I'm only D level player, and what recently concerned me on ICCup was that annoying Gas Steal in TvP. I tried to figure out how to counter Protoss who does this tactics to me, especially since my in-game reactions are quite poor and he can always cancel his Assimilator to replace it with new one instantly.
A spark of inspiration came from this game:
Yes, Magikarp Terran lost this game, but I noticed he went Gas before Rax. So I wondered, since both TvT and TvP are mostly about teching up quickly, why not to use this little build switch against notorious Gas stealers? It's like 50% of D-Tosses who try it, and Gas first eliminates early trouble unless he sends Probe VERY early.
Now the problem was how to balance Mineral/Gas count you have in bank to avoid stockpiling it while your Barracks are still being built. So instead of having 3 SCVs on Gas immediately, I went for 2 Gas workers from the moment Refinery is up. Turns out you lose only like 4-5 seconds when your money is above 200/100 and Barracks are not up yet.
Generally, your Factory will be delayed a little bit, but isn't that much better than struggling for ages to clear your Vespene node?
Hiya went roughly like this:
8 Depot 10 Refinery 11 Rax, send 2 more SCVs to Gas 14 Depot 15 Factory, 2 Marines immediately 19 2 Starports
My anti-Toss adaptation goes:
9 Depot 10 Refinery 12 Rax, send second SCV to Gas 16 Marine 16 Depot 17 Factory...
And if hes proxy 2 gate rushing you, you kinda die. just make the refinery when you see the probe getting into your base, then take the scv off and send it back to mining till its actually time to finish the refinery. The toss will also be set back a bit due to sending such an early probe
I´m a nooby D too, but I sometimes finish my wall before the probe gets to scout at all, your first tank will come a bit later than the goon pressure if you don´t cut SCVs. Good thing about this is that the protoss cant scout your build. Like 9 depot 11 rax 12-14ish depot 13-14ish refinery, I usually don´t plan further than the first rax haha Sometimes I send 10-11 scout and if it doesn´t encounter a probe I can put the refinery down first. Or then I just abort one scv and throw the refinery down when the probe is coming, however then the gayest tosses do mannerpylons or other shit anyway
I think that instead of being preventive, it's better to learn the proper reactions to a gas steal. What if the toss doesn't try to steal your gas, but instead goes for an agressive build such as 10/15 gate, the delayed factory would really hurt you in cases like these, especially on rampless maps.
at D level, if it helps you concentrate on your game more, I say do whatever works best for you. the few seconds delay in your factory going up isn't a big deal if it keeps you in the game past where you would be otherwise. but i would say this depends on how easy it is to wall off on a map too though. if you can wall off with 1 supply depot/barracks, go the barracks first build order unless its an unusually fast scout.
alternatively, you could practice other ways to deal with it that are in a thread somewhere on TL.
try it on 2 player map against probe/zealot rush and you can gg when you notice the first zealot showing up. It's from very hard to almost impossible to defend it with non-delayed rax, so u expect defending it with delayed rax?
on two player maps it's a good idea to wall or 10/10 or 11/11
if you gas first and they 2 gate proxy, or even 2 gate in the main, the games over. Who said it was very hard to impossible to defend zealot probe with standard rax timing is just silly though.
But don't do what you're suggesting. Take it from someone who did actually do what you proposed for a while and don't do it.
One similiar thing you can do, if you so choose, is to go 12/12 and just build the refinery as soon as you see the probe (spam boxes in the place of the screen the probe will appear, it lets you see it sooner) then take the scv off building the refinery and get your rax at 12 as normal, putting the scv back on the refinery. This doesn't delay your factory at all and makes you safe to gas stealing. Your marine will be a little later thought so what you gonna do?
d'fuck? it's just 2port wraiths... you need the early gas to afford the build. Has nothing to do with "anti gas steal" build. edit...Generally you react rather than prepare for a gas steal, which only happens on 2player maps. If a P really wants a gas steal, you as T really can't do much to prevent it.
On November 08 2009 22:52 XsebT wrote: d'fuck? it's just 2port wraiths... you need the early gas to afford the build. Has nothing to do with "anti gas steal" build.
OP is rather oddly using a TvT to try and discuss TvP strategy. Just go with it man!
Oh and note to OP, in TvT, gas before rax gives you I think 100 (150?) extra gas, which is enough to get siege AND cloak with fact port and lets you get out other tech faster with other builds. Sorry, I'm being vague, my TvT still sucks
I prefer to just go 9 Supply 10 Rax at choke, and if I see a Probe come out quickly, I just cancel the SCV that's currently queued in my CC and start the Refinery for a few seconds, and then proceed as normal.
On November 08 2009 23:51 scintilliaSD wrote: I prefer to just go 9 Supply 10 Rax at choke, and if I see a Probe come out quickly, I just cancel the SCV that's currently queued in my CC and start the Refinery for a few seconds, and then proceed as normal.
Or you can save up to 11 rax 11 gas and if there's a probe that comes, you'd have enough minerals to start the gas anyway.
go FD (fake double) 8 suply depot 10 refinery/rax (hold scvs momentarily) constant marine production at 88 gas stop mining gas with 2 scvs factory - machine shop - mines depot cc push out with 2 tanks + vulture reinforcement
C- Terran here. I experimented with gas before barracks for a while and even though you get your first tank out sooner, you're really at an economical disadvantage. Best response is to cancel the scv in your cc and build the gas as soon as you see the probe. As Terran doesn't need to scout too early, you can send your scouting scv at gas steal timing to see the probe coming miles in advance. In a fair number of games I've even been able to block the scouting probe for long enough to build my gas at normal timing (through micro).
OK, thank you guys for your suggestions. It seems that cancelling SCV + getting Refinery after Probe comes is considerably better... OK, I'll try to pimp this strategy, right now I really suck at executing it.
EPT
Magikarp Terran lost this game, but I noticed he went Gas before Rax. So I wondered, since both TvT and TvP are mostly about teching up quickly, why not to use this little build switch against notorious Gas stealers? It's like 50% of D-Tosses who try it, and Gas first eliminates early trouble unless he sends Probe VERY early.
haha
