Mechanic 5

[Gradius]

Mechanic Summary:

1. Three mineral mining modes for workers:

Regular Mining Mode: you're credited with 5 minerals from 5 you've mined per each mining trip (5/5), 100% efficiency.

Strip Mining Mode: 7/10, 70% efficiency.

After a set number of mining trips Strip Mining Mode degenerates into Wasteful Strip Mining Mode as the mineral patch status turns from Strip Mining into Wasteful Strip Mining.

Wasteful Strip Mining Mode: 7/15, 47% efficiency.

2. In order to bring the mineral patch status back to Strip Mining Status, you have to mine in Regular Mining Mode for a while.

3. Workers start in Regular Mining Mode by default. You have to manually switch them to Strip Mining Mode to take advantage of increased mining rate, which is often more benefiting than Regular Mining Mode.

4. The mineral patch’s current status is hinted at by graphical cues and – when the ALT key is held – a progress bar.

Expanded Description:

Full Mechanic Description (Word Document)

-Pictures
Picture 1 Toggle
Picture 2 Mineral Patch
PICTURE 3 ALT
PICTURE 4 SUMMARY

[DemolitionSquid]

I've always felt this was a good idea, although it's explanation is detailed to the point of causing confusion.

[MaybenextTime]

Well, the TLDR part looks a little bit confusing but the expanded description explains the mechanic really well. There is FAQ and pictures.

The reason why TLDR looks the way it does is because I had to cut down from the original 200 words limit. This caused severe problems. ;/


The mechanic is very intuitive in itself. It could be summed up like this:

On the fundamental level, learning the Mineral Mechanic comes down to knowing that in strip mining mode workers mine faster but with decreased efficiency and after some time the efficiency drops even further, so it's advisable to switch between the two modes every now and then.

It's all the newbies have to know to play the game.


It's like the damage/armor types and counters in SC - you don't need to know the damage output, attack range, rate of fire, movement speed, etc. to know that Goons with range upgrade completely decimate Marines.

It's the same with the Mineral Mechanic - you don't need to know any stats to play the game and enjoy it, AND you can actually use the convenient UI features like rally-mining without being punished for it.

[mr. peasant]

Hmm... interesting proposition. Though, I must ask how detrimental it would be to just leave workers in Strip Mining Mode even once it descends into Wasteful mode. Sure, mining efficiency may be lower, but a player's mineral collection rate is unaffected and in fact, better than Normal Mode. Sure, you might be chewing up your mineral nodes more quickly but most matches end long before minerals are anywhere near depleted.

In addition, how will this affect the usefulness (or for that matter, inclusion) of Gold Minerals?

[Attica]

I believe this idea would seem pretty cool at the start of the game but once you have 40 workers it would just be down right tedious and detrimental to the game. The fact that every worker is on a different mining level would make sc2 into just a mining mini game. The ideal mechanic should compliment the game not be the only source of your attention. Very cool presentation though.

[SebiAlex]

I don't agree with the mechanic, but I really like the idea of seeing the amount of minerals left in your field. That or at least a better visual representation of mineral volume loss.

[Psi Warp]

I kinda like this mechanic, not for its visual demonstration but in its efficiency. Technically, you can select all your Probes and toggle-on the Strip mine, correct?


-Psi

[Newbie1234]

Originally Posted by Attica

I believe this idea would seem pretty cool at the start of the game but once you have 40 workers it would just be down right tedious and detrimental to the game. The fact that every worker is on a different mining level would make sc2 into just a mining mini game. The ideal mechanic should compliment the game not be the only source of your attention. Very cool presentation though.

I'd have to agree. It's a bit too complicated once you got multiple bases and tons of workers.

[flavormanIII]

I think the mining modes have to set on the mineral patches itself rather than the worker. Workers naturally move to a different patch when one they are going to isoccupied.

[MaybenextTime]

Originally Posted by mr. peasant

Hmm... interesting proposition. Though, I must ask how detrimental it would be to just leave workers in Strip Mining Mode even once it descends into Wasteful mode. Sure, mining efficiency may be lower, but a player's mineral collection rate is unaffected and in fact, better than Normal Mode. Sure, you might be chewing up your mineral nodes more quickly but most matches end long before minerals are anywhere near depleted.

In addition, how will this affect the usefulness (or for that matter, inclusion) of Gold Minerals?

It's all a matter of balancing Wasteful Strip Mining Mode.

You could for example make it 5/15 so that the efficiency is lower but there's no gathering rate inscrease in comparison to Regular Mining Mode.

Or just make the efficiency decrease so drastic that the player mines out 4-5 times faster if he constantly uses Strip/Wasteful mining.

It's all in the numbers.

Originally Posted by Attica

I believe this idea would seem pretty cool at the start of the game but once you have 40 workers it would just be down right tedious and detrimental to the game. The fact that every worker is on a different mining level would make sc2 into just a mining mini game. The ideal mechanic should compliment the game not be the only source of your attention. Very cool presentation though.

I don't think that'd be an issue at all.

You'd basically drag-select all workers in a given mineral mine and ignore these miniscule differences.

What you'd want to take care on case by case basis would be individual mineral lines (expansions) due to varying saturation level, mineral count, safety level, etc.

Originally Posted by Psi Warp

I kinda like this mechanic, not for its visual demonstration but in its efficiency. Technically, you can select all your Probes and toggle-on the Strip mine, correct?


-Psi

Exactly, you don't need to dibble into managing each individual worker.

After one turn of selecting them all they'd be more or less synchec.

Originally Posted by flavormanIII

I think the mining modes have to set on the mineral patches itself rather than the worker. Workers naturally move to a different patch when one they are going to isoccupied.

Well, yes. Actually, we've considered this during the developement process.

The point is that worker based toggling allows for more freedom and selecting all workers at once is much easier than selecting each individual mineral patch.

They'd have to allow us to drag-select/double click-select mineral patches (possibly with some hotkey held). Then it'd be possible and maybe even favourble to base the mining modes on mineral patches. ;]

[Lord Marzar]

my head hurts... i'd +rep him/her if i knew who he/she was, for the sake of how much work was put into it. because of how much this idea was thought throuhg, i'm almost tempted to side with this one

EDIT: @ attica, at the end of the game, you're more than likely not to need macro, because of the amount of resources everyone has at that point. besides, sc2 wasn't aimed to be a game that lasted that long.

[MaybenextTime]

It's my/FrozenArbiter's (TeamLiquid.net) idea. ;]

Another advantage of this mechanic is that it's very much in line with what Blizzard is currently experimenting with, i.e. Dark Pylons and such aka varying gathering rates. ^___^

[mr. peasant]

Originally Posted by MaybenextTime

It's all a matter of balancing Wasteful Strip Mining Mode.

You could for example make it 5/15 so that the efficiency is lower but there's no gathering rate inscrease in comparison to Regular Mining Mode.

Or just make the efficiency decrease so drastic that the player mines out 4-5 times faster if he constantly uses Strip/Wasteful mining.

It's all in the numbers.

Ah, but what then stops this from becoming mindless busywork? Perhaps I'm missing something here but why would the player ever not want to use Strip Mining other than for slower mineral depletion? This is especially so since games don't often last long enough for mineral depletion to be an issue.

Also, what do you proposes to happen to yellow/gold minerals? Would their increase be even higher than regular minerals?

[MaybenextTime]

Naturally, the more saturated your mineral line is the faster the mineral patches are going to go into Wasteful Strip Mining status, which means that sometimes keeping up with worker management in (Wasteful) Strip Mining Mode might be too demanding to be beneficial (so switching back to Regular Mining Mode might be a reasonable solution): this adds a new skill gradient which rewards players good at multi-tasking, and at the same time gives strategical choices to the player regardless of skill level.

In other words, you expect not to be able to afford to pay attention to your workers because of harassment, battles or whatever in the near future, so you switch to Regular for the time being.

Or you simply can't keep up with the macro side of the game due to having 5 expansions, so you manage 3 of them and put the remaining 2 into permanent Regular.


Did you read the Word document? It explains the situations you brought up.

How exactly does one use it?

Generally, you’d want to stay in Strip Mining Mode for as long as possible, without going into Wasteful Strip Mining Mode. However, things are not as easy as they may seem - you need to consider a multitude of factors when deciding which mining mode to choose for particular resource node, such as:

-mineral line saturation
-the amount of minerals remaining
-your build order/opening/strategy etc.
-your and your opponent’s economy
-whether you’ll be able manage to avoid going into Wasteful Strip Mining Mode (you might be busy defending or harassing, etc.)
-whether the expansion is safe (or maybe you’re trying to capitalize on a hidden expansion?)

Additionally, you’d have to decide how frequently you’d want to go back to your base (you could adjust the mining modes with every new worker produced or even as rarely as every five workers) and plan ahead you macro cycles, depending on what you focus on in your playstyle and the current state of the game.


The reasons why you’d want to mine in Regular Mining Mode for longer:

1) Your mineral line is saturated and you're wasting too much resources (especially if minerals are running dry in that particular expansion) by mining is Strip Mining Mode.
2) You're gathering minerals faster than you can spend them because:

a) You're low on popcap because your opponent killed your Depots/Pylons/Overlords or you were sloppy building additional ones.

b) You're low on production structures because of enemy's destroying them or your timing mistake.


And another list, this time showing why mining in Strip Mining Mode for an extended period of time might be necessary despite eventually going into Wasteful Strip Mining Mode:

- you've been harassed and you need to recover in terms of worker count

- you've discovered that your opponent has been mining from a hidden expansion and you want to get even economically

- you're trying to capitalize on an economic/army advantage

- you're preparing a Warp-in drop

- you're trying to capitalize on a hidden expansion

- you're trying to maximize the income from an expansion you know you're going to lose

- you're cheesing with half your workers and the other half are constantly mining in mode 2

- you're trying to churn out as many reinforcements (mineral only units like Marines or Lings) to help your push or whatever



As for yellow/golden minerals - I dunno. It's up to balance. You could make this mechanic blue mineral-only, e.g. ;]

[mr. peasant]

Originally Posted by MaybenextTime

As for yellow/golden minerals - I dunno. It's up to balance. You could make this mechanic blue mineral-only, e.g. ;]

So, what you're suggesting is that to apply this mechanic might mean Blizzard's yellow mineral idea gets the boot?

As for the rest of it, I did read the Word document. However, what I'm saying is that I don't think the negatives of Strip Mining (and later, Wasteful Strip Mining) outweighs its benefit. I say this because I hardly remember a situation where minerals were in short supply. Certainly a lot less often than when I find myself short on minerals because my workers aren't mining fast enough or when I find myself short on gas because the geyser's been depleted.

So, what I'm saying in short is that I feel there's too many minerals on the map for the loss of minerals via Wasteful Strip Mining to be too damaging.