Transport mining now viable?

[brules]

The addition of high-yield minerals to StarCraft adds to the strategic possibilities in expansion placement as well as increases the importance of scouting, however, does it also open the door to the transport mining technique? When Blizzard acknowledged the existence of these "yellow" minerals, they noted that these expansion points would be in high-risk locations, which would increase the risk and cost of setting up base there.

Would the micro-intensive technique of loading 8 peons in a transport, taking them over a chasm to mine a mineral patch and then bringing them back to base now be viable if the peons take doubled from 8 to say 16? I know it's a bit of a stretch... Also, wouldn't it be neat if this could be automated?

[Pure Vengeance]

This seems to me that it would be benificial to doing this action (This is if the crystals are worth THAT much more), but I don't think that it would become an automated option, though it would be neet...

I have also heard around that the yellow crystal clumps have very few uses in them compared to normal crystals so we will have to see how much the new commodity will actualy effect the game.

[Remy]

My guess is no, transport mining won't be worth your time.

I don't really like this whole idea of high yield minerals...

[Nikzad]

neither do I, I think it is going to make a lot of unnecessary battles over overly-coveted resources

[Arachanox]

That's a lot of microing. Move peons into dropship, move dropship to minerals, wait, unload peons, mine, put peons in dropship, return to base, wait, unload peons, return cargo, repeat.

If you have time for that many clicks, just go expand there. :P

[Nikzad]

to clarify my earlier post, I meant that I think that people are going to try so hard to get these "special" minerals that they are going to end up spending all their minerals defending their expansions and spread themselves too thinly just to be like "omfg i got teh yello minrulls!!!1"

[Remy]

I just don't like the idea of the game passively telling me where to expand.

I know I could still expo where I choose, but it's always gonna be in the back of my mind that if I don't expo there the other guy will.

[Major Willy]

While "teh uber 1337 mega haxxors" are getting their yellow minerals I'm moving my Siege Tanks into their main.

[mc2]

It'll not be viable for the Terrans and Protoss to do so. Maybe for the zerg with the nydus worm, but it would still require too much microing to make it work.
Even though it's in a high risk location, I think it could be worth taming that position if the situation allows. It will though make the strong players even stronger a lot quicker, while the weaker players will die or gg quickly, so that's probably a bad thing. Having the gold minerals is like having a money map within a normal map, so I suppose it's good for longer games.

[Ghost]

Its going to make opponents more predictable, I hate the idea.

[tweakismyname]

i think it will make you and your opponets more predictable cause i mean who would say "Yellow, Yellow, Yellow,... Wow! is that Blue crystal? lets go over there!

but as for user created maps it could be a whole different strategy if it was only yellow minnerals i mean you would get money faster = you have to think faster

[Remy]

2x money maps... ugh, I don't even wanna think about it.

We're gonna have more people who suck at SC2 than we did for SC1 because of it, great.

[Ishe]

I understand Blizzards trying to expand the game and i have faith in them but im starting to get a bit worried that there going to change to much of it. Changeing a lot of the units anoyed me a little..

Exchangeing minreals like on WC3 and haveing yellow minreals ... i dono im starting to get a bit worried there going to make it a new game instead of an upgrade from SC1.

They dont need to change much from SC just updated it not remake it if that makes sense... Dont fix stuff that isnt broken!

[kingsky123]

...that sorta thinking is why we arent advancing =P.

oh and having that double money thing and using transport mining is an idea if that place becomes like a no-man's land and you just want that extra income or something...


Edited out quotes. Please read the forum rules and refrain from quoting unnecessarily.

[10-Neon]

I doubt transport mining will be viable, but I wish it were. You can do so many cool things with resource collection, but for some reason people don't like games centered around resource collection(note: I am one of those weirdos that would find a first-person mineral-harvesting game to be fun) so they make the whole process really simple. It just means that such strategies as remote-mining are less viable, and only emerge in times of desperation.

[marinepower]

No one really knows how hard it would be to get these yellow minerals. For all we know, they really might be on some random platform that is only accessible to mining by that technique. Bliz however mentioned that they are trying to include many ways for the gosu players to really stand out, so this could be one big advantage for the more skilled players.

If you are forced to do this however, you would still build a cc as close as you can to those minerals so the transport distance isn't as long for the dropship. It could lead to many interesting strategies, even making that arbitor recall on minerals glitch a possibility if enough probes gather around.

[Dreadnought]

Lets be honest, this is a lil absurd lol
It would require far too much micro to do this. Im sure they will make it where u can make a cc and collect them normally.
Maybe if they could make it automated which i highly doubt (then again if the AI cant detect any way to reach the minerals they could do this.) then it would be viable. But personally id rather just go to blue minerals and expand. Safer and easier. Also note that they always showed VERY few yellow minerals in each patch. So all you would be doing really is reducing the number of drones/SCVs/probes required to harvest.

[Pure Vengeance]

Okay, something I would like to restate is the fact that these yellow/gold crystals are hard to come by in hard to control areas (or at least in Blizzard maps) so you would have to fight others to keep it like others have said.

Also though, it is rumored that these golden crystals have small crops (not many crystals in a group). The only difference would be that you get it faster and run out sooner. This I believe may become a great advantage to the Terran with their comand center movement ability because they can quickly mine the golden crystals to get a quick start and then be able to just relocate at another crystal site elsewhere for money in the long run.

[T-man]

No one really knows how hard it would be to get these yellow minerals. For all we know, they really might be on some random platform that is only accessible to mining by that technique. Bliz however mentioned that they are trying to include many ways for the gosu players to really stand out, so this could be one big advantage for the more skilled players.


Awesome idea. Depending on things, this might be one of the first maps I make. One where 50% of the expos are gold minerals, with normal crops (1500 or whatever standard blues have), but don't have enough room to build/land a CC/Nexus/Hatchery on, so Transporting is the only way to access them. If the AI is smart enough to figure this out, it'd be great.

[Wlck742]

It would be easier and safer to just get the normal minerals... Who cares if someone else gets a little more minerals, just blow apart their base while they're trying to expand.

[T-man]

It would be easier and safer to just get the normal minerals... Who cares if someone else gets a little more minerals, just blow apart their base while they're trying to expand.


Then I'll just make it so you have a normal crop at home, but the blue mineral expos only have 500 mineral crops.
I'll find some way to force such a strategy. :D

[Ecton]

1. It would be absurd, as everyone else has said, to do this transport mining unless you were doing it to siphon off resources from another player. Even so, that would be absurd.

2. If the AI could do this, then they could do it better then normal people can, and could treat it like a normal supply line. Humans, however have to devote nearly there entire attention to it.

3. I generally think of the Gold Crystals as places to squash people who go there and set up an Expo. There in an exposed location, which means they generally won't be defended well, or if they are the player must have spent a massive amount of resources doing it, and you can hit them in other places then.

[Pure Vengeance]

As I said before, that is why the terran are going to have a good advantage here. You come to destroy their base and you find that their base is flying away xP

( it was said somewhere, that the terran buildings will move a tiny bit faster in this game )

[Wlck742]

Moving away buildings hardly helps them escape harm. It's only really good very early on against zerg and protoss before they get goons and hydras, or on island maps until air units come. Then it's gg. If you have allies you could move them into his/her base unless they were zerg, and unless it's on a money map, the both of you will probably be at a disadvantage.

[Pure Vengeance]

"This I believe may become a great advantage to the Terran with their comand center movement ability because they can quickly mine the golden crystals to get a quick start and then be able to just relocate at another crystal site elsewhere for money in the long run." was my old statement. It said that moving gave them the advantage as a quick start. Nothing more or less...

(I'm not trying to sound rude here and if I sound it sorry)

[Wlck742]

Oh, I was just talking about the lift off ability against attacks, not expansion.
As I said before, that is why the terran are going to have a good advantage here. You come to destroy their base and you find that their base is flying away xP


Oh, I was talking about this post about the buildings flying away from attacks, not the one about moving it to a patch of golden crystals.

Btw, does anyone know if golden crystals lose 12 minerals for every run or just the normal 8. Cuz the high-yield thing sounds like it gives more for the same amount, or less.

[Pure Vengeance]

Eh? I'm so confused now... I was just trying to say that they could lift off and go to golden crystals right away and since they would still have fewer miners since they started mining second they could load the scv's into the comand center and float away killing any zerg rush tactic. Just build your buildings as you move... barracks, factories ect all can float away driving every one crazy. The only thing I can see to defeat this tactic would be air from later in-game which would be after they mined all the golden crystals...

I'm not making any sence am I...?

[BoydofZINJ]

basiclly the golden cystals are going to be for players who can force another player to be defensive. for example, you are playing against a good turtle player. You keep the turtle player in his or her base and then mine the bejesus out of the yellow ore. imagine in the map LT or BGH where the center of the map has golden crystals. In BGH replace thre blue ore with yellow ore. WHAM! Who ever controls that center will be able to dominate faster than other players in theory. In LT, if they added the yellow ore in the middle, for example, and the other player just goes for his or her natural expansion then an aggressive player can mine the golden ore as the natural expansion.

However, expanding too early can cost you games and the yellow ore will be a risky gambit. Any decent scouting player will see someone at the yellow ore and make it a high priority target. Comsats, overlords, and observers will probably be there scouting.

Going to the OPS original post. Ultimately speaking there should be no computer AI to have a transport load drones/probes and then drop them off and mine/harvest an item and then pick them back up and drop them at the nexus/cc and repeat. This will see an influx of a single cc or a single nexus.

[i2new@aol.com]

the hole load drones, unload drones, mine, load drons, unload drones, and repeter is the most stupidest ideal i ever herd and why in gods name would blizzard make such a stupid ideal. They would leave a stop to build a base next to the minirals. and theres going to be a easy trick or auto movement is blizzard did add something so useless.

[GrahamTastic]

2x money maps... ugh, I don't even wanna think about it.

We're gonna have more people who suck at SC2 than we did for SC1 because of it, great.

Nononono!! The "high-yield" minerals are only worth 12, according to Karune. Doing the transport thing would be more trouble than it's worth.

[GrahamTastic]

Of course... it might be worth it if you used a Nydus Worm instead. That would be much faster, especially since they don't need creep to pop up.

[i2new@aol.com]

What if u could strap a hole chuck of Minerals to a Drone and pull it out the ground and drag the hole thing back to your base. so u never have to leave your base ??