildings, they all have mana, when you use a spell on one of them, the mana goes down. Easy. We actually had a lengthy thread on the topic earlier.
However I don't think that this, by itself, solves the problems with the Obelisk.
The shared mana pool solves the problem with people spamming multiple Obelisks to use the combat abilities at the front lines, while keeping a few in the rear dedicated to Proton Charge. So this makes the choice between abilities matter more.
However we still have to make sure that the other abilities are competitive. The mana limitation doesn't matter if Proton Charge is always the best spell to use. To make the Obelisk viable the way the Queen or Orbital Command is, the choice between Proton Charge and the other spells has to be somewhat difficult.
Thats why I suggest an ability which increases production rate at production buildings. You then have to choose between more minerals or faster production.
Shared mana is definatly something that should be looked into but as Spider points out it doesnt solve other problems with the obelisk.
I like the idea of creating tension between protoss mining and protoss unit production. But Protoss already havea unit production mechanic in warp-in. If any one has any other ideas for Protoss mechanics that increase unit production I would love to hear them.
Having your sheilds go down when you use the charge dosnt work at all. When your not being attacked your going to be using it all the time so nothings changed there.
Then when you are attacked even with shields on your probably gonna be letting your probes either keep mining but more so your going to try and protect your drones or have them run away so more or less your going to micro them the same way as if they had shields.
So really nothings changed there either. And your not going to be attacked all the time at all so having your shields drop... oees noo! My probes have no shields! NOOOES! Its just not an effect counter to the upside.
The shared Mana idea is pathetic, either it ruins the gameplay (one power source all buildings/units tap into), or it changes practically nothing (one power depot all units/buildings contribute to).
The main problem I see with a shared energy source is that it doesn't scale well. It will either be capable of perma-Proton-Charge during the early game (when you're handling only one mining site) or it will be vastly inadequate for late game (when you're handling multiple mining sites) due to insufficient energy to go around where as the Terrans and Zerg can scale according to their needs.
I've thought of a few ideas to help out the macro mechanic. Not major but something interesting at least.
- Set a probe maximum for the ability: When you use it there is a maximum number of probes within the area it affects. An example being 6-7. This means that to allow for maximum effectiveness you have to use it multiple times. This will increase the cost of the speed boost overall for larger bases but will do well in smaller expansions. Downside is that to select there will be a sort of randomness. That is something I'm against however. At minimum this removes the edge of this ability being multiplicative instead of additive.
- Energy Cost increase: I think increasing the cost of the energy used on the ability will be something to consider. This means you can use the cheaper alternatives or use the costlier boost to econ. Since there is no limit and obelisks are easy to produce comparitively this is something to consider
- Cost versus return: I think we need to look into the cost of the obelisk versus the gain it provides to economy. Let's say it's total mineral cost is 200 minerals... how many boosts will it take to recover 200 bonus minerals in speed? This is something to consider as well as a limiting factor.
- *REGARDING SHIELD DRAINING* If you want to explore ideas such as a shield drain, I think it would make more sense to have it drain the shields over time and when a probe runs out of shield the effect is removed and the shields start to regernate. This will add a new level of strategy to the game. The boost will be more "powerful" economically than the other races, however, it has more options to mitigate/reduce. Terrans can EMP for example to reduce effectiveness. This will also negate it being a "spam" ability because if you do too often then you're essentially wasting energy (if the probes have minimal shields, the ability has minimal effect)
- Single target boost: If you use the above mechanic, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to consider balancing a single target version of the ability that can target anything (at the cost of degernating shields for it's duration) I don't think it would be used but worth a discussion.
I support number 1 of your proposal, in which will demand for increased investment on Obelisks in the home base if one wants all his workers at maximum economic efficiency (due to the large number of Probes often found within the base).
Another idea, good or bad: Proton Charge enhances all minerals caught within the AoE, so the balance factor can be the size of the AoE and careful positioning of the ability. All Probes that gather from those minerals will gain +1 carriage of minerals.
However, each Probe that gathers from the minerals will receive passive shield damage, until they reach 0 and must wait until they either harvest elsewhere, or move away, or the affect on the minerals ends to regenerate back the shields.
Perhaps that Proton Charge animation on the Probes, can indicate the shield damage.
-Psi
Shared mana was only supposed to solve the problem of tension, then the only problem is to find a spell useful enough to make it worth sacrificing minerals. The only one I can think of (except perhaps for increased unit production which others have suggested) is to link it with warp in so that the protoss trades minerals for mobility. The main problem with this suggestion might, again, be complexity, as you would be drawing energy from the obelisk when you used a warp gate, which could be very confusing at first.Quote:
Originally Posted by ArcherofAiur
Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. peasant
The shared mana pool is supposed to increase both in maximum amount and in regeneration speed every time you build a new obelisk. So it can scale to late game. This also means that you can make obelisks more expensive because they can't be wasted if they are in the wrong position as long as you have one near minerals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rake
How about an Obelisk ability that teleport a Protoss unit back to the Obelisk? This can be used to save damaged units (kinda like stalker micro). This ability would combo well with both shield and energy regeneration. Once recalled back to the base the player must come back to the base to get it. While back at the base the player can also cast things like proton charge, make gateways, etc... so it encourages macro style gameplay too.
Would this abilty be worth sacrificing minerals for?
That is actually a pretty good idea. Imagine teleporting back a fleet of carriers just as they lose their shields so they don't take any HP damage. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by ArcherofAiur
One problem might be a lack of use in early game, when the only thing you have to teleport is a scouting probe. It would be pretty funny to teleport back a 1 hp probe just before it is killed but it probably wouldn't be worth the investment.
Then, you wind up having the same problem unless the energy pool is 'X + (n-1)*Y' with Y<X in value (e.g.: 1 = 150, 2 = 250, 3 = 350...). However, this makes it somewhat complicated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rake
I don't understand the problem; perhaps you could explain it again?Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. peasant
This is the way I think about it: Say an obelisk has a maximum of 100 energy and 1 tick of regeneration per second. If you build a second obelisk then the shared energy pool would have a maximum of 200 with two ticks of energy regeneration per second. If you build a third then it would be a maximum of 300 with 3 ticks of regeneration per second. You get the same benefit in regeneration and capacity as if you had built lots of them and they all had separate energy pools except that all the energy is accessible from any of them and taking from any takes from all, thereby creating a trade-off for casting decisions.
The argument was that if you build enough Obelisks, you could theoretically permanently keep the Probes on Proton Charge.
Ah, ok. Yes, this is an issue. The solution would be to make the Obelisk expensive enough so that if you had too many of them you wouldn't have enough troops. Would you build another command center so you could get more mules?Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. peasant
Or the solution is that Proton Charge no longer replenish the duration when cast upon charged Probes, similar to Spawn Larvae where only 1 Hatchery must wait for 4 Larvae to hatch, before another Spawn Larvae can be cast on said Hatchery.
-Psi
I see where u were going with this equation but just to clarify, next time labeling your variables is probably a good idea, like what is X and what is Y.Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. peasant
How about, when PC is activated, your probes will pick up 6 minerals from the mine (or however they normally do), but when they drop it off, you only get 4 or 5, for the trade-off of making the probes move and mine faster.
You're getting the minerals FASTER, but you're not going to be getting AS MUCH in the grand scheme of things, and it's up to the player to decide whether they want to do it, or hold off on it to prepare for a late game, where more minerals will definitely pay off.
Just a thought I had. Didn't really go through the rest of the thread, so it might have been mentioned already.
The reason of giving variables the names X and Y rather than "Probe" and "Mining Rate" or what ever is so that the equation can be used for multiple circumstances without having to rename variables to fit the equation. X and Y are universal variables.Quote:
Originally Posted by kxr1der
It hasn't been mentioned before as far as I can tell. It's a very interesting idea that, at least as I see it, could play out quite nicely. You gather minerals at say +20% speed, but you're losing 250 minerals per patch overall.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rizhall
I mentioned that in mr peasants thread. Its a nice way for "gain now but loss in long term"Quote:
Originally Posted by MattII
This is why I think the ability should just be on the nexusQuote:
Originally Posted by Rake
Ah, I hadn't spotted that till you mentioned it.Quote:
Originally Posted by RainbowToeSocks
I've considered that myself, but then you have to weigh it out against the Nexus beginning to look like the CC/OC (certain functions are indispensably the same, but beyond that...).Quote:
Originally Posted by Noise
But you can't do that permanently, at least not if you have multiple expansions, so the fact that more Obelisks can exponentially increase mineral income is countered by the need to do other things in the game, like stopping your enemy from taking all the map.Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. peasant
Still, it's not an easy task to balance that, and is quite unpredictable. Specially because the lowest attack units of the game don't need gas, so it would potentially end in the funny situation to see one thousand Zealots entering your base at some moment. Even if they're "starting units", and cannot attack air at all, they can be quite dangerous.
Static defense doesn't need gas, either, nor basic buildings, so the game will go in that direction, if you choose to go fully with the "macro mechanics".
Probably, the way to go, is to get enough minerals to expand and build LOTS of static defense and basic units to defend it. This looks quite unpredictable, and dangerous to game balance (and fun), if not done perfectly (if at all possible).