Mineralz Discussion

[mikesol]

Hey all -

For those of you who play sc2 - a group of us are trying to beat this game called mineralz. We've been slowly progressing further into the game and I think it's time we talked some strategy with everyone so we can get better ideas here.

For those of you who don't know what mineralz is: Basically up to 8 players work together to build a base hidden in some rocks and zerg attack your wall each night to try and get in to kill you. You have to have a wall, some healer, some generators, and some cannons to survive each night. You build these by mining various types of colored crystals (blue, green, red, and purple). Every 5 levels is a boss and you need to have upgraded stuff for each new boss. It's basically a race to get as many minerals as fast as you can - keeping in mind not to upgrade too quickly or too slowly (if you upgrade a healer before a generator the healer will run dry and the wall will die).

But ya - strat time!

So the strategy that failed last night was:
* Only one builder
* Evenly split between minerals with a slight focus on green
* Upgrading done equally so everyone is at about the same level
* Cannons were upgraded quickly
* Only 4 healers
* Primarily cannons over robos. I've since learned that robos do 2x damage to bosses which is necessary to survive.

I think the one builder thing is the best idea for sure - I just think we need to change a few other things. For instance:
* We need to find the bare minimum number of blue / red / green / purp that is needed to survive nights 2+ and ONLY get that - then have everyone switch to green
* Have one (or two if we have have more than 6) players solely on green for themselves. In the games I've played we've always had one guy get to 8/10 upgraded green by night 10 and it helped save everyone else.
* I need to make more healers (I'm thinking 6 or 8)
* I need to not have as many upgraded cannons (so not as much purple focus - smush was going crazy with that)
* Better positioning of generators and cannons
* More robos - less cannons


Random other facts:
* For each upgrade you get to a building it is equivalent to building 3.5 of the lower tier buildings. So a t2 healer is equal to 3.5 t1 healers. The exception is at tier 8 - where it can be up to 7 or 8x more.
* It's better to upgrade the spark (+1 minerals) for the first 3 levels and then the mining rate after that. Mining rate should be maxed but mineral increase should only go to level 8 or 9. Ultimately you should be at 9/8 or 8/8 and stop to help everyone else.

Anyone have any other ideas to contribute? Do you think anything I said should be changed? If you haven't played with us but would like to let me know and we'll see if we can arrange some games

Random other thoughts:
* What if we built 2 walls? the main wall is what we upgrade and the secondary wall is emergency. If first wall gets low we sell it for full minerals and instantly upgrade the second wall to the next tier. So if main wall is t7 we try and have the second wall at t6 and then I chrono boost upgrade it to t7.

Edit: The game typically takes 1-2 hours depending on how long you can survive. Our first few attempts lasted no longer than 15 minutes. We generally can always make it to night 20 now (25 if we're lucky). There are 50 levels to the game and I definitely think we can get there.

[Paradigm]

I heard about SC2.

Urm what it is. If its strategy I want in :3

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by Paradigm

I heard about SC2.

Urm what it is. If its strategy I want in :3

Sc2 = starcraft 2. I'm sure you've heard of it but maybe not the acronym sc2. Regardless - the game called mineralz is a custom game built inside of starcraft 2 (so you'd need to buy starcraft 2 and then join our custom game).

It's definitely a strategy / thinking game - hence this discussion to try and do some stats.

When I get home I'll look up some mineral counts for each of the buildings to do a more thorough analysis of what is needed.

[tyr]

I have like 8 years of UMS experience and if there was a UMS world championship I'd definitely end in the top3 lol.
Here are a couple advices :
- This type of game is very rarely balanced. Even if it's not obvious, there probably is one type of building/unit that's actually overpowered, you need to find which and focus on that one after a while
- In any case, you don't necessarily need to build everything. I'd even say that most of the time, you only need to focus on one or two buildings/units, it'll be much more effective. Again, this is from personal experience of years of playing such maps, and the most effective strategies weren't the most clever ones.

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by tyr

I have like 8 years of UMS experience and if there was a UMS world championship I'd definitely end in the top3 lol.
Here are a couple advices :
- This type of game is very rarely balanced. Even if it's not obvious, there probably is one type of building/unit that's actually overpowered, you need to find which and focus on that one after a while
- In any case, you don't necessarily need to build everything. I'd even say that most of the time, you only need to focus on one or two buildings/units, it'll be much more effective. Again, this is from personal experience of years of playing such maps, and the most effective strategies weren't the most clever ones.

I don't think this one is quite what you are thinking.

For instance - you absolutely need a wall for defense and that has to be upgraded. You absolutely need a healer or your wall will die. You absolutely need a generator or your healer will run out of energy. You absolutely need cannons because the boss slowly gets more powerful and powerful until you kill him. You absolutely need time warpers ato boost your cannon speed since boss has 99% damage reduction. Those are the only buildings in the game =x

All in all - there is not a single building that is more powerful than the next. Each of them play a critical role - which is why this game is so fascinating. Of course, we haven't found the optimal combination of buildings - but from experience with this game I think you need 1 generator to support 1x healer and 2x cannons and so forth.

[Aki1024]

You stated that the 8th level of your buildings gets an 8x boost. It sounds like after about level 5 or 6 of your buildings, you need to pick a building that can carry you and finish it to 8 before pushing the next building to 8 (assuming the 8th tier has no further upgrades).

I'm also making educated guesses based on UMS experiences. I haven't played this UMS (and only two SC2 UMS).

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by Aki1024

You stated that the 8th level of your buildings gets an 8x boost. It sounds like after about level 5 or 6 of your buildings, you need to pick a building that can carry you and finish it to 8 before pushing the next building to 8 (assuming the 8th tier has no further upgrades).

I'm also making educated guesses based on UMS experiences. I haven't played this UMS (and only two SC2 UMS).

The problem is you have to upgrade your base to t8 before you can make any buildings to t8. The cost of a t6 is negligible to the cost of the t8 upgrade. Furthermore a healer at t8 needs a generator at t8 and so forth.

T8 upgrade costs 30k of each mineral, t7 costs 25k of each and t6 costs 5k of each. The wall needs to be at t8 first but if you still have t6 beakers you won't survive regardless

[Dark_Sage]

I could've sworn I mentioned the robo thing cause I saw there was only one, guess I didn't. It may sound silly but just having 8 instead of 6 prob would've helped, idk if/how much it scales based on # of players. I agree with the gas thing, if we don't need a specific color for a while then more on green and more upgrades.

[Aki1024]

Originally Posted by mikesol

Furthermore a healer at t8 needs a generator at t8 and so forth.

Are cannons worthless outside of boss fights? At level 8, are they able to kill minions before they reach the walls?

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by Aki1024

Are cannons worthless outside of boss fights? At level 8, are they able to kill minions before they reach the walls?

You need cannons for outside of boss fights - but they're not as important. If you have enough higher tier ones you can kill them before they reach the wall. However, t6 generators can't support t8 cannons - so you'd need to have t7 generators at the very least. Even with fully upgraded cannons though - without heals and generators it doesn't mean anything against bosses. The tricky thing about bosses is they have 99% damage reduction to all attacks. So while a t8 cannon does say 7k damage to normal mobs - it's only doing 70 damage to the boss. Of course - that' still better than the 17.5 damage that's done at t7 - but you'd need other things to back it up (as the bosses have like 10,000+ hp)


Slight Edit: There is the leveling system element that also adds to this. Once people get to a certain level you start unlocking abilities to heal things or boost tower attack or scare away the boss or any other of numerous things.

[Hoss Delgado]

lol, cant believe there is actually a mineralz discussion here hahah

[Aki1024]

Sounds like the author has done a good job of keeping long term play of the map. ^.^

[Massi]

I was so good at mineralz in the previous version but then i played a ~6 hour game and haven't played since. Is the newer Mineralz worse or better than the last?

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by Massi

I was so good at mineralz in the previous version but then i played a ~6 hour game and haven't played since. Is the newer Mineralz worse or better than the last?

Much better imo. The game doesn't lag out quite so bad - things are more balanced and more thought is required. It seems a lot more team based and the leveling system is pretty gratifying. There are a *few* bugs but they aren't game breaking and mostly relate to achievements that don't work.

(Although at level 34 there is an extremely overpowered spell that can be used to help defeat bosses and people are cheating the leveling system by passing characters back and forth to each other)

Oh also - it's definitely not 6 hours. I just beat all 50 levels of it in just under 2.5 hours - so that's an absolute max.

[acegunner]

I can't do it on mac though ((

[mled]

Originally Posted by acegunner

I can't do it on mac though ((

seems like since the last patch all macs cant play mineralz

[Dark_Sage]

Originally Posted by mikesol

Oh also - it's definitely not 6 hours. I just beat all 50 levels of it in just under 2.5 hours - so that's an absolute max.

Don't tell me this is the game where I was econ and the Brood Lord hit me through the wall cause I was alt tabbing. And keep in mind Starcraft time does not equal real life time Massi.

[banana]

I haven't got round to playing it that recently but from what I can remember, all you need is a big ass maze so it takes a long time for the creeps to actually get to your base. Then you get a wall placed so only two creeps max can attack it at once, then surround it with as many healers as possible with a ring of generators around them.
You can design your base so there are parts where the AI thinks there is a gap where lots of creeps wander around there so you can put a lot of cannons in that position to get your kills.

Oh yeah at the start going mainly for the green aura tower things seems to be the best option due to the mining upgrades it offers.

[mikesol]

Originally Posted by banana

I haven't got round to playing it that recently but from what I can remember, all you need is a big ass maze so it takes a long time for the creeps to actually get to your base. Then you get a wall placed so only two creeps max can attack it at once, then surround it with as many healers as possible with a ring of generators around them.
You can design your base so there are parts where the AI thinks there is a gap where lots of creeps wander around there so you can put a lot of cannons in that position to get your kills.

Oh yeah at the start going mainly for the green aura tower things seems to be the best option due to the mining upgrades it offers.

There is no green aura tower. Also the longer it takes a boss to get to you the more powerful he is (if he stays alive for too long you instantly die).

[banana]

kk I'm thinking of a different game then. Sounds different to the one the EU server.

[Knipchip]

Also beat all 50 levels, but god that was boring. Once someone actually broke our wall (rocks) at lvl 40 or so... I'll stick to ladder.