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On October 28 2010 23:54 Bitters wrote:
Obviously lots of the top zerg players utilize hatchery first builds. However, is there any real advantage to this or is it just a preference or old broodwar mentality?
Watching Destiny's stream last night (and confirming the results in my own games) we saw that doing a pool before hatchery build maintains the same economy (if not slightly better) than putting down a 14 or 15 hatchery first. The pool first can hang (or surpass) the economy of the hatchery first build up to 30 supply, and even further up to 50 supply.
With constant larvae injections and only creating mineral drones (ignoring other tech buildings or gas extraction), both builds get to the 50 supply mark just after 6 minutes.
So without having an economic advantage in going hatch first, why are top zergs doing this and giving up the safety net of the early pool (which would make dealing with early cheese/harass easier)?
With hatch-first, it's great to place 2 simultaneous creep tumors with both of your queens' first 25 energy since you don't really need to spawn larvae because of the 2-hatch larvae production. With a pool-first you only get one tumor early on. I'd say that's the thing that makes hatch-first the most comfortable to me.
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On October 29 2010 01:50 Turkis wrote:
Another very large benefit is the option/freedom to drop your first 25 energy of your queen on a creep tumor. Because at the your first larva injection would pop you wouldn't be able to spend all your resources on a hatch first build, the first larva injection can go to a creep tumor further spreading your early defense as well as getting you a jump on later creep spread.
I think it ultimately comes down to a fully built hatch being much easier to defend due to creep spread and vision.
Exactly. In ZvT I always FE and when my queens pop I throw down a tumor at my nat and my main to connect the two. Then I can easily transfer queens back and forth and spine crawlers have a lot more room to work.
It's just safer.
I am pretty scared of FEing vs Toss though, I usually 15g-15p and then around 20-22 throw down my nat.
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On October 29 2010 01:50 Turkis wrote:
Another very large benefit is the option/freedom to drop your first 25 energy of your queen on a creep tumor. Because at the your first larva injection would pop you wouldn't be able to spend all your resources on a hatch first build, the first larva injection can go to a creep tumor further spreading your early defense as well as getting you a jump on later creep spread.
I think it ultimately comes down to a fully built hatch being much easier to defend due to creep spread and vision.
this is exactly why i do it. use my queen for a creep tumor because i don't need to inject.
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I hatch first for the two food 
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The original post compares hatch first at the 6 minute mark getting to 50 supply. However, that's not the only point of measurement.
The biggest benefit I see is the earlier creep. Being able to get a spine down and built by the time early pressure arrives is huge. Otherwise it is quite difficult to react to pressure that is trying to contain you.
Furthermore, I find creep spread works better with 2 hatches. With pool first, all the first queen's energy goes into larva. However, with 2 hatches, you have enough larva to spend all of your money just from the hatches, freeing up energy to get an early creep tumor down. This makes a huge difference creep coverage at the 6 minute mark. Creep makes such a huge difference that I don't see why you would go pool first - it doesn't really buy you any benefit.
(EDIT - I see a couple of posts above already mentioned this - oops).
Also, in my experience, the timing works very well. Especially with the new patch changes, I have found it's very difficult to punish the early hatch on anything except the shortest maps. The only cases where I go pool first is vs Zerg (so many 6 pools or whatever) and/or if I scout some kind of all-in (cannon rush or some such).
Anyways - I think there are benefits to hatch first - mostly in terms of creep spread (allows you to get tumors started faster, and earlier spine crawlers) - and the benefits from earlier pool are just not really there to justify the pool first order.
Good luck...
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tumors first is a good point on beginning creep spread (while having the second hatch still give some supplemental larvae)
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Just curious about some of the details of your test such as which map you tested it on, lair timing* and whether or not you transfered drones.
*With hatch first and 2x queens you can lair once the queens finish. Depending on how you do pool->hatch the timings may be different, if you queue the 2nd queen from the main that delays your lair doesn't it?
Also with hatch first you lower the window where a player can block your hatchery. In addition you also have a backup plan. If you say 14 hatch and there's a probe there you can do 15 pool/14 hatch while you get rid of the probe with only a minor economic loss. If you go 15 pool then notice a blocking probe (that may not have been there earlier) you can compensate your build to handle it better really.
It's nice too because 14 hatch can be adjusted into 15pool/14hatch or 14gas/pool/20expand without a big loss. So it's flexible to things you may scout.
The #1 takeaway I'd have is that for a ZvZ FE I may want to pool first because it seems safer AND just as economical while creep spread isn't as important and there's less chance of a block.
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Don't forget that hatch first will let you get more gas up for certain builds where you need it quickly.
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Destiny/Steve Bonnell II (2200 diamond) was running the test on his stream
Simple test:
only make drones/overlords, don't take gas or do other tech (only dropping a pool for queen access). don't spread creep, only inject larvae.
as far as lair timing, if you queue your second queen at your first hatch, it shouldnt really delay your lair tech since a) you probably arent getting a lair before 20 supply anyway and b) you could always lair at your natural like some zergs have been doing
and with the expo blocking window, i disagree since most scouts arrive before your 14/15 hatch anyway and at my level (1600 diamond) they are blocking it then anyway... having a pool first allows you to make a pair of lings to chase them if needed (or kill pylons, etc, faster) or you can wait till they come to scout your main again since they didnt see you go for a 15 hatch
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Question is, will you oversaturate your main in a 14 pool build? By oversaturate, I don't mean a true saturation, more like at the point where you get diminishing returns. With 2 bases, you can split 16 workers into 8 per base, with one base, that would be 16 on your main. A true saturation is like 24 drones, but I'm pretty sure 8 per base is more effective than 16 on one.
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Hatcheries don't just pop up immediately, it has a build time before you can take advantage of its benefits. Why not get the 2nd one early when you don't need other kind of units other than drones/queens in the first 5 mins of the game? Plus this way your worker mining will be optimized sooner rather than becoming almost redundant in your first base.
By the time it's your theoretical optimal point(for 2nd hatch) you will be dealing with more problems since it's later on in the game and most likely pressured more.
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jzerg, what games are you taking 3 gas before the 4 minute mark?
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@ tobberoth, when testing we didnt reach over saturation at the main by time the second hatch was up
there is no point to split workers from the main if you are under 16 (no diminishing returns on mining under 16 i believe)
@ bubble, 15 hatch first finishes at 3:38, going 14pool/15ol/15queen/15hatch or something similar gets your second hatch done at around 4:15 the latest. the point originally was that you arent losing drones/econ doing the pool first, but you get the protection against bunker/canon proxies.
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14 pool can transition to a roach rush, if you're feeling ballsy (or if his scout is dead/run away). Also, it might not be worth it to hatch first on maps where this "creep spread" doesn't ammount to an actual advantage. Delta Quadrant, where the enemy can go around your defensive crawlers and into your base comes to mind.
I usually do the 14 pool so I can "fake" the 15 hatch and do a 5RR with speedlings.
By "faking" the 15 hatch I mean sending a drone to your nat, where he will probably try to delay your hatch by being obnoxious. Attack his scv and act like you're being delayed by it. A few minutes later you'll attack and all he'll have are hellions and marines (or, as protoss, not enough stuff).
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I'm a novice player, so my opinion doesn't really matter, but just in case you wanted to get into the minds of Zerg noobs....
To me, the virtue of having that second hatchery there is for the sake of more units and more economy...but not immediately. But, vs. T, that's not my problem. Your early lings are unneeded usually (and I mean very early lings, not after you Hatch + pool). Eventually, if I go a one base build, I need another hatchery (as spawning larvae with a queen with 1 hatch will quickly be inadequate), and I end up waiting for it to finish, whereas with a quick second hatchery it's easier for me to keep my minerals low. It's likely that this is an inadequacy in my timing...but my timing is better on a second hatch.
Since I'm a pretty hardcore noob, when I do start making units it's easier for me to begin making lings from my main while pumping drones from my nat, and that's usually enough of an early army. Also, if my opponent does something weird or has some weakness, it's much easier to transition from already having a second base with drones already working, for example, if I need to grab those extra gases to go with mutas or something.
So basically, if I build that hatchery when I do get the minerals instead of pumping out more drones and lings, from experience, it's easier to compensate for those 300 mins than it is to time a second hatchery WHILE defending the inevitable zealot/marine pushes. To me, a second early hatchery is slowing down your economy and military production momentarily so that in a few minutes the rate of increase of both is increased significantly. I've even used one queen early on if the nat base is really close to the main, to just hop back and forth to spawn larvae, although that puts you at risk for some cheeses:/ Again, this is noob stuff, so don't bite my head of ^_^
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On October 29 2010 01:46 FabledIntegral wrote:
Because if you read my post you'd see that trying to drone whore off a pool first build is much more dangerous than drone whore off a hatch first build. So if you want to play econ, if you can pull off the hatch first, it's going to set you better up for econ. If you go pool first but want to play econ, it's much riskier.
well, why is it more dangerous to drone off pool first? I don't quite understand the difference. Your hatch isn't gonna defend you against attacks...
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Well, just gonna make a simple input to this discussion. Let say you are going for a 14 hatch or 14 pool.
14 pool:
It takes 65 seconds for the pool to create.
50 seconds for the queen to spawn
25 seconds for larvae to spawn. (seconds here is real seconds not the actual game seconds there is a correlation there so it won't matter for my statement).
In total: 140 seconds for your extra larvae to spawn.
14 hatch:
You want to send your drone out at about 220-ish minerals the time for 13 drones to mine 80 minerals is about 12 seconds.
The hatch take 100 seconds to build.
In total: 112 seconds for your extra larva to spawn.
Considering the fact that larva take 15 seconds to spawn, you will have 3 extra larvae out when your first batch of spawned larvae pops. So in conclusion you will have 3 larvae out quicker with hatch first, but you will gain 1 larva with pool first.(well I am assuming you are playing perfectly of course).
So you can boost your economy slightly faster with hatch first and rely on spawn larvae to defend your hatch. But hatch first might make you more vulnerable against early attacks.(I am not saying that it is a clear timing window that you will lose if your opponent attacked but you might have a tough time dealing with it.)
And hatching first can give opportunity for faster drone satuartion at your expansion.
In general you should label pool first as the bit more safer build and hatch first the more economic build, both builds has pros and cons.
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I see two primary reasons that isn't about creep or defensibility - in terms of economy
1. You get to use your second queen much more early and rapidly - at a certain point the returns of this will overcome the lost economy from going pool first.
2. Drones mine more efficiently at an empty mineral patch then one with multiple drones mining from. Therefore, the mineral return per drone is greater then staying on one base longer.
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you guys don't seem to be understanding what the OP was talking about.
Destiny was trying to prove that a pool first build was not only safer but better than a hatch first build. Him and another player raced to 50 drones and each using a different build and Destiny with his pool first build actually got there faster. He stated because when you go pool first you get your queen out faster and that makes up for any loss you might of had when you went pool first. A hatch only spawns with one larva so you are not really gaining anything when it spawns.
I'll try to get Destiny to post himself so he can better explain why he feels you should always pool first when you FE.
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Might I just mention the main reason why people expand, especially zerg.
The earlier a set number of workers is mining across more mineral fields, the later those fields will deplete. The fewer fields are depleted, the higher your mining efficiency.
Fast expanding is a strategy that emphasizes the late-game, as evidenced by this rule.
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EPT
