[D] Spamming Orbital Commands - Page 3

On March 18 2010 08:21 Steve496 wrote:
Well, lets run some quick numbers. All numbers are based on my memory of rough testing I did a week or so back, so some of them might be slightly off - if so, by all means correct me. However:

An Orbital Command regenerates 50 energy every 90 seconds or so; hence, an extra Orbital Command gives you an extra MULE - and thus an extra 270 minerals - every 90 seconds, which works out to roughly 180 minerals a minute.

An SCV mines about 40 mineral a minute; hence, an extra Orbital Command provides mining throughput equal to about 4.5 SCVs. The SCVs cost 225 minerals, while the Orbital Command costs 550 minerals plus 100 seconds of SCV mining time, which is another 66.7 minerals. Hence, the cost difference is 391.7 minerals, right?

Well, no, because the OC *provides* 11 supply while the SCVs would use 4.5 supply; hence, there's a swing of 15.5 supply in terms of how many Supply Depots we need. A Supply Depot takes 100 minerals to build, as well as 20 minerals worth of mining time from an SCV, for a total of 120 minerals per 8 supply; thus, each supply costs about 15 minerals to obtain, meaning the swing of 15.5 supply saves us 232.5 minerals. Hence, the Orbital Command really only costs us an extra 159.2 minerals.

(For purposes of these calculations, I'm ignoring the various ramp-up effects - the fact that the OC gets a MULE the instant it finishes, versus the fact that the SCVs would be done sooner and could start mining earlier. This tradeoff is too circumstantial to easily comment on in general, and, as such, is omitted - we're looking only at steady-state income once both are up and running).

Hence, the question is: what are the benefits of building extra OCs versus extra SCVs, and are those advantages worth the 159.2 mineral cost difference? Well, the fact that you actually use less supply so can have a slightly larger army means it's slightly more appealing as you near the resource cap, as is the fact that you have more energy you can reasonably spend on scans if you desire. On the downside, MULEs are more subject to harassment - if they come in and snipe 2 or 3 MULEs (or even just force you to run them away to avoid dying), you lose a lot more than if they snipe 2 or 3 SCVs.

So all in all: I'd say that as a general rule, it's probably not worth it. However, I can easily imagine situations where these factors would work out such that it is slightly advantageous to build the extra orbital commands. So as a generally useful strategy that one expects to do as a matter of routine? Probably not. But it's an interesting trick to remember nevertheless, as situations may arise where it's useful.

On March 18 2010 08:28 JTPROG wrote:


Great post, but I want you to do one more calculation.

Calculate the effectiveness of this strat when your excess minerals are of absolutely no use to you at the time you decide to build the orbital commands due to gas restrictions and mass tanks.