[A] Starbow - Page 345

If I understand you correctly, in PvT, you want Gateway armies to be (slightly) stronger in a straight up fight vs Bio. But mech in position should > Gateway army. The only reason anyone should bother going Bio is to gain a mobility advantage in the early and midgame, and due to this advantage T can harass P a lot, and if properly done, Terran gains an economic advantage and can transistion into Mech.

You also claim that Protoss has little micro to do pre the 15-minute mark, compared to Bio, and thus the "correct" approach is to make Protoss rely on multitasking to defend vs Bio, since pure engagements will be boring and Protoss favored at lower level of play, Terran favored at higher level of play. If Bio can not get a mobility advantage that transistions into an economic advantage via harassment, there will be no point in going Bio.

I fear this approach is unrealistic, or will at least require larger changes to achieve.
A couple of problems:

- Dropships are way worse than Medivacs and has no special advantage with Bio anymore
- Why just not go Vultures and harass with them? (With or without Dropships) Easier to transistion into mech also.
- If Bio is dependant on Dropships to even "work" as a playstyle, then they either need to come into the game MUCH earlier, or Protoss must get proper defences up later. (You have suggested that Dropships cost 50/50, Starport 100/100.. or maybe even cheaper...) but again, why not just go Vultures + Tanks with Dropships instead?
- It will be very hard to make Bio as fast as they "should" need to be.

- It is Terrans way of dealing damage/apply pressure in the early game and early mid game. T´s way of taking the aggresive initiative in all match-ups. If P or T scouts a Terran doing this, they have to react. Early Marine (maybe Marauder) shall go even or maybe even be better vs early Gateway units, and especially vs early Factory units. (But there shall be room for micro to determine the outcome of these combats)

- To not make Bio completely obsolete in the midgame, the Tech lab should offer some strong upgrades that requires Factory. (For example Combat shields) In this way, a early Bio army who still survives into the midgame, can get some more potential. (And maybe be worth to build for a while longer, together with mech or air units)

- Early Bio must be a part of the meta-game. If it becomes more risky to fast expand and tech to Factory in TvT, early Bio units become more necessary for defence. (It is a risk to skip them.) In TvP, we kinda see this already, since Sentinels are a viable threat that hits the field before Vikings or Goliaths. So going early Marine production for defence, and then turn them into part of a push, should IMO be possible.

- If there shall be a difference between Bio and Mech drop play, then this can be it:
1) Vultures, for their cheap cost, are stronger at killing workers and planting Mines to blow up vs unit based-defence.
2) Bio are much better at destroying static defence and structures. (And ofc good vs workers too)

This will allow two broad "play styles" for Terran. (Hopefully spawn more variations)

1) Tech or fast expand into Mech, and in the mid game secure bases, do slow pushes, maybe Vulture Drops etc. Mech is best when a large number of Tanks + Vultures is aquired.
2) Taking the aggressive iniative with Bio and having a stronger map presence than Mech Terran, or Gateway Protoss.
T shall be able to deal damage, without the need of Dropship tech. When the enemy reaches the critical tech units, like Reaver, Siege tanks, maybe Charge, Blink etc, they gain the upper hand again.

If T succeds, he is ahead, and can either:
1) continue to go Bio and upgrade some good mid-game upgrades, but he will need to add in higher tech units, and maybe Dropships to keep the pressure up. (Since Tank + Reaver will stop any further frontal aggression) The positive thing is that Matrix + Tanks have good synergy. (One unique advantage with going Bio + mech)
2) Or he can transistion into full time mech and abandon Bio production. (If we want to encourage this, Salvage can be added to the Barrack)

Arguably not. But I still think there are small advantages with having them in the game:

- If adjusted corerctly, they can help to open up more micro in the early game engagements, and more importance for unit compositions. (P scouts many Marauders are on the way, he Chrono boosts out 1-2 Immortals, which gives him a better chance of dealing with them, etc)

- Marauder, with its high damage burst attack, allows Bio to do hit-and-run attacks vs Tanks or Lurkers who are just siegein up. (Saw this in some games with Jay a few days ago. The opponent sieges down, gets into position, sieges up. Jay stimms and rushes forward, snipes some tanks, retreats.)

- Marauder has a good relationship vs Banelings. (Makes it harder to just Baneling A-move the whole Bio army)

- Marauder is a good choice to stop the early enemy Reaper. (Since Reapers atm counter Marines)

- PvP feels more interesting with the Immortal. (More room for build orders, counters, unit compositions etc)

Projectiles missing their targets reminds me of Age of Empires/Mythology. Tons of cool stuff to go with that. For example, Camelry were one of the least cost effective units in the game if you simply 1a'd, but due to their high speed, if you had good micro they would be 99% immune to arrows.

Mechanically, arrow dodging functioned a bit different to your implementation, J. When arrows were launched, the game tracked what unit it was aimed at, and where the unit was. Then, as the projectile traveled it would aim for where the unit was when the arrow was launched but it also had a certain 'displacement' speed, which would allow the arrow to change its trajectory slightly. In starcraft numbers, the displacement speed was around 3 (+/- a random # between 0 and 1); most units couldn't dodge it, but units that could move faster than 3 had high dodge chances. The random # allowed arrows to sometimes miss on slow units and sometimes hit on faster units. No splash, so it can't hit anything other than the intended target. Anyways, this all sounds really complicated but the point is that this provided a micro-based counter-play, as opposed to one that depended solely on armor values and bonus damage.

i couldn't find too many videos about it, but you can see it a bit here: + Show Spoiler +
and here's AOE2 arrow dodging, which is a lot more straightforward: + Show Spoiler +
It's basically a predetermined temporal hitbox vs moving hurtbox, instead of BigJs predetermined circular and temporal hitbox vs moving hurtbox.

or in starcraft terms - it'd allow stuff like this to happen, but within large battles: + Show Spoiler +

This type of projectile would provide a 'natural weakness' that zaphod was talking about. Is it needed though? Is it "starcraft"? It'd be very much a unique exception that no other unit has. What I like about it, is that it encourages micro during fights (mostly for the opponent, tho); if they stand still, they'll take tons of damage, but if they move their units they can avoid it. It's a true tactical weakness. Marauder's counter wouldn't be light units; it'd be units with high movement speed. It's something very interesting to mess around with. However, the aoe damage would need to be removed, or else the marauder becomes a deathball unit.

Something very important - if marauder shots can be dodged by stalkers (especially with blink) - and stalkers are good against marines as well... we'd end up with the same problem of mass Stalker vs Terran Bio. Also, the entire idea is a giant marauder nerf, so we'd have to buff them in other ways, I propose buffing their range to 7.

Anyway, I've been thinking of making an Age of Mythology x Starcraft mod, but I'm still learning the editor, so if you could send me a PM about how you implemented that dodgeable shot BigJ, that'd be wonderful.

It's actually fairly easy:
There is usually a "Launch Missile" effect that gets triggered by a unit using its weapon. (like here the effect Marauder - Punisher Grenades (Launch Missile))
One of the options on that effect is to assign the impact location, which is usually set at "Target Unit". Now you just set it to "Target Point" instead, which means the point the targeted unit stands, when the projectile gets launched. (see screenshot, the uppest box)


Now the projectile will go to the target point location and attack the ground there, ergo don't do damage to units anymore at all, so you you have to do one more thing:
You ad splash damage by setting a search area. But you only let it hit a maximum of 2 targets in that area. (now don't ask me why 2targets, it didn't work with 1target; I guess that the target point is the first target, and therefore the unit isn't).

With my marauder, those stats are 360degree (so a circular "splash") with 2 targets at max in a radius of 0.2, no boni and a fraction of 1 (so 100% of the marauders damage).