I had thought of this concept after seeing the "addon refunded" in a desert strike map, so here it is. So far I only made it work for Python, but triggers are easily ported to other maps. Give credit to Excel_Excel (one of my aliases) if you decide to make one.

-=Python Refunded (Stable release)=-

If a building/unit is destroyed, the controlling player is refunded the full cost of the unit or building. Otherwise, this is exactly the same as a normal game. What does this refunding mechanism mean for the gameplay? We shall see...

<NOTES:>
The following units/items are not refunded.
-Scourge and Infested Terran that suicided in battle* (*They will be refunded if destroyed in battle without exploding.)
-Nuclear missiles, whether fired or stored in silo
-Reaver Scarabs, either fired or contained (Making scarabs free = OP)
-Interceptors inside a carrier (Interceptors outside are refunded)
-Addons not attached to a building
-Units stolen by Mind Control/Queen infestation
-Infested command centers (You never paid anything for it!)
-Larva, Broodlings, Spider Mines, Hallucinations, and other free units
-Cocoons, Eggs, Lurker Eggs, and queued units in Unit Production Buildings

Everything else WILL be refunded. (Including your starting workers and main building, as well as buildings destroyed while being built.)

P.S. Please discuss the viability of this concept in gameplay and its effects on strategy. It seems to favor zerg over the two other races with mech terran receiving the short end of the stick, but is that really how it is? Play a few games and tell us .

EDIT> No, this is VERY different from giving players units for free. In fact, viable builds and timings on this map are exactly the same as normal SC matchup build orders, since you still have to mine minerals to get units. Only after a few units are killed does the difference emerge.

(You can recycle units by killing them yourself)

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seems to me it would change every build into a tech build. Wanna tech to BCs but afraid of rush...well make a some marines and when you see fit either kill them or send them to their death. Get the money back and its like you were teching up from the start...just a little slower. Sounds fun though =]

Wouldn't this just be a huge Rush Fest?

Try it and tell us how your rushes work

Your units still essentially come out at the same times as normal rush builds. (Of course, we do have stuff like "3-pool", where you mine to 150 mins and kill a drone to build a spawning pool approximately a few seconds earlier (3rd pair of lings is delayed I think because you only have 2 drones mining for the duration of the pool). However, unless you destroy a significant number of unit production buildings/workers with that rush, it would have almost no effect on their economy since a destroyed worker/building is really only "disabled" for the duration between their destruction and rebuilding.

This behaves somewhat like a market; every mineral you mine contributes to your "resource cap", and that number never decreases unless you lose something unrefundable. Essentially, everything you build, you just swap in "liquid" minerals and gas for units with which you can fight. Because your total accessible minerals never decrease, it is far more difficult to devastate someone economically in this UMS than it is normally, and makes comebacks a lot easier.

For rushing, if you BBS'd, early pool'd or 2gate'd, your "mineral cap" is much lower than that of your opponent when your units get to their base. Say you have 9 probes and they have 15. You destroy 6 probes and a number of zealots equal to the number you sent. In a normal game, this puts both of you on equal grounds (for now). In this map, they will still be ahead by 300 minerals (plus all the extra mineral they mined by not cutting probes to make room for gates) since their probes have been refunded. This makes rushing a lot less lucrative, and all-in rushes usually hurt you much more than they hurt the enemy since the cost for their destroyed units are recouped almost instantly.

What I have noticed is the apparent strong bias towards zerg. The limiting factor of unit production is no longer vespene gas, but rather, larva. Mutas can now be pumped very quickly and sent on missions to destroy the enemy at no fear of lost expenses, and much late-game Z play on this sort of map devolves into massed defiler/ultralisk (I am not sure if consumed units count as "killed" since my econ grows so fast, but if they do then that's another imba aspect of Z.) That coupled with the fact that zerg can essentially produce mutalisks at the same rate as drones from every one of their bases while protoss and mech terran are limited solely to stargates/starports for antimuta units makes zerg very fearsome to play if a proper counter is not found. (Before every game devolves into ZvZ, keep in mind that this is imba in the same way that 2 base carrier was imba on katrina: such strats can be countered quite effectively if you know what to do.)

(I attached Blue Storm modded with this mechanism so rushing can be put to test.)

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I guess the number of factory buildings (which produce units) start playing the most important role in this map.

Factory buildings here should play similar role as the economy plays in normal SC. Destroying factories should have similar effect to destroying workers/economy in normal SC.

Also this should require much increased APM from players to play effectively.

awesome idea doomed. Gonna try it out.