Alternate ways of attaining minerals

[Zahar]

I've always been a fan of the bounty system, personally. Killing enemy units means you get money, which focuses the attention on combat. However, combat is generally where you're supposed to be losing money, ala Logistics, which is more important than combat for a real war.

Not entirely certain if any of this would work in SC2...but they might be better alternatives than what we've got now.

While it can be FUN, salvage and bounty money in a game that's already so unforgiving as starcraft - so hard to recover from early losses - would make it much worst.

It's the problem of the slipery slope design in competitive games, and it requires no "support" from such a mechanic to happen, so I think they would stay away from in.

[ArcherofAiur]

Interesting, then that brings to attention the potency of a mobile Hatchery.

Let's say the above ability is given to the Queen. It would increase her vulnerability when she is nesting, however it could also promote Position Decision and the increased usage of Creep Tumor to expand her nesting space.

Would that sort of attraction help make a better Queen and macro mechanic?


-Psi

The problem with making mobile unit production for the zerg is getting it not to overlap with warp-in or nydus worm.

[Norfindel]

My current macro mechanic suggestions:

Energy boost:
Description: Probes can tune Pylons to grant them additional energy from the Psi Matrix. Tuning a Pylon costs a small quantity of resources, but permanently boosts the mining speed of 2 Probes (maybe more, chosen among the ones currently mining). Can be done only once per Pylon. The amount of "boosting" provided is shown with a counter (like the Supply).
What does it add: gives another reason to return to the base in a regular basis. Has some tradeoffs that keep the player from just tuning all it's Pylons at once, but after the initial investment, it does pay off.

Morph to Digester:
Description: Drones can morph to Digester (costs minerals and takes time), an improved worker that have powerful acids that turn the minerals into mineral sacs, then carries it to the Hatchery. It returns more minerals per cycle than the Drone, but it's also more expensive.
What does it add: gives another reason to return to the base in a regular basis. Has tradeoffs that keep the player from just morphing all it's workers at once, but after the initial investment, it does pay off.

Xel'Naga Energy Towers:
Description: the more Xel'Naga Watchtowers you control, the higher the amount of resources your workers carry (can be really small, like +0.5 per worker).
What does it add: hopefully, gives players a strong incentive to get them, and keep the enemy from getting them, creating constant points of conflict over the map, and forcing the player to switch views frequently.
Lore: the energy emitted from Xel'Naga towers was found to enhance resources, making them more powerful than their natural form.
Note: this mechanic isn't race-specific. The structures are neutral, and can be used by all players, regardless of race.

Xel'Naga Energyzer:
Description: a variation of the previous mechanic. Instead of using Xel'Naga Watchtowers, they will be a different structure that contains an energy orb that can be captured by a worker. When captured, the orb dissolves, the structure closes, and begins generating another orb (takes some time). All your workers get a temporal boost to mining speed (like Proton Charge).
What does it add: gives a boost to mining if you're willing to frequently visit the structures.
Lore: the energy emitted from Xel'Naga Energyzers was found to be able to cut minerals faster than the current methods.
Note: this mechanic isn't race-specific. The structures are neutral, and can be used by all players, regardless of race.

Robotic Arm:
Description: SCV's can build a robotic arm over a mineral deposit (costs minerals and takes time). The robotic arm will continue to cut the minerals while the SCV is away, which reduces the mining time. However, the mineral deposit cannot be mined while the arm is being built (maybe). Probably should be able to be Salvaged.
What does it add: gives another reason to return to the base in a regular basis. Has tradeoffs that keep the player from just building a lot of Arms at once, but after the initial investment, it does pay off.

Gatherer
Description: Every Nexus can create one Gatherer. It's a flying unit that can gather minerals when positioned over them. It does affect an AoE the size of a normal expansion. It gathers a small quantity of minerals per second from every mineral patch, but after a while, the returned minerals per second diminish, returning a lot less than normal. The affected minerals will return diminished resources per run from standard workers also. If you move the Gatherer to another place, and wait some time, the minerals will return to normal.
What does it add: For a player willing to constantly move the Gatherer between different points of the map, and risking it to be destroyed, it will return additional resources.
Lore: the Protoss have found a way to warp resources directly to a Nexus, without using Probes. However, the process isn't as effective, and it does affect the minerals. It has been observed that the mineral's molecular structure is stressed to the point of destruction, if the warping core is constantly used at maximum power.

[MattII]

No Terran mechanic?

[Norfindel]

No Terran mechanic?

Ok, just because it's you, i added a Terran mechanic .

All of them are here: http://sclegacy.com/forums/showpost....5&postcount=43 (post 43 in this thread).

[n00bonicPlague]

Interesting, then that brings to attention the potency of a mobile Hatchery.

Let's say the above ability is given to the Queen. It would increase her vulnerability when she is nesting, however it could also promote Position Decision and the increased usage of Creep Tumor to expand her nesting space.

Would that sort of attraction help make a better Queen and macro mechanic?


-Psi

This sounds awfully familiar......

http://sclegacy.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1450

[Alzarath]

Salvaging buildings: a way for the terrans to get their money back from buildings that are no longer necissary. One way to possibly add to this is maybe to include neutral salvagable buildings across the map. In a terran on terran match it would create competition over getting these salvagable buildings. hell you could even destroy them; which is likely what would occur in a match between a terran and a zerg/protoss but if these same neutral buildings could be used in ways more akin to the protoss or zerg playstyles then there might be an interesting new mechanic for starcraft.

Not a horrible idea...

Money from kills: I suggested something with this idea behind it, essentially a zerg player could get a small amount of money from kills(whether its friendly or an enemy)....

Sounds decent, I could see how the zerg would be able to ingest their own and use what it just gained to spit something else out, creating more strategy adaptation, though it'd be subject to some serious balancing.

...Along the same lines I suggested a way that the zerg would sort of "farm" their units by making it so that killing their own units would give you more money then how much the unit cost. this I think would create a very neat zergy mentality and would have both benafits and disadvantes to using it (you get more money but you loose units)

HELL NO

Money from deaths: Along the same lines as above, another idea for the zerg, essentially giving the zerg the idea of I need to attack to get more money. so it might create more continual waves from a zerg player and makes them more difficult to kill as time wears on as they get more money (I guess in this mechanic the zerg player would only get a percentage of money from the death of a unit)

HELL NO

But with 2x the no.

Power Plant: basically a building you build that gives you money over time until its destroyed. I think its an interesting idea, however it would be difficult to balance as the more you build the more money you get. However I think with a little creativity it could be implemented. Like if something like this was given to the terrans, one of these would be like a pylon providing minerals to the buildings nearby. Instead of having a total amount of minerals that you decide what to do with over your entire base; each building would sort of have their own stock of minerals that could only be used at this 1 building and it would be up to these powerplants to keep that stock as full as possible.

Idk... it just feels... non-StarCraft.



Sorry, too late in the night for me to be reading over every page of this thread, so I'm just gonna reply from the first few threads.