Obviously zerg have more bases for the production, and you can't have full saturation at every base. So whats a good amount drones to have mining per base?

swanized

Canada2480 Posts

October 20 2010 01:30 GMT

rule of thumb is to have around 5 drones per hatcheries you have IIRC, (according to liquipedia)

whilst having as many probes/SCVs as possible is good for T/P, Zerg chooses to get drones isntead of units, so you'd like to have as few drones as you can to keep your hatcheries pumping constantly while still teching.

so the real question is, how many hatcheries/ teching can I afford without dieing from having not enough units?

Retgery

Canada1229 Posts

October 20 2010 01:37 GMT

Holly cow that's it?
I've had around 10 or 11 per base
(not counting gas)

dhe95

United States1213 Posts

October 20 2010 01:46 GMT

make drones whenever you can, but 5 drones per hatchery is a good amount, however you don't want to just limit yourself to 5 drones per hatchery (3 hatch muta, for example) when you can easily get away with making more

about 1.5 drones/mineral is good enough, but if you were able to 2 drones/mineral like the T/P players is good too just make drones when you can and keep your bases evenly saturated

Severedevil

United States4839 Posts

October 20 2010 02:11 GMT

1-1.5 drones per mineral, and 3 drones per geyser, is generally the correct amount. If you have more than 1.5 drones per mineral, you probably should be taking more bases (or building more units instead of drones, so that you can secure more bases).

To support a hatchery's production will generally require between 3 and 6 drones on minerals, plus a number of drones on gas that depends on what you're producing. Bear in mind that you also have to pay for tech and upgrades, and that you generally have more than one hatchery per base.

Tazza

Korea (South)1678 Posts

October 20 2010 02:18 GMT

Have about 1.5 drones per mineral on your first 3 bases, and after that, you only want about 1 drone per mineral, or even less if you're against terran as you need gas more.

SubtleArt

2710 Posts

October 20 2010 03:02 GMT

Did it ever occur to you to use the search function and liquipedia instead of a 1-line question?
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Zerg_Strategy

Look, first page of the Zerg strategy section:

The "5 Drone Rule": Once Zerg knows how many Hatcheries to build, the next question is how many Drones to build. A rule of thumb is roughly five drones per Hatchery. For a Hatchery to constantly pump Zerglings, 3 Drones on Minerals are required. To constantly pump Hydras, the Zerg player will need 5 Drones on Minerals and 2 Drones on Gas per Hatchery. Mutas require 5 Drones on Minerals and 3 Drones on gas per Hatchery. Thus, in a typical game, it is a good rule of thumb to plan for 5 Drones per Hatchery.

On October 20 2010 10:37 Retgery wrote:
Holly cow that's it?
I've had around 10 or 11 per base
(not counting gas)

Well yea, you generally have 2 hatcheries per base, so that sounds about right.

iamthegod

34 Posts

November 05 2013 05:23 GMT

Can somebody tell me if my saturation here was good or not?
Seems like I always not have enough minerals.
http://speedy.sh/marWN/LastReplay.rep

iFU.pauline

France1725 Posts

November 05 2013 08:14 GMT

It depends how you are playing, I suggest you have 12 drones at your mineral and 3 at your gas against terran, then against protoss it really depends of your strat.

iamthegod

34 Posts

November 05 2013 08:32 GMT

#10

Watch the rep.

ninazerg

United States7291 Posts

November 06 2013 10:13 GMT

#11

If you are a noob, and want to have good drone saturation, I'm not sure how knowing the "correct" number will help you unless you can count every drone in your head. So, therefore, the easiest way I can explain drone saturation is that you should have a time where you build just all drones, and a time where you cut drone production. This takes a basic knowledge of timings, which you can get from experience and other educational methods, such as watching replays of pro-gamers and VODs. The true amount of drones you will need depends on what type of strategy you want to utilize. For example, let's say you are playing ZvZ, and want to do a 2-hatch mutalisk build where you take an expansion. Don't worry about what the opening build is. If you play ZvZ, you always send an overlord to your opponent's base to check him out. You see what he's doing, like, ah okay, he's going 1 hatchery with gas, but I see the drones mining and the Lair seems late. I guess he's probably going with zergling speed first, so I'm going to need some way to defend against this, so I can stay in the game and get my mutalisks and win. So, if you see the lings coming, you know you can't just be producing drones so that you reach the "ideal" number, because you need to invest some money into defense. If you've taken an expansion, you'll know you need a lot of zerglings to defend, so you'll have to stop making drones, and make only zerglings from all of your larva, and then your spire will most likely finish, so then all of your money will go towards making mutalisks. If you haven't taken an expansion, and your hatchery is in your main base, then you have very little area to defend, and probably will be able to defend with a couple of sunken colonies, and not very many lings. OR, you can stop get your zergling speed first, cut making drones, and just use your superior amount of larva to make more lings than your opponent to win. So, you see, you have a lot of options, but all of them involve stopping drone production to make units.

Let's say though, that you want a huge army of hydralisks. So you need a lot of drones to make a lot of hydralisks, so you go 3-hatch hydra. But then you find that it's difficult to build drones and get the economy you need to make hydralisks if your opponent is constantly building speedlings. This happens because you (not you personally) don't have a sense of when drones can be produced, and when units are needed to defend. On the flip side, if you become too focused on defense, your economy will suffer. Like say, you decide to go 9pool to defend against ling aggression so you can get two hatcheries and go hydras. Sure, you might hold off ling aggression, but the money you invest in making zerglings, then hatcheries, then spore colonies, and then upgrades will take its toll on your economy, so you may wind up getting the hydralisks, but then you move out of your base, and a huge huge huge army just comes up and crushes your hopes and dreams.

This is how Zerg build orders are created. The Zerg player figures out specific things to look for during scouting, and specific timings, so that he/she can be safe to execute whatever gameplan they want. They do this so they know when to produce drones continuously, and when to stop. Of course, there are alterations that can be made if, say, the Zerg loses drones, or something unexpected happens, or they need more drones later on in the game.

This is so important because you don't want to just make drones to hit your target saturation and then die to timing attacks every other game.

+ Show Spoiler +

Q: How many drones should I make?
A: Fucking tons and tons of drones. So many that it's crazy.

evilfatsh1t

Australia8875 Posts

November 06 2013 14:30 GMT

#12

i thought this was a recent thread until i realised it was a 3year old necro lol. what happened to the "old post" signs?

iamthegod

34 Posts

November 06 2013 21:30 GMT

#13

I play single player and my strategy is to get good saturation on 1 base and then build next one.
And I want to know how many drones is too much cause I am not gonna build 100 drones so "build drones forever" is no good.

Thats why I want to know how many drones per base is good amount and how many workers max I should get.

ninazerg

United States7291 Posts

November 06 2013 21:34 GMT

#14

On November 07 2013 06:30 iamthegod wrote:
I play single player and my strategy is to get good saturation on 1 base and then build next one.
And I want to know how many drones is too much cause I am not gonna build 100 drones so "build drones forever" is no good.

Thats why I want to know how many drones per base is good amount and how many workers max I should get.

Ugh, first of all, that's not a "strategy", and second, you're just going to get banned again.

iamthegod

34 Posts

November 06 2013 21:37 GMT

#15

Or maybe you can answer my question? How many drones MAX and how many per base.

Kau

Canada3502 Posts

November 06 2013 21:57 GMT

#16

Generally max saturation for 2.5 to 3 times the number of mineral patches and max workers was probably something like 70. However this applies more to Terran and Protoss than Zerg. See Severedevil's post.

iamthegod

34 Posts

November 06 2013 22:42 GMT

#17

Should zerg have less then 70 drones?
Well if max saturation is 2.5 then I guess I should get 3 max saturated bases and then maynard to spread workers equally between bases when I start building my 4th expo.
What is max drone count for zerg then?

I am going for this kind of spam.

But I seem to lack minerals somehow.

Kau

Canada3502 Posts

November 06 2013 23:50 GMT

#18

The reason you're lacking minerals in your replay compared to this video is because there are less minerals in each base. Your main had 7 patches and two expansions had only 6 patches each. Compare that to the bases in the final BW mission you linked, which has 10 patches in the main and then 9 patches in the first expansion.

Max number of drones isn't just a set number that you aim for. At the level you're playing at, you just want enough drones that you can produce the units you need to produce.

dRaW

Canada5744 Posts

November 07 2013 00:10 GMT

#19

I make drones until supply limit, then when I want to get rid of them I just kill my opponent. Generally 1.2drone per mineral is good, if you have more than that in early stages (3-4base) it's acceptable because you will most likely end up on more bases than any other race

iamthegod

34 Posts

November 07 2013 06:39 GMT

#20

Well I just wanted to speed things up. To get spam rolled up asap.
And since in single player bases are usually taken I must first get saturation and then fight for the expos.

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