Make OC upgrade cost just 75mineral with no MULE.
When a Depot finishes you “Boom” and get one free SCV. In this way, Terran would get extra minerals and gas by taking extra bases an “Booming”, instead of the “Free Money” from MULES. You should “Boom” when make a command center too.
In a 4 base game you make 4 command centers and about 18 Supply depots, so this would be 22 workers throughout the game, or enough to saturate one extra base in a 4 base game.
It makes sense that extra SCVs would come from Supply Depots.
What do you guys think?
this would unbreak certain situations where MULE allows a ridiculous Terran come-back.
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Why people think free money from mules is problem?
Terran:
- is building with his workers
- supply depots build 21 second, pylons and overlord 18!
- has to scan
- orbital cost 150 and you are not making workers at that time!
- terran economy is scalling more linearly, while economy of other races exponentially, if terran loses 10 scvs to ling runby, he can’t instantly replenish his workers!
- also Terran is hardest race and take a lot of micro and macro, even pros will drop multiple mules at the same time, after being taxed by fights on the map etc. Terran can do this, because Terran is already hard to play! You have to also repair units and buildings and put workers back to mine! And micro depots and what not, switch addons take a lot of effort!
Other races have equally bs mechanics, yes they are no free for initial cost. But what would you rather have:
- free MULES, but they mine 100 minerals per minute
- 5 larvae per inject
Free itself doesn’t mean MULE is broken, as macro mechanics of other races are equally BS! So they will cancel each other out. Game is asymmetrical to be more interesting and have longetivity, but these macro mechanics used to be balanced well in HOTS!
There is no need to remove MULES, but to fix 12 worker start and economies in LOTV and revert changes made to macro mechanics itself. They were decently balanced in HOTS!
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There were recently PPP noobs whining that mule is OP, check recent threads.
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The main reason I suggested this is to do away with the whole “Terran lost 40 SCVs and won anyway” scenario.
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No it doesn’t. You don’t build a person while building a building
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“Each supply depot kit comes complete with a clone pilot and an SCV. Batteries sold separrately.”
Makes more sense than a harvesting robot that disintegrates after 90 seconds.
No, it really doesn’t. Age of Empires III had the excuse that your faction was constantly bringing supplies over from a home country in Europe; so the British faction gaining more settlers (colonists from Europe) did arguably fit.
StarCraft Supply Depots are military weapon/ammo dumps where off-duty soldiers might occasionally show up to drink.
As a macro mechanic, the timed “robot miners” actually make a lot more sense.
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This is why you should be at least diamond to post on the forums.
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boomers not play sc2 it more millenniums that do it
Those aren’t exactly common, and it happens to every race. We literally had that exact scenario in a Stats vs Rogue game last night in the EPT weekly cup, and thats Protoss vs Zerg.
This thread feels like a not-so-subtle complaint about the TY GSL super tournament game that happened last week.
Let me remind you that in these scenarios where a race wins despite losing more workers its typically off the back of a few things - and Terran is no exception.
- More/better army supply, often both. In the TY vs Hurricane game, TY had more army and kept his units alive, particularly his more expensive key units, where hurricane sacked his entire army in a timing-attack-turned-all-in. Twice.
In the Stats vs Rogue EPT game I mentioned earlier, Stats lost a large amount of workers and pushed across to win, knowing his army was better, despite being on a 2 base economy to a 5 base conomy. Carrier Voidray Archon Templar vs ling bane hydra corruptor.
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Ahead in bases and economy. TY might have lost a decent chunk of workers, however he had more bases (3 to Hurricane’s 2) and as a result could replenish his worker count faster. Exacerbating this issue further, Hurricane never took a third, and flat out never remade the workers he had lost prior to his massive over-commitment in the first fight, where TY did remake his workers, enough that, despite how many he had lost, TY was almost even in worker count by the time the 2nd attack hit.
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Upgrade lead. This sort of ties into the whole “superior tech” thing, but upgrades make a massive difference in a fight and can be the difference between holding or losing. TY had +1 weapons. Hurricane didn’t have any upgrades. I don’t really need to explain this any further, do I?
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Harassment. Both before and after the 1st fight, TY was on top of Hurricane. He killed a large number of workers that went unanswered for until the first push, workers that I again remind you were never replenished. TY also picked off key tech/units before as well.
In summary:
TY played better, had better everything and deserved to win. Stats had a better army even though he was down workers and pushed across after identifying that Rogue wouldn’t be able to stop him, and so deserved to win.
Ultimately it comes down to game knowledge, good mechanics and decision making. Both games could very easily have gone the other way!
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When I play for a few weeks, my rank fluctuates between Number 1 Platinum and 50 Diamond. So I’d still qualify on my main account.
In the Campain and Co-op, Raynor’s faction calls down supply depots from orbit, and in one mission turns out doesn’t even need supply depots, has 200 supply autoatically in “Super Nova”.
Protoss units are actually warped in from another planet, so maybe in terms of Lore “Booming” fits their Lore better, but they don’t need that ability. Terran would need that ability if they had no MULES.
Common mule abuse. All the terrans know it’s true. They won’t talk bad about the mule because they know it keeps them in games, and also allows them to come back. Terran can go 180 or 190 army supply late game if they want.
You can just mule ravage an expo. What i mean is spam calldown 20 to 30 mules from all your oc’s on the last base left on the map to mine and have a huge advantage.
Well-said. Certainly does, not to mention they are called down from outer space orbit.
In SC1, Terrans won without mules.
Alternatively, I had proposed an upgrade on the Engineering Bay which allowed Terrans to mine minerals and/or Gas 1 point faster per worker cycle. This would be as powerful as the MULE, but if you lost 40 workers you’d lose the game now.
Like 150/150/90 and mine minerals 1 point faster when researched.
then have another one 150/150/90 and mine gas 1 point faster when researched.
That way you could balance them separately, and these are really powerful, so opponents would be encouraged to harass terran workers even more.
TY: ahead on bases, better tech/army, huge damage to enemy early in game, enemy was all in, enemy DID NOT REBUILD PROBES
PPP: durr he stayed in the game because mule!
Um, yes, MULEs are a requirement to STAY EVEN with protoss and zerg economy BY DEFAULT. This isn’t the brilliant dunk you think it is.
The maximum number of mules that can mine a standard 8 patch base is 16. 1-8 increases the output by 1 mule, 9-16 increases it EXTREMELY slightly (the increase is essentially negligible), 17+ literally DECREASES the mining efficiency of the base as patches get taken up by mules.
Also, who tf has energy to call down 30 mules lmao? Maybe in your platinum league games where nobody knows how to spend energy…
SC1 has a completely different economy 
In SC1 Protoss won without recalls on nexus, chrono, warp gate, etc. Let’s start by removing those BS mechanics first, huh?
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TCF: Think rebuilding probes is so easy, with no money for them. Meanwhile drop your free mules jackass.
I play all 3 races about equally well, and I think MULES are unfair compared to the other Macro mechanics, because its FREE MONEY that you get even if you lost lal your workers.
the alternative fixes I’ve suggested would not allow this, because if you lost your SCVS then, it would hurt you a LOT…
The guy had money, he just didn’t spend it on probes. He decided to go all in. Did you even watch the game??? lmao
Also, MULEs are not free money lol. They are the equivalent of the “harvest” command for the orbital.
I also like how you ignored the rest of my reply, because you know you’re making up nonsense and can’t respond to the actual facts when you’re faced with them. Typical PPP.
It is not free money lmao. A MULE is required to STAY EVEN as Terran. If you lose 40 workers and then call down a MULE, that’s not suddenly +3 SCVs, that’s 3 SCVs that you had earlier (at the moment the orbital finished) but didn’t lose.
OC upgrade = 150 minerals → MULE is worth ~3 SCVs mining (used to be 4). MULE is the harvest mechanic of the orbital. The way it differs from traditional worker harvest is:
- MULEs can be killed, causing a lost “harvest” cycle.
- “harvests” can be delayed by spending energy on scans or supply drops instead (although this is kind of equivalent to spending SCV mining on a new building).
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have you ever just “Mineral Drilled” an opponent before? You can have like 25 reactore’d barracks and 10 orbital commands. This is how people play Raynor in Co-op. Although they removed Twin MULE right away, but Twin Mule was broken as all hell. Anyway, you can get to platinum league and beyond by just mineral drilling. Enough gas for upgrades, but make nothing but Marines from reactored barrracks and attack-move with stim.
I can beat 3 Insane AIs doing this too. Can beat anyone other than Zerg by doing this too up to number 1 Platinum.
Mule = not fair. Trust me.