Scaling Buildings to units

[gorgoth]

I've noticed in Starcraft that the units were very big compared to the buildings. I mean, it looks like the barracks could only hold 10 units. I think blizzard should make buildings a tad bigger. Or make units smaller, but that would never happen. Lets just say we need buildings to look like they could hold 100 units. There is also another thing that was just weird. You know in the cinematic where the marines board the science vessel to plant the bomb on it? That thing looked HUGE compared to the marines. But in the actual game, a science vessel looks like it couldnt hold 3 marines. Please give me your thoughts and feedback.

[Striker]

I've noticed this too. I'm pretty sure Blizzard wont change this much, but it might be nice if it changed a little bit. If you check actual unit sizes, a science vessel is enormous even compared to a battlecruiser. but during gameplay they only appear about the diameter of an arcon.

[Death]

If you think Starcraft is big check out Warcraft 3. Some of the Heroes can grow even larger then some of the buildings.

[LuRKeR]

well if the did actuall size then all of that would be tiny as hell, your fightin on a planet...

[Proceri]

That depends.... how big the maps will be.
Because if you want things to be in correct size were going to need 16x the biggest maps of any released RTS. At least thats the average sized map on Supreme Commander where everything is in perfect scale.

Hell some of the huge air ships are two screens big.

[TwoTimer]

thats just a convention of the available technology at the time. people this IS 1995 here (when the game went into development)

[Proceri]

thats just a convention of the available technology at the time. people this IS 1995 here (when the game went into development)
Well don't forget they did massively upgrade the engine after 1996 E3...so its more like Mid-1996 technology...not that it makes much of a difference.

[MattII]

I agree that the buildings, and some of the vehicles, ought to be bigger in comparison to the infantry, but there ought to be a limit of maybe two or three times what they are at the moment.

[irlubomirsky]

let me ask this, aside from "looking" better, what would be the purpose of changing the unit size? imo, it would greatly damage the gameplay as some units would be too small to control/micro with and others too large. take a tank for example, by making tanks bigger so that marines are much smaller then ramps would have to be made bigger, and maps greatly adjusted just to fit the tank.

also consider that making some units bigger would be a huge problem, as they coudl easily cover other units and buildings, making them harder to attack specifically.

changing the size to accomodate a real size ratio would mainly damage, the gameplay. if left alone, the game would still be as enjoyable. i mean, eye candy is nice, but when it comes to gameplay, i'd rather have the advantages rather than the losses that come with some eye candy.

[TwoTimer]

I agree that the buildings, and some of the vehicles, ought to be bigger in comparison to the infantry, but there ought to be a limit of maybe two or three times what they are at the moment.

i think everyone will be pleasantly suprised, remember the game's resolution is 640x480, which will be MUCH higher with 21st century technology, thats y u see the buildings v unit size ratio the way it is, just so it can fit into the resolution, it will be close to normal with any new game that is made.

[MattII]

i think everyone will be pleasantly suprised, remember the game's resolution is 640x480, which will be MUCH higher with 21st century technology, thats y u see the buildings v unit size ratio the way it is, just so it can fit into the resolution, it will be close to normal with any new game that is made.

Given how big Mutalisks are in comparison to carriers (from the Protoss victory cinematic in basic SC), I somehow doubt it, especially since that would mean that the carrier fills a couple of screens while the Mutalist is no more than a dozen pixels long.

[TwoTimer]

give me 1024x768 resolution or higher and it can easily be done.

[flavormanIII]

a 1:1 scale will still be too hard. Even you had high res and can fit gigantic units on screen, how will you be able to see and manipulate smaller units that are so tiny?

One it will be hell to click on them, imagine how hard the micro will be and focus-firing on another small unit. One can sa it will probably be 3d so you can zoom in and out, but that is a bit of hassle.. constantly zooming in and out just to be able to select certain units. You would want to be able to have a good view of where everything is.

I think one RTS that did scaling good although not completely accurate is AoE games. The buildings were relatively large and infantry was small but you could see them and control them easily..

[gorgoth]

I guess it would ruin gameplay a bit... i could imagine seeing 100 marines under a bc... and plus that is blizzards style, they dont really go fo realistics, they go for what is best looking on the computer.

[Drake Clawfang]

SC can't be to scale, it simply wouldn't work. Battlecruisers are supposed to be spacefaring cities, and we've seen that Carriers are so big, Mutalisks can fly through them. The Science Vessel is another example. SC simply wouldn't work if it was to scale.

[Jackal]

A bit? It would ruin gameplay completly. Have you even considered what a carrier and Battlecruiser would look like compared to a zealot or zergling. Not to mention the size of larva and things of that nature. You wouldn't even know if you laid spider mines down.

[Sting]

I don't know why people want Battlecruisers and Carriers to be scale size. That is ridiculous. It would take up most of the screen on even a 256x256 Map. And do you think a Command Center and Starport (which builds Battlecruisers) would be the size they are now? Phhh.

Buildings could be a bit bigger. THats it. They dont have to be much bigger, or even take up more "squares". They just have to look taller, and make it look like certain units can fit through the doors/ramps of them. Even than, just a little bit bigger would do wonders. It would look better, and as long as they dont take up more tiles, than they wont effect gameplay at all.

As for units being to scale, it will be really hard to do this without changing units.

A Battlecruiser will always have to be ridiculously small. You almost gotta see it as that small little Battlecruiser is representing the Battlecruisers power.

The only other solution for monster size units such as Battlecruisers, Carriers, and Science Vessels is to change the units to "Terran Cruiser Gunship" or "Terran Special Frigate" or something like that. A Cruiser Gunship would basically be like a heavily armoured flying support ship - like a Battlecruiser is depicted in Game.

I can't think of substitutes for the Carrier, but I think its safe to say that changing the total name and look of some of the favourite units from Starcraft would be kind of dumb. I think if we got a Battlecruiser that was maybe a little bigger (1.2 times bigger for example) it would look prettier, but we gotta accept that we can't play with full size models hear.

I am all for some units being made more to scale - not only so the game looks better, but it feels better - but it will never be as much as some people want it to. Unless we want the biggest units in the game to be replaced by new "Smaller" units, (Planetary Gunships as opposed to Capitol ships like Battlecruisers and Carriers), than we gotta accept some ridiculous scale on certain units!

- Sting

[irlubomirsky]

unit size changing is just for looks, that's all. i don't really care all that much for looks if the game play suffers because of it. i.e. making buildings bigger and units smaller would change things, everything actually. so i'd rather leave the scale sized units the way they are, and perhaps make small size changes that wouldn't affect gameplay at all. other than that, i'd rather have the developers focus on other things.