When you want to balance something like this you need to simply break down the units strengths and build them around each other.

For instance the Dragoon should probably have a large amount of health but low armor so that Hydras will kill them fast but Ghosts will take a while. The Dragoon shouldn't have too high an attack so as not to kill Ghosts too quick, but high enough that Ghost swarms won't break them down. At least 2x the Ghost damage should be used.

The Hunter Killer should be used here as aside from it's upgrades it seems to have shorter delays between movement and attack. It should have slightly more damage than the Ghost.

The Ghost should have a low amount of health and an average attack strength with the highest armor value.

Dragoon(Normal):
Health: 1000
Armor: 10
Damage: 235

Hydralisk(Hunter Killer):
Health: 800
Armor: 0
Damage: 135

Ghost(Normal):
Health 600
Armor: 35
Damage: 125

1v1 the Hydralisk will be able to win against the ghost, however in large swarms the ghost should have a clear advantage. Try to tinker around as much as you can to balance it correctly.

To answer it qualitively: Ghost has largest range and smallest size, both of which gives him an advantage in mass battles.

To answer it quantitatively:

Sorry, proof?

That kind of sounds critical huh rockz? Try it for yourself, there seems to be slightly less delay between attacks and or between switching from attacks to movement. "Seems", being the main point.

There's no way to prove if a unit has less delay between movement and attacks. Supposedly all units have the same rate of picking up targets and receiving actions and there are no known units that act differently. However there are units that clearly have slower or faster attack animations which can be used to qualify if the unit can pick up another unit or switch from attack to movement faster or slower.

From my experience the Hunter Killer seems to have slightly faster attack animation. However I could be wrong.

Edit: Please do not confuse Attack Animation with Attack Rate.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on May 18 2008, 9:27 am by Crackhead.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you're seeing things, especially since the Hydralisk and the Hunter Killer use the same IScript entry meaning all their movements are exactly the same (give or take upgrades).

Thank you all especially Nude you've been very helpful. Now I just have to make a system for giving them different ammounts of points per kill. I know that by default any hero Ghost is worth like 700 points to kill, the Hydra is worth 350 I believe and Dragoons I think are 450. Anyway, that's not important as long as they have different point values for killing them. That will make it much easier to use triggers to make each unit give you a different ammount of points per kill, allowing me to make the Ghosts weakest, worth the least points and spawn fastest, Hydras in the middle, and Goons be worth the most points, have most HP and spawn the slowest... Anyone care to help me make a trigger system for this? (if not I can do it, but I'm lazy )

I can't recite unit kill points but if ghost has indeed 700 and hydra 350 then you have a problem when you're goon.
The game will not know if the goon killed 2 hydras or 1 ghost. To avoid this you can take a hero hydra or hero ghost.

But there's a bigger problem: You have 3 forces and it will often happen that a player will kill more than one unit per trigger loop. That means you cannot implement the standard kills-to-cash techniques if you want to weigh the units differently.
That leaves you only with 2 methods:
"Perfect" kills to cash (preferred)
- OR -
Rewards with individual triggers (if you are willing to make thousands of triggers via trigger duplicator)

Check Kills_To_Cash in the Wiki for details on how to implement these systems.

Heroes are generally double exp. Exceptions include those used as non unique units in the actual game, like Hunter Killers. They just might be the ONLY ones though. I can't think of any others.
Ghost is 350
Goon is 500
Hydra is 250 (I think)
Hunter Killer is 350 (I think)

Luckily it's a simple test to find out, eh?

Luckily he doesn't even need to test:
http://www.staredit.net/maplantis/index.php?sid=25b222ff22;wiki=4#wiki_12

Btw. Hydra is 350, Hunter killer is 500...

What will the points be used for? Is it for unit upgrade (ghost to stukov, hydras to hunters, etc) or for minerals used for upgrades, building units, or buying heros? Put that into consideration in the kill rates each unit. Since each unit would have to face two other kinds, perhaps use an average of the two.

I'm not using any upgrades in this map, except an option to temporarily/permanently (haven't decided yet) increase spawn rate of your units by 10% (per purchase) or to purchase a second unit selector (so you can spawn Hydralisks and Dragoons at the same time for example). There will also be heroes, although not very strong ones. Right now I'm thinking High Templar, Defiler and Wraith/Dark Templar (Wraith/Dark Templar being an assassin unit). I also haven't decided which of those I'm putting in yet. The map is the only madness that I know of that will have rounds too. Each round will last about 5 minutes and after each one, everyone will receive a hero/spell chooser (Civilian) and the winner of the round will receive an additional Civilian. So far exact kill points don't affect what you get for Civilians, only the winner will get an extra one. The first person to win a certain number of rounds will win the game. Here's the catch: You can't change what unit you spawn mid-round. At the start of each round you have 10 seconds to choose a unit then the round will start and you will spawn the unit you chose for that entire round. My map will also feature an in-game remake option where you can restart the map after it ends so people who want to play again won't have to remake. All of these features, however, are subject to change.

Soon I'll be making a Map Production thread for the map so look out for it if this sounds interesting to you. Rock Paper Scissor Madness.

Thanks again Nude I'm using the perfect kills to cash system. BTW, if you disable the upgrade for Hydralisk range in SCMDraft will Hunter Killers still have upgraded range?

Edit: Oh, shit. I just hit a really big problem...


There's no way to keep them completely separated...

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on May 20 2008, 8:12 pm by DaMiNaToR.

You're welcome. Hydralisk range is an upgrade, no tech, so you cannot disable it. But, yes if you set the max upgrade to 0 for the range the hero will still have it but it will be unavailable for regular Hydras. Heroes always have all upgrades except weapon/armor/shield upgrades.

Yes, but that's not relevant.
The perfect method you chose works with the most kills condition, not with kills score so it will work nevertheless. It's called perfect for a reason.