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So recently I was playing a TvT, known for it's very long match duration and gas intensiveness, and realized I had an over-abundance of minerals with nearly no gas. I was trying to find a usefullness for marines when tanks dominated the current matchup, but decided it probably wouldn't be a very good idea. I already had 2-3 expansions, so with about 1200 minerals I quickly made 3 command centers in my base (and kept them there) and proceeded to upgrade all of them to orbital commands.
Now when you think of it, this actually might not be a bad use of minerals. With each orbital command you have access to a MULE every 90 seconds or so. so if MULEs give you 290 minerals each, an orbital command will pay for itself in about 2 MULEs, and then add to that as the game goes on (considering you have a base to mine from, as technically it just gives you minerals FASTER). But more importantly, having so many orbital commands gives you access to almost limit-less scans for scouting and detecting. In a matchup where minerals are only really useful so long as you have gas or need to spam turrets, I think this may actually be a good use of minerals for scouting and even economy all-around, since you're basically just trading minerals for free scans and free SCVs (MULEs), which will get your money back anyway. This worked really well for me and I will probably always spend excess minerals on OCs in this matchup. What do you think?
EDIT:
Note: For people saying I should spend the minerals to expand, yes, I am trying to take as many expansions as possible, but I have more than enough minerals to make OCs for each expansion and then extra in my base. You're always trying to expand as much as possible, but the point is, spend your spare minerals on OCs, especially when you have nowhere left to expand.
Note: With this strat, in late game, you can cut SCVs and rely purely on MULEs for a stronger 200/200 army.
Question: How many minerals would you be willing to spend on a MAPHACK, when you don't even need them?
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It seems preferable to just macro better: you could skew your unit composition to be less gas-heavy, you could build marines and hellions, you could expand more.. Orbitals commands are a bit of a waste in that regard.
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I think spending your money on units and winning the game is a better idea.
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Sure. If you are making Tanks just hide somewhere 4-5 Raxes and make surprise with some Medivacs drops. I think it's much better.
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Like I said, there were no units that would be useful to make with minerals. Marines and hellions are not very useful against tanks and air, waste of minerals. And this is considering I don't need to/would be foolish to expand at the time, in which case I would STILL have an excess of minerals even if I did.
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So because you didn't know what to spend your minerals on you made lots of orbital commands, giving you the ability to harvest minerals faster?
Brilliant^^;
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If you have enough minerals left to throw down 3 orbital commands in your base you might as well build them at expansions. Will give you a much better bonus if you are able to defend them. If not, just fly them to island expansions or try to hide your expansions. I can't think of any reason to just build them in your base.
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On March 18 2010 00:37 Feefee wrote:
So because you didn't know what to spend your minerals on you made lots of orbital commands, giving you the ability to harvest minerals faster?
Brilliant^^;
Haha, that's what I said to myself reading the first post xd.
Funny idea but I agree with all, use your mineral in expand and making some drop harass.
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On March 18 2010 00:44 DrainX wrote:
If you have enough minerals left to throw down 3 orbital commands in your base you might as well build them at expansions. Will give you a much better bonus if you are able to defend them. If not, just fly them to island expansions or try to hide your expansions. I can't think of any reason to just build them in your base.
What if I already had 2-3 expansions and Did not want to create more SCVs using supply. I could also lift them to bases later and use purely MULEs to act as SCVs. I would be lifting some of them and sending them to expansions, but there's only so many expansions, and i would end up just having some in my base.
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Calgary25979 Posts
I think spending the minerals on almost anything else would be a better use. You are spending minerals you deem useless to get more minerals more quickly. How is that productive?
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On March 18 2010 00:54 Chill wrote:
I think spending the minerals on almost anything else would be a better use. You are spending minerals you deem useless to get more minerals more quickly. How is that productive?
Does everyone ignore the fact that you can use them for scans also? And spending your minerals on them isn't useless cause you just get them back anyway from MULEs. It's just like a trade for free scans and free SCVs (MULES).
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I'm going to use this actually, but for scan.
I was recently playing kawaiirice in a 50 minute tvt where i had just about 100 gasish, but I had around 17,000 minerals. I think the additional scans will allow me to see what's up better, and if necessary bait fire of tanks with mule drops.
Thanks for the idea :-)
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Actually, late game this sounds like a great idea, lowering SCV counts in order to make way for a bigger army while having a lot of intel sounds at least somewhat viable... and scan + offensive mules (mining from the opponent's last base) would be hillarious.
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Do you really need more than 3 orbital commands to scan though? If you're not spending your money on mules anyways 3 comsats should be more than enough. At least in SC1 they were for me.
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You shouldn't be getting more than one, maybe 2 OCs in TvT. PF protects against harass and makes bio 100% worthless. I've lost a lot of bases I didn't have to because I had OCs. I also have like 3000 minerals all the time and can't spend them usefully (hellions are pretty worthless past earlygame). I often just expand 3-4 times at once because I have so many minerals. You can just get 6 scvs and a PF and mine the gas if you want.
My TvT does need work though. I still lose to a lot of stupid stuff. I think it's probably the hardest MU mechanically and strategically for terran. However, TvZ is insanely difficult to win even though it's easier mechanically =/
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On March 18 2010 01:57 Floophead_III wrote:
You shouldn't be getting more than one, maybe 2 OCs in TvT. PF protects against harass and makes bio 100% worthless. I've lost a lot of bases I didn't have to because I had OCs. I also have like 3000 minerals all the time and can't spend them usefully (hellions are pretty worthless past earlygame). I often just expand 3-4 times at once because I have so many minerals. You can just get 6 scvs and a PF and mine the gas if you want.
My TvT does need work though. I still lose to a lot of stupid stuff. I think it's probably the hardest MU mechanically and strategically for terran. However, TvZ is insanely difficult to win even though it's easier mechanically =/
Read the OP more carefully, that's why your OCs are sitting in your base, away from danger ^^. In your case with 3000 spare minerals it sounds like it would have been perfect. I guess you can choose to either expand with OCs or PFs but the point is to spend your spare minerals on spamming OCs for scans and MULEs.
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In TvT i just open save and start expanding like crazy . if you have excess of minerals try expanding more and turret whore the whole map . All gas goes to tanks and vikings and medivacs and upgrades for them . Sometimes i build Thors and BCs . I don't think you need that much scan it's better to just expand all over the map and get the gasses going , turret whore and build extra factory for hellions if you really feel like you should keep your minerals down . I for one feel it's normal to have excess of minerals in TvT only . 2 maximum 3 orbital commands for scans seem enough , and have them mining at safe bases . More seems like wasting minerals just for the sake of keeping your minerals low , if you want to spend minerals spend them on hellions , but don't overdue it , because you'll probably be just wasting minerals again just for the sake of it .
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I agree with the OP actually. Even after you turret up all your expos and your base, you still have massive amounts of unused minerals because TvT is limited by gas. 5-8 Orbital Commands allow you to scan constantly, as well as MULE bomb/repair anywhere on the map.
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If you're 100% sure he's not going to switch to air, in which case, you can spam Q up turrets and blow through money easily, maybe?
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I have to disagree that building extra OC's that aren't used for taking a new expansion is a waste. Not that I'm pro because I'm in Plat league... but to me it is common sense to not make OC's that aren't being used for taking expansions.
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On March 18 2010 02:22 Volshok wrote:
I agree with the OP actually. Even after you turret up all your expos and your base, you still have massive amounts of unused minerals because TvT is limited by gas. 5-8 Orbital Commands allow you to scan constantly, as well as MULE bomb/repair anywhere on the map.
I haven't actually tried this "mule bombing" it could actually be worth spending minerals on orbital commands , but it sounds hilarious  .
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In late late game you probably want to use only mules to mine whatever minerals there are left so you have more supply for units. If you are gonna mine out the map and you have not reached 200 supply yet, you can upgrade depots for free minerals.
I think this is actually a good idea but in moderation and only in late late game on a map with a lot of expansions and constant 200/200 armies
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As has been the case since BW, if you have extra minerals and no gas, you need to take additional expansions to get more gas.
Don't try to come up with creative ways to use your minerals...just get more gas!
edit: it's also possible you are using too many MULEs, giving you additional minerals at a time you don't really need them; try using scan more, and upgrading expansions to be Planetary Fortresses instead of Orbital Commands.
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Mule bombing is useful if you're in mid/late game going for the 4th mineral by using your original command center.
By then, the command centers should have enough energy for 2-3 mules which means you can spam a mule launch on each of the minerals right after you land. Then you can expand right after that by actually building a 4th cc on another expo without mineral blocking your unit production.
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scan, and mule dropping on tanks is pretty damn useful. But so are turret highways.
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I like the idea. If you have a span of time where minerals are not useful then OC is a great long-term investment. The free scans of course, and also the late game benefits as others have mentioned (no need for SCVs, you can quickly mine out a new expansion that is hard to defend).
The only thing is that I don't think there are really many times where minerals are not immediately useful or even necessary for something else.
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Energy regenerates at approximately 2/3 a second (correct me on this if I'm wrong).
You can drop 1 mule every 75 seconds, for a mineral intake of 3.7 minerals per second average.
So OC costs 550 for 3.7 minerals per second.
An SCV costs 50 minerals for 1 mineral per second.
SCV's are about 3.5x as cost efficient, and this is assuming perfect macro of the OC's.
I don't see the ability to scan more often as being a use of spamming OC's. If you want to scan more, don't use the mules so often. Unless you need to scan a huge number of times, its not going to help. The only benefit of the OC's is that Mule's are almost immune to worker harassment (since you spawn them for free), and cost no supply. They can also be used for other interesting tasks, but that cuts into your mineral intake.
I can't see it being worthwhile unless you KNOW that you don't need a huge mineral intake, and your production is limited ONLY by your gas and/or supply. In that case, it could be worthwhile. In an endgame situation limited by gas, it effectively would mean you have infinite scans plus you have an extra 40 or so food supply to play around with. In such a case, I could see this getting some use.
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just make marines; right now I feel like marines are cost effective against almost everything in TvT
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I think a lot of people are underestimating the sheer number of minerals you get in TvT. Even after you've built turrets around everything, you'll still have huge numbers of minerals. Barring some fort of 2 Rax Marauder push, TvT normally lacks back and forth battles that require troop reinforcement. It's a very slow match up, just like BW.
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On March 18 2010 00:59 Gretorp wrote:
I'm going to use this actually, but for scan.
I was recently playing kawaiirice in a 50 minute tvt where i had just about 100 gasish, but I had around 17,000 minerals. I think the additional scans will allow me to see what's up better, and if necessary bait fire of tanks with mule drops.
Thanks for the idea :-)
Training 300+ marines would've surely helped, even if they were just for cannon fodder.
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i think OP's got a good idea, building more OCs with extra minerals in late game TvT is a great way to increase army size (no need for mineral scvs) while continue to mine minerals. Also you get lots of scans (intel such as army position and composition and what your op is doing is crucial).
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So many bad replies... OP, this is a good idea when you are near-max, preparing for some kind of tactical move after the map is divided and those key one or two expansions are all that remains contested... wasting supply on mineral heavy units won't help, neither will more scvs, but a handful of extra scans is great. Command centers are expendable late game TvT, scan is definitely worth it.
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Zurich15325 Posts
On March 18 2010 00:54 Chill wrote:
I think spending the minerals on almost anything else would be a better use. You are spending minerals you deem useless to get more minerals more quickly. How is that productive?
Pretty much says it.
And no, you don't get the minerals you waste on those back, you will just be outmined faster.
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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.
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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.
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.
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Zurich15325 Posts
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:
[...]
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.
This is the perfect example of how you can contribute to this forum even if you are not a good player / not in the beta. (Not saying you are not, but this is the kind of post we need more from).
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i really think marines are what u need to build. massing marines really does some major dmg if u have like 3-4 medivacs. maybe don't even need that. gosh with 17k minerals...i would feel like i lost the game because i'm not doing something right haha. i would say in TVT though, it's really about thought, what ur opponent's strategy really is because there's many variations and ways to attack and the both of you really have the same capabilities. i think tvt is my worst matchup but it really comes down to the mindgames of the players. keeping micro/macro consistent is a must of course. if u find urself with more minerals that u need while all ur rax/fact/sp are queued with 2 production it's time to expand, or expand twice. it's more about map control in tvt than any other matchup as i've beaten a zerg with 3 bases vs my 2 but maybe he was just a bad player. just from my experience though, expanding and constantly keeping that food up is really key because ur gonna lose units that's for sure so u need to be able to compensate for losing those units and bringing out more units ASAP which means more rax, more space, more minerals and hopefully with ur careful expanding ur gas should be up there also.
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On March 18 2010 08:28 JTPROG wrote:Show nested quote +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. 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.
1. minerals are never excess
2. minerals are never of absolutely no use
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On March 18 2010 09:06 Rucky wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2010 08:28 JTPROG wrote: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. 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. 1. minerals are never excess 2. minerals are never of absolutely no use
bad post
1.prove
2.it
If the usefullness is near nothing, it might as well be nothing. Sending marines or hellions against tanks with support is a huge waste of minerals. I already have enough marines for support. I don't need any more turrets. Now what? I do like collecting rocks....
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For all of you saying this is a bad idea I think he is saying to do it when you already have taken all the expansions you can, you are in a TvT late game where tanks, thors, and air dominate, and you have 1-2k excess minerals but dont want to use up supply.
Take a look at this game to see this situation, both players would have benefited from extra scans.
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mhnyjzjkiyw
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its a good idea, imo you should make like 3 planetary fortresses at each of your exps tho LOL
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On March 18 2010 09:15 JTPROG wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2010 09:06 Rucky wrote:On March 18 2010 08:28 JTPROG wrote: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. 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. 1. minerals are never excess 2. minerals are never of absolutely no use bad post 1.prove 2.it If the usefullness is near nothing, it might as well be nothing. Sending marines or hellions against tanks with support is a huge waste of minerals. I already have enough marines for support. I don't need any more turrets. Now what? I do like collecting rocks....
The problem here is that you're defining some arbitrary value function as to how much minerals are worth at a given point of time. Like, this argument only makes sense if you have a ton of minerals with nothing else to do with now, in the medium term will need significantly more, but don't care if you mine out a bit sooner as a result. Could it happen? Sure. But I'm sure you'll agree that it's highly situational at best.
Like, the analysis I posted above addresses the question "if I want to mine minerals at a given rate in the average case, what's the most cost-effective way of reaching that level of mineral intake". Which is fine. And there are slightly more sophisticated questions that could similarly be analyzed, like "if I'm starting a new expo and want to ramp up my mining capacity in preparation for taking it, what are the advantages of prebuilding SCVs vs getting an extra Orbital Command in terms of when I have how many minerals." But I'm pretty sure the strictly numerical answer in almost all cases winds up being that SCVs are just better.
What you're looking for is the circumstantial benefits that are harder to quantify. Building extra OCs in support of your SCVs means you can mine out an expansion faster, which is certainly useful. So the question becomes, "is it worth spending an extra 550 minerals to mine further minerals slightly faster?" And the answer is... maybe? I mean, this starts to get into complicated questions about how easy it's going to be to take the next expansion and what the effects on mining rate are by imbalancing your patch sizes (due to not having enough MULEs to mine them all equally).
Similarly, the value of the scans is... hard to quantify. Is more useful? Sure. Is it worth 550 minerals (plus lost mining time to build it and whatever) - maybe? Again, it probably is in some circumstances, and not in others.
Ultimately, though, I can't tell you what's going to be better in all circumstances. All I can tell you is what the tradeoffs are. And the immediate tradeoff is that it takes more money to reach the same level of income. Sometimes that tradeoff will be worth it. Sometimes it won't. But that's more of a judgment call and less something that can be quantified in the abstract.
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On March 18 2010 10:06 Steve496 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2010 09:15 JTPROG wrote:On March 18 2010 09:06 Rucky wrote:On March 18 2010 08:28 JTPROG wrote: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. 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. 1. minerals are never excess 2. minerals are never of absolutely no use bad post 1.prove 2.it If the usefullness is near nothing, it might as well be nothing. Sending marines or hellions against tanks with support is a huge waste of minerals. I already have enough marines for support. I don't need any more turrets. Now what? I do like collecting rocks.... The problem here is that you're defining some arbitrary value function as to how much minerals are worth at a given point of time. Like, this argument only makes sense if you have a ton of minerals with nothing else to do with now, in the medium term will need significantly more, but don't care if you mine out a bit sooner as a result. Could it happen? Sure. But I'm sure you'll agree that it's highly situational at best. Like, the analysis I posted above addresses the question "if I want to mine minerals at a given rate in the average case, what's the most cost-effective way of reaching that level of mineral intake". Which is fine. And there are slightly more sophisticated questions that could similarly be analyzed, like "if I'm starting a new expo and want to ramp up my mining capacity in preparation for taking it, what are the advantages of prebuilding SCVs vs getting an extra Orbital Command in terms of when I have how many minerals." But I'm pretty sure the strictly numerical answer in almost all cases winds up being that SCVs are just better. What you're looking for is the circumstantial benefits that are harder to quantify. Building extra OCs in support of your SCVs means you can mine out an expansion faster, which is certainly useful. So the question becomes, "is it worth spending an extra 550 minerals to mine further minerals slightly faster?" And the answer is... maybe? I mean, this starts to get into complicated questions about how easy it's going to be to take the next expansion and what the effects on mining rate are by imbalancing your patch sizes (due to not having enough MULEs to mine them all equally). Similarly, the value of the scans is... hard to quantify. Is more useful? Sure. Is it worth 550 minerals (plus lost mining time to build it and whatever) - maybe? Again, it probably is in some circumstances, and not in others. Ultimately, though, I can't tell you what's going to be better in all circumstances. All I can tell you is what the tradeoffs are. And the immediate tradeoff is that it takes more money to reach the same level of income. Sometimes that tradeoff will be worth it. Sometimes it won't. But that's more of a judgment call and less something that can be quantified in the abstract.
Wow you really do make well thought-out posts huh. Well I agree it is rather ambiguous to quantify but i'm pretty sure everyone has tons of useless minerals in TvT which can at least be used for a free MAPHACK.
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Like I said minerals could be better spent if you had the apm for it. Why would you send marines and hellions into tanks? Don't make stupid rebuttals. Instead rather you take them to attack undefended areas. Or you can spread them out all over the map and have the entire map covered with cheap marines giving you free vision everywhere.
There really is no point in continuing this discussion because I am thinking in terms of high level play and you're probably not. In that case where both sides have a lot of unused minerals than go right on ahead and make oc's. it will probably win you the game. Just saying that you could use that money somewhere better.
edit: probably could have won the game sooner too
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Why is nobody building OC's in their base early in the game as a safer form of FE- just use em for extra SCV production and MULEs until you can safely float em to another expansion?
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Has anyone tried 'MULE-bombing' in the sense of using mules kind of like zealot-bombs, and dropping them on enemy tanks prior to an attack? It would be funny to see, and maybe a better way to spend your OC energy if you have excess minerals.
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If you have alot of minerals but your opponent is dying for minerals, build a bunch of OB's and drop 15 Mules into his minerals!
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I cant say I've ever had an "abundance" of minerals, and I've had a few games where I had 3-5 mining bases. Fast hands and constant building of production units will save you there. If you have something retarded like 10k minerals just build more production buildings. If you know his army might be of a better composition, before an effective counter can be rallied you will likely be 200/200 much faster than him, even if he cleaned up your entire force
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Scans are enormously beneficial in TvT. Default sight range is 12. Tanks have 13 range. You need Scan so you can hit their tanks without theirs hitting yours, or getting your first shot in before they notice, and scan you. Not every spot is going to have Vikings spotting, and you may not have Vikings up and expendable 100% of the game. In TvT you get an insane amount of minerals, plenty to throw down PF's at all the expansions and then build 10 OC's, easily. Marines are nigh useless in TvT, except for guarding the tanks and perhaps taking the first tank volley, but that is just merely cannon fodder, and you will have plenty of minerals to easily replenish those.
Hellions are nigh useless especially when the map is all turreted up so you can't drop. Late late TvT is a game of positioning and small inches forward where Scan's are invaluable. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have 30 scans available, than 10 or so and 10,000 minerals...
At least in the other Mirror match ups they actually have mineral units that aren't worthless.
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On March 18 2010 09:40 duckhunt wrote:
its a good idea, imo you should make like 3 planetary fortresses at each of your exps tho LOL
PF's are worthless in TvT once you have the map turreted up. Tanks severely out range them....They are good in the early-mid game to stop harass (somewhat), but other than that you are better served using the gas on units....and getting OC for scan/mule/supply.
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On March 18 2010 16:23 Rucky wrote:
Like I said minerals could be better spent if you had the apm for it. Why would you send marines and hellions into tanks? Don't make stupid rebuttals. Instead rather you take them to attack undefended areas. Or you can spread them out all over the map and have the entire map covered with cheap marines giving you free vision everywhere.
There really is no point in continuing this discussion because I am thinking in terms of high level play and you're probably not. In that case where both sides have a lot of unused minerals than go right on ahead and make oc's. it will probably win you the game. Just saying that you could use that money somewhere better.
edit: probably could have won the game sooner too
This makes no sense. Marines aren't free, nor is an OC, but you can get unlimited scans, which are unkillable and which spot for your tanks. This is an absurd illogical argument you are making.
I'm starting to question if any of you have even played a TvT game that lasted more than 20 minutes. It is common to have thousands and thousands of minerals.
In case you didn't know, but tanks rape every single mineral unit of Terrans, as do Banshees. When the map is turreted up you can't drop, and anyone decent will keep a few siege tanks / marines at their expo's.
I'm also curious if anyone has tried scan/mule bomb into their tank lines....does this work?
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i don't think the OP is arguing for continual MULE usage if you spam orbital commands; what he's saying is such an option is available along with a continuous maphack depending on the situation. this provides a constant usefulness factor for the OC that outlevels other mineral-only buildings/units, especially fighting units that have diminishing returns due to a supply cap.
in fact, you could argue Terran's ability to make money with mana will lead to diminishing returns on minerals that the other races won't face. it'll be interesting to see how terran manages this problem
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On March 18 2010 00:58 JTPROG wrote:Show nested quote +On March 18 2010 00:54 Chill wrote:
I think spending the minerals on almost anything else would be a better use. You are spending minerals you deem useless to get more minerals more quickly. How is that productive? Does everyone ignore the fact that you can use them for scans also? And spending your minerals on them isn't useless cause you just get them back anyway from MULEs. It's just like a trade for free scans and free SCVs (MULES).
Don't try. It's stupid. You have way enough scans from 3-4 orbitals.
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If you have truly unspendable quantities of minerals, I guess you could try mass building float to absorb turret fire/spot, maybe even an offensive cc->planetary fortress if their army is otherwise engaged.
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interesting idea, however I would argue that helions are not useless, unless your assuming the game is to a point where you can be 200/200 on gas units, helions are great for runnin in close and takin siege shots while you set your tanks up or for when pushing into a sieged position. just send the little buggies in to their deaths!
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On March 18 2010 19:28 Rothbardian wrote:Scans are enormously beneficial in TvT. Default sight range is 12. Tanks have 13 range. You need Scan so you can hit their tanks without theirs hitting yours, or getting your first shot in before they notice, and scan you. Not every spot is going to have Vikings spotting, and you may not have Vikings up and expendable 100% of the game. In TvT you get an insane amount of minerals, plenty to throw down PF's at all the expansions and then build 10 OC's, easily. Marines are nigh useless in TvT, except for guarding the tanks and perhaps taking the first tank volley, but that is just merely cannon fodder, and you will have plenty of minerals to easily replenish those. Hellions are nigh useless especially when the map is all turreted up so you can't drop. Late late TvT is a game of positioning and small inches forward where Scan's are invaluable. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have 30 scans available, than 10 or so and 10,000 minerals... At least in the other Mirror match ups they actually have mineral units that aren't worthless. Show nested quote +
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On March 18 2010 16:23 Rucky wrote:
Like I said minerals could be better spent if you had the apm for it. Why would you send marines and hellions into tanks? Don't make stupid rebuttals. Instead rather you take them to attack undefended areas. Or you can spread them out all over the map and have the entire map covered with cheap marines giving you free vision everywhere.
There really is no point in continuing this discussion because I am thinking in terms of high level play and you're probably not. In that case where both sides have a lot of unused minerals than go right on ahead and make oc's. it will probably win you the game. Just saying that you could use that money somewhere better.
edit: probably could have won the game sooner too
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On March 18 2010 Rothbardian wrote:This makes no sense. Marines aren't free, nor is an OC, but you can get unlimited scans, which are unkillable and which spot for your tanks. This is an absurd illogical argument you are making. I'm starting to question if any of you have even played a TvT game that lasted more than 20 minutes. It is common to have thousands and thousands of minerals. In case you didn't know, but tanks rape every single mineral unit of Terrans, as do Banshees. When the map is turreted up you can't drop, and anyone decent will keep a few siege tanks / marines at their expo's. I'm also curious if anyone has tried scan/mule bomb into their tank lines....does this work?Last edit: 2010-03-18 19:33:46
2 very win posts right here. This guy knows what he's talking about.
Seriously, I feel like half of you have never even played a TvT, yet you feel so inclined to talk about it. For those of you saying you won't/don't have excess minerals... are you joking? I can almost understand arguing to use them on useless shit like marines and hellions, but to say you don't have a shit-ton of extra minerals in a TvT just means either you've never played one or you've never played one at a high level where people don't mass marines/mauraders and expect to win.
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Don't forget that you can spam MULEs on enemy tanks to blow up their lines and defenses.
Really though, I think people undervalue Marines in TvT. They serve a great purpose as fodder and Viking/Banshee/Thor deterrent for essentially free, since you're concentrating on gas units anyway.
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On March 18 2010 20:07 d_so wrote:
i don't think the OP is arguing for continual MULE usage if you spam orbital commands; what he's saying is such an option is available along with a continuous maphack depending on the situation. this provides a constant usefulness factor for the OC that outlevels other mineral-only buildings/units, especially fighting units that have diminishing returns due to a supply cap.
in fact, you could argue Terran's ability to make money with mana will lead to diminishing returns on minerals that the other races won't face. it'll be interesting to see how terran manages this problem
yup, I think maphack is much better than marine "fodder" aka useless
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This makes me think of that epic game between boxer and ooV on Ride of Valkyries. Boxer build like 3 extra ccs for scans. Was a pretty epic game, I'm too lazy to link it though... like a 56 minute game
EDIT: this has nothing to do with OP.... But a strike of Nostalgia never hurt
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To those who say marines are useful, riddle me this: a reasonable sized marine force- say 15-20- used purely to harass, on foot. Tanks can't cover everywhere, and if you can get past the tank line and he hasn't made PF's at all his expos, those few marines can make him move a good part of his main force out of position. As a tactical ploy I think it has merit, not to mention the uses already stated. I've found in almost all my games a well played spread out marine force can do wonders since the paradigm is to wander your army around in a big lump, multiple attacks can really throw people off balance. Admittedly it works far better in TvP and TvZ due to the lack of PF's, but I constantly pump marines even way into the late game in every matchup and often they make the game, cause I have that little extra touch to go in and do some damage when everything else is tied.
As for the OC's, I think perhaps one extra one is worth the 550 minerals if you have them spare at that point. As has been stated, mule bombing can be useful, and scan can be damn useful. I don't mind the bonus depot ability either, it's often saved my ass when some enemy have gotten a bit too close and sloshed my ramp or dropped into my depot pile. those extra seconds of unit production can make a difference, and psychologically it's fantastic to not be cockblocked for the time the thing is building going 'omg omg omg I need to build X right now and it won't let me'. All in all, I would (and will) do it more often now I've considered it. Way better use of minerals than throwing down a few depots or bunkers when over-resourced
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Calgary25979 Posts
Can you explain to me how this situation is any different than in Starcraft 1? We've literally never seen people spamming extra Command Centers in SC2 for scan, so why is it such a supposedly great move in Starcraft 2? I understand that scouting and sighting for Tanks is important, but it was important in SC1 too. You still have your 3-4 scans from your normal CCs as well as floating buildings and Turrets to spot for you as well.
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On March 19 2010 00:35 Chill wrote:
Can you explain to me how this situation is any different than in Starcraft 1? We've literally never seen people spamming extra Command Centers in SC2 for scan, so why is it such a supposedly great move in Starcraft 2? I understand that scouting and sighting for Tanks is important, but it was important in SC1 too. You still have your 3-4 scans from your normal CCs as well as floating buildings and Turrets to spot for you as well.
Besides the fact someone just said boxer has done this, I will reply.
1.Command centers in SC1 needed an add-on which took up more already scarce space and could not be lifted off with it (obviously), making it very immobile.
2.Comsat stations did not have the added bonus of MULEs, which is a bonus economic factor that partially makes up for the cost spent. Also, it can be used in place of SCVs for continued mining with lower supply limitations (for late game), not to mention MULE bombing, and quick resource boosts (can mine over 2000 minerals in less than a minute with MULEs).
3.The way tanks work in SC2 as compared with SC1 is much different, as you need sight to return fire, making scans even MORE important.
4.Tanks in SC2 are actually more gas-intensive than in SC1, leading to an even greater source imbalance.
5.Vultures (and mines) were actually useful in SC1 to spend minerals on as compared to hellions, in TvT.
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Gas is much more scarce in SC2, more than it is in SC1. You need twice the # of drones to achieve gas saturation at each base. For example, 4 base gas in this game requires twenty-four workers. That's a lot. And many of the units' gas prices haven't changed; mutas are still 100 gas, ultras are still 200 gas, broodlords are more expensive than guardians in gas cost, HT are still 150 gas, I think siege tanks are still 100 gas(?), colossus are very good units but very gas-intensive, etc. etc.
In addition, making the right unit is even more important in SC2, since the hard-counters are "harder" than SC1, so to speak. So you can't just use your extra minerals to spam marines/zealots/hellions/zerglings/etc., they are much less useful against their counters than basic units are in SC1.
I think Terrans are MULEing too much, and ending up with ridiculous amounts of minerals, and very little gas. From what I can tell the OP is trying to find a 'creative' way to spend minerals (but I don't agree that making mass command centers is the way to do it).
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I'd just build more production so that if I lose my army i'll be able to rebuild it a 3 times the speed of my opponent. (this is of course assuming we're talking about 200/200 armies)He simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the production unless he also build multiple production buildings.
As for OC's if it's lategame TvT you prolly already have 3-4 anyway so i don't see how you'll need anymore scans than that. One could argue however that mules bombs could be very useful. I can see it now, mules dropping from the sky as tanks move forward behind them. the defenders blow the shit out of the free mules and then procede to get their asses handed to them by the previously mentioned tanks. (that would be pretty epic to see)
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On March 18 2010 00:59 Gretorp wrote:
I'm going to use this actually, but for scan.
I was recently playing kawaiirice in a 50 minute tvt where i had just about 100 gasish, but I had around 17,000 minerals. I think the additional scans will allow me to see what's up better, and if necessary bait fire of tanks with mule drops.
Thanks for the idea :-)
Yeah... I think the most I've had is 14k, but anything over 1-2k while you have 0 gas is retarded. For people saying make marines... that's dumb. Marines suck ass TvT. I don't even bother making marines/marauders after the first 10 minutes of the game usually :D
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On March 19 2010 01:38 Twilight Templar wrote:
I'd just build more production so that if I lose my army i'll be able to rebuild it a 3 times the speed of my opponent. (this is of course assuming we're talking about 200/200 armies)He simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the production unless he also build multiple production buildings.
As for OC's if it's lategame TvT you prolly already have 3-4 anyway so i don't see how you'll need anymore scans than that. One could argue however that mules bombs could be very useful. I can see it now, mules dropping from the sky as tanks move forward behind them. the defenders blow the shit out of the free mules and then procede to get their asses handed to them by the previously mentioned tanks. (that would be pretty epic to see)
Production you say? The only production building that costs no gas is a barracks without a reactor.
So you're saying you want to mass single-unit producing barracks to suicide your worthless marines at 3 times the speed of your opponent?
Sounds like a stellar plan.
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So please correct me if I am wrong. You mule more and scan less in order to buy more CC's with the gained minerals which will allow you to scan more without muling less. This will allow you to build even more CC's. So why not mule less and scan more without being outmined so ridiculous fast?
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How long does it take for it to pay itself with just the supply adding? Since if you cant use those minerals now, theres not much harm in using it that way even if the payback time to that mineral investment was pretty slow, as long as it pays itself before youre mineral stalling again.
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Well, by my previous analysis: Orbital Command costs 550 + 66.7 lost mining time, Depot costs 100 + 20 lost mining time; hence, OC pays for itself via supply upgrade when you've gained 616.7/120 = 5.14 supply depots from it. The OC itself replaces 1.25, so you need to do 3.89 upgrades to pay for the rest. You can do one immediately, and then need to wait for 2.89 * 50 energy to do the rest, which takes about 2.89 * 90 = 260 seconds. So a little over 4 minutes to pay for itself via supply upgrades alone.
Edit: I should add that that's 260 seconds from when OC finishes, hence 260 + 100 + 35 = 395 seconds - about 6.5 minutes - from when it started.
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On March 19 2010 03:06 Steve496 wrote:
Well, by my previous analysis: Orbital Command costs 550 + 66.7 lost mining time, Depot costs 100 + 20 lost mining time; hence, OC pays for itself via supply upgrade when you've gained 616.7/120 = 5.14 supply depots from it. The OC itself replaces 1.25, so you need to do 3.89 upgrades to pay for the rest. You can do one immediately, and then need to wait for 2.89 * 50 energy to do the rest, which takes about 2.89 * 90 = 260 seconds. So a little over 4 minutes to pay for itself via supply upgrades alone.
The only thing to take into account with using it for supply, though, is that you actually need a depot to use the extra supply, making it slightly less effective over a short period of time.
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On March 19 2010 02:14 JTPROG wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2010 01:38 Twilight Templar wrote:
I'd just build more production so that if I lose my army i'll be able to rebuild it a 3 times the speed of my opponent. (this is of course assuming we're talking about 200/200 armies)He simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the production unless he also build multiple production buildings.
As for OC's if it's lategame TvT you prolly already have 3-4 anyway so i don't see how you'll need anymore scans than that. One could argue however that mules bombs could be very useful. I can see it now, mules dropping from the sky as tanks move forward behind them. the defenders blow the shit out of the free mules and then procede to get their asses handed to them by the previously mentioned tanks. (that would be pretty epic to see) Production you say? The only production building that costs no gas is a barracks without a reactor. So you're saying you want to mass single-unit producing barracks to suicide your worthless marines at 3 times the speed of your opponent? Sounds like a stellar plan.
If you had read my post you'd have noticed i said to do that only if at 200/200. So you wouldn't need gas for units since you're maxed out. (maybe upgardes, i dunno) read posts before spewing nonsense.
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On March 19 2010 04:06 Twilight Templar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2010 02:14 JTPROG wrote:On March 19 2010 01:38 Twilight Templar wrote:
I'd just build more production so that if I lose my army i'll be able to rebuild it a 3 times the speed of my opponent. (this is of course assuming we're talking about 200/200 armies)He simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the production unless he also build multiple production buildings.
As for OC's if it's lategame TvT you prolly already have 3-4 anyway so i don't see how you'll need anymore scans than that. One could argue however that mules bombs could be very useful. I can see it now, mules dropping from the sky as tanks move forward behind them. the defenders blow the shit out of the free mules and then procede to get their asses handed to them by the previously mentioned tanks. (that would be pretty epic to see) Production you say? The only production building that costs no gas is a barracks without a reactor. So you're saying you want to mass single-unit producing barracks to suicide your worthless marines at 3 times the speed of your opponent? Sounds like a stellar plan. If you had read my post you'd have noticed i said to do that only if at 200/200. So you wouldn't need gas for units since you're maxed out. (maybe upgardes, i dunno) read posts before spewing nonsense.
Even if so, wouldn't you rather save the gas for units later, rather than spend it on factoriesi or starports to make those units a bit faster...? This still doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you will have a shit-ton of minerals and no gas though, so I'm still failing to see the point.
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On March 20 2010 23:10 JTPROG wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2010 04:06 Twilight Templar wrote:On March 19 2010 02:14 JTPROG wrote:On March 19 2010 01:38 Twilight Templar wrote:
I'd just build more production so that if I lose my army i'll be able to rebuild it a 3 times the speed of my opponent. (this is of course assuming we're talking about 200/200 armies)He simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the production unless he also build multiple production buildings.
As for OC's if it's lategame TvT you prolly already have 3-4 anyway so i don't see how you'll need anymore scans than that. One could argue however that mules bombs could be very useful. I can see it now, mules dropping from the sky as tanks move forward behind them. the defenders blow the shit out of the free mules and then procede to get their asses handed to them by the previously mentioned tanks. (that would be pretty epic to see) Production you say? The only production building that costs no gas is a barracks without a reactor. So you're saying you want to mass single-unit producing barracks to suicide your worthless marines at 3 times the speed of your opponent? Sounds like a stellar plan. If you had read my post you'd have noticed i said to do that only if at 200/200. So you wouldn't need gas for units since you're maxed out. (maybe upgardes, i dunno) read posts before spewing nonsense. Even if so, wouldn't you rather save the gas for units later, rather than spend it on factoriesi or starports to make those units a bit faster...? This still doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you will have a shit-ton of minerals and no gas though, so I'm still failing to see the point.
You ever seen late late game TvT of SCBW? Terrans usually build a TON of factories. Especially when they are maxed.
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On March 20 2010 23:22 Zoler wrote:Show nested quote +On March 20 2010 23:10 JTPROG wrote:On March 19 2010 04:06 Twilight Templar wrote:On March 19 2010 02:14 JTPROG wrote:On March 19 2010 01:38 Twilight Templar wrote:
I'd just build more production so that if I lose my army i'll be able to rebuild it a 3 times the speed of my opponent. (this is of course assuming we're talking about 200/200 armies)He simply wouldn't be able to keep up with the production unless he also build multiple production buildings.
As for OC's if it's lategame TvT you prolly already have 3-4 anyway so i don't see how you'll need anymore scans than that. One could argue however that mules bombs could be very useful. I can see it now, mules dropping from the sky as tanks move forward behind them. the defenders blow the shit out of the free mules and then procede to get their asses handed to them by the previously mentioned tanks. (that would be pretty epic to see) Production you say? The only production building that costs no gas is a barracks without a reactor. So you're saying you want to mass single-unit producing barracks to suicide your worthless marines at 3 times the speed of your opponent? Sounds like a stellar plan. If you had read my post you'd have noticed i said to do that only if at 200/200. So you wouldn't need gas for units since you're maxed out. (maybe upgardes, i dunno) read posts before spewing nonsense. Even if so, wouldn't you rather save the gas for units later, rather than spend it on factoriesi or starports to make those units a bit faster...? This still doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you will have a shit-ton of minerals and no gas though, so I'm still failing to see the point. You ever seen late late game TvT of SCBW? Terrans usually build a TON of factories. Especially when they are maxed.
I'm not entirely discrediting you, but this isn't SCBW. lol.
Plus, we must stay on topic, and that is that we have no gas TONS OF SPARE MINERALS which I suggest spending on OCs. I don't know how people got building factories out of spare minerals.
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The initial calculation on the real cost of a OC was a bit wrong as it used some wrong numbers I think. A scv mines 1 min/sec so the given build time roughly equals in extra mineral cost thus.
Supply is 135 minerals for 7 supply so 1 command center is 11/7 * 135 = 212 minerals.
So real costs are
OC:
400+150+100 - 212 = 438 minerals
gives:
3.6 min/ sec of MULES
payback time about 2 mins
SCV:
50 minerals
gives:
1 min/sec
payback time 50 secs.
So as far as minerals goes the scv is offcourse more efficient but in the lategame the fact they take supply can be relevant. Lategame it should be noted though that the real cost of a OC becomes more because you will have 200 supply anyway.
Population efficiency is incredibly important though in a stale matchup such as TvT so being able to cut scv's by replacing them with extra OC's and mule power can be worthwhile. The point to start doing this, if it's usefull at all, is either at around 160/160 when the extra supply of those OCs is still usefull or latelate game when minerals are near useless.
I can see a use for it in those situations where the map is divided half by half and pretty locked up, you should be having 3 to 4 OCs already though so don't generally need that much more scan's.
There aren't a lot of mineral outlets in TvT but early on marines and later on turrets seem more useful.
I just wish they added something to break tank lines more easily in the mirror, the defensive bonus from a tank is too big making TvT's so damn boring at times.
Edit:
On a sidenote this discussion should reveal that Fast expanding is quite safe in SC2 given that a OC pays itself back quite quickly even if it's NOT at your expansion. Expanding within your 'wall' is quite safe and even if your opponent keeps you in your base you can MULE and make extra scv's for your main till it's safe to float over to your expo. Given that your main can take up to ~26 scv's before being fully saturated this is quite effective. It's one of the reasons I think expanding as terran while at 20 pop is quite effective as a walled ramp can easily be defended against zerg and toss. Before colossi etc. roll around the expansion paid itself back even if you never actually floated it to your expansion!
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Since TvT consists of mostly Tank/Viking and can transition into Thors later on, you have lots of OC's / Bases anyway, so you don't really need more OC's.
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In any 2v2 game that isn't going to be over fast, once I've taken either my cliff or my natural and dropped mules off my initial 2 OCs, I make 2 more CC in my main and upgrade them, then head out with my army and try and take ground for additional expos. The nice thing is that by the time I land, I can drop 4-6 mules and pump Marines or Hellions out of as many structures as I want to slow down any tech-intensive attack with attrition.
ADAM.1, what you say is true but the value of ALWAYS having a scan available is huuuge. Moreso than 11 Marines (550 minerals) per scanner, imho. As long as you have enough units, map control, and good position that your opponent can't walk over you, you can spend those minerals on a long-term investment like a Scanner energy tank (OC).
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On March 20 2010 23:52 Markwerf wrote:
A scv mines 1 min/sec
No, they mine 5 minerals/7 in game seconds, since that is the time you use for mules that must be the time you use for the workers. 1 real second in faster is 1.4 game seconds.
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Oh it's JTPROG again. If you have that kinda money its more worth investing into almost anything else. spending extra mins for MULES or scans is redundant because you could just be sacrificing mins for scans. Ideally you shouldn't have extra mins because you are capable of "spending" MULE money on scans.
If you aren't casting MULEs and still have extra mins something is really wrong with your game :/
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On March 18 2010 04:14 FortuneSyn wrote:
scan, and mule dropping on tanks is pretty damn useful. But so are turret highways.
Prove to Zerg you can place as many turrets around the map as he can hide overlords. > Having massive excess of minerals from multi-OC mule mining can be a very good thing if your enemy even dreams of going air units.
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EPT
