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I was just wondering about the placement of cannons near the mineral line, and how badly it affects mining? Reading the Forge FE wall-in thread, the cannon placement for Destination was slightly different than these, but I found my cannons were unable to protect my assimilator from early harass. Obviously placing cannons closer to the assimilator would be the solution, but I imagine this was not done because the cannons become more exposed, it delays workers(?), the payoff fades quickly, and if I use probes to block my entrances I can use my zealots (instead of cannons) to hit the lings (among other things?)
In any case, I wonder if these severely reduce my income in the long/short term? Also in general, when I see toss' make expansions, there's usually cannons between the nexus and the minerals, is there any general guideline or rule of thumb of when and where to do this?
Edit: Also reduces effectiveness against ling run-by's / all-in's
Picture 1/2 of FE cannon placement near Assimilator
Picture 2/2 of FE cannon placement near Assimilator
How would I go about putting a bunch of cannons near my Nexus?
(Is something like this even viable?)
Finally, I see some people placing pylons near the nexus, which is for (I assume) blocking a manner pylon. How does this affect mining?
(General picture, I *think* this is what it looks like)
Well this is my first thread, sorry if I did anything wrong, and thanks for any input
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This is something I'm sure a lot of protoss players have thought about.
The cannon placement does indeed affect pathing negatively in a lot of cases.
It all depends on the angle nexus-->minerals-->nexus. In some situations you can bunch up a load of cannons and the only thing they'll do is force probes into "melding", as in moving on top of each other - which is just what workers normally do. In fact, it sometimes enhances the pathing of the workers.
For a definitive answer, I can only see thorough testing as an option. Set up 15 workers, make sure your minerals are at a set value when you begin and mine for a set amount of time (preferably longer than 10 minutes). Do one test with no cannons, another with selective cannons and another with cannons in every buildable slot. Measure results and make a graph.
If anyone else here has studied this earlier and/or has some general rules for cannon placements inside mineral line, feel free to help me out!
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Even if there is a slight loss in mining rate due to cannons, its much less than the loss you would get from having out of place cannons allowing mutas\lurkers to hit your workers easily and the same goes for pylons blocking manner pylons. Also by the time you are adding cannons in your mineral line you are usually closing in on being fully saturated so you will not receive any less mining from the base. That last cannon picture is usually how I place cannons around my nexuses and it seems to work fine for me, so I would say its perfectly viable.
As for you Destination question its a good one, and I have tried myself placing one of my first cannons on the other side of the nexus (the one close to the gas) but especially for the top position I find that you get your cannons to far apart and lower your ability to defend vs runbys greatly. So I would say that its probably best to go for the classic wall in\cannon placement and just use your first zealots to defend the gas if he harasses it with lings or place a 3rd cannon.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9934 Posts
i think the difference wouldn't be very noticeable unless your placement is extraordinarily poor, since as oystein said you are already saturated. cannons in the mineral line are much easier to defend and obviously cover your workers better, and in most situations those easily outweigh a tiny (hypothetical) hiccup in your income. you may even improve your mining! from personal experience it's nothing to fret over, though of course i defer to any graphs and data people post on this.
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This is something i have been curious byt with turrets. To put the turrets behind your minerals or in your mineral lines. If i put it in my mineral lines its easier to repair your turrets but it might make your scvs pathing abit weird and its easier for mutas to pick off scvs. If i put turrets behind my mins its harder to repair your turrets so they get picked off easier.
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On June 07 2009 18:13 intrigue wrote:
i think the difference wouldn't be very noticeable unless your placement is extraordinarily poor,
Any examples of what would be considered extraordinarily poor? I ask because I am the type of player to do everything extraordinarily poorly :|
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On June 07 2009 18:36 pat965 wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2009 18:13 intrigue wrote:
i think the difference wouldn't be very noticeable unless your placement is extraordinarily poor, Any examples of what would be considered extraordinarily poor? I ask because I am the type of player to do everything extraordinarily poorly :|
hahaha im sorry but thats just too cute.
An example of a poor position is putting the cannon so it hugs the mineral(s) and not the nexus. that way it would act like a manner pylon. another example would be to put it right into the gas-mining path. Try to avoid putting cannons in the line between nexus and assimilator.
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manner cannons 
For example my first game ever on chupung ryung tvz i was at top right, I put turrets in my nat and the positioning was so bad that it prevented the last 3 minerals on the right from being mined. And since theres a wall behind the mins i couldnt even mine for behind. .
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The problem with putting your 2nd cannon like that isn't the mining time loss it's that it's not in good position to handle ling run-bys and allins.
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Since it's [Guide] week, why don't you try it out and post you results?
My guess would be that while there may some placements that affect mining more than you would like (from my experience some anti-manner pylons may screw your pathfinding..), generally the difference in mining efficiency would be very very small.
Personally, I also place one of my cannons behind the nexus in Desti most of the time to protect the gas from lings and the mineral line against mutas later..
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