Re: Giving the Obelisk Wormhole Transit
The only way i can think of the macro abilities being balanced, is by taking into account the amount of workers and expansions a typical game has (which is different by race), and assuming it's used continuously, should give comparable extra income. Of course, that's hard to do with the Zerg mechanic, because it's based on unit production, not faster mineral gathering.
Still, MULES mine triple the amount of minerals per trip, which is a lot. But it does not look like you need to press keys all the time to use MULES. In fact, if you have multiple OCC, you can just call whatever amount of them at the same time to the same base, and you're going to get a lot of minerals really fast. So they don't even have the same APM/minerals ratio.
I don't know if this is unbalanceable, but certainly will be a royal pain in the ass to balance.
Re: Giving the Obelisk Wormhole Transit
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Originally Posted by
Norfindel
The only way i can think of the macro abilities being balanced, is by taking into account the amount of workers and expansions a typical game has (which is different by race), and assuming it's used continuously, should give comparable extra income.
People often assume that all races need to take in the same income to be balanced. This is actually not the case as evidenced by the fact that Zerg can fast expand in SC:BW.
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Originally Posted by
Triceron
Mules are effective but are on a longer 'cooldown' period since Orbital Command is limited by the fact you only have ONE per Command Center, and its energy is shared with a few other abilities. This is a forgiving system for players who use Mules seldomly compared to pros who use it a lot, since even pros are limited by the amount of energy the Orbital Command has at a time. The most they could spam this is, lets say, 4 times every 2-3 minutes.
4 times every 2-3 minutes is about once every 40 seconds which i think is what is required to continuosly keep MULEs and Proton Charge up. This is about the same amount of time that making workers was in SC:BW.
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Originally Posted by
Triceron
Proton Charge can potentially be kept up 100% of the time given you have obelisks available. Even if it is a slower rate of mineral gathering than Mules, the fact that it can be kept up 100% makes it a deep APM sink that gives pros the major boost, and increases the resourcing gap between a pro Protoss player and a less skillful/mindful one.
Yes except you should use the word macro players instead of pros as casual players can be macro-oriented and vice versa. Point is that it is intentional to give macro boosts to players who spend time improving their economy. Its not a micro only game.
So the Obelisk is a macro oriented game element. Its purpose is to give macro advantages so a base builder can beat a psi storm caster. But it also has ansilary abilities that provide some alternatives for players who do want to micro. These abilities do not have to be as good as Proton Charge but they do have to be alternatives.
What I think we should focus on is making the Obelisk more attractive for the micro player. I believe that Wormhole Transit would improve this by making energy and shiled regenration more applicable in more situations.
Re: Giving the Obelisk Wormhole Transit
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Originally Posted by
ArcherofAiur
4 times every 2-3 minutes is about once every 40 seconds which i think is what is required to continuosly keep MULEs and Proton Charge up. This is about the same amount of time that making workers was in SC:BW.
MULEs cost 50 Energy. On NORMAL speed the global energy regeneration is 1 per second(this isnīt WC3), ergo 1 Mule every 50 Seconds. Also MULEs were indirectly nerfed since Scan becomes more important against Zerg due to Spore Cloud.
Re: Giving the Obelisk Wormhole Transit
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Originally Posted by
unentschieden
MULEs cost 50 Energy. On NORMAL speed the global energy regeneration is 1 per second(this isnīt WC3), ergo 1 Mule every 50 Seconds. Also MULEs were indirectly nerfed since Scan becomes more important against Zerg due to Spore Cloud.
Yes so 1 MULE at about the same time as worker rallying in SC: BW
I answered some questions on the B.Net forum that I think were important to address (sorry for the delay been hiking mt washington).
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You mean, it's not because it's just something that you have to go and click mindlessly on a regular basis? That's was my opinion, anyway.
Both MULE and Proton charge have a task (click on base element) and a reward (enhanced mining). What seperates them is the degree of positional impact. Starcraft is a game build around positional impact. By giving the Obelisk positional impact you can vastly improve the mechanic.
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While wormhole transit might be interesting, it seems you're advocating it solely on the basis that it needs to be similar to the Zerg and Terran mechanic. I see no reason why it should be similar, in fact I'd say the less similar the better, all other things being equal.
The ability to teleport anywhere in pylon power is different from both the MULE (one time drop in vision) and Queen (walking) modes of transportation.
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Does the monolith provide pylon power? If so, you could simply mass some and chain teleport them into the enemies base. Perhaps say it doesn't give pylon power.
The obelisk no longer provides pylon power or supply and I wouldnt have the monolith do so either.
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Teleporting buildings has been done (Warhammer Eldar is the one that springs to mind), but it's not a terrible idea as long as there is a reasonable cost involved. What is the cost here? Energy?
I would do energy to compete with Proton Charge and the other abilities.
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I still really want proton charge dropped or altered to be less mindless. If you can work that into this idea I'll be very likely to support it.
Having to decide when to use your monolith for warp-in attacks, when to bring it to different bases to recharge probes and when to teleport it to a base would lead to very mind intense activity. This it the positional impact that im talking about.
You have calculate where you want your base buffing element to be in the game and ration off energy to make that happen. With the Orbital Command you might want to save some of your energy for an emergency comsat. In a simmilar manner you could choose to save some of your energy to teleport your monolith to a base that is comes under attack.
