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Between the ability of terrans to lift and relocate buildings, and the new MULE, the question arises, "Just how bad is it if you build a CC in your base, and then find out you can't move it to an expansion? How inferior is upgrading it to an OC and using it for MULEs to actually taking an expansion?"
This is a thread for discussion about the economics of building extra orbital commands without taking new expansions.
I'll start with some simple analysis.
For simplicity's sake, I assume that SCVs mine 15 minerals every 17 seconds, that 100 minerals of mining time are lost to build a CC, that you can treat gaining 10 supply which isn't needed for the project as saving ~150 minerals, and MULEs mine 90 minerals every 30 seconds.
Timeline of an expansion without OC upgrade or SCV transfer:
0 sec (-400) start building CC
100 sec (-550) CC done, SCV mining time lost (-100), start making first SCV (-50)
117 sec (-600) first SCV done, start making second (-50)
134 sec (-635) second SCV done, 1 SCV mined 15 minerals (+15), start making third (-50)
151 sec (-655) 2 SCVs mining (+30), 3rd starts, build 4th (-50)
168 sec (-660) 3 SCVs mining (+45), 4th starts, build 5th (-50)
185 sec (-650) 4 SCVs mining (+60), 5th starts, build 6th (-50)
202 sec (-625) 5 SCVs mining (+75), 6th starts, build 7th (-50)
219 sec (-585) 6 SCVs mining (+90), 7th starts, build 8th (-50)
236 sec (-630) 7 SCVs mining (+105), build 9th (-50), 8th starts supply depot (-100)
253 sec (-575) 7 SCVs mining (+105), 9th starts, build 10th (-50) (8th busy building)
270 sec (-505) 8 SCVs mining (+120), 8th and 10th start, build 11th (-50)
287 sec (-405) 10 SCVs mining (+150), 11th starts, build 12th (-50)
304 sec (-290) 11 SCVs mining (+165), 12th starts, build 13th (-50)
321 sec (-160) 12 SCVs mining (+180), 13th starts, build 14th (-50)
338 sec (-5) 13 SCVs mining (+205), 14th starts, build 15th (-50)
So breakeven takes around 338 seconds, or about 5 1/2 minutes.
Timeline of an OC not at an expansion:
0 sec (-400) start building CC
100 sec (-500) CC done, SCV mining time lost (-100), 10 supply gained (+150), start OC upgrade (-150)
135 sec (-500) OC done, calldown 1st MULE
225 sec (-230) 1 MULE gathering (+270), calldown 2nd MULE
315 sec (+40) 1 MULE gathering (+270), calldown 3rd MULE
So breakeven takes around 5 minutes, and the income bonus is perhaps 1/3rd that of the expansion when it hits breakeven. Not amazing, but nothing to sneeze at.
Perhaps more interesting is the case of building a third OC in-base when you've already expanded once, and using it to help pump SCVs, as well as MULE, particularly in a situation when there's a high yield expansion you may be able to take soon.
I know my analysis is oversimplified and full of holes and inaccuracies (I'm not clear on how fast OCs regain energy, so I don't know how often they can MULE) and missing important considerations (refineries), so I'd appreciate corrections and further analysis.
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the main problem is, that you dont "gain" more minerals by building more OCs, you just mine out your main faster. That can of course be good in alot of situations, but in general you will be better of taking a new expo. The more expansions you get during a game, the faster you will mine them out aswell, since you will have more and more OCs anyways. So adding even further Ocs in your base is only viable if you want to move it to an expansion sooner or later...
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On March 28 2010 10:25 Viruuus wrote:
the main problem is, that you dont "gain" more minerals by building more OCs, you just mine out your main faster. That can of course be good in alot of situations, but in general you will be better of taking a new expo. The more expansions you get during a game, the faster you will mine them out aswell, since you will have more and more OCs anyways. So adding even further Ocs in your base is only viable if you want to move it to an expansion sooner or later...
Beat me to it. Draining your main really fast is probably a bad thing, since having so much extra minerals is likely to make you spend it on things that won't really be too helpful. One fully saturated base is more than enough to keep a steady flow of units/research coming
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SCV mining time lost (-100) is only true if unsaturated (which it probably isn't since you're considering a command center..)
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On March 28 2010 10:25 Viruuus wrote:
the main problem is, that you dont "gain" more minerals by building more OCs, you just mine out your main faster.
This is a bit like saying, "You don't 'gain' more minerals by building more SCVs..." It's true on the face of it, but mining out the resources you have faster is clearly good. Lots of games end before anyone mines out anything.
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On March 28 2010 10:27 Kantutan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 28 2010 10:25 Viruuus wrote:
the main problem is, that you dont "gain" more minerals by building more OCs, you just mine out your main faster. That can of course be good in alot of situations, but in general you will be better of taking a new expo. The more expansions you get during a game, the faster you will mine them out aswell, since you will have more and more OCs anyways. So adding even further Ocs in your base is only viable if you want to move it to an expansion sooner or later... Beat me to it. Draining your main really fast is probably a bad thing, since having so much extra minerals is likely to make you spend it on things that won't really be too helpful. One fully saturated base is more than enough to keep a steady flow of units/research coming
using the same logic, expanding instantly gives you 10k+ minerals but it doesn't does it? you can't spend minerals you don't mine so i don't see how not "gaining" minerals is relevant.
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i know what im saying 
your argument doesnt hold however, since if the game ends before your main gets mined out, then you shouldnt have spent your minerals on another command center, but on units
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On March 28 2010 10:34 Viruuus wrote:i know what im saying your argument doesnt hold however, since if the game ends before your main gets mined out, then you shouldnt have spent your minerals on another command center, but on units
i don't really agree that CCing just for the extra MULE is good but you're assuming the player is never going to expand ever and just let his main mine out which doesn't make a whole lot of sense. also, how quickly your main mines out is not a negative factor, mining out your mineral line faster is something i think most people would prefer because you're getting more money to spend within the same period of time.
that's like saying you should never expand to gold minerals because it mines out faster.
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I already made a topic on this, refer to my thread "[D] Spamming orbital Commands"
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On March 28 2010 11:13 JTPROG wrote:
I already made a topic on this, refer to my thread "[D] Spamming orbital Commands"
Thanks for pointing that out.
I think this one has got a different emphasis. This thread is more about detailed analysis of the economics of non-expansion OCs, i.e. how much you lose when you build a CC, can't set it down in an expansion, and convert it to an OC for MULEs. Although that one has some posts relevant to this thread, it is more about using up excess minerals to get scan.
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I'll go ahead and say it. Investing 550 minerals so that in 5 minutes you will breakeven is not a good idea.
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On March 28 2010 12:51 Tor wrote:
I'll go ahead and say it. Investing 550 minerals so that in 5 minutes you will breakeven is not a good idea.
So... never expand?
(By the way, the times I'm talking about are official time, i.e. Normal speed. The actual play standard is Faster, which is 1.4 times faster, so in actual games things only take about 3/4rs as long.)
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Playing with the analysis...
No supply depot, trying for faster breakeven:
0 sec (-400) start building CC
100 sec (-550) CC done, SCV mining time lost (-100), start making first SCV (-50)
117 sec (-600) first SCV done, start making second (-50)
134 sec (-635) second SCV done, 1 SCV mined 15 minerals (+15), start making third (-50)
151 sec (-655) 2 SCVs mining (+30), 3rd starts, build 4th (-50)
168 sec (-660) 3 SCVs mining (+45), 4th starts, build 5th (-50)
185 sec (-650) 4 SCVs mining (+60), 5th starts, build 6th (-50)
202 sec (-625) 5 SCVs mining (+75), 6th starts, build 7th (-50)
219 sec (-585) 6 SCVs mining (+90), 7th starts, build 8th (-50)
236 sec (-530) 7 SCVs mining (+105), 8th starts, build 9th (-50)
253 sec (-410) 8 SCVs mining (+120), 9th starts, build 10th (-50)
270 sec (-290) 9 SCVs mining (+120), 10th starts
287 sec (-170) 10 SCVs mining (+120)
304 sec (-50) 10 SCVs mining (+120)
321 sec (+70) 10 SCVs mining (+120)
You break even a little faster, but obviously not a very good idea.
Pumping from 2 CCs, first CC saturated:
0 sec (-580) start building CC, start making 1st SCV (-50), supply depot made at some point (-100, by excess SCV, so no lost mining time)
17 sec (-630) start making 2nd SCV (-50)
34 sec (-680) start making 3rd SCV (-50)
51 sec (-730) start making 4th SCV (-50)
68 sec (-780) start making 5th SCV (-50)
85 sec (-830) start making 6th SCV (-50)
102 sec (-930) CC done (no lost mining time), 6 SCVs start mining, start making 7th 8th SCVs (-100)
119 sec (-920) 6 SCVs mine (+90), 2 start, start making 2 (-100)
136 sec (-900) 8 SCVs mine (+120), 2 start, start making 2 (-100)
153 sec (-850) 10 SCVs mine (+150), 2 start, start making 2 (-100)
170 sec (-770) 12 SCVs mine (+180), 2 start, start making 2 (-100)
187 sec (-660) 14 SCVs mine (+210), 2 start, start making 2 (-100)
204 sec (-440) 16 SCVs mine (+240), 2 start
221 sec (-170) 18 SCVs mine (+270)
238 sec (+100) 18 SCVs mine (+270)
Fast expansions seem to take about a minute and a half longer to pay off than late ones. In the long term, if you have the minerals, it would make sense to build an extra supply depot while you've got surplus labor, to avoid taking an SCV off the line when you're not oversaturated.
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Building an OC in your base to provide extra mules is a long term plan since it won't pay off for 5 minutes and if you invest in it too early you'll just get rolled over by a superior army. Yet mules are worth nothing over long games as the map gets mined out so over a long game you shouldn't expect much use either.
Also, maynarding.
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On March 28 2010 14:58 Vexki wrote:
Building an OC in your base to provide extra mules is a long term plan since it won't pay off for 5 minutes and if you invest in it too early you'll just get rolled over by a superior army. Yet mules are worth nothing over long games as the map gets mined out so over a long game you shouldn't expect much use either.
Also, maynarding.
The point of the thread isn't to figure out whether it's great, but exactly how much worse than building an expansion it actually is.
Obviously, making MULEs is not the only thing you want to be doing with an OC. You want to be making SCVs, and making the minerals and gas at a new expansion available.
However, to make intelligent choices about risk-taking, you need to understand the consequences of failure.
Rather than just losing 400 minerals by building a CC you can't land in an expansion as you did in SC1, in SC2, by upgrading it to an OC and using it for MULEs, you get your investment back after a few more minutes, not vastly longer than it would take you to recover your investment on a full-blown expansion, and then you start to make a moderate profit. And you can still use the OC to build SCVs (to recover from harassment, for example) and grab an expansion later on, if you need to. The MULE-calling capability of a OC alone is about 15% of the mineral-extracting value of a fully-developed expansion, for about 40% of the mineral cost and sometimes as little as 25% of the time.
That's not terrible. It justifies more speculative CC building, without being sure you can secure an expansion right away. You can plan a fork into your build order.
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EPT
