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Physician
United States4146 Posts
An introduction to a StarCraft player from Peru, Cusco and his extensive and very smart analysis of Protoss mineral mining. An article with relevance and interesting applications to both map making and gaming, with particular impact to Protoss "macro".
I met a StarCraft gamer, a while back when I worked at GG.net and I had opened their Spanish forum. At that time he had read one of my medically oriented articles about the possible trauma's any keyboard warrior or pc gamers could encounter. He sent me some very sharp observations and ideas about a possible article going a little deeper into the possible impact gaming can have on the developing mind. By itself the advice and comments surprised me, but when I discovered that the man in question was an informatics engineer, a slave to the physical sciences and not a psychology major, I knew that a very highly developed thinking entity had just tried to communicate with me.
http://www.sclegacy.com/showthread.php?p=58861#post58861
Thanks for reading on ~
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I liked it.
It might get confusing in the middle though.
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interesting stuff, never really thought about "probe wandering" and its implications before.
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I read through the whole thing, and though it's a little complicated I definitely learned some stuff. Great article, thanks for pointing it out.
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Trinidad/Tobago1177 Posts
Nice Read 
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Agreed with above poster. Good read. However, ingame situations will never allow for just 2probes per patch and then stopping. Gotta keep building to recover from economy harasses even though that will increase wandering.
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SO lets say there are 4 patches of mine
one north of the nexus
one south
one east
one west
having more than 8 would be worthless than ?
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interesting article, and it could certainly come in handy if you're trying to make an all-in build or timing rush so that you're not wasting money on probes when they'd otherwise decrease speed and productivity. apart from that though, its applications are minimal. some areas can adapt that optimum mineral patch style (particularly islands), but in most place it'd muck up aesthetics and free movement of other units who need to pass by.
it is useful in that in late game maxed out situations we now know how many probes to keep and how many to sacrafice. for map makers to be honest i can't see them adopting this style of mineral alignment simply because most maps are mirror maps anyway so it makes little difference regarding play style other than perhaps expansion preference. the only thing i can see it promote is faster all-in attacks and possibly a faster progression into lategame. and to be honest, roaming doesn't seem like a problem worth addressing to me.. on low mineral maps anyway. i'd prefer better gameplay and aesthetics over the space consuming mineral design he has suggested.
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This is really interesting but I find the implications rather confusing...all I can get from it is that sometimes its a lot more efficient to add more expos instead of more probes?
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
I"ll read it tomorrow when i'm groggy and busted from getting my wisdom teeth pulled =(.
hopefully this article can restore some of that lost wisdom in me.
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When he talks about the dsitribution of probes among more than 1 expansion instead of just 1 main, he doesn't really take into account the cost of the expansion I think.
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GrandInquisitor
New York City13113 Posts
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I've already known about "Probe Wandering" but I thought it was a good thing. It helps you split your Probes in the beginning of the game and it also helps manage your minerals throughout the game. I know Wandering increases as you get more Probes, but the point is, like a few posts above me said, you have to make up for harass and transfers. There's also times when you have to build Cannons within your Mineral line and this changes your Probe behavior alot.
Otherwise, it was pretty interesting to see all the math of a perfect Protoss world 
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Its only a good thing very early on
If it didnt exist then 2 probes per block would give you optimal in any normal mineral setup
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building the extra probes for protoss in the long run is still efficient cuz think about when you expand but only have two probes per patch....then you're back down to one per patch or you just dont maynard at all and you're basically making you're expand take forever to build....the mining thing is closer to 2.5 anyways
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although ive known about this in detail for a while, it was a very good read still . thx for the research antrax
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Very informative, well written articel that gives us futher insight into one aspect of theorycraft. It also shows how complex starcraft is, i shall forward this to the next person ask's me for a "strategy" to win instead of trying to explain strategy is useless without a fundamental understanding of not just starcraft but of war in general. Many people fail to really grasp how important econ, recon, and interpitation are, not just in commiting to a strategy but in order to recognizing when a strategy _will always_ work in game situations (or even real life. mr.bush  who created a war of ideals which cannot be won by conventional means/warfare when it has the best conventional militry means in the world show's a lacking perception of conflict on he's behalf.
i dont mean to hijack thread but it is a very good example. When Mr.Bush decleared the oppisition as _evil_ he created a war in which there is no room for negioation or settlement (who would make peace with what has been defined as evil?)
See the bigger picture, the larger context of what you see your oppenent doign rather then what he wishes you too see because if you do not he controls the course of events and your influence or power is diminished.
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Belgium9947 Posts
the question is: Do we want to reach max probes easier? this would make expanding even more efficient, this would higher the mineral/gas ratio too.
lets think of the impact this would have on gameplay:
reaching max workers easier would help T and P a bit since Z never goes for max drones. Higher mineral/gas ratio, though would lead to T>Z and Z>P. Ofcourse the changes would be really small, but overall it would help T in TvZ and I think the effects kinda cancel eachother out in PvZ.
I guess it's another incalculation map makers have to do while making their maps. It's another variable.
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Good work! I added a link at my website, www.artofprotoss.vze.com. I understood the most of what you consdier in this article beforehand, but you investegated in detail, and presented it well.
I was considering issues related to this a shortly ago. I was wondering about 2nexus vs. 3nexus, vs. 1fact cc early timed attack. Thread can be found here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=42251
One issue was mins lost by transfering probes. Another issue was about just how much more mineral patches increases income with the same ammout of workers, most importantly, max at min and nat. Also, consider less workers with more minerals. Perhaps you could shed some light on this.
Sure, the article does lead itself to much practical application, that was not already known, but it goes into detail and sums things up well. It seems a great idea to me to start playing around with mineral layouts more, if not to create maps with 4x4 main mineral layouts.
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Thanks for reading and thanks for the supporting words.
Those who think that is confusing or just theory make some experiments and you will see in a better way what is going on.
The idea of taking 2 min only instead of 1 main in Luna is really strong in cross positions (to minimize harassment), first just work with main and natural massing probes and army, gain map control and then build 2 expos and transfer probes, get max state in this expos and leave your main and natural with a ratio probe 1-1.3 per patch and then macro macro macro ...
I didn't give too much details of my experiments because it would be too long to read yet I tried to be carefull and acurate, in the article I just describe the situation, what we are loonking for and then showing the more importants results. If some facts like cost of nexus or similar stuff are neglected it is because the situation is a mid/late game thus making a nexus doesn't affect too much your income.
An important consequence of my results is that now you have more accurate tools to estimate how many minerals or gas can be gathered in a lapse of time, this could be important for gosus reducing the number of trials to pull off some strategy.
Finally I consider this as a beginning, much more can be done and sure it will be.
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Nice read. I've wanted to do something similiar, but not even been close in matter of patience. gj!
How much could you speed up income by microing the workers to not wander? All the time people spend clicking around at 10-20 supply maybe could be used to actually get a small econimcal advantage?
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If I had the time or inclination, I'd model this statistically, but this emperical study seems more than adequate. I don't think theoretical models would disagree significantly. In other words, nice one.
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I made a quick test on 12 on LT. copied the mineral patches and made 15 probes run on both lines. I tried to micro one line, while I left the other. Mine mined about 2% faster than the other. Not a lot, but something, and the micro can surely be refined...
So if your not busy enough at 15 supply with scouting and BO (this rules me out btw), then go micro your mineral line. Don't let the poor probes wander!
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4492 Posts
From the article:
Another interesting attempt was making a more distant nexus to put factors below 0.50, in that case more than 2 probes per patch are needed but with 2 you should be fine and close to 100%, sadly sooner or later wandering reappears. Can someone explain me how probe acceleration, if there is any, works?
And everybody was laughing at Androide...
-Mynock
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On August 12 2006 15:00 Mynock wrote:From the article: Show nested quote +Another interesting attempt was making a more distant nexus to put factors below 0.50, in that case more than 2 probes per patch are needed but with 2 you should be fine and close to 100%, sadly sooner or later wandering reappears. Can someone explain me how probe acceleration, if there is any, works? And everybody was laughing at Androide... -Mynock
Could you tell us the story?
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On August 12 2006 15:00 Mynock wrote:From the article: Show nested quote +Another interesting attempt was making a more distant nexus to put factors below 0.50, in that case more than 2 probes per patch are needed but with 2 you should be fine and close to 100%, sadly sooner or later wandering reappears. Can someone explain me how probe acceleration, if there is any, works? And everybody was laughing at Androide... -Mynock
ROFL!!
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Wowzers. Things I've never even heard about were included in that article. I always thought it was "pump probes till you think you have more than enough (exaggeration) so that when you maynard you have enough to make your expansion more efficient.
But... this just turns my whole world upside down.. D:
Oh, I wanted to ask, what is 9/10 gate? Because, with protoss, it's 9/9, but... 9/10... I'm confused 
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Its a good article. But one thing is that it doesnt deal with how mineral fields are not infinite. So although transferring loses you xx amount in the short term, in the long run you will mine it all anyway AND of course transferring is speeding up mining at another line.
I dunno, my only real thought on it It was nice to have some info to quantify what is going on when you are transferring(Along with the other stuff).
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eh, It seems that android had a tendancy to mispace his expansion cc, so that it was actually farther away from his minerals.
9/10 gate is just 8psi pylon, 9psi gate, 10psi gate. 9/10 is the standard hard toss 2gate rush. If you want slighly more economy go 9/11, 14p (instead of 13)
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Looking at PGT maps I see Blade Storm as a perfect scenario to test expos and number of probes.
Your natural and min only both have 6 patches you need exactly 15 probes for each one to take full advantage of those minerals.
Lets make some trials in there and see if you gain advantage in resources or not.
Edit:
Here is a successful experiment:
http://rapidshare.de/files/29204465/0151_pt_expo.rep.html
I used a 3 goon rush (to kill marines) based on late scouting and late gas, then press and expo, transfering 12 probes (15 needed) to achieve max state as fast as possible and finally proceed to macro.
Comments?
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4492 Posts
Could you tell us the story?
Androide used to place his CC a bit off from the "ideal" spot when expanding. Sometimes even lifting his first CC and replacing it. He was doing it notoriously, was pretty famous for it (don't know about now).
His reasoning was that he feels he mines faster that way, and he was ridiculed because of it quite a lot. (Until the WCG #2 place of course )
-Mynock
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....
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...tedious? I mean wow. If the dude is that bored, he can write up Electrical Engineering lab reports for me.
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what about 8 mineral patches in groups of two :D
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I thought this was some kind of sword with anthrax on it
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On August 12 2006 15:00 Mynock wrote:From the article: Show nested quote +Another interesting attempt was making a more distant nexus to put factors below 0.50, in that case more than 2 probes per patch are needed but with 2 you should be fine and close to 100%, sadly sooner or later wandering reappears. Can someone explain me how probe acceleration, if there is any, works? And everybody was laughing at Androide... -Mynock
I play Zerg, and I do this often when building a hatch to my nat. When I'd 3 hatch, my other newer hatches would go to my nat, and I'd try to place them best according to have enough time to have a minimum of two drones each. Early game, it doesn't really tend to pay off as well, since I only have a few drones at each mineral site, but later on as the game progresses, more drones would be built, and having the .50 factor I've read about in antrax's REALLY AWESUM ARTICLE is much more common in nearby mineral patches. I sometimes do believe I get more minerals sometimes when it is maybe a little farther away than the closest possible building site, but I've never seen any Korean pro do that yet, so I'm guessing maybe they have better knowledge on mining techniques and such.
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On August 13 2006 07:41 HeadBangaa wrote:
....
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...tedious? I mean wow. If the dude is that bored, he can write up Electrical Engineering lab reports for me.
or he can keep working on furthering knowledge of starcraft.
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my question is this. using luna main as an example, and the opening of the game. is it more efficient to put your first 3 peons to mineral patches with greater than .5, and then assuming that's all you have left is minerals that are .5 or less, you put your 4th peon on that .5. In antrax's example this was minerals 1 and 2 (greater than .5) and 3 (.5 inself). Where does the 5th drone go? if the .5 gets maximum use of 2 drones, it wold be logical to put your 5th drone here vs a mineral patch less than .5 (greater distance of travel).
I've always placed my first 9 drones on a seperate patch, but now reading this it seems the best opening pattern is 1 drone on any patch with a mining time greater than .5, then put 2 drones on each patch, and only then start to use the more distant patches. is this correct? Also, I know there's a lot of people that have systems for testing such things, if you are one of those people is there any significat advantage up until about the 17th drone using this new pattern vs the old pattern?
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It seems lots of people still don't get what he's saying even after reading it, lol! This definitely does shed some interesting insights. I remember reading snippets of this a long time before.
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I like how you think that people who study the physical sciences are mindless drones.
Edit: Or at least that is what you imply when you refer to him as a slave of the physical sciences.
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Okay, I read the whole thing through. It was pretty good, but I think part of the problem with the article is that much of the analysis isn\'t helpful for in-game play since you don\'t have time to figure your exact probe counts, etc. In this it all comes down to, as I keep saying recently, game sense. Over time, you just gain an inherant sense for what gives you the fastest mining and you split accordingly. Savior and July, for instance, are very good about spreading out their drone counts fairly evenly among expansions to maximize mining speeds.
The analysis of mining speeds itself, however, has its most relevance in post-game analysis (seeing where you may or may not have fallen behind, and then learning from your mistakes) and map making. But then again there, you still have to take into account feasibility. When you\'re doing post-game analysis, you can spend quite a great deal of time calculating out where you went wrong, but most of the time the errors you made that your opponent capitalized on are glaring enough for this to not be necessary. In map making, I believe it to be most important, but calculating out totals to include wandering time and trying to minimize it are tedious and can affect game balance.
Mineral positioning not only affects mining rates but it also affects the ability to attack and/or defend.
Also, knowing whether or not you are currently saturating a base\'s mineral line both is and isn\'t relevant. If your other bases ran out of mining and you\'re just saturating the mining at one base with probes you already produced, then what call to make depends more on how many minerals you have stored up, how much mining is left on the map, etc, so the question of whether or not you are saturating is less important than whether or not you could use the supply more efficiently (on fighter units or spell casters for instance). And as for spreading probes over mining, in general terms you are just going to spread out your miners over the resources as best you can, not only for mining efficiency, but to reduce the damage from your opponent\'s attacks.
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In short, most of what can be learned from this article already follows from common sense. That is not to be degrading to the author, who has still done good work.
There are ways in which this article could be improved, and I will list those that come to mind.
1.) Go more in depth about the mining speeds of different locations on different maps, including comparing the different bases on the map and comparing different bases between different maps (which will help map makers know which formations are most efficient and which are not efficient).
2.) Expand to discussing mining speeds of Zerg and Terran, which are different than for Protoss due to worker size. For instance, 11 base on Memory Cell mines substantially slower for Zerg than any other base, but Protoss mines normally from that position (drones take longer routes, don\'t know why exactly, but I\'m convinced it\'s due to worker unit size).
3.) Discuss how long hidden bases (that probes cannot be transferred to) must be operational before they put a player ahead economically, and discuss how adding defense to that location varies this time length.
4.) Discuss the distance between minerals needed to prevent wandering. For instance, will a probe wander from directly left of the nexus to directly below the nexus if there are no mineral patches in between?
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Mortality
I will think about your suggestions; the main problem is that I don't have too much time at this moment ...
On August 14 2006 11:38 Mortality wrote:
4.) Discuss the distance between minerals needed to prevent wandering. For instance, will a probe wander from directly left of the nexus to directly below the nexus if there are no mineral patches in between?
I tried different mineral distributions even in equilateral triangle form and didn't work. The one I proposed was the only successful.
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On August 14 2006 06:47 yare wrote:
my question is this. using luna main as an example, and the opening of the game. is it more efficient to put your first 3 peons to mineral patches with greater than .5, and then assuming that's all you have left is minerals that are .5 or less, you put your 4th peon on that .5. In antrax's example this was minerals 1 and 2 (greater than .5) and 3 (.5 inself). Where does the 5th drone go? if the .5 gets maximum use of 2 drones, it wold be logical to put your 5th drone here vs a mineral patch less than .5 (greater distance of travel).
I've always placed my first 9 drones on a seperate patch, but now reading this it seems the best opening pattern is 1 drone on any patch with a mining time greater than .5, then put 2 drones on each patch, and only then start to use the more distant patches. is this correct? Also, I know there's a lot of people that have systems for testing such things, if you are one of those people is there any significat advantage up until about the 17th drone using this new pattern vs the old pattern?
Your idea is correct but as I said in the article after a while probes break formation and wander, it seems that they don't have same velocity or same path.
If I'm not wrong units have acceleration (shuttles, mutas, carriers) maybe this also applies to probes and could modify the speed back to the nexus. Also I noticed that SVC's slow down before mining when the patch is too close. More trials are needed ...
I noticed that no one watched this rep:
http://rapidshare.de/files/29204465/0151_pt_expo.rep.html
Come on guys is a elaborated opening to rush T with 3 goons to kill marines before the first tank and you don't have to sacrifice too much probe production. After some goon pressure, following my ideas you expand and transfer 12 probes to get max state as soon as possible pay attention to your income I feel faster minerals after that important probe transfer.
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On August 14 2006 12:18 antrax wrote:Mortality I will think about your suggestions; the main problem is that I don't have too much time at this moment ... Show nested quote +On August 14 2006 11:38 Mortality wrote:
4.) Discuss the distance between minerals needed to prevent wandering. For instance, will a probe wander from directly left of the nexus to directly below the nexus if there are no mineral patches in between? I tried different mineral distributions even in equilateral triangle form and didn't work. The one I proposed was the only successful.
I understand perfectly. I'm not trying to be mean with what I say. The insight this analysis provided only goes to support what has been known from the "game sense" of top players, so in that sense, the article is not really useful, at least in its current form.
Again, where I see the most potential for the use of this is in map making discussions concerning mineral and gas mining.
About the formations: that's odd that it takes that distance for it to work, but useful to know. I think it cannot be a 4/4 split at most expansion locations due to other balance issues (attack/defense issues), but there are places where I can see it can be done.
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Considering an example of where a 4/4 split could be used, obsserve the 12, 3, 6, and 9 expansion bases on the old Blizzard map Rivalry. At those bases, a split could be used that would maintain neutral balance in terms of establishing and maintaining expansions at those bases (I'm not saying the map itself is perfectly balanced, but I'm saying the balance wouldn't be affected).
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Sweden33719 Posts
Nice job, I think a certain buffer of probes is needed tho, to ensure you can 1) quickly transfer without losing effeciency 2) replace probes lost to harass.
Should be very interesting for map makers tho, and players as well.
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Common sense is not too common t.t
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EPT
