Why do you want to buff the lurkers health instead of its damage? The damage it does is the problem.
I generally try to not increase the damage of units too much, since that makes combat end very quickly. Damage & attack speed = time it takes to kill something. The slower it takes, the more reaction time are their for players. I think the lurkers gets more interesting if they are a bit more "fortified" while burrowed but very vulnerable when unburrowed. The enemy you got to cease the moment and rush in and snipe them before they burrow, or blink with stalkers to kill them. Since a higher armor will make them more resistent to balls of low-tier enemy units just A-moving into them. Sure, higher damage will do that too, but do we want combat that ends in seconds?
If you blindly move into a bunch of lurkers you should be punished. Same way as blindly walking into a bunch of siege tanks/spider mine. same as walking into reavers. Buffing their will not be solution, i will still be laughing as i simply walk through them taking no damage. (also if you can make it so you can press hold so they wont attack and you can make traps).
I noticed you've changed DT's so they can't one shot scv's. This must be changed or you can simply move your scv's away and take no damage even when caught off guard.
On September 11 2012 00:57 RFDaemoniac wrote: Hey Kabel, I was doing some research into getting that income nice curve that we wanted, and I think I've found it!
Rather than messing with the worker AI, I decided to play around with mineral placement.
I did these calculations on bases that were as close to standard SC2 as possible. Since you've changed minerals/trip and build time of workers, and their movement speed, you may want to decrease the number of patches to 3x3.
The data is only taken at intervals of 6 and only on one test (as I didn't have a huge amount of time to sit through and watch replays). There is definitely a better way to test this with more time, such as setting up 8 workers mining and letting them mine for a minute and counting the minerals that they've mined rather than going by the income tab)
There is an unexpected dip in the curve at 24 workers, and I'm not really sure what caused this or if I just read the data wrong (even after going back to double check)...
This curve is much closer to what I had in mind. With the new layout, 8 workers is ideal saturation, but 16 is close to ideal. Past that, each additional worker is more effective than it was with the standard mineral layout, since they weren't worth it before. However, since 8 workers is ideal saturation, you will almost always be rewarded for being on more bases than your opponent (exemplified by the linear line when you have enough bases to have all your workers mining on close patches).
What do you think?
EDIT: Some issues could arise with terran being able to lift off their bases to move closer as they mine out the minerals, but this can always be prevented with vespene gas placement or doodads.
That is entirely awesome, but at the same time, really impractical. No way that min placement will work on even 10% of most melee maps. We'd need to get mappers for just building Starbow instead of modifying a few resource counts in the usual placement.
People have requested replays. Here is a best-of-3 played by 2 master players; Danko and Puccini. People often wonder how Zerg is suppose to be played in this. I highly recommend you all to watch these games. (And of course you can cast one if you like, decemberscalm ^^)
@Daemonic Nice calculations, but as Decemberscalm says, it will effect the maps quite a lot with such placement of minerals. I am trying a slightly modified economy now that seems to be doing fine. I will send the new patch to Decemberscalm at NA shortly. I am in the editor now trying to fix the last buggs that struggles.
edit: All 3 maps are up on NA now. Localizer doesn't want to work which means we're stuck with broken names on buttons for some of the new upgrades like Fortified Bunker for now.
This is absolutely incredible, I can't believe I'm just finding this Mod now, it's almost everything I wanted. There should be tournaments hosted for it every week.
I'm assuming after HotS launches you'll be replacing the Swarm Guardian model with the Viper? I also think it would be interesting if you could find a way to implement Reapers for Terran.
When replays from EU are watched on NA small errors appears that are not in the EU version. For example in the VOD above, the tooltip of Nerve jammer says it lasts 60 seconds. It only lasts 12 seconds now and I changed the tooltip for ca 2 weeks ago. The Swarm Nest is called a Roach warren. Hm. Maybe this will disapear once both EU and NA has the same version? Or someone has a solution to it? Its not a big deal, the most important thing is that the game works and is playable.
Ps. Great cast as usual!
I'm assuming after HotS launches you'll be replacing the Swarm Guardian model with the Viper? I also think it would be interesting if you could find a way to implement Reapers for Terran.
I might change it for the Viper yes. I will probably use some features from HoTS for an expansion for this, so the line up of units might change a bit. But that is nothing I am thinking about now. Once its released I can look at the possibilities.
I had the Reaper in the game for a long time. I tried different stuff with it: It could cast mines, it worked as a mobile firebat, it had to upgrade its jetpack ability, it had more HP and could tank damage in combat, etc. But it never fitted. It collided with one of the fundamental aspects of Starbow: area control and defence matters. Players shall be able to secure areas, and thus be able to expand and gain territory much easier here than in SC2. The Reaper could easily circumvent all forms of base defence in the early game. The possibility of a Reaper-all-in made the opponent rather paranoid and I felt it didn´t add anything good to the game.
Of course there shall be units that enables players to harass and circumvent base defences in the game. But I try to keep them at a higher tech level, like Blink Stalkers, Mutalisks, Reaver with Warp Prism, Vulture Drop, Wraiths etc. I also try to keep "gatesmashing units" at a higher tech level too. I think it shall be hard to win the game early in a 1v1 base scenario. You need Tanks, Lurkers, Reavers etc to break the front. (Guess why Marauders & Roaches are removed..) That is also the reason why I don't have Hydra speed & range upgrade at hatchery level. And also why I changed Gateways/warp gates to work as they do. And why SCVs have 60 HP. The defender will be stronger.
If the opponent closes his front door, its closed. It will be hard for the opponent to just break it with low-tier units. This encourages the opponent to either tech to useful units/upgrades or grab more bases himself. And this in return forces the other player to react by taking more bases or harass, since in a 2base vs 2base or 3vs3 base scenario, the defender will (for the most part) win. And the player with 1 base more will get the upper hand... By making the option of an early all-in weaker, and by making deathball vs deathball fights favor the defender, it will spark other strategies for the players. Harassment will be more important. So will "cease the moment" be. Be sure to shut down the enemy expansion before it gets up, cause once it does, it will be harder to engage it due to Chrono boosted Photon cannons, Spine crawlers/lurkers, spider mines & stronger siege tanks etc
So even such a small unit as the Reaper gets an impact on the game by simply existing as an option. Does my fancy talk here work in reality? Is the game played like this? Yes and no. But thats another discussion. These are just my reasons for not having the reaper in the game ^^
so basically it's BW? xD
The VOD above looked a lot like BW :D
There are other casted VODS in the opening post that shows other elements and units in the game. There is no secret that I use a lot of stuff from BW. But there are plenty of stuff from SC2 too. I am just putting the pieces together from both SC games to create SC2 as I wish it was made. And sometimes I make my own pieces and squashes them into the frame ^^
I see, thanks for the explanation on the Reaper! It's just that while the other two races have some SC2 goodies to play with, Terran is entirely composed of the same Brood War units with a couple new abilities. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, as I think we're all in agreement on which was the better game, but it would be nice to see a new unit or two fit in there. I thought Reapers might be the one with the most potential (Banshees overlap with Wraiths, Thors are yuck etc).
On that note, I've got a few suggestions in mind for ways to add more options to the game if you still feel any of the races are lacking in certain areas. I'll wait until I have a chance to actually try the mod out firsthand before I go into detail though.
Just a quick question on spider mines: The mine-dragging of Brood War was sorely lacking in those TvP VODs, is there a reason you chose to have them with such short targeting range? Was it not possible to replicate that sort of functionality in the SC2 engine?
I agree that Terran here are very similar to BW Terran, compared to the other races. The only SC2 mechanics in it are: Planetary/Orbital, Calldown SCV/Supply Drop, Reactor/Techlab, Vikings, Supply depots can be lowered and a bunch of new abilities/upgrades. The line-up of units are almost the same. I have used a lot of the SC2 units in the MOD, but over time they have gotten replaced by their BW counterparts for various reasons..
Banshees, Thors, Hellions and Medivacs are not necessarily badly designed units if we look at the concept. They surely could be adjusted or tweaked to fit into the game. But for various reasons the old BW units fits better in this MOD. I have tried a lot of the SC2 units in Starbow. So its not that I just decided to use the BW-units out of the blue.
The Dropship/Medivac change I did a while ago was a big shock for some. People seem to say that the Medivac is better designed than Medic & Dropship. It is in some regard, depending upon what type of game one wants to create. Simply put, and I can´t say this enough, area control and static defences shall matter in this MOD. Medivacs does two things: It strengthens your army when it engages static defence, but it also gives you the ability to just fly past it!
I think its more interesting that you get to choose to spend resources on either medics, that gives your slow army more durability, or Dropships that gives your army mobilty. You don´t get both for the price of one. If we look at the VOD above, Terran choosed to get a slow but strong army. He spent his gas on Medics & Vessels. I don´t think the scenarios when he encountered a wall of Lurkers and Spine Crawlers would have been as interesting if he could just load his units into the Medivacs and drop them where he want. (If all the Medivs were Medivacs) Another playstyle could have been to go for more Dropship play and harassment. Or Tanks and Vultures to claim territory etc. Furthermore, with the addition of the Medic in the game, it gave Terran one more caster to fill with potential spells. More design-space, which is fun for me ^^
Suggestions are always welcome. Hopefully you will find someone to play with on NA so you can try this first. On EU there is activity in the Starbow channel everyday. Maybe 5-10 players on a daily basis, so finding a game here is quite easy. But I´ve heard times are tougher over at NA : /
I think its possible to increase spider mines targeting range. The reason I have lowered the range on Spider mines is due to units being so smart in this. If the distance is greater, you can just A-move with Hydras/Stalkers into mine fields without having detection, because as soon as they pop they get destroyed. If they are close, their is no time for the hydras/stalkers to shoot them, and BANG they got blown up. They gotta have detection.
I think mine-dragging is a fun concept and further makes it more important for Terran to proper position their units. If anyone has a suggestion on how to fix this in the editor, please let me know. I have experimented but I can´t get it to work properly without negative effects.
If they didn't ninja it out without my looking I am so certain banelings are in.
In the vod I casted Zerg could have gone bane tech and possibly flank with those to absolutely destroy his mostly bio army. That would also force T to make a few tanks just like in SC2.
A key component of SC2 play you are also seeing in that video is Planetary's.
If T gets those up at his vulnerable expansions Z is forced to do something besides ling aggression to finish it off, or simply kill it before it gets morphed. You often see him using lurkers, just like killing a constantly repaired bunker he could have also used lurkers to splash enemy workers to stop them from repairing.
It seems like BW because a lot of key unit dynamics have to be there. For example, Toss's gateway army is mainly defined in SC2 by warp gates, sentry, colossus, and the enemy units they have to fight. Gateway is much stronger and fares much better against a small T army because of the changes to warp gates and the removal of colossus and sentry. On the the other hand, (and talked about in this really good read revolving around Toss direction in HOTS http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=367515) Toss has to use much clever play of its units because it has to fight seige lines, spider mines, lurkers, and dark swarm. This way you get fun things like zealot drops, coordinated attacks over a much larger area than usual instead of Toss keeping his army balled up. Gateway is just much more viable as a stand alone fighting force with the removal of marauder, sentry and colossus. On the flip side, warp prism and warp gates are still EXTREMELY deadly. Can't tell you how many matches I've lost already to stalkers from a proxy pylon right after my army leaves my base, or some sort of drop in the mineral line.
On September 12 2012 02:57 Kabel wrote: ... I think mine-dragging is a fun concept and further makes it more important for Terran to proper position their units. If anyone has a suggestion on how to fix this in the editor, please let me know. I have experimented but I can´t get it to work properly without negative effects.
You could simply make mines invulnerable after they pop up, weaker while being deployed to compensate. Make the spider mine have to actually travel to the enemy unit like BW, so a little faster than a hydra but then get faster quickly so it can catch zerglings. A simply behavior after it targets the enemy should do the trick for the speed. I'm not sure if its an actual unit that moves or just a missile right now as it appears to be.
Lets a hydra drag a mine a tiny bit. Z'lings and speed zealots should be able to drag mines straight up to the enemy.
Deployment of mines could be a fragile state, heck, you are setting up a minefield in front of a few stalkers, you should have to make sure the stalkers are not killing them off before you lure them into them.
I'd rather see the hp of the mines stay the same, but that's probably because I play a lot of T and love my mine fields to be actual barriers to give me time.
I think reapers could find a spot in for terran. The thor maybe too, just remove their anti air, give them a cool ability, maybe even let scvs build them or something to make them interesting. I really don't like the banshees, hellions, or medivacs though, please leave that out.
The spider mine is an actual unit. Earlier I had spider mines as you describe it. They were invulnerable when they unburrowed but it caused some problems, for some reason. Hm, I cant recall what the issue was. But I can look in the editor and see what I can do. Remeber that the MOD is unlocked, so anyone can open it in the editor and experiment.
I agree completely with the Medic/Dropship split from the Medivac. Your reasoning is very sound, plus there's the added bonus that the vanilla Dropship model is much more aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. The added design space for spellcasting is what really sells it though I think, and you've still got room for another spell on the Medic. The BW version had two other abilities besides heal, have you considered toying with either of them?
I'm also wondering about the nerve-jammer on the Science Vessel. Realistically it seems a bit wonky - units can move but not attack? Does it affect non-Biological, and if so why would it disable mechanical guns but not engines? Things like that make it a bit of an oddity. Is there a design concern that led you to choose that over the Point Defense Drone ability from the Raven?
I disagree, I think PDD was the only Raven ability that was actually solid design. It's also more visually interesting and noticeable than the current nerve jammer spell. It's more dynamic too - it can be feedbacked, EMP'd, knocked out by Scourge, and set up prior to battles OR deployed during the action, like spider mines.
On September 12 2012 04:14 SmileZerg wrote: I disagree, I think PDD was the only Raven ability that was actually solid design. It's also more visually interesting and noticeable than the current nerve jammer spell. It's more dynamic too - it can be feedbacked, EMP'd, knocked out by Scourge, and set up prior to battles OR deployed during the action, like spider mines.
I mentioned it a bit ago, but I absolutely agree NJ simply isn't visible enough. I'll have to tell someone mid game why their units are not attacking, and then I'll have to show it to them so they know what to look for. It'd be nice to have a bubble or something, mabye even randomly scattering lasers to show exactly where the "your units are now useless" field is.
Wouldn't it be better to just go with PDD in the first place though? It loses the ability to affect certain units but it makes more sense, and weaknesses can actually add more strategic depth - for example, if you can't attack into PDD with hydras, use ling/baneling instead. Different options and all that.
PDD can last longer than nerve jammer without being overpowered thanks to its energy requirements too. Fits better into the idea of holding space/area control.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/C1pUFl.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/LphwDl.png)
