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Tumor's creep spread rate

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wetfart
Profile Joined March 2010
Australia11 Posts
July 01 2010 02:38 GMT
#1
Hey guys
Quick question about the rate of spreading creep by tumors.

If you have 2 in the same area does that surrounding area spread 2x as fast?

does this apply to more creep tumors? say if i have 3 or 4
cheers
Ikiron
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States88 Posts
July 01 2010 02:44 GMT
#2
I do believe they spread faster with more nearby.
Why be the best when you can die like the rest.
Ryuu314
Profile Joined October 2009
United States12679 Posts
July 01 2010 02:45 GMT
#3
I'm pretty sure they don't spread faster, but you can cover more ground faster.
Toadily
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States837 Posts
July 01 2010 02:49 GMT
#4
Yea, the more there is, the faster it spreads.
Ichabod
Profile Joined May 2010
United States1659 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-01 02:50:41
July 01 2010 02:49 GMT
#5
they spread faster, not 100% sure at the rate, but I'd assume its double for two, triple for three, etc.

Edit: Same basic radius of creep is produced around each, a larger area isn't covered.
vT.sOel
Profile Joined June 2010
122 Posts
July 01 2010 02:52 GMT
#6
On July 01 2010 11:45 Ryuu314 wrote:
I'm pretty sure they don't spread faster, but you can cover more ground faster.


that makes no sense at all. LOL
AppleTart
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States1261 Posts
July 01 2010 02:56 GMT
#7
On July 01 2010 11:45 Ryuu314 wrote:
I'm pretty sure they don't spread faster, but you can cover more ground faster.


It actually does make sense...
always tired -_-
ZeaL.
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States5955 Posts
July 01 2010 02:58 GMT
#8
On July 01 2010 11:52 vT.sOel wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 01 2010 11:45 Ryuu314 wrote:
I'm pretty sure they don't spread faster, but you can cover more ground faster.


that makes no sense at all. LOL

What he means is that if you have two tumors right next to each other, creep doesn't spread faster but if you have two tumors spaced apart where they dont overlap with each other you will have more ground covered in creep.
DTown
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States428 Posts
July 01 2010 02:58 GMT
#9
Someone test this please. My comp fast enough to run SC2 is not feeling too well right now.
Silent331
Profile Joined June 2010
United States356 Posts
July 01 2010 03:02 GMT
#10
Yes it does cover the area 2x faster because of the way the creep tumors work, each tumor works on its own to cover the radius with creep regardless of if there a more near buy, i think it covers like 1square a second. So if creep tumor 1 spawns creep at position 1, than creep tumor 2 will simply take the next available spot when its spawn timer ticks.
They cant beat you, They only hope you beat yourself.
Sylvr
Profile Joined May 2010
United States524 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-01 03:11:16
July 01 2010 03:10 GMT
#11
I'm fairly certain that more tumors in proximity do cause creep to expand faster.

I believe the mechanic behind it is that a Creep Tumor will spread creep at X amount of inches per second outward from wherever the edge of the creep is. This means that if it encounters an area where there is already creep, it doesn't have to "spread" through that area; it just skips it and the new "edge" from which it spreads becomes the boundary of the actual creep.

Picture an archery target with the Creep Tumor as the bulls-eye. As you go out from the center, you have numbered "zones"

X|1|2|3|4|5| etc.

If you have 2 tumors occupying zone X, then Tumor A will creep out to spread through zone 1. Tumor B will then try to spread but realize that zone 1 is already occupied, and so it will move on to zone 2. I believe the Tumors will continue to leap-frog like this until they reach their range limit.

Edit: Silent90 was way faster with that explanation than I was, lol.
Ichabod
Profile Joined May 2010
United States1659 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-01 03:24:49
July 01 2010 03:15 GMT
#12
Creep tumors fill up the little green circle, more tumors next to each other doesn't make them move farther, just faster getting there.

There are some weird mechanics you can do with overlords across cliffs etc, but that's basically it.

Edit: Actually, this post might have been necessary, I might have misread the previous posters.
HeyitsClay
Profile Joined April 2008
Canada336 Posts
July 01 2010 03:23 GMT
#13
Yeah it spreads faster, but it doesnt really matter much anymore cuz the creep spread got sped up a bit (not in any patch notes, but i noticed this cuz i was always waiting on the creep to place my tumor and now i dont)
ultratorr
Profile Joined June 2010
Canada332 Posts
July 01 2010 03:23 GMT
#14
Wow cool I never knew this.

Does this mean it's always faster to spawn another tumor as soon as one is finished, instead of waiting for each tumor to cover the full area?
Silent331
Profile Joined June 2010
United States356 Posts
July 01 2010 03:27 GMT
#15
On July 01 2010 12:23 ultratorr wrote:
Wow cool I never knew this.

Does this mean it's always faster to spawn another tumor as soon as one is finished, instead of waiting for each tumor to cover the full area?

Im actually gonna head in to the tester and find out
They cant beat you, They only hope you beat yourself.
KiWiKaKi
Profile Joined February 2010
Canada691 Posts
July 01 2010 03:31 GMT
#16
creep needs a nerf , too imba
ur pro or ur noob , thats life
scojac
Profile Joined June 2010
United States99 Posts
July 01 2010 03:39 GMT
#17
more creep tumors = faster spread. i haven't gone and timed it or anything, but i can tell you for sure that having a bunch of tumors together gets that creep out faster.

there's a limit to how effective this is though (i.e. you can't spread creep infinitely fast by bunching tumors together), as the build time is still ~30 seconds (?) Even having 2 tumors within range of each other though, i have noticed a difference.
vizniz
Profile Joined May 2010
United States120 Posts
July 01 2010 03:42 GMT
#18
I did some testing to find out!

The test:

I found spaces where the green tumor circle wasn't hindered by anything. Then, i let an over lord generate seeder creep at the center. When it was maxed, I spawned a creep tumor in the middle, and timed how long it took for it to finish expanding. Timings aren't super precise, as it was hard to tell when it was done spreading creep, but even with the approximation, the results are overwhelmingly varied.

In one trial, I spawned 1 creep tumor from 1 queen. The other, I spawned 2 from 2 queens

The results:
The results are in game seconds.

1 Tumor

1:36

2 Tumors
1:00

So 2 is faster than 1 for sure. I didn't, however, test 3 and 4 creep tumors. It'd be funny if it spread lightning fast then.
SC2/LoL/Steam: vizniz LoL smurf: visnistehsmurf
Backpack
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States1776 Posts
July 01 2010 03:56 GMT
#19
In one of the day9 dailys he talked about how this works, i can't remember if it was TLO or the mass queen one. I'm leaning toward queens though because you need to spread it really fast for the timing attack anddddd you have plenty of queens
"You people need to just generally care a lot less about everything." -Zatic
SichuanPanda
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
Canada1542 Posts
July 01 2010 03:59 GMT
#20
If you're going a mass Queens build, or a Queen build in general you should have plenty of energy for tumors, just drop 5-6 of them and watch the creep spread like mad.
i-bonjwa
figq
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
12519 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-07-01 06:46:31
July 01 2010 04:04 GMT
#21
Creep generators (hatcheries, tumors, overlords, nydus worms) have some randomized algorithm of spreading the creep, and if there are 2 creep generators whose cover areas overlap, then the chances of a tile to get picked are doubled. But the major advantage is that a creep generator works on all the edge tiles of its currently covered front. This includes any preexisting creep in its AOE, so a second creep generator allows the first one to have some chance to cause covering of a distanced tile. (i have to test some of this some more, so it's a bit rough)

Basically, if you have 1, then:
1
11
...
111111 - (suppose it has 6 range)

If you have 1 and 2, and 2 is within range of 1, then:
1----2
1----21
this type of generating becomes instantly available, even before the gap is covered, so with the both forces combined, it spreads around and covers the gaps visibly faster than usual.

2 creep tumors next to each other spread 2 times faster (on average), and 4 tumors spread 4 times faster than 1 tumor - try it out! - you'll see. Getting a fully charged queen to spew 4-8 tumors next to each other, and then spread them in groups as they branch out - totally increases your creep spreading speed. (in addition: takes more time to kill later, by dedicated enemy creep destroying squad; as it makes the same territory 8x times slower to uncreep, if you choose to keep the 8 tumors together as they hop around) I think this property is a main reason to have these long cool downs for creep tumors; otherwise creep spreading with initial massive tumor group was going to cover the whole maps in under a minute.

Happy creepin' (:

P.S.
One more clarification is in order. Suppose in this textual rough example of ours that the range of tumors is 6 symbols, as above, then if they are not within range of each other the overlapping AOE won't get covered with double speed, UNTIL one of the creep fronts reaches it:

1----**----2

the ** won't get additional speed of covering immediately, because only the tiles on the edge of the existing creep front within the AOE are counted. Blah, hope you get what i mean.. so it will go:

11---**---22

with the usual speed / probability, until the creep reaches the overlap area - then suddenly the creep there will be spread 2 times faster. (i will try to test that now with modified larger AOE, for clearer results) EDIT: yep, confirmed. Here's a custom map to play around with (overlords have 30x30 creep footprint which spreads 10 times faster, for more efficient testing): http://www.multiupload.com/ZVYPBX7R2U
If you stand next to my head, you can hear the ocean. - Day[9]
BigDatez
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada434 Posts
July 01 2010 04:33 GMT
#22
if you have 10 creep tumors side by side, the area within all 10 of them will generate 10X faster, and all the surrounding areas will go by the speed as to how many tumors cover those areas as well.
Video games > sex (Proven fact)
P00RKID
Profile Joined December 2009
United States424 Posts
July 01 2010 05:15 GMT
#23
Creep tumors won't try to generate creep on the same sector, they each split the job up between them on the areas that overlap their area. So they get the area covered in creep faster, so yes more creep tumors next to each other will spread creep faster.
"Does your butt hurt? 'cause you fell from heaven once the cast was over?" Artosis
Sylvr
Profile Joined May 2010
United States524 Posts
July 01 2010 05:17 GMT
#24
There are diminishing returns though. If the tumors reach their max range before the timer to build the next tumor is up, then you have more than you need (unless you plan on branching off further down the road).
Fizbin
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada202 Posts
July 01 2010 05:17 GMT
#25
i find if u drop more then 3 for one direction it spreads to fast for the cooldown to be ready by the time its max area. optimal i think is 2 per direction, any more and its a waist.
just the tip
EliteAzn
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States661 Posts
July 01 2010 06:14 GMT
#26
If you drop more than 2 in one area, you aren't macro'ing your queens correctly.
(╯`Д´)╯︵ ┻━┻ High Five! _o /\ o_
Keitzer
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States2509 Posts
July 01 2010 06:31 GMT
#27
Think of it like this....

if one creep tumor takes (kinda using example above) 1:30 to fully creepify all 20 (random number) squares around it... where the rate is 2 squares per second (again, random number)

if TWO creep tumors are placed almost on top of each other, that's 4 squares per second

if THREE, 6 squares per second... ie; more guns = more RPM
I'm like badass squared | KeitZer.489
Looky
Profile Joined April 2010
United States1608 Posts
July 01 2010 06:42 GMT
#28
On July 01 2010 15:14 EliteAzn wrote:
If you drop more than 2 in one area, you aren't macro'ing your queens correctly.


are you trolling right now? If you watch some good zerg players they drop sometimes 3 at and area to spread it fast.
Noak3
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
United States236 Posts
July 01 2010 06:49 GMT
#29
Just tested it, creep does spread at a linear rate depending on how many tumors you have.
Love and be kind in the face of adversity. If you stand up for others, they will stand up for you.
Bosu
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
United States3247 Posts
July 01 2010 06:50 GMT
#30
On July 01 2010 15:14 EliteAzn wrote:
If you drop more than 2 in one area, you aren't macro'ing your queens correctly.


Everyone, even good players, get behind on queen energy. And many players get extra queens.
#1 Kwanro Fan
SiNiquity
Profile Joined April 2010
United States734 Posts
July 01 2010 08:22 GMT
#31
On July 01 2010 15:14 EliteAzn wrote:
If you drop more than 2 in one area, you aren't macro'ing your queens correctly.

Feel free to languish in your knowledge then.
'i' before 'e' except after 'c' ~ it's scientifically proven.
P00RKID
Profile Joined December 2009
United States424 Posts
July 01 2010 20:12 GMT
#32
On July 01 2010 15:42 Looky wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 01 2010 15:14 EliteAzn wrote:
If you drop more than 2 in one area, you aren't macro'ing your queens correctly.


are you trolling right now? If you watch some good zerg players they drop sometimes 3 at and area to spread it fast.


Plus the more tumors there are, the (slightly) more time it takes for them to all be killed off, giving your creep highway more durability.
"Does your butt hurt? 'cause you fell from heaven once the cast was over?" Artosis
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25980 Posts
July 01 2010 20:18 GMT
#33
Perfect example of a waste of a thread. If you have a simple question you need answered, try searching, using IRC, PMing, posting in an existing thread, testing it yourself.
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