Should depot submerge be a research?

[Nicol Bolas]

The solution? Make depot submersion a research available at the engineering bay.

How is this a solution? Terrans have been walling themselves off for near on a decade now. They'll just use a Barracks/Factory like they do in SC1.

The only way to make walling in impossible for the Terrans is to take away building mobility in the early game. It would become a later game research.

[Blazur]

How is this a solution? Terrans have been walling themselves off for near on a decade now. They'll just use a Barracks/Factory like they do in SC1.

If they want to use a Rax/Factory then let them. Later on they can fly it away, cutting into production time, or move it permanently and open up a hole. If players choose to make a choke using only depots they'll need to invest resources and remember to activate the ability once they've advanced in tech. It introduces choice to Terran players. Failure to make this investment leads to an impassable choke from both sides.

Alternatives are to move the research to the Armory making it come later on in the game, or individually upgrade each depot to allow for this technology at a cost.

Terrans already master turtling with a surplus of ranged units and tanks, why make it that much easier with innate sunken depots?

Or we can keep it as it is and expect to encounter a depot wall every time we play against Terrans on Lost Temple and potentially many other maps.

The only way to make walling in impossible for the Terrans is to take away building mobility in the early game. It would become a later game research.

That's another suggestion I've made on numerous occasions. It would prevent Terrans from floating early CC's to islands for an easy capital gain. Couple that with depot choke blocking and you have an even greater chance to be cheesed early on against a Terran player.

[rcp181]

Honestly I've always been more afraid of spider mines during early harassment than anything else. I'll gladly take submersible depots :P

Also blink and cliffwalk

[ArcherofAiur]

It would prevent Terrans from floating early CC's to islands for an easy capital gain.

But thats a good thing! Where did you guys pick up this mentality that if a race can do something the others cant then its bad?

[newcomplex]

You know, killing a 350 depot is easier then killing a 1k hp barracks.

[n00bonicPlague]

Yeah, couldn't they just build a barracks and use it as a door? In fact, I would add a reactor onto that barracks, that way when it is down I can pour marines out of it like crazy. Anyway, this is one of those fishy edges of balance that I'm not so sure on. It seems just fine as is, but I can see how a fix might be needed.

[Xyvik]

lol what?

It's a proprietary set of checks & balances, algorithms, and scenarios I use to test to make sure my own games/mods are balanced. In 7 years of mod making and 4 years of game making it has proven to be roughly 90% accurate.

I re-iterate my early statement and concur with n00bs: it's not a huge problem, but there could possibly be a fix. Walling off Terrans is indeed something of a cheese strategy. I myself have always been a fan of putting building mobility as a research article.

The moment they do that, however, billions of angry Terran fanbois will descend on them and torch them to pieces. Blizzard themselves have also shown they favor Terrans slightly anyway, so it's unlikely we'll see this change any time soon.

[Norfindel]

And at what point in the tech tree do you want to move the ability to bury the Depots? Terrans could just wait for the upgrade, if fast enough, or just use another building, or close with a Bunker, and Salvage it to go out.

[trace wm]

I myself have always been a fan of putting building mobility as a research article.

The moment they do that, however, billions of angry Terran fanbois will descend on them and torch them to pieces. Blizzard themselves have also shown they favor Terrans slightly anyway, so it's unlikely we'll see this change any time soon.

I don't agree with this at all. Building mobility is an innate Terran attribute - you may as well force Protoss to research their ability to warp in buildings without losing workers/worker time, or Zerg's 3 larva at one hatch.

And though I've always thought that Terran is the best looking race in SC2, I chalk that up to this being the Terran expansion, and that they've always been my favored race.

[Xyvik]

I don't agree with this at all. Building mobility is an innate Terran attribute - you may as well force Protoss to research their ability to warp in buildings without losing workers/worker time, or Zerg's 3 larva at one hatch.

But not all buildings are mobile, otherwise the academy in SC would have had the option to lift-off. Selective mobility is part of the mobility of Terrans. If Barracks have selective mobility, it's still an innate terran ability.

I honestly don't know how this particular situation would be resolved since I haven't spent enough time and energy thinking about it and balancing it. I just think submerging depots makes things too easy, and so far the number cruncher agrees. It has been off before, and I could be wrong, but it'll take true testing to figure it all out.