TLDR: You get full refund from blocked units, never place gateways like in first picture.
Yesterday in the TSL finals' twitch chat were heated discussions regarding units getting spawnblocked from gateways placed in the middle of other gates. Dragoons can't fit between gates and pylons and in the chat were different hypotheses whether a blocked unit will refund partially or all resources, that the unit couldn't teleport past other gateways, or that it could but not if there's another unit in the way where it wanted to spawn.
I performed some tests today and I'm here to answer some of those questions.
In this configuration the dragoon building from that middle gateway will get blocked and not spawn, but you do get a full refund on all resources. So now we know you should never place gateways like this, and always keep a part of the gate in the free. But what happens if you close in a gateway with pylons, all sides are blocked and the unit shouldn't spawn, right?
But actually, the gate here is fully enclosed, yet a dragoon spawned to the bottom left!
Here I closed in those bottom corners to make sure it wasn't somehow counted as an open side. The dragoon spawned! So there must be some kind of limit to how far the unit can teleport from the gate without being blocked.
In this test I added another layer of pylons around the gateway, and this time the dragoon did not get spawned, and I got a full refund on the resources.
From this we can almost certainly conclude there's a spawn range limit that's between 1 pylon and 2 pylons distance, and it isn't just because there are 2 buildings in the way, since in that case the dragoon would have spawned even if being blocked by just gateways.
I haven't done any tests with the other races so feel free to post any interesting results you get here in this thread.
EDIT: I have some more interesting results, thanks to bioboyAT being such an outside the box freethinker. Since in example 1 the goon couldn't spawn, and in the other ones it could, it got me thinking why the goon couldn't just spawn through that pylon wall since it had been demonstrated it could spawn through pylons already.
Since gateways definitely won't allow goons to spawn through them, I replaced the bottom and top gates with pylons. Lo and behold! Goon spawned in top right!
Now I replaced only the top with gateways, and we can observe the system choosing where the unit will spawn, it will start in the bottom left corner and go counter-clockwise around the gateway, ultimately ending up where the goon spawned.
Here only the sides are made of pylons with a single line of gateways, in the bottom left did I leave out a pylon and that's where it spawned. It looks very far away but the game sees this as just one pylon in the way on the vertical axis.
And to bring this to a close, I put a pylon there in the bottom left and thus the goon couldn't spawn.
My conclusion is that units can spawn through pylon walls that are placed above and below the gateway, but definitely not through pylon walls placed on the sides.
EDIT2:
On April 05 2016 01:15 iloveav wrote: Inaccurate, its not between 1 pylon and 2 pylons: Its one pylon on sides, 2 on top and under (this is due to diagonals being larger than straight distances).
This seems to be the case, thanks iloveav for explaining.
If you check one of the pimpest plays, there is an example of someone spawning dragoons uphill into a main on LT ^^
Also, certain pylon configurations spawn dragoons that are trapped between two pylons, and then the next one spawns either outside the blocked location or you get refunded.
I'm surprised the casters weren't sure about the refund O_o I would hardly consider this stuff "myths." Any observant toss player who has played enough knows about this..
On April 05 2016 00:11 c3rberUs wrote: I'll never place my gateways like that again.
So wait, according to this, Horang2's famous gate placement is technically 'bad' for macro?
You'll probably find he doesn't place his gates exactly like that.
It's been ages since I watched his pro games, but I think in general he would have a pylon or two ready to power 3 gates on one side, and then at the right distance a pylon or two on the other side to power the others. Whether in vertical or horizontal alignment.
That long line of pylons is something I only saw with any regularity on Andromeda, due to the very vertical space of the main near the ramp. And I think you'll find they were careful to leave gaps to make sure all units can spawn.
I have to admit I was surprised by example 1 not allowing the middle gate to spawn a dragoon.
On April 05 2016 00:11 c3rberUs wrote: I'll never place my gateways like that again.
So wait, according to this, Horang2's famous gate placement is technically 'bad' for macro?
Iirc he didn't always place his gates in 2xn (where n is >2) formation. He skipped a second gate in the third row or offset the second gate in the second column of the third/fourth row split.
Even so, this positioning isn't bad if you macro with a little brainpower... I use similar formations frequently and when I do exceed 2x2 (2x3, 2x4...) I leave spaces in the pylons behind the gates (which I'm sure pros like Horang2 have done as well). When I don't for whatever reason, I just make zealot from the trapped gateways and dragoons from the outer gates. At that point of the game you are likely not producing pure dragoon anyway...
On April 05 2016 00:11 c3rberUs wrote: I'll never place my gateways like that again.
So wait, according to this, Horang2's famous gate placement is technically 'bad' for macro?
Iirc he didn't always place his gates in 2xn (where n is >2) formation. He skipped a second gate in the third row or offset the second gate in the second column of the third/fourth row split.
Even so, this positioning isn't bad if you macro with a little brainpower... I use similar formations frequently and when I do exceed 2x2 (2x3, 2x4...) I leave spaces in the pylons behind the gates (which I'm sure pros like Horang2 have done as well). When I don't for whatever reason, I just make zealot from the trapped gateways and dragoons from the outer gates. At that point of the game you are likely not producing pure dragoon anyway...
"The devil is in the details."
Yeah nothing wrong with that kind of placement as long as you pay attention, but in a panicked state you might forget about the middle gate.
This type of placement is something of a beauty too, but it doesn't work in every spawn on FS and you'll need to have remembered pylon placements beforehand to do this consistently. It's very pylon-efficient though.
Inaccurate, its not between 1 pylon and 2 pylons: Its one pylon on sides, 2 on top and under (this is due to diagonals being larger than straight distances).
On April 05 2016 01:15 iloveav wrote: Inaccurate, its not between 1 pylon and 2 pylons: Its one pylon on sides, 2 on top and under (this is due to diagonals being larger than straight distances).
On April 05 2016 01:16 StylishVODs wrote: I don't get your conclusion though, in the first pic there is an area of the gateway only covered by 1 line of pylons yet it is blocked.
I've updated the OP with more situations, it demonstrates how goons can't spawn through 1 pylon on the sides but can on the top and bottom.
On April 05 2016 00:11 c3rberUs wrote: I'll never place my gateways like that again.
So wait, according to this, Horang2's famous gate placement is technically 'bad' for macro?
Iirc he didn't always place his gates in 2xn (where n is >2) formation. He skipped a second gate in the third row or offset the second gate in the second column of the third/fourth row split.
Even so, this positioning isn't bad if you macro with a little brainpower... I use similar formations frequently and when I do exceed 2x2 (2x3, 2x4...) I leave spaces in the pylons behind the gates (which I'm sure pros like Horang2 have done as well). When I don't for whatever reason, I just make zealot from the trapped gateways and dragoons from the outer gates. At that point of the game you are likely not producing pure dragoon anyway...
"The devil is in the details."
Yeah nothing wrong with that kind of placement as long as you pay attention, but in a panicked state you might forget about the middle gate.
This type of placement is something of a beauty too, but it doesn't work in every spawn on FS and you'll need to have remembered pylon placements beforehand to do this consistently. It's very pylon-efficient though.
That's generally how my gateway placement looks. Blocking units is a pet peeve of mine so I'm always picky about building placement.
This can also happen to terran It's also possible to happen to zerg, but it needs to be a very tight build so there will be no room for larvae to respawn like 3x3 square with hatcheries. But this is doubtly possible situation.
On April 05 2016 00:31 Zilver wrote: This type of placement is something of a beauty too, but it doesn't work in every spawn on FS and you'll need to have remembered pylon placements beforehand to do this consistently. It's very pylon-efficient though.
On April 05 2016 01:44 therockmanxx wrote: Wasnt there a promatch where the protoss force the units to pop up in the enemy base and cheese by building a proxy gateway and sorround it by pylons?
No, it was not a pro match. It was like D level foreigner. It's in the pimpest plays on youtube, I forget which one. It was done on Lost Temple 8 o clock main by placing gateway along the 3 o clock ridge with pylons and 4 probes iirc.
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