Minerals

From SC2Pod

Minerals are the primary resource in StarCraft. As they are more plentiful and easier to gather than Vespene Gas, they are typically used for more basic, lower tier units. At any point of the game, having a base (or multiple bases) harvesting Minerals at full capacity is a must in order to maintain your economy. Workers carry 5 minerals per trip from normal blue minerals and 7 per trip from rich (yellow) minerals.

Lore

The planets along the rim are often dotted with clusters of precious Mineral crystals. These Minerals are smelted down and used to create the armored hulls of starships, vehicles and personal armor. Even the Zerg require Minerals to harden their carapaces and develop strong teeth and bones. The Mineral crystals take some time to gather, and only SCVs, Drones, and Probes have the necessary equipment to break off bits of the crystals and return them to the proper building.

New Mechanics

Minerals have the same role in StarCraft 2's economy, but Blizzard has introduced some new mechanics to diversify gameplay. Most importantly, there are now two types of mineral crystal fields. Blue crystals are the regular type, found in most starting positions. Yellow crystals are Rich minerals, providing more minerals per trip. At the moment, each worker will gather 5 minerals per trip from a blue crystal field and 7 minerals per trip from a yellow field. While this is less than the 8 mineral rate in StarCraft 1, improved pathing and AI combined with the 6 starting workers (instead of 4) more than make up for the difference.

Rich minerals used to be named high-yield minerals.

Additionally, each race has a new mechanic that allows them to quickly increase mineral harvesting:

• The Terran Orbital Command has the Calldown: MULE ability, which drops in a specialized harvesting unit called a MULE. This unit has a limited life and can gather minerals 3 times faster than a regular SCV.
• The Protoss Obelisk has the Proton Charge ability, which allows all Probes within an area to gather 1 additional mineral per trip for 30 seconds.
• The Zerg Queen has the Spawn Larva ability, which will spawn 4 additional Larvae at any Hatchery. Using this ability to spawn additional Drones can quickly build up the economy of a new expansion, though this ability can also be used to spawn a large army very quickly.