• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 22:38
CEST 04:38
KST 11:38
  • 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
Serral wins EWC 202543Tournament Spotlight: FEL Cracow 202510Power Rank - Esports World Cup 202580RSL Season 1 - Final Week9[ASL19] Finals Recap: Standing Tall15
Community News
Weekly Cups (Jul 28-Aug 3): herO doubles up6LiuLi Cup - August 2025 Tournaments3[BSL 2025] H2 - Team Wars, Weeklies & SB Ladder10EWC 2025 - Replay Pack4Google Play ASL (Season 20) Announced62
StarCraft 2
General
Official Ladder Map Pool Update (April 28, 2025) The GOAT ranking of GOAT rankings Weekly Cups (Jul 28-Aug 3): herO doubles up Clem Interview: "PvT is a bit insane right now" Serral wins EWC 2025
Tourneys
StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly) Global Tourney for College Students in September Sparkling Tuna Cup - Weekly Open Tournament WardiTV Mondays $5,000 WardiTV Summer Championship 2025
Strategy
Custom Maps
External Content
Mutation # 485 Death from Below Mutation # 484 Magnetic Pull Mutation #239 Bad Weather Mutation # 483 Kill Bot Wars
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion StarCon Philadelphia Where is technical support? BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ Google Play ASL (Season 20) Announced
Tourneys
[CSLPRO] It's CSLAN Season! - Last Chance [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL20] Online Qualifiers Day 2 Cosmonarchy Pro Showmatches
Strategy
[G] Mineral Boosting Simple Questions, Simple Answers Muta micro map competition Does 1 second matter in StarCraft?
Other Games
General Games
Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Nintendo Switch Thread Total Annihilation Server - TAForever Beyond All Reason [MMORPG] Tree of Savior (Successor of Ragnarok)
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Bitcoin discussion thread
Fan Clubs
INnoVation Fan Club SKT1 Classic Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Movie Discussion! [Manga] One Piece Anime Discussion Thread [\m/] Heavy Metal Thread Korean Music Discussion
Sports
2024 - 2025 Football Thread Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Gtx660 graphics card replacement Installation of Windows 10 suck at "just a moment" Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
TeamLiquid Team Shirt On Sale The Automated Ban List
Blogs
[Girl blog} My fema…
artosisisthebest
Sharpening the Filtration…
frozenclaw
ASL S20 English Commentary…
namkraft
The Link Between Fitness and…
TrAiDoS
momentary artworks from des…
tankgirl
from making sc maps to makin…
Husyelt
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 504 users

[q] Cost of worker loss compared to... - Page 2

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
Prev 1 2 3 Next All
Pyro]v[aniac
Profile Joined October 2008
United States147 Posts
November 02 2008 20:07 GMT
#21
On November 03 2008 04:44 DeepGreen wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 03 2008 04:20 waterGHOSTCLAWdragon wrote:


As freelander pointed out, you actually don't care how much every probe costs, but you care about the difference in mining time; Aka how much is your opponent getting ahead with each probe he kills. If you kill the same amount of probes that he kills, your life is much better.



Yeah, I'm curious to see just how close 1 probe kill early on comes to being worth the cost of a zealot.

you would have to calculate the cost of a probe in terms of "peon time" or the amount of time each probe mines average in the time it takes to build a worker. every time a worker pops youve lost that many minerals untill satuturation, at which point the average amount of minerals mined per worker goes down about 20% each worker you make. obviosly if you lose 20 probes to a storm your way the hell behind, but early game when every unit counts it is harder to decide when your behind.

try this:


loss = rN + 0.5gN(N+1)
= N(r+0.5g) + 0.5gN2

Where:

N = number of workers killed
r = cost of replacing each worker
g = minerals a worker can gather in the time it takes to build a worker
freelander
Profile Blog Joined December 2004
Hungary4707 Posts
November 02 2008 20:11 GMT
#22
On November 03 2008 04:17 hiroxx wrote:
honestly - who cares?


honestly, why the fuck are you posting here.
honestly, there are the ten commandments of tl.net what you should read once before you start posting.
honestly, there are at least 10 people in this topic who posted actual thoughts, opposed to you.
And all is illuminated.
gm.tOSS
Profile Joined September 2005
Germany898 Posts
November 02 2008 20:26 GMT
#23
This question can only be answered (more or less correct) in specific situations, but not in general.
HuK HuK HuK | ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ | There is death in the hane.
Empyrean
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
16987 Posts
November 02 2008 21:02 GMT
#24
On November 03 2008 05:26 gm.tOSS wrote:
This question can only be answered (more or less correct) in specific situations, but not in general.


This question can be solved in general solutions.

All you need is the marginal utility in terms of minerals/minute of having an extra probe at various points (e.g., how much more useful is the fifth probe when you have four, how much more useful is the ninth probe when you have eight, etc., in terms of minerals/minute). You could set up a function for both sides that tells you how many minerals/minute you're losing, then take the difference of the functions and integrate them. It's an easy concept, but very difficult to apply in practice if you take into account, for example, having eight probes target the zealot, etc. The models start getting very complex, and honestly, at this point it's probably easier to just use intuition.
Moderator
mjh
Profile Joined November 2007
United States133 Posts
November 02 2008 21:03 GMT
#25
in terms of early game i think it's pretty significant. when you have about 15 probes, at each minute, an extra probe gives you about 50ish min. the difference becomes cumulative, because early game you'll always have 1 less probe than your opponent.

say X is the number of probes you have, min(X) is the rate of minerals, T is the time it takes to make a probe, and X >= 15 (you lose your 15th probe). the overall loss is then T*min(15) + T*min(16) + T*min(17) + ... = T*(min(15)+min(16)+...) = loss. min(X) is a decreasing function, but this quantity is going to be more than 100, which is the amount your opponent needs to spend to make up for a lost zealot.

yeah there's other factors (some minor and probably negligible), like your opponent having 1 less zel, you have 1 more supply, etc but in terms of minerals sacrificing a zealot for a probe is probably worth it.
Raithed
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
China7078 Posts
November 02 2008 21:26 GMT
#26
1zealot for 1probe early game is worth it for the probe.
1zealot for 2probes, well, you know, its common sense, the loss of the probe is at a disadvantage.
2zealot for 2 probes you are still ahead as you(same BO for instance) have two more zealots vs his.
2zealot for 3 probes, you are evened out.
3 zealot for 3 probes, still even.
3 zealot for 4 probes, well, start microing. after you lose 5+ probes to any # of zealots, imo, youre losing the eco-game slowly and slowly and with that, when he is able to reproduce troop count much faster than you, you must have to play catch-up in terms of probes AND army size.
Elvin_vn
Profile Blog Joined March 2004
Vietnam2038 Posts
November 02 2008 22:11 GMT
#27
uhm you don't need to calculate anything

Make a game, mine for 5 mins, record the minerals. Say it's (X) mineral.

Make another game where you spawn at the same location, mine for 5 mins but take out a probe at around 12 food, record the minerals at 5-mins mark, say it's (Y)

X - Y = cost of a loss probe
do not agrue with idiots, they will pull you down to their level and beat you with their experiences
Ceril
Profile Joined April 2003
Sweden1343 Posts
November 02 2008 22:17 GMT
#28
I seriously see where I should be posting all my calculus questions O_O TL.NET ftw.

But on average and just one and having 15 one base? The time your put behind due to his succesfull harass killing one probe is not many seconds. If you get his harrassunit, then your ontop again granted you got the micromakro for the early game down tight. The other option here is to try strengthning your position by advancing your line.
Just because you can now store where everyone was and is, what they like, what they fear who they talk to and who they love. It does not mean we should so spy upon our fellow man in a dystopia far worse then 1984
mjh
Profile Joined November 2007
United States133 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-11-02 22:59:12
November 02 2008 22:58 GMT
#29
On November 03 2008 07:11 Elvin_vn wrote:
uhm you don't need to calculate anything

Make a game, mine for 5 mins, record the minerals. Say it's (X) mineral.

Make another game where you spawn at the same location, mine for 5 mins but take out a probe at around 12 food, record the minerals at 5-mins mark, say it's (Y)

X - Y = cost of a loss probe


yes you do

after the five minute mark your opponent will still have 1 more probe than you. if all you and your opponent do is build probes, he'll always have 1 more than you. the difference later on becomes negligible because of saturation, but it makes the cost more than just "X-Y"
GHOSTCLAW
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States17042 Posts
November 02 2008 23:11 GMT
#30
On November 03 2008 07:58 mjh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 03 2008 07:11 Elvin_vn wrote:
uhm you don't need to calculate anything

Make a game, mine for 5 mins, record the minerals. Say it's (X) mineral.

Make another game where you spawn at the same location, mine for 5 mins but take out a probe at around 12 food, record the minerals at 5-mins mark, say it's (Y)

X - Y = cost of a loss probe


yes you do

after the five minute mark your opponent will still have 1 more probe than you. if all you and your opponent do is build probes, he'll always have 1 more than you. the difference later on becomes negligible because of saturation, but it makes the cost more than just "X-Y"


At least this way, you could see what the difference would be/how close it is. Real numbers always help more than made up numbers.

The real problem is that you need to determine when (what time) you end up killing off 1 probe/2 probes/etc, and how much it matters

I think that you would end up with a 2 dimensional graph- one axis for the total number of minerals after 5 minutes, one axis for number of minutes that went by before probe got killed. You would need a different graph setup depending on how many zeals got killed, as well as how many probes you lost.
PhotographerLiquipedia. Drop me a pm if you've got questions/need help.
ShmotZ
Profile Blog Joined December 2007
United States581 Posts
November 02 2008 23:14 GMT
#31
if its one probe at the cost of killing 1 zealot, i think you came out on tops.

but if thats not the case i dont think 1 probe will destroy you no matter how early, unless you 4 probe rush like nal_ra ;D
Ah, computer dating. It's like pimping, but you rarely have to use the phrase "upside your head." - Bender
Elvin_vn
Profile Blog Joined March 2004
Vietnam2038 Posts
November 02 2008 23:26 GMT
#32
On November 03 2008 07:58 mjh wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 03 2008 07:11 Elvin_vn wrote:
uhm you don't need to calculate anything

Make a game, mine for 5 mins, record the minerals. Say it's (X) mineral.

Make another game where you spawn at the same location, mine for 5 mins but take out a probe at around 12 food, record the minerals at 5-mins mark, say it's (Y)

X - Y = cost of a loss probe


yes you do

after the five minute mark your opponent will still have 1 more probe than you. if all you and your opponent do is build probes, he'll always have 1 more than you. the difference later on becomes negligible because of saturation, but it makes the cost more than just "X-Y"


after 5 minutes mark, the difference of 1 probe doesn't matter
do not agrue with idiots, they will pull you down to their level and beat you with their experiences
VorcePA
Profile Blog Joined August 2008
United States1102 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-11-03 05:06:34
November 03 2008 05:04 GMT
#33
Allow me to throw in another variable:

Larva. Each one used to produce a drone/overlord is not being used to produce a fighting unit, delaying the time it takes to build an army.

I realize we've mostly been talking about PvP, but that adds a whole new element to the equation. Of course, all that means is that drones are an even more significant target compared to the other two races. How much more? That's where all this math comes in to play.
Shitposting
Leath
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
Canada1724 Posts
Last Edited: 2008-11-03 05:11:05
November 03 2008 05:10 GMT
#34
In the same reasoning, if you lost a zealot in battle, what is the cost of this zealot given the amount of potential damage it could cause?
Surely, it costs 100, but maybe it would kill 4 probes, or 2 dragoons in 2 lucky hits... maybe it will force the opponent to get a bunker or a sunken colony...
im drunk nvm me
http://www.kongregate.com/?referrer=Sagess
Empyrean
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
16987 Posts
November 03 2008 05:21 GMT
#35
On November 03 2008 07:17 Ceril wrote:
I seriously see where I should be posting all my calculus questions O_O TL.NET ftw.


No Raithed please.
Moderator
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25980 Posts
November 03 2008 05:35 GMT
#36
Zileas solved this equation a LONG time ago.

90n + 25n*(n+1)

as taken from http://www.zileas.com/strategies/wc3/realcost.phtml
Moderator
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25980 Posts
November 03 2008 05:35 GMT
#37
PS hi Zileas I love you why didn't you introduce yourself at the TL dinner wtf is this?
Moderator
Archaic
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
United States4024 Posts
November 03 2008 14:07 GMT
#38
When I take calculus, I now know what I can be doodling on my worksheets. Calculate SC figures!!
HooHa!
Profile Blog Joined February 2006
United States688 Posts
November 03 2008 14:07 GMT
#39
On November 03 2008 05:11 freelander wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 03 2008 04:17 hiroxx wrote:
honestly - who cares?


honestly, why the fuck are you posting here.
honestly, there are the ten commandments of tl.net what you should read once before you start posting.
honestly, there are at least 10 people in this topic who posted actual thoughts, opposed to you.

stop saying honestly.




I wouldn't know the exact equation, but in mirror matchups, these worker kills mean everything.

I generally just focus on the workers more than anything. I guess thats a big "duh" though, but recognizing the economic impact a little more closely makes it much more worthwhile. Like, I just killed 10 probes. Thats 500 minerals. Thats an expo and a pylon. Whatever they were doing is going to be slowed down. Maybe not tech wise, but their actions will deteriorate due to your superior economy.
Hoo Ra!
lololol
Profile Joined February 2006
5198 Posts
November 03 2008 14:24 GMT
#40
On November 03 2008 14:35 Chill wrote:
Zileas solved this equation a LONG time ago.

90n + 25n*(n+1)

as taken from http://www.zileas.com/strategies/wc3/realcost.phtml


This is for wc3, it would have quite different numbers in bw, because income progression isn't linear and costs are different, e.t.c.
I'll call Nada.
Prev 1 2 3 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
DaveTesta Events
00:00
Kirktown Co-op 1v1 Bash
davetesta59
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
PiGStarcraft568
Nina 169
RuFF_SC2 126
SpeCial 114
Livibee 76
StarCraft: Brood War
Larva 207
ggaemo 102
NaDa 72
HiyA 32
Bale 12
Icarus 3
Stormgate
WinterStarcraft740
Dota 2
monkeys_forever954
LuMiX1
Counter-Strike
Stewie2K641
taco 461
Coldzera 287
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox719
Mew2King31
Other Games
summit1g13466
shahzam851
JimRising 407
ViBE203
C9.Mang0196
Maynarde104
kaitlyn34
ZombieGrub13
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick1539
BasetradeTV31
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 31
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
League of Legends
• Doublelift6236
• Stunt212
Other Games
• Scarra842
Upcoming Events
The PondCast
7h 23m
WardiTV Summer Champion…
8h 23m
Replay Cast
21h 23m
LiuLi Cup
1d 8h
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
1d 12h
RSL Revival
1d 23h
RSL Revival
2 days
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
2 days
CSO Cup
2 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
3 days
[ Show More ]
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
3 days
Wardi Open
4 days
RotterdaM Event
4 days
RSL Revival
5 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

ASL Season 20: Qualifier #2
FEL Cracow 2025
CC Div. A S7

Ongoing

Copa Latinoamericana 4
Jiahua Invitational
BSL 20 Team Wars
KCM Race Survival 2025 Season 3
BSL 21 Qualifiers
HCC Europe
BLAST Bounty Fall Qual
IEM Cologne 2025
FISSURE Playground #1
BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 7
IEM Dallas 2025

Upcoming

ASL Season 20
CSLPRO Chat StarLAN 3
BSL Season 21
BSL 21 Team A
RSL Revival: Season 2
Maestros of the Game
SEL Season 2 Championship
WardiTV Summer 2025
uThermal 2v2 Main Event
Thunderpick World Champ.
MESA Nomadic Masters Fall
CS Asia Championships 2025
Roobet Cup 2025
ESL Pro League S22
StarSeries Fall 2025
FISSURE Playground #2
BLAST Open Fall 2025
BLAST Open Fall Qual
Esports World Cup 2025
BLAST Bounty Fall 2025
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 © 2025 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.