I’m not sure if anyone will care about this, but I have an extension mod project that I have been working on for a while. I expect some changes to be torn apart, but that’s fine. Try it out and provide criticism if you want to.
General Changes:
Splash damage fix:
- Archons, Colossus, Hellbats, Hellions, Lurkers, and Sieged Tanks now deal splash damage to all targets. Previously, Sieged Tanks and Archons dealt “ranged” damage to their main targets and the others dealt “ranged” damage to all targets.
Economy:
Most 5.0.16 economic changes have been reverted, with some exceptions:
- The mineral changes are retained.
- The vespene changes are reverted
- All command structure changes reverted, including the supply produced, command center cost, and larva generation rate.
Protoss:
General:
- Base shield regeneration of all Protoss units except for Probes is cut in half (1.4).
- New upgrade (Personal Shield Generators) on Cybernetics Core restores base shield regeneration to 2.8.
- Empowered Pylons now buff nearby units as described below:
- Building armor upgrade added to forge.
Colossus:
- Damage changed from 10 + 5 v. light to 12 +3 v. light
High Templar:
- Storm reverted to old behavior (8 ticks of 10 damage).
- Feedback now requires targets to have at least 25 energy. Reason is explained below.
Nexus:
- Energy Overcharge removed. The pylon empowerment changes are meant to be an alternative.
- Supply reverted to 15.
Oracle:
- Now has a dummy attack like other casters to prevent suicide.
Dummy Attack
Display Name: Unpowered Pulsar Beam
Damage: 2 + 1 vs. light.
Damage type: Spell damage, ignoring armor and weapon upgrades.
Cooldown: Matches the regular Pulsar Beam at 0.61 seconds in real time.
Range: 6 – The goal is to prevent casters from suiciding, so sticking with 4 range defeats the purpose.
Targets: Ground or air.
Mutually exclusive with Pulsar Beam. Turning Pulsar Beam on turns this attack off and vice-versa.
Observer:
- Always cloaked.
- Costs no supply.
Pylon:
- Empowered Pylons now increase the shield regeneration of nearby Protoss units by 1.4. This is normal shield regeneration, so the 7 second wait still applies. This effect can stack with the shield upgrade, providing increased regeneration on defense.
- Empowered Pylons increase the attack rate and movement speed of nearby non-worker units by 15%. This is intended to be another defensive boost.
Stalker
The following changes have been reverted:
- Introduced Streamline manufacturing upgrade to reduce the mineral cost to 100.
- The upgrade is researched at the twilight council, but it requires a Robotics Bay.
- The upgrade cost is 100/100, and the build time is 71 seconds (on faster).
Terran:
Command Center / Orbital Command / Planetary:
- Reset cost to 400 and 550 minerals respectively.
- Supply reverted to 15.
Cyclone:
- Lock-on cooldown fixed – Ignore, this was done before it was fixed on the live patch.
- Weapon upgrades fixed (+2 base damage per upgrade).
Reverted
- Lock-on can no longer target structures ← My personal philosophy on this is that siege-range units should not be fast, so I made this change in line with that philosophy. The next few changes compensate for it.
- Cyclones start with +2 damage vs. structures. In addition, they gain another +10 damage versus structures from Mag-Field accelerators and +1 vs. structures per weapon upgrade. This means that Cyclones are more or less as efficient at killing structures, but only by using their basic attack at shorter range.
Ghost:
- Steady-Targeting replaced by Restoration (50 energy). Restoration removes existing crowd-control effects on the target and prevents further crowd-control effects on target for 5.714 seconds. Damage is still applied. There are some quirks to this ability to be explained in the hidden section below:
Restoration
Behaviors:
- Stasis Ward is currently unaffected, based on the fact that Stasis Field in Brood War couldn’t be affected by the Medic’s Restoration ability (which is still slightly different). I may choose to change this later.
- Restoration will remove and prevent the speed-reducing effect of Fungal, but it does not prevent any of the damage. Casting Fungal on a target with Restoration active will apply the damage without the slow.
- Parasitic Bomb cannot directly target a unit with Restoration. Furthermore, casting Restoration on a unit with Parasitic Bomb will “detach” it from the target unit. “Detach” meaning that the spell remains fixed in place instead of sticking to the target. However, units with Restoration will still take damage from Parasitic Bomb as long as they are within its radius.
- Restoration will prevent Abduct from targeting a unit. Casting Restoration before Abduct takes hold may also prevent it.
- Blinding Cloud, Parasitic Bomb, Concussive Shell, Neural Parasite, and Time Warp are all removed/blocked by Restoration.
Goal: First, stacking damage abilities like Steady-Targeting generally encourage players to mass casters and spam them for damage. I think the game is better off when casters serve as support units for other units rather than something you spam. Steady-targeting countered units like Infestors, Vipers, Ultralisks, and Brood Lords by killing them, Restoration is intended to make other units (Tanks, Thors, etc) more effective in those situations. Still, I’m not certain if it will work out as intended.
Hellion:
- New Hell Armor upgrade that increases Hellion life by 10 and Hellbat life by 15. Requires Armory. ← This is one of the main improvements I wanted to make to Hellbats. It makes them slightly better tanks for mech, but the upgrade should be delayed far enough to prevent it from creating problematic timing pushes.
- Smart-Servos increases the speed of Hellbats, Thors, and landed Vikings by 0.175. ← This is a minor improvement that should benefit mech without causing problems.
- Base damage increased from 8 +6 v. light to 8 +7 v. light.
- Infernal Pre-Igniter now gives Hellions +8 anti-light damage instead of +5.
^ The last two changes were based on an old patch and intended to make Hellions slightly more useful when harassing Terran (1 less hit needed for SCVs) and when fighting Hydralisks (which also take 1 less hit). However, this might be an overbuff.
Marauder:
- Concussive Shells removed.
Raven:
- Granted a weak auto-attack. The purpose is to prevent Ravens from committing suicide when attack-moved with other units, and many other casters will have the same change.
- Auto-Turret replaced with Defensive Matrix. Defensive Matrix is a 50 energy ability that surrounds the target in a shield that prevents 150 damage for 14 seconds. The energy efficiency (3:1) is about as good as Medivac healing.
^ The reason for replacing Auto-Turret is roughly the same as the reason for removing Steady-Targeting. It has the potential to be spammed for damage, even if it isn’t often used that way.
Starport Tech Lab:
- Enhanced Manufacturing created as a new upgrade that removes the Tech Lab requirements from Banshees and Ravens. The upgrade is expensive (150/150 & 100 seconds), but I hope that the ability to create these units from Starports with Reactors (alongside Vikings, Medivacs, and Liberators) is useful enough to justify it. After all, the Tech Lab requirement is one of the reasons why these units see limited use.
Zerg:
- Building armor upgrade added to Evolution Chamber.
Corruptor:
- Gains a weak ground attack so that it is not entirely useless after killing air units.
The ground damage is very low (5), but the Corruptor’s high durability ensures that it is still a threat.
Hatchery / Lair / Hive:
- Supply reverted to pre 5.0.16 value.
- Larva generation rate reverted to pre 5.0.16 value.
Hunter Killer:
- Hydralisk morph with superior anti-air capabilities and an anti-armor focus.
- Has extra range and damage against air units.
- Benefits from all Hydralisk upgrades.
- This unit is not meant to be a straight upgrade. Its stats per cost and per supply should be worse than Hydralisks against non-armored ground targets at the very least.
Stats
Cost: 150/75/2
Hit Points: 150 – I’ve been fluctuating between 140 - 160, and I’ve been having trouble determining which I prefer. I reduced this from 160 to 150.
Tags: Light,Biological.
Ground Attack:
- Damage: 15 +5 vs. armored. +1 +1 vs. armored per upgrade.
- Range: 5 (+1)
Air Attack:
- Damage: 18 + 6 vs. armored. +2 per upgrade.
- Range: 6 (+1).
Size:
- Cargo Space: Rounded up to 4.
- Inner radius: 0.5 (up from the Hydralisk’s 0.375).
- Radius: 0.8125 (up from the Hydralisk’s 0.625).
Hydralisk:
- Gains Hunter Killer morph.
Infestor:
- Gains attack to prevent suicide.
- Neural Parasite replaced by a single target Plague that reduces target’s health over time by 300 or “down to 40%” health. ← This is meant to replace Neural Parasite as a counter to “durable” or “high-supply” units, while also getting rid of the supply-stealing aspect. Like BW Plague, the damage is dealt directly to health, bypassing shields. Unlike Plague, this effect stops dealing damage once the unit drops below 40% health, rather than 4 health (which I felt was too extreme). The Ghost’s Restoration ability does not block or remove Plague.
- Microbial Cover created as a replacement for Microbial Shroud. Protects multiple targets with a ranged damage-absorbing shield instead of reducing damage in an area. Details are hidden below:
Microbial Cover
I ultimately determined that Microbial Shroud could not be balanced. I know that in order to be balanced, Microbial Shroud would need to apply after armor so that its damage reduction is consistent, but this was beyond my ability to implement in the editor. The editor may not allow it.
So, I took a different approach. Instead of creating a field that reduces damage taken, I replaced Microbial Shroud with an AOE ability similar to Defensive Matrix or Barrier that absorbs a fixed amount of damage before the unit itself can be damaged. That said, the damage by this ability absorbed is also based on the “current” life of each unit when the spell is cast. This is achieved by creating multiple versions of the buff, removing all versions of the buff on cast, and applying different “version” of the buff based on each target’s current health. The total damage absorption is lower than Microbial Shroud, both because this is front-loaded, and to prevent this ability from exceeding Defensive Matrix.
Stats:
- Cost: 75 energy, no research required.
- Radius: 2.5, down from Microbial Shroud’s 3.5. The spell really doesn’t need to be so * large when the units don’t need to stand in it.
- Targets allowed: Ground units.
- Duration: All versions of Microbial Shroud last for 14 (faster) seconds, like Defensive Matrix does.
- Damage thresholds: 5/10/15/20/25/30/35/40/45/50/55/60/65/70/75
- Health thresholds: 0/10/20/30/40/50/60/70/80/90/100/110/120/130/140+
- Shorthand: min(75, 5 * int(life/10 + 1))
^ The damage threshold above is basically how much health the ability absorbs when the target is above the corresponding “health” threshold below it. There are currently no new absorption thresholds above 140, since then the ability starts to get out-of-hand. I figured that going above 75 damage absorption per unit on an AOE spell would be excessive.
Roach:
- Has Enlarged Carapace upgrade at Hive. Increasing health by 15.
Swarm Host:
- Disabled at the moment. I experimented too much with this unit and ended up with an overpowered monstrosity. I don’t know if I will revisit it later.
Viper:
- Gains attack to prevent suicide.
- Abduct does not work against massive. ← Brother’s suggestion. I still might go back on this.
- Parasitic Bomb radius nerfed from 3.0 to 2.15, cutting the total area by nearly half.
- Parasitic Bomb duration reduced from 7 to 5.4 seconds. This reduces the total damage from 120 to 90, although the base DPS remains the same.
- Parasitic Bomb gains 33% bonus damage to Massive, so massive units still take 120 damage over the new duration.