Karune, Blizzard’s Official RTS Community Manager, has released a second batch of Answers, clearing up additional aspects of the gameplay’s mechanics.

The obligatory brief Disclaimer:

The answers given below reflect StarCraft IIs game mechanics at this early stage of development. These mechanics are subject to change with further testing and balancing.

Q: Will players be able to select multiple buildings simultaneously?

We are directing much attention to polishing and improving the user interface. On that note, players will definitely be able to select and build from multiple buildings at the same time. You cannot drag-select buildings, but you can shift-click on them and add them to a control-group for ease of unit production.

While not innovative, such controls allow for easier interaction with units in your own base, and prevents players from mixing unit and building commands, especially when on the defense. Multiple bulding selection and grouping play an important role in unit production when not visually attending to base.

Q: Will workers auto-gather resources if the rally point is set to a mineral node or a geyser?

Of course.

Automated worker production set to gather resources is nothing new and has been implemented in every major RTS since Dune 2. Some have tested the possibility of even further base automation, freeing the player from SimCity-like building management in order to focus on strategy and battle micromanagement.

Up to this point, Production Management has been a major part of the StarCraft gameplay, effectively emphasizing both Tactical battle management and Unit production, often rewarding the player with most actions per minute over strategists.

Q: Will we be able to select more than 12 units at the same time?

Currently, unit selection is unlimited, but this may change with further development and testing.

Considering the interface shown in the gameplay videos and Screenshots, it is somewhat unlikely that unit selection will remain unlimited, as unit damage and status indicators remain part of the interface at this point. Scaling icons down remains a viable option, and it won’t be surprising to see 72 (6×12) units per selection limit applied.

Q: On a given map, will there be one Mothership per map or one Mothership unit per Protoss player allowed?

We are still testing out many possible circumstances in order to make skirmishes more fun and challenging. At this time, each Protoss player will be able to have only one Mothership at a given time, but as mentioned, everything is still subject to change.

One Mothership per map is not a good idea, as it might make Protoss versus Protoss matches a rush-to-Mothership game by default. Similarly, allowing each Protoss player in the game to build a Mothership might lead to very unbalanced situations where 2 or 3 Motherships would constitute an unstoppable force. Such degree of power concentration might be too much to handle in a team game, not unlike fielding 3-4 Axis Tiger tanks in Company of Heroes, another RTS game that features a few types of end game super-units.

An appealing solution would be to allow one Mothership per side, meaning that 2 or 3 Protoss allies would only be allowed to field 1 Mothership between them. This would make sure that the Protoss Mothership could perform its role as a unique unit, while not becoming an abused, unbalanced solution to late game team games.

3 Comments to “SC2 Interface, Automation And Mothership Clarifications”

1. Starcraft 2 — June 20, 2007 @ 10:15 am
   

   Yeah, this game is going to be absolutely amazing. I cant wait to get it. Just one more year…

2. Ryan — June 20, 2007 @ 1:38 pm
   

   I have a feeling that they are going to balance the mothership by giving each other race a superunit. It wouldn’t make sense for only the protoss to have a huge badass unit.

3. gg — June 26, 2007 @ 10:40 pm
   

   is it possible for a unit to already be as overrated as the carrier?