Allow workers a free pass between friendly buildings

[n00bonicPlague]

I always manage to get an SCV trapped somewhere between some buildings, and thus I have to wait for Dropship tech as my 50 minerals and 1 supply go to waste. I think a simple solution to this would be to always allow workers to pass between buildings owned by the same player, no matter how tightly squeezed they are. This should also apply to areas between owned buildings and terrain/doodad edges.

Note that I am NOT proposing that workers owned by one player should be allowed to pass between buildings owned by other players — allies or enemies. Just allow us to get our workers out from behind our own buildings so we can actually use them without having to deal with the randomness of which way the workers go after they are done constructing (SCVs and Probes really — Drones don't have to deal with this nonsense since they become the buildings).

I don't see much discussion that could come of this. Personally, I think this is a no-brainer decision in favor of implementation. But hey, perhaps there is some twisted gameplay reason that this should not be implemented, that of which I have totally overlooked. So, please voice your thoughts, facts, and opinions about this by voting and/or posting.

[Raisk]

Actually I'd say this is a no-brainer in terms of not implementation. This would allow you to flee your workers away from attacking units through a tight wall-in, so they could no be followed. It would make fleeing your workers from attackers way too easy and the only benefit would be that that one scv you get stuck wouldn't do so. I like my enemies workers to not have easy avenues of escape.

[arthas]

I always manage to get an SCV trapped somewhere between some buildings, and thus I have to wait for Dropship tech as my 50 minerals and 1 supply go to waste. .

Well so did I,but in Sc1....,Now the lowering of the supply depot simply limits this by 95% chance to get stucked

[Hamshank]

They should be pushed out better maybe; what you suggest is game breaking.

[TheRabidDeer]

Toss and zerg dont really have to worry about this, but I am curious on which buildings an SCV gets stuck between. Cant terran's lift off/lower pretty much everything in their base?

[n00bonicPlague]

Well so did I,but in Sc1....,Now the lowering of the supply depot simply limits this by 95% chance to get stucked

Yes, and you can add on the Command Center, Orbital Command, Barracks, Factory, and Starport, which can all lift-off. But what about the Planetary Fortress, Refinery, Missile Turret, Bunker Engineering Bay, Armory, Ghost Academy, and Fusion Core? Those buildings can neither lower nor lift-off. And none of the Protoss buildings can move around at all.

Toss and zerg dont really have to worry about this, but I am curious on which buildings an SCV gets stuck between. Cant terran's lift off/lower pretty much everything in their base?

As listed above, only about half of their buildings have something like that.

They should be pushed out better maybe; what you suggest is game breaking.

And it's not game-breaking to have your worker rendered useless by a random event used simply for the sake of animation? Also, I don't see how a better push-out could be achieved. In the case of building/building, I'm not sure how it would be able to tell the difference between a random patch of dirt that was enclosed and another that wasn't. In the case of building/cliff, writing in a better push-out could potentially screw up the workings of cliff-climbers.

[arthas]

Yes, and you can add on the Command Center, Orbital Command, Barracks, Factory, and Starport, which can all lift-off. But what about the Refinery, Missile Turret, Engineering Bay, Armory, Ghost Academy, and Fusion Core? Those buildings can neither lower nor lift-off. And none of the Protoss buildings can move around at all.

Hmm,you are right the only time i stucked SCVs a couple of times was because of missile turrets,although i still think that both the Refinery and Missile Turrets need to be able to get salvaged...

[n00bonicPlague]

Hmm,you are right the only time i stucked SCVs a couple of times was because of missile turrets,although i still think that both the Refinery and Missile Turrets need to be able to get salvaged...

Missile Turrets are the usual culprit for me, but I've had other cases. It's rather difficult to precisely place every building when you're flying around the map doing other things.

[Iceman_jkh]

This should be extended slighty, to all units.
Even production units can become trapped if they spawn at a particular location. This is REALLY annoying and a genuine problem.

I like how SCVs will spawn from a spot on the circumference of the CC that intersects the rally point line. I'm not sure if other buildings act the same way, but Ive had units get stuck (when multiple units accumulate around the building) and units coming out on the wrong side and having to walk around. The latter is a signinifcant issue if you have walled-in. The argument should not be made that "well, you should build better", as, your fate can be determined simply by which side of the map you started on, compared to which side of the building the unit spawns on.

As to workers getting trapped, they should always exit on the side where there is available space. They should not be given an eternal free pass, but rather solved via a more intelligent 'end building' action.

This should be on Blizzard's "ways of improving the UI" list, as its a direct way to reduce annoyances and at the same time increase the playability of the game.

[Norfindel]

I agree. It's much better to allow workers to always move thru the junctions between it's own buildings, than to have a worker trapped. That just looks retarded, and shouldn't ever happend in a game today.

They could move very slowly while doing this, if this would allow workers to escape too easy.