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As i read in another thread that some people still don't know when and why to use 4 probes instead of 3 on the gas, i decided to post these links to end it:
The Gas Issue #1
The Gas Issue #2
That's for those who want to know how exactly it works and how much you get behind in ZvZ when not sacrificing a mineraldrone to the perfect gas speed. Among mappers, that whole thing is well-known since it came up on broodwarmaps.net. however, even many promaps dont take this into consideration for the mainbases (where it is most striking). on further expansions, positional balance requires "bad" gas placement unfortunately - so for those, it is good to know the full extent and the mechanics, as written in these articles.
for those who dont care, long story short in a rough approach: geyser on the left or above the cc/nex/hatch = 3 workers, geyser to the right or bottom of it = 4 worker.
i won't write corner-placements, as they can be looked up in the articles.
greetz
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wow, i had no idea it was that much of a difference
thanks for the insight
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Oh...interesting. I had no idea about this either
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did you8 really have no idea? You cant tell when you play? Its amazingly obvious when you build a 2nd depot before your factory in tvp because you dont have enough gas yet.
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wow. this is gonna help a lot. but.. doesnt this mean one player has an advantage when they start the game? thats unfair >D
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is this why a lot of the iccup maps had their main's gas moved?
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On July 12 2007 07:20 Loveless wrote:
wow. this is gonna help a lot. but.. doesnt this mean one player has an advantage when they start the game? thats unfair >D
yes, this is why mappers try to keep it fair.... although for some reason this issue (and mineral placement) still pops up often in pro-maps X_X
edit: really amusing that despite top or left being the best, top-left is significantly worse than both of them (equal to bottom) and bottom-right better than top-left
top right/bottom left are the absolute worst =O
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what maps would be fair for all players? i used to play fastest but im gettin into normal games now and i wanna see which are the best >_<
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On July 12 2007 07:23 Hawk wrote:
is this why a lot of the iccup maps had their main's gas moved?
Yeah, I just played the ICCUP Paranoid Android 2.0 for the first time and the gas is on top isntead of to the left so thats not a big deal. But I can remember a lot of people, especially Testie, complaining that mining speed was imba in favor of 12 o clock so the 9 o clock mins got shifted 90 degrees over in an attempt so fix the imbalance I assume. Funny how the WCG version isn't fixed...
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On July 12 2007 08:41 Jonoman92 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 12 2007 07:23 Hawk wrote:
is this why a lot of the iccup maps had their main's gas moved? Yeah, I just played the ICCUP Paranoid Android 2.0 for the first time and the gas is on top isntead of to the left so thats not a big deal. But I can remember a lot of people, especially Testie, complaining that mining speed was imba in favor of 12 o clock so the 9 o clock mins got shifted 90 degrees over in an attempt so fix the imbalance I assume. Funny how the WCG version isn't fixed...
wcg also used the old peaks >_<.
I still hate the new one, but at least its slightly be3tter
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Just use four. It's easier than trying to remember the little details. Besides, if the geyser is up/down/left/right by one square, then things can change anyhow. 
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
On July 12 2007 07:48 Loveless wrote:
what maps would be fair for all players? i used to play fastest but im gettin into normal games now and i wanna see which are the best >_<
i'd imagine tau cross to be pretty good. minerals are to the sides (2 right, 1 left) and gasses are either left or top.
MUCH better than luna, for instance
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WCG this year is... going to blow
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Its really amazing to me how many people don't just pick this stuff up while playing games.
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United States24801 Posts
On July 12 2007 07:24 Locked wrote:
edit: really amusing that despite top or left being the best, top-left is significantly worse than both of them (equal to bottom) and bottom-right better than top-left
top right/bottom left are the absolute worst =O
I don't think that really matters. It's totally arbitrary due to unpredictable pathing issues. I suppose it is ironic though.
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On July 12 2007 15:21 oshibori_probe wrote:
WCG this year is... going to blow
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Will this include maps like luna?
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What maps take this into consideration and what maps dont?
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i never heard of this before and now i can acctually feel the difference, so important!
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Generally the majority of the recent pro maps will take into account (or accidentally prevented) the gas issue (Reverse Temple, Longinus II, Tau Cross, Fantasy, Hitchhiker, Rush Hour III, Python, Monty Hall, Geometry, Chariots of Fire, etc.), at least for the main bases (which is the main place where it matters). A few do not (Sin Peaks of Baekdu foremost among them, but the difference in mining efficiency between right and left is much less pronounced than difference between up and down).
The majority of earlier (preceding late 2005 or so) pro maps don't have the gas issue in mind, but some have it right (e.g. LT, Ride of Valkyries [the gases are on the bottom, but for both main bases], Neo Requiem, and strangely enough, Alchemist).
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
so if e.g in luna bottom ..right the gas is below and i build a spawning pool with the right edge matching the right edge of the vespene geyser does that help to align the drones?
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it wasnt ICCUP who created PA 2.0
it was a german mapmaker after Mondragon and I complained about Paranoid Android being unfair cause of the mining speed (you see it in ZvZ - overlord comes 20%-50% earlier at 12).
plus the gas issue etc...
so a german mapmaker rebuild PA (3 o clock) and Mondragon and I tested it (specially in TvT - if tanks can shoot to the other side).
It's really balanced now.
The funny part is - or why I write it...
Like 1 week after this map and the announcement that this map will be used at WCG Germany was released, the german WCG Admin got response from ... THE MAPMAKER OF PARANOID ANDROID HIMSELF!
And... what he wrote... that this map is IMBALANCED AND UNFAIR (rofl... look at his crappy version) - because of (guess what) AIR ATTACKS
lol...
nothing more to say.
just wanted to share this story cause I thought "must be a funny guy with little brain".
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Sometimes its hard to balance the gas without imbalancing the "distance" or defendability around the area of the geyser itself. I always have this problem when making a map, it usually ends in the defeat of my map.
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United States10774 Posts
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On July 13 2007 06:02 alffla wrote:
so if e.g in luna bottom ..right the gas is below and i build a spawning pool with the right edge matching the right edge of the vespene geyser does that help to align the drones?
No, the issue is that workers actually decelerate when approaching a geyser on the bottom and they don't do it when they geyser is on the top. In fact, placing a building in order to "align" your gas workers messes it up more ofen than not.
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How come the people at Mapdori haven't figured this out already? I would've thought that they would be one the of the first, being as they make professional maps :O
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I have a little more insight on the gas issue in pro maps. I heard this from NastyMarine, who heard it from korean mapper Mapghost, aka m#. Basicly, all korean mappers know about the gas issue. If they have the gas issue, they don't care about it, or it's for better placement (sometimes placement > gas issue balance, but usually if that's the case then the mineral formation position needs redone in order to balance gas issue). The older maps have actually been copyrighted in a sense. Now this is illegal and breaks the staredit agreement, that no person can own anything they make in staredit, but somehow the koreans bypass this, or blizzard, knowing korea gives them their largest profit from sc, let's them do it anyway.
With the gas issue, directly left and center above are the fastest. 3 should under normal conditions (ie no retardedly placed buildings) mine optimally. I believe top mines slightly faster than left. A geyser directly right of the building is 3rd fastest, and it's not that far off of the other two, but adding a fourth worker helps. After that, every other one is horribly slower with only 3.
"Blue means best mining speed, red is worst.
The positions are numbered like this: The position where the geysir is diagonally to the top left is labeled as position 1. Position 2 is one tile to the right. Position 8 is directly above the main building; position 33 directly below.
To include a position into the blue coloured ones, I accepted a difference of at most 5% in mining speed; those 4 position where all 3 races have that speed are to be preferred.
Of course these are just rough values, though the test run over 15 minutes (approximately 10:05 real minutes) evened out a lot. Reasons for differences in a real game can be: buildings (I didn't use any comsats or whatever), terrain, some random stuff like from where your units came to the geysir. The biggest effect would certainly come from buildings and terrain, though" - spinesheath
These images were made by spinesheath, a bwm, staredit.net, and now I think maplantis.org mapper. The testing is his work, he's amazing 
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luna's pretty bad with the gas issue, basicly none of the positions mine very well =/
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On July 14 2007 21:02 Nightmarjoo wrote:
luna's pretty bad with the gas issue, basicly none of the positions mine very well =/
Haha, you kinda contradict yourself. If none of them mine well then it's balanced as long as they are equally slow.
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On July 14 2007 21:02 Nightmarjoo wrote:
luna's pretty bad with the gas issue, basicly none of the positions mine very well =/
The one at 7 position is pretty good, although not perfect. Sure beats the other 3 positions.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
you didn't notice this? :o
don't forget to use pylons to help curve your workers in a more efficient manner
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United States24801 Posts
On July 14 2007 22:28 Jonoman92 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2007 21:02 Nightmarjoo wrote:
luna's pretty bad with the gas issue, basicly none of the positions mine very well =/ Haha, you kinda contradict yourself. If none of them mine well then it's balanced as long as they are equally slow.
That's definitely true for mirror match ups. I think it's interesting that that may not be true for non-mirror match ups. If gas comes in slower (and requires more potential minerals be lost to the fourth worker's gas routine) that could make some strategies more/less effective in pvt, pvz, or tvz (in favor of one race). Of course I'm going on the assumption that 3 worker, optimal mining speed, is actually balanced which we know it at least mostly is on most maps. This is all highly theoretical and negligible either way haha.
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On July 14 2007 22:28 Jonoman92 wrote:Show nested quote +On July 14 2007 21:02 Nightmarjoo wrote:
luna's pretty bad with the gas issue, basicly none of the positions mine very well =/ Haha, you kinda contradict yourself. If none of them mine well then it's balanced as long as they are equally slow.
What you said makes me think you didn't read the articles :O
They're not equally bad, that's why it's the gas issue
Now 4 will optimally mine them, but for the thousands of gamers who aren't aware of the gas issue, or don't care about it, or who can't afford a 4th miner, or forgot to place a 4th, they are messed up by the 3 miner thing, but not equally so as another player.
I think NW main in luna mines the fastest, SW next, and the other two are just pretty bad.
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Placing geysers to purposely need 4 miners hurts zerg a little, since that one fewer drone mining minerals is a big deal since zerg can't pump drones like terran can scvs or protoss probes, since their larva are busy being made something else. I think that was part of chameleon's balance, the nat had that weirdly placed geyser if I remember correctly so you needed like 5 workers to mine it, which makes a big deal for zerg.
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Also note that the three races mine gas differently based on position. I believe in general protoss mines slowest for some reason. I don't know statistics on minerals mining.
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6 o clock gas works fine, just use depot pylon spawn pool etc there is never a need for 4 workers@gas. unless its on some odd map where the gas is extended.
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lol says you. Most of the time adding a building actually slows the gas mining. It either does nothing or hurts you, never helps lol.
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Doesn't it help at 1 and 5 on Luna if you put a depot or pool lined up on the right side of the gas? Or does it just make the workers take a less wide path?
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I believe the building doesn't do anything but make your workers travel in a more straight line. It also helps a little bit for stacking workers so they don't wrap around the geyser they all go to the corner. It seems to sometime make a worker pop out on the side of the geyser but it doesn't seem to slow the collection rate down.
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Hong Kong20321 Posts
now im getting sorta confused
can someone confirm if whether making buildings to adjust worker mine pathing actually imrpoves the speed, doesnt do anythign, or actually fucks it up even more?
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From my understanding, placing a building, as you can clearly see (if placed correctly, lol) forces workers to take a more straight path, but it is not in the center of the gas building and the cc or w/e, and they move slower. Now, you can make it incredibly slower by placing the building on the wrong side, forcing them to take a longer path. If you don't make them take a longer path, you don't make them take a shorter path. So there's no reason to think that they are mining faster. Also, if you note, there is still the delay where the miner in the gas will be on his way to the cc, and the next one in line will be busy decelerating before the gas rather than run into it, obviously creating delay.
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on luna i noticed, as terran the SW position is best 3 scvs are able to do the job and good mineral placement, NW gas works well with 3 too but the minerals are a bit slower even if you do optimize the left patches with depot, well and the eastern positions you need 4 scvs but minerals are fine
dont know about the other races just for p NW is worst you absolutely need 4 probes in the gas and have to deal with the sucky minerals
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Calgary26003 Posts
Yes, placing a building absolutely speeds up gas mining at certain positions and maps.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/MpreSSKahna/Gas_Issue.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a341/MpreSSKahna/Positions.jpg)
