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How many workers total?

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
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herozour
Profile Joined September 2013
142 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-02 22:25:53
October 02 2013 22:25 GMT
#1
Since there is limit on units I wonder how many workers I should have.
100 seems like too much.
Also I wonder why in most of pro reps zerg has more expansions but less minerals then others. Why is that? Not enough drones? Or drones somehow collect slower?
I seen a topic which says that probes are fastest and SCVs are slowest(has something to do with terran command center).
Also does the 3 per gas and 1.5*minerals worker formula apply? For the fastest money gathering.
Quilty
Profile Joined July 2011
Canada13 Posts
October 03 2013 00:42 GMT
#2
The number of workers per gas depends on how far the gas is from the CC/Hatch/Nexus. It's usually 3 but some maps require more at certain bases.
-NegativeZero-
Profile Joined August 2011
United States2141 Posts
October 03 2013 01:03 GMT
#3
Zerg tends to be more gas than mineral dependent, so they take more expansions than other races for the extra geysers - but they don't need the extra mineral income, so they don't bother saturating those mineral patches.
vibeo gane,
thezanursic
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
5478 Posts
October 03 2013 05:11 GMT
#4
I usually stick to 3 bases being well saturated as the golden rule.
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doubleupgradeobbies!
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Australia1187 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-03 05:54:57
October 03 2013 05:42 GMT
#5
60-80 is a good number for Protoss and Terran, depending on how many bases are actively mining.

You can afford to have less if you have more bases running due to low saturation, which will allow you to have a slightly bigger army while maxed, zerg by virtue of being less mineral dependant and having less saturation issues due to having more bases (as well as generally mining out a base slower), tends to be on the lower end of that, if not only around 50 drones by the endgame.

Also, this is probably better put in the simple questions, simple answers section rather than having a thread all on it's own.
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Freakling
Profile Joined October 2012
Germany1529 Posts
October 03 2013 15:07 GMT
#6
Gas is quite simple:

Maximal gas mining rate is about 300/min.

If
- the geyser is directly above or left to the man building
- and workers are traveling at straight line between gas gathering building an main building most of the time

then 3 workers will give you a rate at least very close to that.

On 3 workers, all other gas locations, relative to the main building, will grant only grant you a gas income of 280/min or, most likely, less, depending on the actual location, your race and any pathfinding bugs of the workers on gas.
Usually you would probably put three workers on those geysers and add a fourth once you have enough.

The math of mineral gathering is more complex. But in general the efficiency of gathering decreases if you add more workers, so you should always try to distribute your workers evenly among your working bases.
andreyyisbestandrey
Profile Joined September 2010
154 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-06 02:24:04
October 03 2013 23:14 GMT
#7
1 worker per patch, always.

edit: sorry it wasn't clear but this advice was a lie.

Real answer: amount of workers is situational and a generic number can't be accurately given. If you are in need of units ASAP you may need to prematurely cut worker production to squeeze additional gateways/factories/units. If you (and your opponent) are non-stop macroing, then a ball-park figure is ~60 scvs/probes/drones with a maxed army. This number can differ in different situations. One example that I can give is in a macro intensive PvT where you are constantly attacking the Terran you may want to go up to 80 workers on 5 bases, which allows you to quickly replenish your army and stay maxed even while attacking non-stop. To reiterate, the number of workers is heavily situation dependent.

If you look you may find an experiment that was done that shows very quickly exponentially decreasing returns after about 20 workers per 8 mineral patches.
Potling
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
Norway298 Posts
October 05 2013 22:58 GMT
#8
On October 04 2013 08:14 andreyyisbestandrey wrote:
1 worker per patch, always.

Just so no one listens to this: It's wrong. Listen to obbies instead, or learn straight from the best source (pro replays).
shaftofpleasure
Profile Blog Joined December 2011
Korea (North)1375 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-05 23:24:46
October 05 2013 23:24 GMT
#9
as compared to terran and protoss, zerg is different.
the speed of gathering minerals/gas isn't the question. since i think all of them have the same speed.

Besides minerals and gas, they have another resource; the larva.

there was a really good guide somewhere here about larva resource that made me understand how zerg is played well, especially during midgame and ZvZ. like when you have 1 hatchery, for it to constantly spawn zergling every time it spawns a larva, you need 5 drones mining.

On October 04 2013 08:14 andreyyisbestandrey wrote:
1 worker per patch, always.


ehh wat?
It's either the holes of my nose are getting smaller or my fingers are getting bigger. /// Always Rooting for the Underdog. Hyuk/Sin/Jaehoon/Juni/Hyvva/Hoejja/Canata //// Hiding in thread somewhere where BW is still in it's pure form here on TL.
Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
October 05 2013 23:24 GMT
#10
On October 06 2013 07:58 Potling wrote:
Show nested quote +
On October 04 2013 08:14 andreyyisbestandrey wrote:
1 worker per patch, always.

Just so no one listens to this: It's wrong. Listen to obbies instead, or learn straight from the best source (pro replays).

Pro Zergs usually have one per patch depending on the stage of the game. When you're on one base and your hatchery is building, you might go up to 12, then maynarde 3 over (assuming 9 mineral patches) so that you have one per patch again. Later on when you take your third you send some drones over again. It depends on matchup too, as you'll have more per patch in ZvT usually (fewer bases till later on) whereas ZvP you usually take a fast third and fourth, so it's easier to balance out the drones. You can have more per patch but for much of the game it's ideally one per patch.
Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
FlaShFTW
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States10135 Posts
October 05 2013 23:51 GMT
#11
On October 04 2013 08:14 andreyyisbestandrey wrote:
1 worker per patch, always.

you should be more specific.

zergs? yeah, i can see that. usually 12 workers per base (3 gas, 9 minerals, sometimes more on minerals)

terran and protoss? only if you have like 5 bases all mining. theres no reason you should have 1 worker per patch on 2 or 3 bases. simply too little minerals. i like a little less than 2 workers per patch though a lot of people like 2 per patch. i dont like having 10 scvs running from patch to patch because the other patches are busy.
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Birdie
Profile Blog Joined August 2007
New Zealand4438 Posts
October 06 2013 00:10 GMT
#12
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=392000 and http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=78828 may help. I should really get around to rewriting the first link as I'm not entirely happy with it.
Red classic | A butterfly dreamed he was Zhuangzi | 4.5k, heading to 5k as support!
vndestiny
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Singapore3440 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-06 05:54:56
October 06 2013 05:51 GMT
#13
One thing to note is that for minerals, those pesky probes mine faster than scv, and the drone lies somewhere in between.
The difference is most apparent when there's 1-1.5 worker per patch.
Oh and this is because the shape of nexus & cc. Their movement and mine speed are the same
sluggaslamoo
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
Australia4494 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-07 04:42:06
October 07 2013 04:41 GMT
#14
For Zerg the "5 drone rule" is pretty good rule of thumb when you are a beginner. You are restricted by larva, so there is a limit to how much you can spend per Hatchery. Obviously once you become better, you should fine tune it a bit more.

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.
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Bakuryu
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Germany1065 Posts
October 07 2013 06:06 GMT
#15
On October 07 2013 13:41 sluggaslamoo wrote:
For Zerg the "5 drone rule" is pretty good rule of thumb when you are a beginner. You are restricted by larva, so there is a limit to how much you can spend per Hatchery. Obviously once you become better, you should fine tune it a bit more.

Show nested quote +
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.


for beginner zergs i would advice them to follow a macro-build for as long as possible. if they dont know what to do at the end of the build, they should make drones from 1 hatch and mass units from all the others.
the maximum zerg saturation depends on too many things (and getting there is also a problem) to give an easy answer.
u can stop making drones when u have 6 mining bases and slightly more than 1 drone per patch. (or 3 full saturated bases with about 20 drones per base)
weikor
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
Austria580 Posts
October 07 2013 07:44 GMT
#16
Well, Its a lot more complex than actually saying : 8 drones per x. It also hugely depends on the style you are playing, and how you are playing that style

If you are playing a style where you want to max out on high tech units (ultra, muta, infestor, hydra / viper) then obviously you will need more gas income, therefore taking more bases, and more gas. You dont need the extra mineral income in that case.
You dont want to overmake drones in that case, and want to trade out some drones for supply (crawlers)

If you are playing a style where you want to sacrifice mineral heavy units (roach ling, ling ultra) vs his tech, then you will need more mineral income. Since you will trade inefficiently (which can still be a great strategy) you will need extra income and more drones.

For your personal playstyle i recommend looking at your minerals or gas. If you constantly lose at 25 minutes while still trading fairly equally - you probably didnt have enough drones.
If you find yourself with 5000 minerals and gas starved, you had too many drones in minerals and should make less next gaem.

If you just copy the pros, you will end up with too much of something, since you just dont have their mechanics.
vndestiny
Profile Blog Joined September 2011
Singapore3440 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-10-07 08:40:08
October 07 2013 08:35 GMT
#17
On October 07 2013 16:44 weikor wrote:
Well, Its a lot more complex than actually saying : 8 drones per x. It also hugely depends on the style you are playing, and how you are playing that style

If you are playing a style where you want to max out on high tech units (ultra, muta, infestor, hydra / viper) then obviously you will need more gas income, therefore taking more bases, and more gas. You dont need the extra mineral income in that case.
You dont want to overmake drones in that case, and want to trade out some drones for supply (crawlers)

If you are playing a style where you want to sacrifice mineral heavy units (roach ling, ling ultra) vs his tech, then you will need more mineral income. Since you will trade inefficiently (which can still be a great strategy) you will need extra income and more drones.

For your personal playstyle i recommend looking at your minerals or gas. If you constantly lose at 25 minutes while still trading fairly equally - you probably didnt have enough drones.
If you find yourself with 5000 minerals and gas starved, you had too many drones in minerals and should make less next gaem.

If you just copy the pros, you will end up with too much of something, since you just dont have their mechanics.

Ah hm wrong forum there mate. Also the italic part should and could not apply to BW Zerg at all. You better over make unit rather than over making drones at low level, since you can flat out die any time if u have too much drone & not enough units.
traceurling
Profile Joined December 2012
United States1240 Posts
October 07 2013 13:44 GMT
#18
On October 07 2013 16:44 weikor wrote:
Well, Its a lot more complex than actually saying : 8 drones per x. It also hugely depends on the style you are playing, and how you are playing that style

If you are playing a style where you want to max out on high tech units (ultra, muta, infestor, hydra / viper) then obviously you will need more gas income, therefore taking more bases, and more gas. You dont need the extra mineral income in that case.
You dont want to overmake drones in that case, and want to trade out some drones for supply (crawlers)

If you are playing a style where you want to sacrifice mineral heavy units (roach ling, ling ultra) vs his tech, then you will need more mineral income. Since you will trade inefficiently (which can still be a great strategy) you will need extra income and more drones.

For your personal playstyle i recommend looking at your minerals or gas. If you constantly lose at 25 minutes while still trading fairly equally - you probably didnt have enough drones.
If you find yourself with 5000 minerals and gas starved, you had too many drones in minerals and should make less next gaem.

If you just copy the pros, you will end up with too much of something, since you just dont have their mechanics.

Lol I was reading it and then I was like wait what the fuck why are there SC2 units...you seem a bit lost
"Appreciate the things you have before they become the things you had."
[[Starlight]]
Profile Joined December 2013
United States1578 Posts
Last Edited: 2013-12-25 11:38:05
December 25 2013 11:28 GMT
#19
"Also does the 3 per gas and 1.5*minerals worker formula apply? For the fastest money gathering."

Hmm... well, from what I remember, there were some experiments done back in the early days of SC 1, and the conclusions were that to maximize resource draw, you needed something like 2.5 to 3 workers per mineral patch, and 4 per gas geyser (though 3 on gas was almost as good).

I think the way the experiment worked out was that, on Normal speed, it took a worker 5 seconds to actually gather the crystal off the mineral patch, and then another 7 seconds (on average) to make the round-trip to and from the CC/Nexus/Hatchery.

So, the patch is only being mined about 40% of the time if you have only one worker per mineral patch. Under the above times, 2.4x workers per mineral patch would seem to ensure that the patch was always being mined. BUT you also have to account for a small amount of time wasted with workers sliding around to find an open patch to mine.

So, 3 workers per mineral patch ensured maximum output, and the experiments backed this up, as they'd time over (IIRC) 5 or 10 minutes of mining with 1x, 1.5x, 2x, 2.5x, 3x, 4x workers per patch, etc. and compare how many minerals got mined. The increases in yield started dropping off beyond 2.5x, and were getting pretty close to nil beyond 3x.

That's what I remember, anyway. It would be awesome to find a link to those old SC articles, but I've been out of the game for so long and don't remember where I saw it, sorry.

IIRC, said experiments also 'proved' that SCVs mined slightly slower than probes. I don't think it was actual mineral gathering speed, but rather probes having better acceleration (and top speed?), allowing them to make the roundtrip to the Nexus slightly faster than SCVs would to their CC.

The difference wasn't major though, again, if I remember correctly.

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