Minerals for Gas? Poll

Nice calculations, but can you redo it with current return rates?(because the return rates differ a bit and just a slight difference can change everything) right now workers gets 5 minerals per trip(8 if a high yield but starting point dont give you high yield minerals) and they get 8 gas per trip(geyser starts with 2500), the gas thing automatically shuts down when it runs out of gas for 45 or so seconds and takes 100 minerals as well. when it starts back up it is filled with 300 gas.

 

Eh, to be honest I don't have the time to do that. From that point it's a slippery slope of knowing the cost of different units and upgrades, and exponentially increasing the resource income... etc. I was just pointing out that given a perfectly balanced game, assuming gas is useful to both players, spending the minerals earlier will mean an advantage later. I'm not saying Blizzard has it balanced like I said; for all I know it could be totally botched. Just pointing out that saying there's no advantage later on is ignoring the usefulness of gas, and the fact that as time plays out, that however-many minerals will be less and less significant. It's sort of like losing one worker. Early on, it's a very big deal; later on, one worker is just one out of over 50 - nothing to worry about. So, if you can sacrifice one worker early on and survive to mid-game, you should come out advantageous

I'll admit that when I first heard about the mineral/geyser transaction I wasn't all that happy. I'm used to not having to babysit my economy that much, so the change alienated me a little. However, the more I think about it, the more I want to give it slack. I try to imagine playing the game and deciding whether or not to spend the minerals and it actually seems like it might make the economy-side of things a little more interesting. Early game, it can be a mechanic that determines the winner and loser. Late game, it will be a mechanic that requires macro skill - making sure all of your geysers are producing while still pumping out units and moving them around the map. Blizzard is just adding another task to the list - maybe to compensate for making some other parts of the game more newbie-friendly. I can't say for sure that I'll like it but I'll judge after playing.

 

actually, now that I looked it up a bit more it seems that several of the developers hated that version of the gas mechanics that I gave you, and know they are working on races specific econ. mechanics, but on how they changed the gas mechanics(if the developers are unhappy about it then you know it will get changed somehow) we dont know.

 

That's interesting. I'm glad Blizzard is so flexible on this sort of thing. You'd hardly (if ever) see any other developers making so many game-defining adjustments this late in development. Race specific econ is interesting but I'm sure would upset BW purists even more. I'm definitely curious to see what the'll come up with, anyway.

 

I don't like this idea at all, the old ways were more simple and I like simple, just like the majority here... The age of empires Market thing would have been way better to add in my opinion. Maybe Blizzard could add a building to each team and make it act like a market, or they could add just the market mechanic to a already-in building like the Twilight Council for Protoss.

Anyways, bring back the old mechanic!

 

Thia was removed in favour of the recent macro mechanics like the proton charge right?

 

Scary thing is... We don't know. First I thought so, mainly because I wanted it removed, but in the screenshots displaying the Orbital Command and Dark Pylon you can see two vespene geysers a base...

http://www.sc2pod.com/img/gallery/737.jpg

http://www.sc2pod.com/img/gallery/735.jpg

Only the screenie displaying the Queen's Larvae ability breaks the pattern, but instead of having one geyser like a normal base it has none, meaning it's a mineral only base, thus leaving us clueless...

There's a good chance it stayed, I guess.