• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 19:31
CEST 01:31
KST 08:31
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Siren's Call8[ASL22] Ro24 Preview: Summer's End9Serral wins HomeStory Cup 2915Serral wins Maestros of the Game 244ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3
Community News
New 3v3 BGH Ladder (and more) on ShieldBattery!33Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week6Weekly Cups (August 10-16): SHIN doubles2GSTL Returns in 2026!45Weekly Cups (Aug 3-9): Protoss get shut out7
StarCraft 2
General
SC4ALL II: SC2 Player Announcement 6/8 - Maru How would you feel about frequent/monthly balance patches for SC2? Weekly Cups (August 17-23): Zerg dominate the week Daily SC2 Player Grid - feedback wanted Balance hotfix patch 5.0.16b (July 16)
Tourneys
Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament 2026 GSTL Announcement IntoTheTV X SOOP SC2 League : Weekly & Monthly PIG STY FESTIVAL 8.0! (13 - 23 August) WORTEX 2026 - Hungarian SC2 Finals Budapest
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
Nexus Wars 2021 GUIDE [M] (2) Industrial Park
External Content
Mutation # 541 Binary Choice The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 540 Dodge This Mutation # 539 Thunder Dome
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion Pros React To: Calm's Big Brain Play Vs Mini ASL22 General Discussion [Personal Project Share] Terran Defense v0.60 BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/
Tourneys
[ASL22] Ro24 Group F [Megathread] Daily Proleagues BSL LAN Party - Kraków 29-30 August - OPEN SIGNUPS Escore Tournament - Season 3
Strategy
Replay Review Process - What do you do? Game Theory for Starcraft Odyssey Mineral Stack Saturation Fighting Spirit mining rates
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread General RTS Discussion Thread Anyone here play Quakeworld back in the day? EVE Corporation
Dota 2
Browser Invoker Combo Trainer & Speedrun Simulator Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish TSM pausing esports and CLG Dead
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Power Rank TL Mafia Community Thread NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance
Community
General
Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread The Letting Off Steam Thread
Fan Clubs
MarineLorD Fan Club The Creator Fan Club The ShoWTimE Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! Anime Discussion Thread
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023 NBA General Discussion
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List Northern Ireland Global Starcraft
Blogs
Regacy Esports: The Bh…
regacyesports
Violent Games and Crime Rate…
TrAiDoS
LOCKPICKING NOOB
LUCKY_NOOB
Cathedral Of CS And NY pizza a…
FuDDx
Please support my new stand…
Peanutsc
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 7746 users

Protoss Workers Needed for Constant Production

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
Scarbo
Profile Joined January 2012
294 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-07 05:40:15
September 04 2014 10:43 GMT
#1
So... after reading some threads on when to stop worker production I couldn't find any calculations on Protoss units, so I used ix's data to come up with this spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q3gHinLLnWLIFbfKi7-sRiI-uLa22akyrPA7mElUisk/edit?usp=sharing
(edit) I put together calculations for the other races as was asked by Cryoc
(edit2) Corrected major mistakes in my timers (mixed both normal and fastest game speeds). Everything should be fastest now
(edit3) Corrected spawn timer for Larva thanks to Cryoc. Liquipedia article had it wrong
(edit4) Put the morph timer in parenthesis for Lurkers and Guardian/Devourers, as tested by Cryoc. Liquipedia was confusing
Hopefully it helps some people.

Threads I read before coming up with this:
+ Show Spoiler +
ix calculations and a lot of detailed stuff on worker saturation: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-strategy/111203-wandering-and-worker-saturation

Zerg/Terran econ management by w3jjjj: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-strategy/78828-zerg-econ-management-bonus-terran-section

Zerg econ management for newbs by Birdie: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/bw-strategy/392000-economy-management-for-newbs

antrax's gathering review: http://www.yellowchrome.org/1com/sclegacy/final_review.pdf
Cryoc
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany914 Posts
September 04 2014 12:34 GMT
#2
Nice work. Could you maybe add the units for Terran and Zerg too? I know in that one thread they talk about it, but there is no organized information like you did for Protoss.
You should probably also include pylons in your calculations as your units need supply.
http://www.twitch.tv/cryoc
vOdToasT
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Sweden2870 Posts
September 04 2014 15:08 GMT
#3
On September 04 2014 21:34 Cryoc wrote:
as your units need supply.


*Psi

Just sayin'

Have a good day
If it's stupid but it works, then it's not stupid* (*Or: You are stupid for losing to it, and gotta git gud)
FFGenerations
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
7088 Posts
September 04 2014 18:30 GMT
#4
love the thread title. sounds like a newspaper advertisement for new labour
Cool BW Music Vid - youtube.com/watch?v=W54nlqJ-Nx8 ~~~~~ ᕤ OYSTERS ᕤ CLAMS ᕤ AND ᕤ CUCKOLDS ᕤ ~~~~~~ ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ PUNCH HIM ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ
FFGenerations
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
7088 Posts
September 04 2014 18:37 GMT
#5
[image loading]
Cool BW Music Vid - youtube.com/watch?v=W54nlqJ-Nx8 ~~~~~ ᕤ OYSTERS ᕤ CLAMS ᕤ AND ᕤ CUCKOLDS ᕤ ~~~~~~ ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ PUNCH HIM ༼ ᕤ◕◡◕ ༽ᕤ
Scarbo
Profile Joined January 2012
294 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-04 18:53:50
September 04 2014 18:51 GMT
#6
On September 04 2014 21:34 Cryoc wrote:
Nice work. Could you maybe add the units for Terran and Zerg too? I know in that one thread they talk about it, but there is no organized information like you did for Protoss.
You should probably also include pylons in your calculations as your units need supply.


Good points. Also, lol @ above :D
Scarbo
Profile Joined January 2012
294 Posts
September 04 2014 20:55 GMT
#7
Added the other races and made a bunch of corrections/improvements.
MysteryMeat1
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United States3292 Posts
September 05 2014 07:33 GMT
#8
[image loading]

"Cause ya know, Style before victory." -The greatest mafia player alive
Cryoc
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany914 Posts
Last Edited: 2014-09-05 14:34:58
September 05 2014 14:32 GMT
#9
Nice, thanks.
I noticed some mistakes in the Zerg section. The spawning time for the larva is wrong. It should be 20*0.65. The larva Liquipedia article had a mistake there. Also if you include the build cost of a muta into the guardian/devourer you have to include the muta build time as well for the calculation, same thing for the lurker.
http://www.twitch.tv/cryoc
prech
Profile Joined March 2014
United States2948 Posts
September 05 2014 19:34 GMT
#10
Very interesting spreadsheet, Scarbo. Would you mind discussing your analysis? It looks like the workers needed column are the total (not per mineral patch or gas geyser) number of workers necessary for each unit to be produced, taking into account the minerals/gas consumed during their production process?

Just some random thoughts, not aimed at anyone in particular:
How do these numbers compare with ix's and others saturation/wandering numbers? For example, with one base and saturated workers on ~9 patches (or whatever standard number), how effective is that -- how many of each unit can be produced per given time? What would be a sample ground force composition look like?

How does the saturated worker model compare to production with fewer workers (like the ~1.5-2 workers/patch I sometimes see pro-gamers use)? And with some expansions, one base vs two vs three, etc. bases, how close does a player get to enabling the constant production numbers calculated in the spreadsheet?
Liquipedia
Scarbo
Profile Joined January 2012
294 Posts
September 05 2014 22:08 GMT
#11
On September 05 2014 23:32 Cryoc wrote:
Nice, thanks.
I noticed some mistakes in the Zerg section. The spawning time for the larva is wrong. It should be 20*0.65. The larva Liquipedia article had a mistake there. Also if you include the build cost of a muta into the guardian/devourer you have to include the muta build time as well for the calculation, same thing for the lurker.


Corrected the timer for larva. Thanks!
About the build time for morphing units, well, for one they aren't in the calculation because I'm using the larva spawn timer and morphing an unit from another one doesn't interfere with that so it doesn't apply. As for the number in parenthesis I was going to include both timers but as stated in the notes section below the liquipedia articles are confusing so I decided to let it be.



On September 06 2014 04:34 prech wrote:
Very interesting spreadsheet, Scarbo. Would you mind discussing your analysis? It looks like the workers needed column are the total (not per mineral patch or gas geyser) number of workers necessary for each unit to be produced, taking into account the minerals/gas consumed during their production process?

Just some random thoughts, not aimed at anyone in particular:
How do these numbers compare with ix's and others saturation/wandering numbers? For example, with one base and saturated workers on ~9 patches (or whatever standard number), how effective is that -- how many of each unit can be produced per given time? What would be a sample ground force composition look like?

How does the saturated worker model compare to production with fewer workers (like the ~1.5-2 workers/patch I sometimes see pro-gamers use)? And with some expansions, one base vs two vs three, etc. bases, how close does a player get to enabling the constant production numbers calculated in the spreadsheet?


My analysis was a starting point for Protoss players to calculate how many workers they need for constant production of something. I was wandering around threads about this and saw sample ground compositions for the other races so I decided to do that for P.

The number I used for minerals mined per minute per Probe were taken from xi's calculations (like it says so in the notes). It's assuming 1 worker per patch so it will decrease in efficiency per worker added. It may be possible to come up with a better number, it's just that this subject has not that much info about and as I said I just wanted a quick Protoss spreadsheet to work with.

Not sure how does the saturated worker model compares since xi only talks about maximum saturation (zero wandering) which goes from 2.4 to 3.3 workers per patch, depending on the patch disposition. I don't think you should be fully saturated ever in a real game so I'm not going to calculate anything using those. I may look around those threads again and try to find info on that but for now this is the reason of what I did.
Cryoc
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany914 Posts
September 06 2014 09:34 GMT
#12
On September 06 2014 07:08 Scarbo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 05 2014 23:32 Cryoc wrote:
Nice, thanks.
I noticed some mistakes in the Zerg section. The spawning time for the larva is wrong. It should be 20*0.65. The larva Liquipedia article had a mistake there. Also if you include the build cost of a muta into the guardian/devourer you have to include the muta build time as well for the calculation, same thing for the lurker.


Corrected the timer for larva. Thanks!
About the build time for morphing units, well, for one they aren't in the calculation because I'm using the larva spawn timer and morphing an unit from another one doesn't interfere with that so it doesn't apply. As for the number in parenthesis I was going to include both timers but as stated in the notes section below the liquipedia articles are confusing so I decided to let it be.

Yeah, you are right, the numbers seemed so high, I thought the pre-state has to be integrated. Zerg can really dump a lot of resources really fast. Seems like the cocoon page used a rounded number for ingame seconds (40*0.65~25). I tested it ingame, the basic value is 40 for morphing guardians/devourer, same goes for morphing lurker.
http://www.twitch.tv/cryoc
vanatir
Profile Joined May 2008
Germany355 Posts
September 06 2014 10:42 GMT
#13
i dont get what the excel sheet could tell me. what is the magic number where you should stop probe production?
aka EnjoYmE - streaming on http://www.twitch.tv/myprobe
Cryoc
Profile Joined July 2011
Germany914 Posts
September 06 2014 17:24 GMT
#14
It is a good estimation for your needed worker count, if you want to exploit some sort of timing window and don't know when to stop worker production for it.
http://www.twitch.tv/cryoc
DarkNetHunter
Profile Joined October 2012
1224 Posts
September 06 2014 18:00 GMT
#15
This is actually a resource that has been lacking for ages, so thanks for compiling it all in a great format Scarbo!

If you ever want to design build orders maybe for map specific timings this is a helpful resource
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.
Scarbo
Profile Joined January 2012
294 Posts
September 07 2014 05:38 GMT
#16
On September 06 2014 18:34 Cryoc wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 06 2014 07:08 Scarbo wrote:
On September 05 2014 23:32 Cryoc wrote:
Nice, thanks.
I noticed some mistakes in the Zerg section. The spawning time for the larva is wrong. It should be 20*0.65. The larva Liquipedia article had a mistake there. Also if you include the build cost of a muta into the guardian/devourer you have to include the muta build time as well for the calculation, same thing for the lurker.


Corrected the timer for larva. Thanks!
About the build time for morphing units, well, for one they aren't in the calculation because I'm using the larva spawn timer and morphing an unit from another one doesn't interfere with that so it doesn't apply. As for the number in parenthesis I was going to include both timers but as stated in the notes section below the liquipedia articles are confusing so I decided to let it be.

Yeah, you are right, the numbers seemed so high, I thought the pre-state has to be integrated. Zerg can really dump a lot of resources really fast. Seems like the cocoon page used a rounded number for ingame seconds (40*0.65~25). I tested it ingame, the basic value is 40 for morphing guardians/devourer, same goes for morphing lurker.


I put that in there. Thanks for testing.
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 10h 29m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 24793
Artosis 652
sSak 56
Dota 2
monkeys_forever462
League of Legends
Doublelift5904
JimRising 544
Counter-Strike
minikerr217
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor198
Other Games
gofns22247
Liquid`RaSZi3038
C9.Mang0329
PiGStarcraft171
Livibee143
KnowMe92
Mew2King55
Organizations
Other Games
BasetradeTV60
StarCraft: Brood War
Kim Chul Min (afreeca) 9
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• RyuSc2 36
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota22374
League of Legends
• Stunt107
Other Games
• imaqtpie1204
• Scarra840
• Shiphtur217
Upcoming Events
Sparkling Tuna Cup
10h 29m
Afreeca Starleague
10h 29m
Monday Night Weeklies
16h 29m
GSL
1d 11h
OSC
1d 13h
PiGosaur Cup
2 days
Kung Fu Cup
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
The PondCast
3 days
IntoTheTV X SOOP
4 days
[ Show More ]
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
OSC
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-08-27
PiG Sty Festival 8.0
Light Tournament 2026

Ongoing

KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 3
K-JUNGMAN
ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
CSL Season 22: Qualifier 2
RSL Revival: Season 6
Big Dog Cup 2026 Div 1
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
Esports World Cup 2026: LCQ
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026

Upcoming

CSL 2026 AUTUMN (S22)
Escore Tournament S3: King of Kings
Acropolis #5
Acropolis #5 - TRS
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Acropolis #5 - GSA
Acropolis #5 - GSB
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
Calamity Invitational
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
ESL Pro League Season 24
Stake Ranked Episode 4
1win Private Club #1
Logitech G Play Connect 2026
SL StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.