High Concept: The three races (Protoss, Terran and Zerg) are completely remade. The very mechanics of how they operate are unique. The final result will be an altered melee scenario which will hopefully be fun as hell!

The Terran - Colonists: The idea behind the new terran race mechanic is the idea of colonization. You begin the game with a single Colonist Hut. And from this point, you build an empire and develop military units.

As a Terran, there is an 'Orbiting Fleet' - which acts as a Hero unit. So, by pressing F2, you can 'call down' new structures, supplies and even some devastating abilities. All of these things cost 'credits'.

The Terran resource is 'Credits'. You earn credits by putting your colonists to 'work' - by 'Loading' them into Structures.

• Example Terran Structures
  • Industry - Metal Processing, Vespene Extraction, Office Blocks.
    • Each building of these types can house a different number of Colonists.
      
    • For each colonist 'loaded' (working) inside a structure, you gain a flat bonus in credits.
      
    • Metal Processing - Houses up to 4 Colonists. Gain +5 Credits per colonist, per tick.
      
    • Vespene Extraction - Houses up to 2 Colonists. Gain +12 Credits per colonist, per tick.
      
    • Office Blocks - House up to 8 Colonists. Gain +3 credits per colonist, per tick.
      
  • Economy - Bank and Financial Institute.
    • These buildings each give a percentage bonus to your credits.
      
    • They require 4 Colonists to be working for any bonus to occur.
      
    • Bank - For each 100 Credits you have, you gain +10 extra per tick.
      
    • Financial Institute - You gain a +0.5% credit bonus, per tick.
      
  • Military - Weapons Facilities, Barracks, Vehicle Depots etc...
    • These structures allow you to 'convert' Colonists into Military units.
      
    • Many of them require a certain number of Industry buildings before they can be constructed.
      
    • For example, a Weapons Facility requires 2 Metal Processing and 1 Vespene Extractor.
      
    • In turn, each Weapons Facility allows you to construct up to 2 Barracks or 1 Vehicle Depot.
      
    • It costs Credits to convert Colonists into Military units.
      
    • Remember - colonists replenish over time (like Larvae)
      

The idea I had for the Zerg was to do with their economy relating to the amount of creep they currently have.

You'd start with a Queen - but vastly buffed. And start spreading creep. This queen spawns larvae.. And these larvae can move around on the creep - where you can mutate them into structures. No more Larva>Drone>Structure, or Larva>Unit procedures...

The Larvae are used to create Unit Producing Structures... As well as Walls, or Creep Beasts, which are like mobile structures which spread creep when 'rooted'.

Any thoughts or ideas are welcome

It is going to be a pain to balance but I am looking for help in the Data Editor department.

Specifically with this problem:

• Colonists Harvest Supplies (which act like Minerals)
  
• These Minerals are returned to any building which is 'Under Construction'
  
• And as more and more minerals are returned, the building progress increases.
  

So, you never actually get any minerals - they are deducted as soon as you gain them, and the structure where the minerals were returned to gains 'progress'. Hope this makes sense. Temp help me out

Terran's economy looks like its based on mobile force.
Zerg's based on expandable.
What about Protoss being forced to find things already built or something completely static?

Just throwing this kind of shitty idea in.

Your ideas are not shitty payne. Your protoss one is what my melee styled project is all about

I am still entirely undecided about what to do with the Protoss.

Well observed Payne.

The main mechanic for the Terran is they can set up a base anywhere. Couple of Colonist Huts (houses), and a Barracks somewhere can be easily set up. You just need to move a handful of Colonists there to build the structures. This works good for setting up economies all over the map. But a quick strike force can therefore cripple your spread-out and undefended bases.

The idea behind the Zerg is just to capitalize on their Creep mechanism already. Creep Tumors get stronger over time and their creep radius also increases over time. They can also evolve into Creep Beasts as mentioned above...

Protoss... totally undecided... want to do something with their Power/Power User mechanic, but not sure what I can do thats original.

You can do tier unlocks by power level instead of building new buildings.

And would the Power Level not be determined a number of buildings?

Upgrades on the pylons(or whatever power source you have) so that higher tier buildings can only be created inside the range of those pylons.


Also I'm willing to help quite a bit on this, I have been (slowly) working on my own kind see this of altered melee and if you wanted to take (or combine) any pieces go right ahead.

Hmm. I am thinking of scrapping the 'altered melee' concept. I just realised how much damn work its going to be to firstly create all the units and mechanics, and then secondly, balance them all together...

I might convert this project into a sort of 'simulator' - using only the Terran race mechanics. Maybe implement raw resources / processing > industries. As well as economics.