Worker mining micro

On October 27 2006 16:15 SchOOl_VicTIm wrote:
there is defenitely a slight advantage of having the closest mineral patch always mined, and the more you keep doing it the more it will show, but yeah... it's not really gonna give you a big edge, just a couple of seconds maybe tops.

On October 27 2006 16:28 Artanis[Xp] wrote:
Even though personally I'd expect otherwise, I'll have to agree with hertzz. If it differed much, progamers would use it all the time. It's their duty to look over details like this to get an edge.

On October 27 2006 16:18 gg_hertzz wrote:


okay okay. It will give you 2 seconds of advantage. Make it count.

On September 09 2006 23:16 Manifesto7 wrote:
I remember the first time I ever understood probe micro. I was with Teroru, and we had just smoked a huge amount of pot and beat the original bubble bobble. I had my laptop over and we watched a rA FPVOD. I couldn't believe what I was seeing at the beginning of the game, where he microed every probe to the closest possible mineral patch. It went on for ages, and was just ridiculous to watch. In my mind, he will always be the smartest player ever.

On September 09 2006 23:16 Manifesto7 wrote:
lol. No, I mean when he was mining, he would change the path of each probe so the closest one was ALWAYS being mined. Most people split their workers to the four closest mineral patches and just leave them to mine the same one. He was constantly changing their paths to optimize efficiency.

On October 27 2006 16:49 SchOOl_VicTIm wrote:


you must have never seen shit happen for 1 milsec then.. well, i have some. as I said it's not gonna give you big advantage or everything, but it DOES make some slight difference which u can choose to have or not. just don't expect to win you the game or anything of course...

On October 27 2006 17:08 gg_hertzz wrote:
guys, it's not that important. The majority of progamers do not do it, and more importantly, the majority of progamers who've won titles don't do it. Therefore, it doesn't matter.

On October 27 2006 17:56 Knickknack wrote:
This seems to be something one could easily check up on by oneself (as far as doing the action of playing like this). Also the question is why would you want to see it if its not worth it. I'd suggest putting a R in the tag if your seeking something like this. Maybe post in broodwar section.

On October 27 2006 17:08 gg_hertzz wrote:
guys, it's not that important. The majority of progamers do not do it, and more importantly, the majority of progamers who've won titles don't do it. Therefore, it doesn't matter.

On October 27 2006 17:08 gg_hertzz wrote:
guys, it's not that important. The majority of progamers do not do it, and more importantly, the majority of progamers who've won titles don't do it. Therefore, it doesn't matter.

On October 27 2006 19:31 Chill wrote:


If that was true, any of the multitude of innovations we've seen happen in Brood War would not matter. Sometimes things have to catch on.

I agree; I don't think always sending workers to the closest patch really matters. I just don't agree with your logic against it.

On October 28 2006 01:52 jkillashark wrote:
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this. This is actually really important to a position like 10 on Luna where 2 of the mineral patches mine "slowly."

Why do these two minerals mine more slowly than the others? It's because the natural path the peon takes to it is slower than if it mined at a different angle to the mineral patch. Haven't you guys noticed that when a worker returns at a 45 degree angle it turns RIGHT back really fast without pausing? But when it comes back down vertically it pauses a little and then goes back? 30 degree returns are by FAR the slowest returning speed for a peon. The bottom left patch is naturally returned at a 30 degree and it is VERY slow. That is why all progamers build a supply depot or something to alter it to make sure it goes horizontally.

If you guys didn't know, every unit it StarCraft moves in 16 directions. But some directions for peons return slower than others. Do be precise, anything 30 degrees away from a horizontal or vertical will be a slowed down return. Sometimes bad mineral patches will even have an SCV go one way and change directions and that slows down the return quite a bit, unless it's straight and then 45 degrees, that's good.



There's different spots a mineral can be mined at, the bottom left corner, somewhere inbetween, a little closer to the next corner, the bottom right corner. Next time you play alone or are bored and are bored when observing a game, try mining the mineral patch at different spots and see the different speeds the peon will return at.

On October 28 2006 02:52 superjoppe wrote:
Nice information jkillashark!
Can you somehow choose which one of them the peon will take?
For example on rushhour, at 3clock, the second from highest mineralpatch, my probes always take the weirdest way there, taking much more time than the other patches.
So can you actively choose somehow, for example by telling it to mine from somewhere else, making it taking another route to the minerals?

On October 28 2006 07:05 Mr_Pink wrote:
Doesnt everyone mine in the closest patches? -.- I thought it was common sense.

On October 27 2006 16:50 Myrmidon wrote:
Nah, I'd think this is one of the places where the pros might not be right. Unit micro, macro, strategy, build orders, and maps are all much much more important than slight mining efficiency early in the game.

On October 28 2006 09:24 Bill307 wrote:


Rarely, yes. I've tested the minerals on all of my maps and I've noticed that on some occasions, the positioning of the probe when it's mining actually impacts its path. Part of the reason it's so rare is that in most cases, the probes take the only one path back to the mineral even if they took two different paths from the mineral to the nexus.

On October 28 2006 07:05 Mr_Pink wrote:
Doesnt everyone mine in the closest patches? -.- I thought it was common sense.

On October 28 2006 03:17 Manifesto7 wrote:
I will dig up the VOD if I can find it, it was a long time ago though.

On October 28 2006 12:02 nortydog wrote:
bah! I hate when all these little tricks spill into the mainstream, they are something that only creative thinkers should enjoy the benefits of... even though most people wont take them seriously.
I feel like everytime some discreet bw tactic becomes common knowledge among all players it slowly kills broodwar because it removes what separates them from the best (in a way it also forces new tactics to be created to break-away from the pack, but remember there is only a limited amount of things we can do within the game).

call me selfish but discoveries like this should be kept to yourself IMO

On October 28 2006 12:36 Aphelion02 wrote:


If everyone were like you, I'd still be a noob losing 3v3 BGHs on USEast. It is entirely because of some really cool people teaching me all about SC that I even discovered this scene.

On October 28 2006 12:38 nortydog wrote:
but dont you agree it is what will eventually destroy starcraft?

On October 28 2006 12:38 nortydog wrote:
but dont you agree it is what will eventually destroy starcraft? when basically everything about the game becomes known, there will be not much entertainment value left in it to play or watch as there was in the past.

I have no problem with sharing general strategic information and Im always helping people out in that area, but when stuff like this gets out it and everyone starts microing thier workers it will reduce the prestige/advantage gained when using such a trick and now everyone is on the same level again.

On October 28 2006 03:37 amoxicilline wrote:
like that ?
[url blocked]

On October 28 2006 13:52 skyglow1 wrote:
I doubt the level of competition between people such as your average TL.netter is very high, nothing compared to the competition at progamer level. If you are that competitive then I can understand your feelings. People have never really had to think for themselves for anything really. Nearly everything about bw can be accessed through sites. There are many other things that you can keep to yourselfs anyway too

On October 28 2006 12:02 nortydog wrote:
bah! I hate when all these little tricks spill into the mainstream, they are something that only creative thinkers should enjoy the benefits of... even though most people wont take them seriously.
I feel like everytime some discreet bw tactic becomes common knowledge among all players it slowly kills broodwar because it removes what separates them from the best (in a way it also forces new tactics to be created to break-away from the pack, but remember there is only a limited amount of things we can do within the game).

call me selfish but discoveries like this should be kept to yourself IMO

because it makes me able to develop new "mind games" against my opponents and new strats to become viable (going lurker after 3 hatch in a good muta map after everyone started doing the OL-Muta trick, 2 base hive against fe terran on Luna/RH3).

On October 28 2006 22:33 ml1710 wrote:
for the really anal zerg players, you can also think about selecting the larvae closest to the minerals for your next drone ^_^

On October 29 2006 06:06 Doctorasul wrote:
This is all good, lovely discussion and all, but let's see an example of a progamer doing it. This thread needs a short clip of this being properly executed. Please.

On October 29 2006 06:06 Doctorasul wrote:
This is all good, lovely discussion and all, but let's see an example of a progamer doing it. This thread needs a short clip of this being properly executed. Please.