• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 06:25
CEST 12:25
KST 19:25
  • 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] Ro4 Preview: Mirror Mirror6[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: Within Reach5[ASL22] Ro8 Preview: In A Tizzy11[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Holy Diver5[ASL22] Ro16 Preview: Rough Waters10
Community News
Rollback Netcode in Brood War615.0.17 Patch Notes - October 7, 202621Weekly Cups Results (Sep 28-Oct 4)0SC4ALL: II SC2 Complete Invited Player Lineup10StarCraft II 5.0.17 PTR Patch Notes (Sept 30, 2026)78
StarCraft 2
General
5.0.17 Patch Notes - October 7, 2026 [Old] StarCraft 3 Reportedly in Development StarCraft II 5.0.17 PTR Patch Notes (Sept 30, 2026) How do you feel about the mass reverts in the 5.0.17 PTR? Weekly Cups Results (Sep 28-Oct 4)
Tourneys
RSL 2026 Offline Finals LCQ Sign-Ups $3,500 WardiTV Not-Summer Championship ScienceCraft (October 24-25) - Live Event Stellar Fest TWO the Moon (Dec 16-20) ISSL (IntoTheTV x SOOP SC2 League): Premier
Strategy
[H] ZvP Mid-Late Game: Stalkers Collossi HT
Custom Maps
[M] (2) Sweltering Sands [M] (2) Frigid Storage
External Content
Mutation # 546 Catch the Train The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 545 And Drops and Rifts Mutation # 544 Double Trouble
Brood War
General
BW General Discussion TL Sidebar missing streams ChatGPT cheats at StarSkirmish SCAI tournament Rollback Netcode in Brood War [ASL22] Ro4 Preview: Mirror Mirror
Tourneys
[ASL22] Semifinal B [ASL22] Semifinal A [Megathread] Daily Proleagues [ASL22] Ro8 Day 4
Strategy
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Cliff Jump Revisited (1 in a 1000 strategy) Replay Review Process - What do you do?
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread General RTS Discussion Thread Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Total Annihilation Zero
Dota 2
Dota 2 Champions League Season 3 Begins April 25!
League of Legends
[TL LoL EUW IHs] Teemo shall perish
Heroes of the Storm
Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
TL Mafia Community Thread
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine Russo-Ukrainian War Thread Artificial Intelligence Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
Serral Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
[Manga] One Piece Movie Discussion! Diablo Animated Series on Netflix
Sports
Football (Soccer) Thread TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023 MLB/Baseball 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
Recent Gifted Posts
Blogs
[ASL22] Ro4 Day1 Ticket Giv…
bITt.mAN
Escaping Into Video Games: G…
TrAiDoS
38 yo Retired SWE loo…
PurE)Rabbit-SF
Can Bots Beat Pros?? Starcr…
namkraft
[meme] I finally understa…
LUCKY_NOOB
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 8174 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
17082 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
17082 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
Calgary26004 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
Calgary26004 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
Sparkling Tuna Cup
19:00
Weekly #150 (SHIN Mod Edition)
CranKy Ducklings102
CranKy Ducklings SOOP39
SHIN 32
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
OGKoka 227
ByuN 186
SHIN 29
MindelVK 10
StarCraft: Brood War
Britney 25673
Calm 10108
Rain 3147
soO 820
BeSt 489
Stork 396
FanTaSy 374
Soma 357
Soulkey 336
Rush 282
[ Show more ]
firebathero 259
Bisu 243
Barracks 119
Last 69
Mind 65
Shinee 48
Killer 36
Pusan 35
Sexy 35
Light 28
ToSsGirL 23
Sharp 23
Terrorterran 22
HiyA 20
hero 18
Shine 18
sorry 17
Hm[arnc] 15
yabsab 15
Sacsri 14
zelot 13
Trap 12
Noble 11
scan(afreeca) 6
Dota 2
Gorgc5296
League of Legends
JimRising 372
Reynor9
Counter-Strike
byalli130
Super Smash Bros
Mew2King119
Other Games
gofns33560
singsing1656
Pyrionflax248
Organizations
Other Games
BasetradeTV195
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 8
[ Show 12 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• 3DClanTV 72
• Dystopia_ 1
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• Migwel
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• WagamamaTV308
League of Legends
• Jankos3059
Upcoming Events
Patches Events
4h 35m
BSL Open Qualifier
8h 35m
BSL Open Qualifier
8h 35m
OSC
12h 35m
OSC
1d 1h
WardiTV Weekly
2 days
PiGosaur Cup
2 days
The PondCast
3 days
Online Event
5 days
Korean StarCraft League
5 days
[ Show More ]
Afreeca Starleague
5 days
Rush vs Soulkey
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
BSL Open Qualifier
6 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Acropolis #5 - GSB
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
Copium Cup

Ongoing

ASL Season 22
Super Anchor Qualifying S3
Acropolis #5
HCC Season 3
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
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026

Upcoming

Acropolis #5 - GSC
BSL Season 23
SC4ALL II: Brood War
BSL 23: Non-Korean Championship
HSC XXX
Stellar Fest 2: Lunar Cup
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
RSL Offline Finals
eXTREMESLAND 2026
PGL Major Singapore 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 6
BLAST Rivals Fall 2026
IEM Beijing 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 5
PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
1win Private Club #2
Thunderpick World Champ. '26
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.