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United States7166 Posts
On May 22 2007 15:54 fusionsdf wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2007 15:22 DrainX wrote:On May 22 2007 14:44 fusionsdf wrote:On May 22 2007 12:25 Mynock wrote:
OK, I've analyzed the videos myself and I'd like to add a little correction as to how I see things.
It seems to me that the Warp Gates are indeed producing units automatically, just like as if it was a skill with a cooldown, and you can also warp the completed units anywhere in your pylon range (whether or not it has to be connected I dunno - in the demo, the prisms were in the range of the pylons atop of the platform, so that doesn't support either theory, nor disproves neither of them). However, I think the system goes a bit further than that, and this is my assumption:
The number of the Warp Gates a player has determines the amount of units "stacked" in queue and ready to be deployed, as well as the build time. Let's say you have 1 Warp Gate. The building time for a zealot would be 60 secs, for a stalk or an imma it would be 70 secs. Now, as soon as you build your Warp Gate (or upgrd from a Gateway rather) the counter goes down, and as 60 secs go by, you have a (1) next to your zealot picture, signifying you can now deploy a zealot. After 70 secs have passed, you get a (1) next to both the imma and the stalk so you can now deploy 1 of those (or choose to deploy the zealot having wasted 10 seconds of valuable building time).
Now, if you have 2 gateways, I imagine the build time (the spell cooldown time if you wish) would be halved. Building a zealot now would take only 30 secs, and if 30 secs have passed you get a (1) near your zealot picture, if 60 secs have passed you get a (2).
What I base this upon, is that in essence, it would still enable the player to produce the same amount of units in the same period of time, except being able to choose when to deploy them, which would be necessary with this system, since you can't queue any units anymore, just like the Zerg can't either. Another thing is, if you watch the cooldown rate for the zealots with 16 gateways, it seemed to be freaking fast, so my assumption would be that that is because the building time was essentially 1/16th of the original.
Of course these are all but guesses, but this is how I see the system ATM.
-Mynock + Show Spoiler +From how I understand the gameplay demo, I have to disagree. Know how zerg macro is done right now? The larvae pop out automatically, and its the job of the player to ensure a minimum of idle larvae. Here is how I see it. Toss builds a warpgate. I will use your 60 and 70 numbers. The building automatically begins building the unit as soon as it is built (no cost). When the unit is finished, the player must select somewhere on the grid to place the new unit. When the unit is placed, the construction is restarted and the player is charged. More warp gates just means more units can be placed at once: times will remain the same. Macro comes in the same way (or roughly similar) as zerg macro currently does - not through directly producing units, but by making sure there are no idle gateways. I would define an idle gateway as a gateway finished construction of a unit and waiting for that unit to be placed. More gateways will require more attention - Think of them as buckets continually being filled with water. It is up to the player to empty the buckets as efficiently as possible - As the number of gateways increase, the player must put more effort in to reduce idle times. Flow Chart: If the units start building if you tell them to but for no cost instead of having a cooldown and then selecting units, then why is it in the video the player can select to spawn in either zeals or stalkers and both have the same number at their icon, both going down after each stalker is summoned until both reach zero where both automaticly start recharging. Your version just doesnt fit with what the movie is showing. I've rewatched the video and I still think I am correct. Show nested quote +
~ 5:20 when he warps the Stalkers in from a Warp Gate
There are 4 Warp Gates selected, and each mini icon on the right of the HUD shows there being 4 units available. That is, you can select to create 4 zealots, 4 stalkers, 4 immortals or any combination of the above INSTANTLY (if you have the resources). Once the available numbers reach 0 you can clearly see the cooldown/build timer on the icons!
would fit in with my view
the most logical way they would work would be this:
lets say 60 seconds for zealot build time
1 gateway - 60 seconds later a 1 appears next to zealot icon
2 gateways - 60 seconds later a 2 appears next to zealot icon
16 gateways - 60 seconds later a 16 appears next to zealot icon
number next to zealot icon indicates how many you can warp in at once
the simplest explanation tends to be the correct one
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I think they disagree on whether having multiple gateways will speed up unit production by combining cooldown times. I don't think they "stack" to provide lower cooldown times.
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starcraft2.com says:
"Once a gateway has been established, it can be reconfigured to an even more remarkable device: a warp gate. Functionally a warp gate is similar to a gateway in that both devices open a spatial rift. However, protoss forces moving through a gateway must emerge in close proximity to the structure, whereas those summoned via a warp gate can be projected to any part of the battlefield that lies within the psionic matrix.
When used in combination with the mobile phase prisms, warp gates allow the protoss unprecedented flexibility in their force deployment. Warp gates can transport protoss warriors directly to the front lines, instantly send defenders to a beleaguered outpost, or rapidly build up attack groups in unexpected sectors."
i suppose that means, those 4 stalkers were build in 4 gateways (not upgraded) which can be seen in main protoss base, stalkers were placed next to them, in main base
those 16 zealots were build in 16 upgraded gateways (warp gates), which were placed somewhere else on the map; they didnt show them to us in video, just selected them in group with number
zealots were placed in energy matrix created by phase prisms, because they were created in warp gates
i also suppose that units arent build automaticly, u still have to select unit type in gateway as many times as much units u wanna, but after they are fininshed, they wait in somekind queue (gateway supercomputer memory  ) for u to deploy them, according to building type, in radius of building (gateway), or somewhere in range of psionic matrix (warp gates)
its possible that there will be some kind of rally point, u can set for building (group of buildings) to deploy units automaticly on that place, but creating those units will be still done by clicking
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On May 22 2007 15:56 Zironic wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2007 15:54 fusionsdf wrote:On May 22 2007 15:22 DrainX wrote:On May 22 2007 14:44 fusionsdf wrote:On May 22 2007 12:25 Mynock wrote:
OK, I've analyzed the videos myself and I'd like to add a little correction as to how I see things.
It seems to me that the Warp Gates are indeed producing units automatically, just like as if it was a skill with a cooldown, and you can also warp the completed units anywhere in your pylon range (whether or not it has to be connected I dunno - in the demo, the prisms were in the range of the pylons atop of the platform, so that doesn't support either theory, nor disproves neither of them). However, I think the system goes a bit further than that, and this is my assumption:
The number of the Warp Gates a player has determines the amount of units "stacked" in queue and ready to be deployed, as well as the build time. Let's say you have 1 Warp Gate. The building time for a zealot would be 60 secs, for a stalk or an imma it would be 70 secs. Now, as soon as you build your Warp Gate (or upgrd from a Gateway rather) the counter goes down, and as 60 secs go by, you have a (1) next to your zealot picture, signifying you can now deploy a zealot. After 70 secs have passed, you get a (1) next to both the imma and the stalk so you can now deploy 1 of those (or choose to deploy the zealot having wasted 10 seconds of valuable building time).
Now, if you have 2 gateways, I imagine the build time (the spell cooldown time if you wish) would be halved. Building a zealot now would take only 30 secs, and if 30 secs have passed you get a (1) near your zealot picture, if 60 secs have passed you get a (2).
What I base this upon, is that in essence, it would still enable the player to produce the same amount of units in the same period of time, except being able to choose when to deploy them, which would be necessary with this system, since you can't queue any units anymore, just like the Zerg can't either. Another thing is, if you watch the cooldown rate for the zealots with 16 gateways, it seemed to be freaking fast, so my assumption would be that that is because the building time was essentially 1/16th of the original.
Of course these are all but guesses, but this is how I see the system ATM.
-Mynock + Show Spoiler +From how I understand the gameplay demo, I have to disagree. Know how zerg macro is done right now? The larvae pop out automatically, and its the job of the player to ensure a minimum of idle larvae. Here is how I see it. Toss builds a warpgate. I will use your 60 and 70 numbers. The building automatically begins building the unit as soon as it is built (no cost). When the unit is finished, the player must select somewhere on the grid to place the new unit. When the unit is placed, the construction is restarted and the player is charged. More warp gates just means more units can be placed at once: times will remain the same. Macro comes in the same way (or roughly similar) as zerg macro currently does - not through directly producing units, but by making sure there are no idle gateways. I would define an idle gateway as a gateway finished construction of a unit and waiting for that unit to be placed. More gateways will require more attention - Think of them as buckets continually being filled with water. It is up to the player to empty the buckets as efficiently as possible - As the number of gateways increase, the player must put more effort in to reduce idle times. Flow Chart: If the units start building if you tell them to but for no cost instead of having a cooldown and then selecting units, then why is it in the video the player can select to spawn in either zeals or stalkers and both have the same number at their icon, both going down after each stalker is summoned until both reach zero where both automaticly start recharging. Your version just doesnt fit with what the movie is showing. I've rewatched the video and I still think I am correct.
~ 5:20 when he warps the Stalkers in from a Warp Gate
There are 4 Warp Gates selected, and each mini icon on the right of the HUD shows there being 4 units available. That is, you can select to create 4 zealots, 4 stalkers, 4 immortals or any combination of the above INSTANTLY (if you have the resources). Once the available numbers reach 0 you can clearly see the cooldown/build timer on the icons!
would fit in with my view You two are not contradicting eachother...
Fusionsdf am I correct when I say that you think you have to decide which unit to build before waiting for the cooldown to go down? (sounds like it from what I read) Im just saying thats not whats happening in the video. There they are able to chose any unit and when one is built then the number of summonable units of all types are reduced by one. If you are not disagreeing with that then I just misunderstood what you were saying.
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This image is taken directly after the last stalker is finished warping in (8 seconds after the first one)
You can clearly see that the cooldown is already almost a quarter of the way through. This backs up the theory that each gate is on an individual timer, and that the timer when multiple gates are selected is the one nearest to completion.
Here's the same image after the zealots are warped in (10 secs after the first). You can see its a little bit further along.
And here's the picture just before he selects the Zealots (which is ~14 secs after he warped in the 1st zealot)
Looks like zeals take about 30 secs?
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MURICA15980 Posts
Yeah, the number probably won't jump to 16 when the timer is completed... it'll probably go 1...2...3..4...5...6, etc because that is how fast he deployed them.
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On May 22 2007 16:39 nagash wrote:This image is taken directly after the last stalker is finished warping in (8 seconds after the first one) You can clearly see that the cooldown is already almost a quarter of the way through. This backs up the theory that each gate is on an individual timer, and that the timer when multiple gates are selected is the one nearest to completion. Here's the same image after the zealots are warped in (10 secs after the first). You can see its a little bit further along. And here's the picture just before he selects the Zealots (which is ~14 secs after he warped in the 1st zealot) Looks like zeals take about 30 secs?
I agree. This sounds most reasonable. If you select 2 gates one with zealot recharged but not stalker and the other gate with both recharged I wonder what happend if you warp in a zeal. Do you think it automaticly will use the gate that cant make a stalker or just take a random gate able to summon it?
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4492 Posts
I still think I'm correct tho, and I will add some reasoning as to why.
First of all the way I described it wouldn't really be imbalanced, because from the looks of it, not only would it require lots of upgraded Gateways (Warp Gates), but it's only those 3 units that can be produced from there. So no, you couldn't drop and DTs into your opponent's base, or any HTs on your opponent's cliff, because those units would have to be produced differently (hence the whole need for a regular shuttle unit anyway). Besides, if while warping those units could still take damage (during the warp-in animation sequence), it doesn't really matter that you can warp in a new Zealot every 5 seconds if you have 10 Warp Gates, because they would have to either be warped a little bit behind your primary offensive lines, or obliterated by enemy fire before the warp-in sequence even finishes. So I don't exactly see a balance issue here. Besides, even the official site states that this kind of teleportation will become the "norm" for P, so that's that.
But another point I'd like to add as to why I think it works the way I described it. In the demo you can see that right after the 4 stalks are deployed, the cooldown on the units' pictures doesn't start from zero, but from somewhere around 20% already. Same happens after the zeals have been warped in. I deduce from this that as soon as you have a free "slot" from the maximum of what you have allotted (say, 16 in case you have 16 WGs), the WGs start building up the cooldown immediately. And here's the main point: it wouldn't make sense (not to me at least) to just show one of the WG's cooldown when having 16 of them selected, now would it? Hence why I think the cooldown - especially since it's a very quick cooldown from the looks of it - is only one, one for all the Warp Gates. Meaning the number of WGs will have to affect the all-round time for a unit to warp in (original C&C style). And if you miss the right time for when your unit arrives, it will just store it up, and it will store up as many units as many Warp Gates you have, hence the 16 available units with 16 selected WGs. And it will be up to you (and the availability of your resources) to choose when to deploy a unit and when to wait it out.
As I see it, the whole idea behind having this "cooldown" for building units with payment after, instead of the usual build time and pre-payment for units, is that it wouldn't make much sense to start warping in your units into the enemy base through a prism, and then having it destroyed while your units are nowhere near finished yet.
-Mynock
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4492 Posts
On May 22 2007 16:49 DrainX wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2007 16:39 nagash wrote:This image is taken directly after the last stalker is finished warping in (8 seconds after the first one) You can clearly see that the cooldown is already almost a quarter of the way through. This backs up the theory that each gate is on an individual timer, and that the timer when multiple gates are selected is the one nearest to completion. Here's the same image after the zealots are warped in (10 secs after the first). You can see its a little bit further along. And here's the picture just before he selects the Zealots (which is ~14 secs after he warped in the 1st zealot) Looks like zeals take about 30 secs? I agree. This sounds most reasonable. If you select 2 gates one with zealot recharged but not stalker and the other gate with both recharged I wonder what happend if you warp in a zeal. Do you think it automaticly will use the gate that cant make a stalker or just take a random gate able to summon it?
See, this is exactly why I think it can't work that way, also see my explanation on why the cooldown is already quite progressed even right after warping the units in (one cooldown for all the WGs, affected by their number).
-Mynock
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Mynock - the ideas are essentially the same (individual cooldown, 1 unit per gateway vs global cooldown, 1 unit per gateway). They are basically exactly the same. It would make no difference in gameplay except if they are on individual cooldown you will have to use the right gateway to launch the unit, as opposed to any gateway on global cooldown.
More Gates aren't going to make production faster imo.. it's just going to get you more units in the same amount of time.
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On May 22 2007 16:53 Mynock wrote:Show nested quote +On May 22 2007 16:49 DrainX wrote:On May 22 2007 16:39 nagash wrote:This image is taken directly after the last stalker is finished warping in (8 seconds after the first one) You can clearly see that the cooldown is already almost a quarter of the way through. This backs up the theory that each gate is on an individual timer, and that the timer when multiple gates are selected is the one nearest to completion. Here's the same image after the zealots are warped in (10 secs after the first). You can see its a little bit further along. And here's the picture just before he selects the Zealots (which is ~14 secs after he warped in the 1st zealot) Looks like zeals take about 30 secs? I agree. This sounds most reasonable. If you select 2 gates one with zealot recharged but not stalker and the other gate with both recharged I wonder what happend if you warp in a zeal. Do you think it automaticly will use the gate that cant make a stalker or just take a random gate able to summon it? See, this is exactly why I think it can't work that way, also see my explanation on why the cooldown is already quite progressed even right after warping the units in (one cooldown for all the WGs, affected by their number). -Mynock
I want to believe you, your way would work much better imo. But couldnt it just be that they show the cooldown of the gate that is closest to completion? When that one is finished it switches to the next one? That way the cooldown starting at 20% would be because there was some time before the first and last stalker was summoned. Actualy now that I think of it im split again but if he did have 16 gates shouldnt the cooldown be something like 3-4 sec? :S Either way would be cool anyway. But if they recharged seperatly that would require insane macro to use all the gates to the highest efficiency. If they recharged like you say you would be able to take 30 seconds of micro before you return to building units which I think is a good thing.
On May 22 2007 17:03 nagash wrote:
Mynock - the ideas are essentially the same (individual cooldown, 1 unit per gateway vs global cooldown, 1 unit per gateway). They are basically exactly the same. It would make no difference in gameplay except if they are on individual cooldown you will have to use the right gateway to launch the unit, as opposed to any gateway on global cooldown.
More Gates aren't going to make production faster imo.. it's just going to get you more units in the same amount of time.
Its not the same no. If they recharge separatly then when one zealot is ready that gate will stand still. If they work togather then the speed at which new units recharge is the same when you have all gateways recharging as when you have 1/16 recharging but will completly stop when all 16 have recharged.
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4492 Posts
Well, normally it should be faster, definitely, but then again the demo was on a slow speed from what we know, so I figure on fastest speed this could differ.
nagash: Yes, they are almost the same, but still not the same. The problem I'd have here, is that if only the WG closest to completion was shown, then which gate would be shown if a zeal has already finished warping in, but an other unit hasn't? Unless of course those 3 units all have the same build time, which I don't think is far-fetched or impossible.
Remember, we're just guessing here, cause Blizz is being a dick and keeping us on the edge of our seats
-Mynock
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Yeh Mynock, it's hard to tell from the portraits if one is faster then the other.
Sidetracking a bit, I imagine Zerg/Terran working the same for multiple selection.
I don't know what kind of mechanics they will have, but I imagine each click/hotkey will produce only one of that unit. So if zerg have 10 larvae selected, they will have to hit zergling 10 times to make 10 zerglings (as opposed to once).
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Here's the pictures just after he selects the Stalkers and Zealots respectively. Looks like you can still see the cooldown on the 3 icons... bug?
Anyways, you can see the cooldowns a little more clearly with these ones.
It does look like they have the same cooldown time for each unit.
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On May 22 2007 17:11 Mynock wrote:Well, normally it should be faster, definitely, but then again the demo was on a slow speed from what we know, so I figure on fastest speed this could differ. nagash: Yes, they are almost the same, but still not the same. The problem I'd have here, is that if only the WG closest to completion was shown, then which gate would be shown if a zeal has already finished warping in, but an other unit hasn't? Unless of course those 3 units all have the same build time, which I don't think is far-fetched or impossible. Remember, we're just guessing here, cause Blizz is being a dick and keeping us on the edge of our seats -Mynock
your theory is wrong :
If more gates = faster global cooldown , why didnt the guy select just 1 gate in the video and produce from it? or do you think it depends on the number of gates you select? dont think so.
+ I dont think they would copy a RA2 style of production.
I just like the individual cooldown theory more.
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4492 Posts
Dairush, yeah, I think the number of WGs selected specifies how many units you can deploy, don't see a problem with that tho.
And nagash, I noticed that too, I don't think that's a bug tho, it's simply a cooldown for the freshly deployed units to become fully warped in. So those cooldowns show you when you're able to use your unit after you've deployed it, that's why I mentioned that the newly deployed units could be obliterated by enemy fire if carelessly placed (couple posts earlier).
I'm not trying to defend my theory at any cost tho, I'm saying again, it's just a guess (more like, that's how I'd do it if it was up to me, and that's the idea I get from the video). I can be completely wrong tho, not to mention things could take a 180° turn 'till the completion of the game.
-Mynock
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this is getting soooooooooo deep.. good job guys, although keep in mind blizzard has stressed that they are going to stay true to sc1... some of the things you guys are saying seem too unlikely for blizzard to just pull out..
ive thought about it alot and i have no idea how the concept will work.. and every week that goes by without any updates from blizz is gonna be hard.
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On May 22 2007 17:24 Mynock wrote:
Dairush, yeah, I think the number of WGs selected specifies how many units you can deploy, don't see a problem with that tho.
And nagash, I noticed that too, I don't think that's a bug tho, it's simply a cooldown for the freshly deployed units to become fully warped in. So those cooldowns show you when you're able to use your unit after you've deployed it, that's why I mentioned that the newly deployed units could be obliterated by enemy fire if carelessly placed (couple posts earlier).
I'm not trying to defend my theory at any cost tho, I'm saying again, it's just a guess (more like, that's how I'd do it if it was up to me, and that's the idea I get from the video). I can be completely wrong tho, not to mention things could take a 180° turn 'till the completion of the game.
-Mynock
I don't think so Mynock (regarding the cooldown/screenshot). The positions of the cooldowns are basically the same as just before the units are selected. And also, that stalker has been deployed for like 5 secs before he selects it (he only selects the first one he deployed - not all of them).
Plus the cooldowns just disappear instantly..
Edit: And also there is no cooldown showing on the last 2 icons (patrol and attack). So he can attack, but he can't move? I don't think so. The cooldowns are obviously carried over for a split second from the warp gates.
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Mynock, maybe i didnt get your guess too well so let me ask again
is what you saying , that if i have 3 gates and a zealot cooldown is 60 secs , i can make 1 every 20 secs IF i select all 3? That isnt convenient now is it? what if i select all 3, build 1 zealot , and then 10 secs later i select only 1 gate? what happens? (omg so many ifs)
maybe i just didnt get what you said.
I rather have separate gate cooldowns
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EPT![[image loading]](http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/2406/macrocyclebb6.png)
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