Trivial mining time loss for zerg and a sort of neat idea for a fix. (surely i'm not the only one who noticed)
Terran and Protoss resource gathering structures produce their harvesters; however, zerg's harvesters are produced by larva that are generated from their hatchery.
this presents a dilemma.
whenever a unit is rallied from a building, they will pop out of the point on the building closest to the rally location and proceed to their destination. this is particularly evident (to me at least) with terran and protoss. their harvesters LEAVE the command center/nexus at the point closest to the mineral patch they are rallied to. zerg drones always spawn from the location of the larvae. the larvae are always located on the south side of the hatchery for visibility. the distance traveled for zerg drones to begin mining is slightly larger since, once spawned, they don't proceed from the building to the mineral patch they are rallied to. instead, they (and all zerg units) are born from the south side of the hatchery and must proceed from there to their destination. this can be especially painful if zerg spawn in a location where the mineral patch is located due north of the hatch as the drones must traverse all the way around the largest zerg building to get to the minerals it craves so very very much.
the amount of time is trivial given that professional players are able to be incredibly competitive in the early game where this would present itself to be an issue. I don't really think a fix is needed or necessary, but i do have a really cool idea.
What if to alleviate this travel time, the eggs could slowly shift along the creep (around the hatchery of course) closer to the rally they will follow once born? better yet, why can't the queen interact with the eggs?
I think it would be so cool if an idle queen placed close to a hatchery would continue to interact with the hatchery in this way. picking up and moving eggs here and there around the hatchery, just as a wasp tending to their nest!
take it even one step further (though pointless, i'm sure) what if the queen could act as a transport for the eggs? You could build some ultralisks in the late game and load their eggs onto the queen and have her move through the nydus or deliever the eggs to the nydus where they could then be deployed!
I realize that none of this stuff is game changing and we'll probably never see it, but I thought it was a pretty neat idea (cosmetically at least) and wanted to share. =]
Posted Dec 29, 2011, 5:25 AM UTC