• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 13:18
CEST 19:18
KST 02:18
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!33Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week6Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out7
StarCraft 2
General
How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Daily SC2 Player Grid - feedback wanted Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16)
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Announcement IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 540 Dodge This Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome Mutation # 538 Media Blackout
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion ASL22 General Discussion [Personal Project Share] Terran Defense v0.60 BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL22] Ro24 Group F BSL LAN Party - Kraków 29-30 August - OPEN SIGNUPS Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Game Theory for Starcraft Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread The Letting Off Steam Thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Regacy Esports: The Bh…
regacyesports
Violent Games and Crime Rate…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 7606 users

RotterdaM sometimes uses 18 workers (mineral line)

Blogs > NeoBlade
Post a Reply
NeoBlade
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany262 Posts
June 21 2017 13:25 GMT
#1
RotterdaM is a Grandmaster Protoss and famous caster for major tournaments.



http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/RotterdaM

http://youtube.com/NeoBladeSC2
Saechiis
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Netherlands4989 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-06-21 14:41:54
June 21 2017 14:27 GMT
#2
I think you should add a link to where Rotterdam talks about this. Without context this post is a bit confusing.

Also your video rambles a lot. I think it would be easier to maintain viewer interest if you're more to the point and don't distract from it by showing you building cannons boxes with lots of numbers. Just show 16 probes mining with the income per minute and then add two probes and compare the incomes. It could really be just a 1 minute video with zero camera movement and 2 numbers edited in.

The subject is really interesting to me though. Are the 17th and 18th probe really 95% efficient? What about a 19th and 20th probe? There's 4 far patches, aren't they all equal? These are questions I had after watching this.
I think esports is pretty nice.
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13412 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-06-21 14:40:23
June 21 2017 14:40 GMT
#3
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/legacy-of-the-void/482775-a-treatise-on-the-economy-of-scii

[image loading]

In my study of economy models in sc2 I found that when there are a full 8 nodes, the 17th and 18th workers are 99% as efficient as the first 16 on a standard mineral patch arrangement.

This means that 18 per line is actually better than 16 per line when on 1 base. And technically you lose a tiny tiny bit of income on the transfer of 17/18 to a 2nd base that takes a short while to be clawed back.

This is probably why he does 18 sometimes.
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
Saechiis
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Netherlands4989 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-06-21 14:54:23
June 21 2017 14:51 GMT
#4
It's very confusing to me that there's four far patches yet this implies only two of them are efficient to mine from with 3 workers.
I think esports is pretty nice.
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13412 Posts
June 21 2017 14:57 GMT
#5
On June 21 2017 23:51 Saechiis wrote:
It's very confusing to me that there's four far patches yet this implies only two of them are efficient to mine from with 3 workers.


Its just the way the AI works when it comes to bouncing about
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
Saechiis
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Netherlands4989 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-06-21 15:18:27
June 21 2017 15:16 GMT
#6
If you stack correctly on far patches they don't bounce though.

Is there a good way for me to test this myself, some custom map or something? I just tried ingame and seeing the income per minute but the readings fluctuate too much to get solid numbers. I could easily spend some hours to know once and for all what is most efficient.
I think esports is pretty nice.
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13412 Posts
Last Edited: 2017-06-21 15:32:40
June 21 2017 15:29 GMT
#7
I ran tests on a few maps, and averaged out all my data letting the probes mine for 5 minutes over multiple trials.

At the 5 minute mark I would pull the probes off the mineral line, and then count leftover minerals and subtract that from the starting mineral counts and then divide by 5.

I then averaged all those results across the different trials.

It took a long time but if you wanna do it yourself go for it thats the best way to do it.

I also did not stack the probes, I let the AI auto figure it out. That way it was as "natural" as possible if that makes sense.

I also didnt bother with identifying deviation or other statistical measures because I didn't really feel it was necessary for the overall point I was trying to make. I figured that the multiple trials and attempt to standardise as much as possible and accept the AI inconsistency/deviation as a quirk of the system. The fact I accepted deviation as inherent to the way the AI works (especially because different maps and different mineral layouts across maps in sc would be a "real world" issue) was deliberate.

I wasn't looking for exact perfect accuracy just high quality approximation as close as possible to in game real map situations.
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
HKTPZ
Profile Joined May 2017
105 Posts
June 21 2017 19:23 GMT
#8
Why would you not stack?
Musicus
Profile Joined August 2011
Germany23579 Posts
June 22 2017 11:19 GMT
#9
Yeah I find it weird that Blizzard made the number over the Nexus 16 and once you have 17 it becomes red. It should still be white for 17 and 18, become yellow with 20 and only be red above 24 workers.

As a zerg especially it makes a lot of sense to have 18 workers or more, since you will often pull drones to build spores and stuff anyway.
Maru and Serral are probably top 5.
esReveR
Profile Joined February 2010
United States568 Posts
June 22 2017 13:34 GMT
#10
On June 22 2017 20:19 Musicus wrote:
Yeah I find it weird that Blizzard made the number over the Nexus 16 and once you have 17 it becomes red. It should still be white for 17 and 18, become yellow with 20 and only be red above 24 workers.

As a zerg especially it makes a lot of sense to have 18 workers or more, since you will often pull drones to build spores and stuff anyway.


It was 24 in beta, but the feedback they got was that the community wanted it to be 16. This keeps from confusing newer players, and made it easier to see when you hit 16/16. In the end it doesn't matter if it's red or not, if you want 18 workers, then put 18 on the line.
Skill is relative.
Musicus
Profile Joined August 2011
Germany23579 Posts
June 22 2017 16:16 GMT
#11
On June 22 2017 22:34 esReveR wrote:
Show nested quote +
On June 22 2017 20:19 Musicus wrote:
Yeah I find it weird that Blizzard made the number over the Nexus 16 and once you have 17 it becomes red. It should still be white for 17 and 18, become yellow with 20 and only be red above 24 workers.

As a zerg especially it makes a lot of sense to have 18 workers or more, since you will often pull drones to build spores and stuff anyway.


It was 24 in beta, but the feedback they got was that the community wanted it to be 16. This keeps from confusing newer players, and made it easier to see when you hit 16/16. In the end it doesn't matter if it's red or not, if you want 18 workers, then put 18 on the line.

Well it doesn't matter to someone like me or probably you, playing since the WoL beta.

But new players might think 16 is the max and will never go above it. So I think it's confusing for new players now, rather than that it keeps them from getting confused.
Maru and Serral are probably top 5.
NeoBlade
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Germany262 Posts
June 28 2017 16:31 GMT
#12
I think you should add a link to where Rotterdam talks about this


Thank you. I had this idea, too. But you have to pay for his content (Twitch), so I see no point in adding a link. And Twitch-Videos are deleted after a couple of month/years.

And in the video (did you see it ;-) he talks over it.
http://youtube.com/NeoBladeSC2
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
PSISTORM Gaming Misc
16:05
FSL s11 code S FINALs
Freeedom27
Liquipedia
Shopify Rebellion Sundays
15:00
#11
Clem vs MaxPaxLIVE!
Harstem501
Liquipedia
BSL 2025: Kraków LAN Pa…
15:30
LAN Day 2
ZZZero.O242
Liquipedia
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Harstem 501
BRAT_OK 101
SpeCial 97
Trap 24
MindelVK 8
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 35474
Calm 6073
Shuttle 2759
Mini 594
BeSt 509
Horang2 432
ZZZero.O 242
firebathero 178
ggaemo 155
Soulkey 149
[ Show more ]
Mind 92
Rush 90
Dewaltoss 84
Mong 57
Last 53
Shine 49
Hyun 48
HiyA 47
hero 41
Snow 39
Killer 35
sSak 33
JYJ 21
Rock 18
Hm[arnc] 16
Terrorterran 16
SilentControl 8
ajuk12(nOOB) 7
Dota 2
qojqva4192
420jenkins476
Counter-Strike
fl0m4016
minikerr69
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King167
Westballz19
Heroes of the Storm
Liquid`Hasu474
Khaldor284
Other Games
gofns15411
Grubby2189
Liquid`RaSZi1772
singsing1224
crisheroes900
Beastyqt894
FrodaN759
Hui .158
Organizations
Other Games
EGCTV977
BasetradeTV35
StarCraft: Brood War
Kim Chul Min (afreeca) 9
Other Games
gamesdonequick0
[ Show 16 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• Berry_CruncH359
• StrangeGG 37
• Migwel
• IndyKCrew
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• Kozan
• intothetv
StarCraft: Brood War
• ZZZeroYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV830
• lizZardDota298
League of Legends
• Nemesis1979
• Jankos1969
Other Games
• imaqtpie643
• Shiphtur263
Upcoming Events
Sparkling Tuna Cup
16h 42m
Afreeca Starleague
16h 42m
Monday Night Weeklies
22h 42m
GSL
1d 17h
PiGosaur Cup
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
4 days
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
[ Show More ]
OSC
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-27
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Light Tournament 2026

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 2
BSL 2026 LAN: Kraków
RSL Revival: Season 6
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Escore Tournament S3: King of Kings
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Calamity Invitational
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.