Thanks, however I think that some things, like moving through water, are really hard to be made, if not impossible.
Well, I have seen this for allied units only, I haven't seen my thor to move enemy broodlings.
Maybe that's because all units basically have the same push priority and cannot push each other if both are performing actions.
If a unit (even massive) is standing still while light allied units try to go around it, the massive one will be pushed.
When massive unit wants to get pass through a line of light units that are attacking enemy, massive one will need to go all the way around them while it would be better for it to push them aside...
You may want ultralisks to be able to push aside zerglings, slowly push through enemy infantry and go attack tanks or buildings, creating a passage for those zerglings behind, for example...
Pushing priority should depend not only on mass but units' speeds also. After charging, zealots should have high enough priority to push through a croud of more heavy marauders. And speed of pushing should depend on differences in priorities...
Actually it could be better to use not push prioritie, but to aasign a certain mass to each unit and count unit's impulse depending on speed.
In the simplest way - campaign is a series of battles on official maps, but during it winners gain some credits, that can be spent on powerful upgrades or purchasing new units. To counter them, losers can create alliances.
In more complex way - several players fight lots of battles for the domination over several planet systems. Bases from controlled territories send troops and resources to the battlefront. Players are able to make alliances or betray recent allies.
Players start on a home planet, where they fight with AI enemy, they fortify heavily their native base and then expand, attacking other planets or regions. There are some AI controlled planets or space platforms, where players can obtain valuable technologies or gather a lot of resources.
And some dungeons where you can send only several troops (you need to think what units to choose for that) and search for powerful upgrades that can be used during battles with other players.
Experience and AI. Ranks don’t affect unit stats, but they can affect unit’s AI. Pathfinding for instance, or the way they choose targets. Veterans need less micromanagement (initiative behavior can be toggled of), they would automatically target most dangerous enemies at first place, for example, or run from an area that is affected by psionic storm… There won’t appear a lot of veterans, so amount of cpu time spent on counting of their actions can be increased…
Some new abilities require both high ranks and research. For example, plasma torpedoes can be fired not only after research, but only by very experienced battlecruiser captains.
High-end units basically recieve better AI, than low-end ones, but it still can be improved.
Slow-mo. (Good for single player mostly). Player can find a xel’naga artifact that allows to exit normal time flow. Periodically, with some time for recharge, it can dramatically fasten heroes’ perception, so that time flow of all world becomes slower, thus helping player to assign lots of orders in most critical moments. [Not so as it was in that secret mission, but globally.] Also, toggling such option on during replays will make some battles look really fascinating.
Base and units.
Protoss.
Warp rift synchronization - An upgrade for nexus that causes the number of same warp rifts that exist in an area affected by one pylon at the same time to decrease duration (or overall cost) of construction. Cost can be lowered because structures are quite identical what allows to use a single warp channel that is «splitted» only in local nexus or pylon. If nearby warp rifts can strengthen each other in some kind of resonance. than duration will be decreased.
An upgrade that allows pylons (or better - that cancelled monlyths) to store “energetic copies” of some buildings that are under their coverage. Structures can be easily rewarped during some (usually short) time after destruction if that pylon wasn’t destroyed.
Collosus can overstep not only cliffs but also small buildings, and sometimes kick small attackers (damaging and moving them).
Upgrade that gives archons “psionic immolation” aura. Like constant (but very weak) psionic storm that rages around them.
Several phoenixes can focus their beams on a massive unit to lift it up.
Zerg.
Zerg can use several drones to build some structures (at least hatcheries) for no cost in minerals - one drone is mutating and others are consumed by growing structure providing material (maybe it affects speed of mutation somehow). Maybe growing structures can consume some other units, providing both minerals and gas.
Optional automatic borrowing for drones in case of attack.
Upgrades of zerg main buildings increases maximum number of larvae. Zerg player can have lots of Hatcheries, but only several Lairs, and only one Hive.
Aggressive creep - an upgrade that causes creep to slow down enemy units (at least non zerg ones), but it can be temporary destroyed by attacks that do splash damage, even if creep tumors survive. Nukes are especially effective in burning it out. Another one that causes creep to slowly damage enemy units, so spine crawlers can be made weaker (with shorter range, as they have melee attack) and cheaper. Creep itself becomes a defensive “structure”, making zerg more different from other races.
All zerg that are borrowed under creep or loaded inside overlords regenerate faster. Also, in case of under creep borrowing they are harder to detect - only near the detector, or only as red circles, without determination of unit type.
Zerglings and broodlings can climb over large enemy units, slowering them, just like ants do when attack large bugs, and over buildings, attacking even from the top.
"Burst” ability for Ultralisks, which allows it to run a short distance, crushing some of small enemies, throwing away others and moving aside medium sized units (buildings and massive units will block this).
A "mothership analogue" for zerg – player can chose one creature and slowly, moving through many phases, choosing what abilities/hp/armor to add on the next phase, evolve it into an omegalisk, brutalisk or leviathan, or something like that. Maybe it can be just an enlarged version of uny zerg unit, with some new abilities.
Terrans.
Terrans can fasten construction using several SCVs in multiplayer. But each new SCV fastens much less than previous, as there is no equal amount of work for all. Speed is growing like logarithm of SCVs number to a base of 2 or a natural one for example. Player cannot assign a big number of SCVs to the construction of small buildings.
Yamato charge can burn it’s way through several weak units standing in one line, if their overall hit points are less or equal to yamato charge’s damage, not more.
Medivacs can heal all infantry units that are loaded inside it on the move. Such healing should cost less energy. Healing beams appear only after upgrade. MMM combination seems too powerful at the start now, but if terrans will have to make an upgrade for healing beams to appear, it would be more balanced. [Healing is provided not only by laser scalpels, but also by a ray of nanorobots, capable of stiching wounds.] They are produced on medivac and emitted from it.
Terran buildings can squash small enemy units landing over them.
An upgrade that turns planetary fortress into a huge bunker and another one that turns orbital command into a huge transport good for early but risky drops.
All.
Different push priorities for different units. Massive units can move small enemy units out of their way and sometimes squash most unlucky ones. It looks quite strange that a pair of small zerglings standing in a choke point can for short time block movement of a massive unit. Higher is weight and speed (higher is impulse) - higher is push priority. After charge, zealots, for example, should have high enough priority to push through a crowd of more massive marauders. Speed of pushing should depend on differences in priorities.
Small units can easily move between large and even medium sized player's and enemy's units, as those cannot move or stand very close to each other. It just should be impossible for them to move so closely, as it is now in the game... To compensate the impossibility of “very close to each other” disposition, all bigger units can be made a bit stronger. And, escorting large units with infantry in order to block passages for enemy units would be more critical.
Same about air units. Maybe they are on different heights, when gather over a single point, but it could be shown in the game. And, if they are too high – they just won’t be able to attack ground. I suppose that a number of air units that can fly over the same point can be limited by two or three, depending on units’ size.
Lifted terran buildings and all capital ships will look more massive if they will have low acceleration and a long time for stopping or changing direction of movement, but quite high top speed. Capital ships are not much slower than small flying units, but are much less maneuverable.
Fragments of destroyed buildings and aircraft can sometimes damage nearby ground units.
Workers that were killed while transporting minerals or gas drop their cargo and it can be picked up later by other workers automatically. If worker that was transporting gas got killed by hellion or collosus, he explodes doing some area damage. Destruction of working refineries also does area damage.
An upgrade that allows transport units to transfer large amounts of resources (somewhere around 16 or 32 units) that are automatically loaded by workers. Having a large number of transports flying between the base and a deposit, player gains resources almost as effective, as when he has an expansion. Whole process is automatic and needs player’s control only if units are attacked. If the enemy is successful in hunting on those caravans it would be better to build an additional base of course, but sometimes it is not so. When transport is destroyed, minerals fall on the ground and can be gathered later. Transports full of gas will explode, doing serious area damage.
An “inner sight” upgrade for some units (ghost or dark templars for example), that allows them to become “semidetectors” - to “feel” other invisible or burrowed enemy units that are very close, but - shown only as red circles; not as effective as special detecting units do. Similar in action “scent” for one of zerg units.
Damage affects some of the unit’s stats. Not very detailed, something like – undamaged/damaged guns and undamaged/damaged engines (injured feet). Or more detailed – according to the damage map.
It’s easy to make units look a little more individual, making some slight random changes in face animations –e.g. SCV pilot in glasses or without, marine with cigar or without it, etc...
Critters avoid creep and try to flee from areas of fighting as fast as possible. Some can have an instinctive presentiment of upcoming nukes.
Possibility to choose whether one of the units from the group will use special ability when player commands to do it, or all of them simultaneously.
“Speed limit” (follow the speed of the slowest unit in a group) and formation movement options.
Some possibilities to customize commands and interface.
Making unit construction a bit more realistic.
In most real time strategies it’s absolutely unclear where we get people for making soldiers, pilots, tank drivers, etc, as they cannot be born and grow during the time of mission. Especially if we had only one worker on the start. This can be resolved so:
Terran player has an army of followers somewhere on the planet orbit and sometimes terrans warp their troops in, as protoss do, but they are able to do it only in open space, using their transport ships… These troops need from player just guns, armor and vehicles so producing of the unit is just producing of all that stuff. Why don’t they arrive on the battlefield in full equipment? Because it’s much cheaper and easier not to transfer it from one planet to another, but make it on-site, especially if it concerns big vehicles. Also it allows to transport more people and prevents mutinies. Being victorious, player obtains more followers from different colonies or some freed prisoners join his cause.
Their arrival can be shown as drop pods or via transports, or not event shown in the game - these are just numbers. Player can gain control over some civic buildings where some unarmed civilians will join (they won’t get guns until you will equip them). Other races can destroy or infest these buildings.
These people can be already trained specialists or abstract people. In first case, there are some numbers of units available for construction. If player receives unarmed reinforcements during the mission these numbers will rise. When number of people surpasses the number of supply units, some people will remain as a reserve.
E.g. if you have 100 men trained to be marines and 100 men trained to be a siege tank team, you would be able to produce only 100 marines and 25 siege tanks, not more (if one tank requires 4 men).
In a more simple case of abstract people, their number, in combination with supply units, just limits the amount of anything that player can make. So, if you have 300 men and are not limited by resources, you can make 200 marines (limited by supply units), if they would be killed, you would be able to create additional 100, but not more. Or you can make 100 marauders (supply limit), if they would be killed – 100 more, and if those would be killed too – the last 100.
If plaer wastes most of your army in one mission (or loses a lot of people due to dramatic story turns) in the next one he will suffer lack of troops and will need to search for other followers before serious battles. So, sometimes player will have to decide not only where to spend resources, but people as well (people are actually more valuable).
Despite it’s seeming complexity such feature should not change gameplay - numbers of available units can be set according to mission needs (up to thousands), but will make game more deep and “realistic”.
As protoss are warping in their troops somewhere from other planets, they don’t have such limitations. However, as they are the least numerous race, especially after the zerg invasion of Aiur, usually you won’t be let to warp in too many troops during one mission or to warp them too fast. These numbers can be varied from few to quite many, of course. Being victorious, player gains authority and glory (a protoss word for it) and is able to warp in more troops. If protoss can construct robots right on the base, their amount would be limited only by pylons and resources.
Zerg don’t have any limitations except resources and overlords, as their units are born right here on the base and can afford losing large numbers of units.
Map.
Special terrain types where most ground units move slower or faster (e.g. – roads and swamps).
Special locations and objects where player can activate curtains.
For example - vespene geysers can be ignited by attacks that produce a lot of heat or even by workers. Not too easily, only after destroying some amount of hp, or when refinery is destroyed. Once fired, they start to lose remaining gas, but create a cloud of smoke, that serves as a curtain. Workers can liquidate fire. You can ignite your own geyser (especially if you have two of them) in the beginning of the game to make scouting more difficult for your enemy, or - ignite enemies one, to prevent him from mining gas for some time…
Or - dried tall grass and dried bushes that can be easily burned causing damage to nearby units and creating clouds of sight blocking smoke.
Xel’naga shrouds, that narrow down vision range of enemy units.
Unstable destructible cliffs – when they fall down they create a mass of destructible (or indestructible) rocks that can block a narrow walley for example, and can damage or kill nearby units.
Rivers in addition to still water.
A zone along map boarders, where structures cannot be built but units can move, even ground ones. We see only a small part of the planet on a map, so why a corner base cannot be attacked from all sides? Width of this zone can be different for different maps.
Combination of different base texture sets on one map and linking several maps with a possibility to quikly switch between them during the game in order to control evens both on the base and inside the dungeon.
Expanding the role of water. (weren’t swimming units once proposed for StarCraft 1?).
Three levels of depth - Shallow water, average depth and bottomless. All units can move through shallow (but that will seriously slow them), high, such as colossus can move through average depth.
Upgrades that will allow some units to swim or to "sail", or to move underwater on average depth. Maybe even with a possibility of attacks from underwater. Due to sealing failure all mechanical units that are entirely underwater start to lose hp when are seriously damaged. On the other hand they take less damage from most attacks. Melee, bombs and missiles are not weakened (assuming that all missiles can work as torpedoes). Archons or Templars can float over the waves.
I have written most of these suggestions for SC2 for blizzard forums back in 2009, but for some reasons haven't posted them... So, maybe a kind of a game mod can be made with them now.
0
Ok, thanks.
0
I'll try. I have started to play with the editor only recently, so I just don't know much about it's possibilities...
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Thanks, however I think that some things, like moving through water, are really hard to be made, if not impossible.
Well, I have seen this for allied units only, I haven't seen my thor to move enemy broodlings. Maybe that's because all units basically have the same push priority and cannot push each other if both are performing actions.
If a unit (even massive) is standing still while light allied units try to go around it, the massive one will be pushed. When massive unit wants to get pass through a line of light units that are attacking enemy, massive one will need to go all the way around them while it would be better for it to push them aside...
You may want ultralisks to be able to push aside zerglings, slowly push through enemy infantry and go attack tanks or buildings, creating a passage for those zerglings behind, for example...
Pushing priority should depend not only on mass but units' speeds also. After charging, zealots should have high enough priority to push through a croud of more heavy marauders. And speed of pushing should depend on differences in priorities... Actually it could be better to use not push prioritie, but to aasign a certain mass to each unit and count unit's impulse depending on speed.
0
In the simplest way - campaign is a series of battles on official maps, but during it winners gain some credits, that can be spent on powerful upgrades or purchasing new units. To counter them, losers can create alliances.
In more complex way - several players fight lots of battles for the domination over several planet systems. Bases from controlled territories send troops and resources to the battlefront. Players are able to make alliances or betray recent allies. Players start on a home planet, where they fight with AI enemy, they fortify heavily their native base and then expand, attacking other planets or regions. There are some AI controlled planets or space platforms, where players can obtain valuable technologies or gather a lot of resources. And some dungeons where you can send only several troops (you need to think what units to choose for that) and search for powerful upgrades that can be used during battles with other players.
Experience and AI. Ranks don’t affect unit stats, but they can affect unit’s AI. Pathfinding for instance, or the way they choose targets. Veterans need less micromanagement (initiative behavior can be toggled of), they would automatically target most dangerous enemies at first place, for example, or run from an area that is affected by psionic storm… There won’t appear a lot of veterans, so amount of cpu time spent on counting of their actions can be increased… Some new abilities require both high ranks and research. For example, plasma torpedoes can be fired not only after research, but only by very experienced battlecruiser captains. High-end units basically recieve better AI, than low-end ones, but it still can be improved.
Slow-mo. (Good for single player mostly). Player can find a xel’naga artifact that allows to exit normal time flow. Periodically, with some time for recharge, it can dramatically fasten heroes’ perception, so that time flow of all world becomes slower, thus helping player to assign lots of orders in most critical moments. [Not so as it was in that secret mission, but globally.] Also, toggling such option on during replays will make some battles look really fascinating.
Base and units.
Protoss.
Zerg.
Terrans.
All.
Making unit construction a bit more realistic. In most real time strategies it’s absolutely unclear where we get people for making soldiers, pilots, tank drivers, etc, as they cannot be born and grow during the time of mission. Especially if we had only one worker on the start. This can be resolved so: Terran player has an army of followers somewhere on the planet orbit and sometimes terrans warp their troops in, as protoss do, but they are able to do it only in open space, using their transport ships… These troops need from player just guns, armor and vehicles so producing of the unit is just producing of all that stuff. Why don’t they arrive on the battlefield in full equipment? Because it’s much cheaper and easier not to transfer it from one planet to another, but make it on-site, especially if it concerns big vehicles. Also it allows to transport more people and prevents mutinies. Being victorious, player obtains more followers from different colonies or some freed prisoners join his cause. Their arrival can be shown as drop pods or via transports, or not event shown in the game - these are just numbers. Player can gain control over some civic buildings where some unarmed civilians will join (they won’t get guns until you will equip them). Other races can destroy or infest these buildings. These people can be already trained specialists or abstract people. In first case, there are some numbers of units available for construction. If player receives unarmed reinforcements during the mission these numbers will rise. When number of people surpasses the number of supply units, some people will remain as a reserve. E.g. if you have 100 men trained to be marines and 100 men trained to be a siege tank team, you would be able to produce only 100 marines and 25 siege tanks, not more (if one tank requires 4 men). In a more simple case of abstract people, their number, in combination with supply units, just limits the amount of anything that player can make. So, if you have 300 men and are not limited by resources, you can make 200 marines (limited by supply units), if they would be killed, you would be able to create additional 100, but not more. Or you can make 100 marauders (supply limit), if they would be killed – 100 more, and if those would be killed too – the last 100. If plaer wastes most of your army in one mission (or loses a lot of people due to dramatic story turns) in the next one he will suffer lack of troops and will need to search for other followers before serious battles. So, sometimes player will have to decide not only where to spend resources, but people as well (people are actually more valuable). Despite it’s seeming complexity such feature should not change gameplay - numbers of available units can be set according to mission needs (up to thousands), but will make game more deep and “realistic”.
As protoss are warping in their troops somewhere from other planets, they don’t have such limitations. However, as they are the least numerous race, especially after the zerg invasion of Aiur, usually you won’t be let to warp in too many troops during one mission or to warp them too fast. These numbers can be varied from few to quite many, of course. Being victorious, player gains authority and glory (a protoss word for it) and is able to warp in more troops. If protoss can construct robots right on the base, their amount would be limited only by pylons and resources.
Zerg don’t have any limitations except resources and overlords, as their units are born right here on the base and can afford losing large numbers of units.
Map.
Expanding the role of water. (weren’t swimming units once proposed for StarCraft 1?). Three levels of depth - Shallow water, average depth and bottomless. All units can move through shallow (but that will seriously slow them), high, such as colossus can move through average depth. Upgrades that will allow some units to swim or to "sail", or to move underwater on average depth. Maybe even with a possibility of attacks from underwater. Due to sealing failure all mechanical units that are entirely underwater start to lose hp when are seriously damaged. On the other hand they take less damage from most attacks. Melee, bombs and missiles are not weakened (assuming that all missiles can work as torpedoes). Archons or Templars can float over the waves.
I have written most of these suggestions for SC2 for blizzard forums back in 2009, but for some reasons haven't posted them... So, maybe a kind of a game mod can be made with them now.