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Hello!
I've been silently reading TL for a long time, I figured it is time to contribue!  I've been trying to do this as proper and scientific as possible, although more tests should probably be conducted to draw definite conclusions.
/Tenn (Sweden)
Edit
I've updated some conclusions and explanations for test 5 to better explain how I did the actual extractor trick.
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Introduction
So, each game you play you have a different set of options to choose from, especially as zerg with the (so called) extractor trick element. Granted, this has little effect on the overall game (or has it?), but it is still 1-2 minutes when you have nothing else to do, so you might as well be as efficient as possible!
I've always been curious if the extractor trick is really worth it or not, seeing some top players using it while others doesn't. Moreover, I've been curious if microing the workers to make sure they go to an empty mineral patch is really worth it or not. While I was at it, I decided to see how 9 OL builds compares to 10 OL builds.
For those of you who don't know, the extractor trick is done by building an extractor when you're supply blocked, building a drone and then cancelling the extractor, giving you an extra supply until an OL pops out (usually used to get 11/10 supply).
Method
I used one of the build testers to be able to get a reliable timer for the different builds. After some thinking I settled on going for timing when the 15th drone spawns (stopping building drones when I've started the 15th), as well as the current minerals when that happens.
With the exception of Test 1 I will not be using any mineral micro since it adds another parameter to the test, and the the disadvantage of not microing should be roughly the same anyway.
Test 1: New drone first or moving all drones to mineral line first
Conclusion: If you build a new drone first you will get between 0 and 20 more minerals after the 15th drone pops out.
+ Show Spoiler +Method: I've been using no micro but putting the rally point at the closest mineral patch. Build: 9 OL Create drone -> move workers
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 270
2 2:06 265
3 2:07 265
Move workers -> create drone
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:05 255
2 2:06 255
3 2:07 270
Granted, this is only viable when I am playing. Other players might be much more efficient when moving workers first, but I decided to post it anyway.
Test 2: Efficiency of mineral micro
Conclusion: You barely gain anything on microing drones (workers?) to empty mineral patches.
+ Show Spoiler +Method: When microing I did the following: Splitting the drones by first moving all drones to one mineral patch, and then, while they're on their way, moving 3 drones to a mineral patch at least 3 mineral patches away from the first one (so that all drones will quickly find an empty patch). This is how I've seen most top players do it, correct me if I'm wrong. Moreover, I've been putting rally point on empty patches as much as possible. Build: Create drone - move workers - 9 OL No micro
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 270
2 2:06 265
3 2:07 265
Using micro
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 270
2 2:06 270
3 2:06 260
If you compare the stats, you see that you indeed get a little advantage using micro, but it is minimal. But you have to bear in mind the risk when microing of misclicking etc. More tests (by more players) should probably be made to get more accurate figures on this.
Test 3: 9 OL build or 10 OL build
Conclusion: 9 OL build is more economic.
+ Show Spoiler +Micro used: Moving all workers to closest patch and rallying to the same patch. Create drone - move workers - 9 OL
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 270
2 2:06 265
3 2:07 265
Create drone - move workers - 10 OL
Attempt Time Minerals Minerals at 2:06
1 2:10 300 265
2 2:12 320 260
3 2:11 310 265
The 15th drone pops out roughly 5 seconds later than if doing the 9 OL build, but the mineral count up until 2:06 is roughly the same. This makes me believe that 9 OL build is more economic, but the 10 OL build might have other advantages as being able to afford spawning pool earlier. Although I never tested it, I think you get your first 200 minerals faster if doing 10 OL build.
Test 4: Extractor trick before overlord (11 OL)
Conclusion: Doing extractor trick gives you 10-15 minerals LESS than if skipping it.
Edit: Note: This isn't how you're supposed to do ETs. Test 5 is more appropriate
+ Show Spoiler +Micro used: Moving all workers to closest patch and rallying to the same patch. Create drone - move workers - 10 OL
Attempt Time Minerals Minerals at 2:06
1 2:10 300 265
2 2:12 320 260
3 2:11 310 265
Create drone - move workers - 10 OL - 11 Extractor (extractor trick)
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 250 (254)
2 2:07 250 (254)
3 2:06 255 (259)
Note that you cannot use 4 minerals after you've done the extractor trick since everything you can buy is rounded by 10 (uh, best way i could explain it). The only way to get some of those 4 minerals is to make another extractor trick (at 18 supply for example). As you can see the minerals after the 15th drone pops out are much lower than when doing nothing at all. Interesting, seeing many top players doing this extractor trick!
Test 5: Extractor trick after OL (10 OL)
Conclusion: If doing extractor trick this way you have 0-30 minerals LESS than if skipping it.
Edit: Some additional tests have been made, and it seems that you can make it the ET better and gain 5-10 minerals on that. But to do that you need to have practiced doing this alot in my experience.
+ Show Spoiler +Micro used: Moving all workers to closest patch and rallying to the same patch. Edit: When doing the extractor trick I tried to limit the time the extractor being built, as well as the time the drone have to wait as long as possible. So basically I waited until I had 75 minerals before starting doing the extractor, and I moved the drone closest to the gas as soon as it had left its minerals at the hatch. I believe this is how you do it best, but again, I might have missed 5 or 10 minerals. Create drone - move workers - 9 OL
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 270
2 2:06 265
3 2:07 265
Create drone - move workers - 9 OL - 10 Extractor (extractor trick)
Attempt Time Minerals
1 2:06 240 (244)
2 2:06 235 (239)
3 2:07 265 (269)
Again: Note that you cannot use 4 minerals after you've done the extractor trick since everything you can buy is rounded by 10 (uh, best way i could explain it). The only way to get some of those 4 minerals is to make another extractor trick (at 18 supply for example). As you can see the minerals after the 15th drone pops out are much lower than when doing nothing at all. Interesting, seeing many top players doing this extractor trick!
Final conclusion
It seems like the AI is intelligent enough without our efforts to help it out Extractor trick doesn't seem viable in any situation which is quite interesting IMO. In addition, the more micro you do the more likely you are to screw something up. For example, it took me like 5 tries to get 10 OL - extractor trick to get 3 perfect shots at it ( the numbers posted here), since it is so much more complex than just hitting "1sd" over and over.
Things to bear in mind
3 tests for each build is probably not enough to get reliable results, but I believe you can see some patterns still, and the numbers doesn't seem to differ very much within each tests so I think it's ok.
Larva timing is difficult to measure. For future tests it might be a good idea to measure when the next larva will spawn. The larva count has been at 1 when the 15th drone pops for all the different builds.
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Thanks for the contribution. So far it looks like all these tests have agreed with previous ones. However; how efficiently are you doing the EX-Trick? Not sure how much minerals it costs exactly but you should only lose like 5 minerals mining time if you are doing it super fast and from a close patch. Most tests show 10 OL Ex-trick>10 OL
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Good tests, I'm suprised at the lack of visible benefit on microing workers correctly, but the 9 and 10 pool tests show me I was right in my gut feeling of 9pool no extractor trick being the way to go.
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Thanks for this. Always felt like this was the case, but I had never tested it. I've been using 9ovie with no extractor trick pretty much since the start. I only did extractor tricks when I accidentally made a drone on 9 because I was spamming, or had 16/18 and needed both a queen and lings asap.
As far as larvae counts go, as long as you're not sitting with 3 larvae, they will keep spawning at the same interval. It doesn't matter when you create something from your existing ones.
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I thought 10 OL extractor was better. I've seen Sen do double extractor trick. But thanks for the info.
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what I do is make 2 extractors and two drones then cancel the two extractors to make a spawning pool after that the overlord but is not that effective but whatever you can do in the fisrt 3 min of the game o help the economy even if it's just minimum
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ti agree with with slayer91, 10OL ex-trick >10OL even if u have 10 or 15minerals less the larva econ is a hudge deal in the first steps of your build.
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Are you sure the extractor trick is to 10 OL, then extractor trick? I thought you drone up to 11 and then start building the overlord.
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On June 10 2010 01:52 fdsdfg wrote:
Are you sure the extractor trick is to 10 OL, then extractor trick? I thought you drone up to 11 and then start building the overlord.
I did that in test 4, but the headings were confusing, I've edited it now. I realize 11 OL is the normal extractor trick build, but I wanted to see what happened if you did extractor trick after the OL as well.
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extractor trick comes before overlord.
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On June 10 2010 01:47 Slayer91 wrote:
Thanks for the contribution. So far it looks like all these tests have agreed with previous ones. However; how efficiently are you doing the EX-Trick? Not sure how much minerals it costs exactly but you should only lose like 5 minerals mining time if you are doing it super fast and from a close patch. Most tests show 10 OL Ex-trick>10 OL
When I did the extractor trick I made sure to have more drones on the mineral patches closest to the gas, and I did try to do it as fast as possible. It would be interesting to see the numbers if it was done perfectly.
Maybe I wasn't as efficient as I could have been. But I believe I didn't do it any worse than 95% of the players out there. And as I mentioned, I believe the risk of doing it slightly wrong (so that you loose more than 5 mineral mining time) is quite huge.
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I do the extractor trick, but for another reason, to scout (if i would not do the extractor trick I would do 9 ovie)
so, if I dont do the extractor trick I can send out the drone at 9 and only have 8 drones mining, or I can send it out after the ovie att 10 and have 9 drones mining, but sending it after the ovie makes me scout a lot later.
by doing 10 extractor trick then ovie. I can send out the drone that made the extractor to scout, this way I send it waay earlier than sending it after the ovie, but I still have 9 drones mining.
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The problem with tests like this is you can't really distinguish between a worker having just deposited resources, versus a worker milliseconds away from depositing resources. It also takes a full minute for a worker to return its investment. So, something might cost you more in the short term, but give you more resources in the long term.
Having that 11th worker from the Extractor Trick earlier than waiting for the OL to appear, may in fact be a benefit, even if the numbers immediately after the fact don't represent that.
Oh and larvae pop up every 15 seconds. I think that's pretty static.
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On June 10 2010 02:08 folke123 wrote:+ Show Spoiler +I do the extractor trick, but for another reason, to scout (if i would not do the extractor trick I would do 9 ovie)
so, if I dont do the extractor trick I can send out the drone at 9 and only have 8 drones mining, or I can send it out after the ovie att 10 and have 9 drones mining, but sending it after the ovie makes me scout a lot later.
by doing 10 extractor trick then ovie. I can send out the drone that made the extractor to scout, this way I send it waay earlier than sending it after the ovie, but I still have 9 drones mining.
Yeah I was about to mention the same thing. I would like the stats with a scouting drone thrown in, but that will throw in a rather complex variable. Which number drone to send? A flesh drone or a already mining drone? Timing of said drone?
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On June 10 2010 02:14 Bibdy wrote:
The problem with tests like this is you can't really distinguish between a worker having just deposited resources, versus a worker milliseconds away from depositing resources. It also takes a full minute for a worker to return its investment. So, something might cost you more in the short term, but give you more resources in the long term.
Having that 11th worker from the Extractor Trick earlier than waiting for the OL to appear, may in fact be a benefit, even if the numbers immediately after the fact don't represent that.
Oh and larvae pop up every 15 seconds. I think that's pretty static.
Granted, and that's one of the reasons for that I mentioned that more tests should be conducted, that way you'll get an average of the millisecond differences. This is also the reason why I choose to build 15 drones and then stop production there. I figured that the difference between the different builds should be evident by that time. But maybe it would have been even better to wait another minute after the 15th drone had popped and measure the mineral count by then.
If you're doing the 10 or 11 OL build you will have 3 larvas at a period of time, and during that time no larvas will be on their way (right?), so it makes a little difference there. But thanks for noting that they pop every 15 seconds, didn't know that.
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i usually just build 10 scvs.
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Scouting drone is the key I think. With Extractor trick you can send an 11th drone to scout much earlier than 9OL. If you want a later drone, then 9OL -> 13th/14th scout is probably better.
Also remember that faster pool -> faster queen which may end up putting you ahead economically later on.
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Hate to sound ungreatful (promise I'm not) but the ones that really matter are 10-OL-extractor and some doubles.
Thanks for confirming the others are bad though
And the micro! Wonderful to know
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On June 10 2010 01:56 Madkipz wrote:
extractor trick comes before overlord.
Doing the extractor trick before OL isn't as economic as doing OL then ET. You get that 11th drone faster, but you delay your 12-13-(14?)th drones.
Besides, 9OL is most economic if your not planning on pooling before 14.
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Wait, so 9OL is better than 10OL for 14pool or 15hat openings, but not 12pool or overpool? Hm. Apparently I've been doing it wrong. Which doesn't surprise me because I'm awful at Zerg, but that's good to know.
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another example of sc1 tricks not being useful in sc2.
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On June 10 2010 16:10 pyr0ma5ta wrote:
Wait, so 9OL is better than 10OL for 14pool or 15hat openings, but not 12pool or overpool? Hm. Apparently I've been doing it wrong. Which doesn't surprise me because I'm awful at Zerg, but that's good to know.
Getting a 9OL but then doing a 12 pool would be counterproductive to the 9OL opening. The 9OL openeing is so you don't 3larva cap and get drones sooner too.
I don't 12pool much. But If I were, I would either 10OL ET 12pool or you could try 10 double ET, 12pool.
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On June 10 2010 16:18 darmousseh wrote:
another example of sc1 tricks not being useful in sc2.
Except its far far more useful in sc2 than it is in sc1, since its much cheaper and you have 2 available extractors. Don't post wrong things.
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On June 10 2010 16:34 P00RKID wrote:
or you could try 10 double ET, 12pool.
That what i was wondering. What are the effects of the ET on an early pool? So single / double ET to 11/12 pool or overpool. I would guess the earlier drones would be more beneficial here.
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On June 10 2010 17:23 Demus wrote:That what i was wondering. What are the effects of the ET on an early pool? So single / double ET to 11/12 pool or overpool. I would guess the earlier drones would be more beneficial here.
Hmm,
Interesting idea... in general doing a double extractor trick is really not a good idea as you have to save up the minerals to do both at the same time (thus losing quite a bit of mining time).
Personally, I dont think that a DE trick is a good choice, but who knows...
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i use extractor trick when i´m rushing to get some extra zerglings out then i get ol when i got oversupply
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9 OL is just best for everything, by the time the 12th drone pops it's already economically better then 10 OL. Single extractor trick or 10 OL are just inferior and double extractor trick is useless as you need 150 minerals saved up to execute it (2 extrs. + 2 drones cost) in which case you might as well make the OL earlier..
Only in some builds is 10 OL better then 9 OL like when doing a 10 pool build. But this speaks for itself basically.
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1) I always felt like there is no need to micro the drones, AI is good enough. Now I know it, thanks.
2) The extractor trick results appear to be wrong.
3) I play a lot with 11ET>ov>pool and this way et is very much worth doing.
ET efficiency can be very easily calculated. All u need is timings of drones and the fact that drones mine at speed roughly 0,75minerals/second. The bad thing about 10 ov no ET is that it must delay the larva production which leads to all your future drones to spawn at later time which is economically inferior to any loss of minerals because of ET.
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i did a test for 2x double extractor trick
10 drones
Double extractor trick
12 hatch
11 pool
Double extractor trick AGAIN
overlord on 12
pool finishes @ ~2:20 (you have enough for a queen but i didnt build)
hatch finishes @ ~2:30 by then we have 14 drones and ~356 min
seems very interesting to me.. compared to
14 pool 15 hatch (standard???)
pool finishes a few seconds earlier
and at 2:30 i would have 17 drones & hatch 1/2 way complete
second overlord in production and ~250 min. 350 if no second Overlord
seems like doing 2x double extractor trick has its benefits... your 3 drones behind, BUT you have a hatchery 40-50 seconds earlier.
EDIT: did a bit more testing.. it feels like this 2x double extractor trick is really good though i haven't actually used it in a real game..
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a few things i would like to note. when doing extractor tricks make sure u have enough minerals to instantly make a drone so u can almost instantly cancel making it. the longer the extractor sits not mining the less accurate ur tests will be. another thing to note is drone count. i think 2 minutes isnt enough time to get an accurate graph. good work though. i was persaonly messing around with build tester lastnight and i found 9-10 OL to be the most economic. THE best reason for doing double extractor trick is to build a spawning pool before and OL. thats the only reason to use it imo.
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On June 10 2010 21:09 lim1017 wrote:
seems like doing 2x double extractor trick has its benefits... your 3 drones behind, BUT you have a hatchery 40-50 seconds earlier.
hey lim cool info. seems on small maps that might be viable, even behind on drones u could use that hatchery to make a faster 2nd queen and maybe put a cawler down as well, ur first queen u could polly use to creep tumor to join the 2 bases faster rather then inject do too hatchery popping more larva sooner.
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I have also been wanting to try out double extractor into a faster pool and compare that against 12pool on single extractor trick, actually. After playing with the double ET 12 hatch build for a bit for ZvP, I was pretty skeptical of its uses in the matchup, but pushing for an earlier pool with double ET might be worth it yet.
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You've have 4 extra larva at that time, too. One on completion of the Hatchery, and an extra one every 15 seconds thereafter.
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the extractor trick has more to do with larvae management than with the other resources.
i think we can make that the result of this discussion.
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i always do the extractor trick. with loads of practice you can get it really fast
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On June 10 2010 01:56 Madkipz wrote:
extractor trick comes before overlord.
no
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Commenting on OP's testing on the lack of extrator's effeciency. Now this is pure speculation as I do not play zerg but I do not believe the extractor trick is used to obtain more minerals but rather use the OL 100 min for a faster pool or hatch.
Having this said you should attempt 10 OL hatch and 12/10 ext trick hatch and test the mineral effeciency at 5 minutes.
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Seems like you need to do a lot of tests to account for human error. The differences are so tiny.
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Wow. Great job man, good to see you put so much effort into testing this. I saw a few people useing the EX trick and thought it was viable now, maybe not seeing as the only argument is maybe your not fast enough. Which I'll admit I'm not. But thanks for doing all the hard work. If you ever need help testing anything. PM me I'd be glad to help.
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Finding out how effective extractor trick is could be done with some mathematics.
(T-E-2* D)*M-C = R
M = amonth of minerals a worker collects per second.
T = time it takes to build an overlord.
E = time it takes to build and cancel an extractor.
D = time it takes to move a drone between the mineral line and the gas geyser.
C = cost to build and cancel an extractor.
R = the result of using the extractor trick.
Some of this variables are known:
O = 25
M = 0.75 (according to above)
C = 25*0.25 = 6.25, rounded up to 7
(25-E-2* D)*0.75 - 7 = R
R is positive if:
(E+2* D) < 15.67
I don't have the timings but I guess D is around 3 and E can be as low as 2 which would result in the extractor trick giving about 5 minerals if done perfectly. The trick is probably not worth it unless someone is going for a pool before the first overlord.
(All seconds I have talked about is in game seconds.)
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On June 11 2010 08:55 Batch wrote:
Finding out how effective extractor trick is could be done with some mathematics.
(T-E-2* D)*M-C = R
M = amonth of minerals a worker collects per second.
T = time it takes to build an overlord.
E = time it takes to build and cancel an extractor.
D = time it takes to move a drone between the mineral line and the gas geyser.
C = cost to build and cancel an extractor.
R = the result of using the extractor trick.
Some of this variables are known:
O = 25
M = 0.75 (according to above)
C = 25*0.25 = 6.25, rounded up to 7
(25-E-2* D)*0.75 - 7 = R
R is positive if:
(E+2* D) < 15.67
I don't have the timings but I guess D is around 3 and E can be as low as 2 which would result in the extractor trick giving about 5 minerals if done perfectly. The trick is probably not worth it unless someone is going for a pool before the first overlord.
(All seconds I have talked about is in game seconds.)
With the extractor trick (after overlord), you don't start your drone exactly when the overlord is started so you don't win exactly T*M
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As somebody already stated, ET is not about minerals but about larvae-management. Anytime you have 3 larvaes is a waste since no larvae is respawning, and its no good to have minerals if you cant spend them.
That is why I do ET, + the benefit of getting that 11th drone early to scout. + I really dont loose much economically and I have nothing else to do with my time so..
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10lord ET uses up the larva so the hatch isn't maxed until the lord pops out and you build 2 more.
The testing honestly needs to be while using standard builds. The time isn't long enough.
14pool/15hatch, 15pool, 15 hatch, 13pool, 15pool/16hatch are the most common OL openings.
I don't think 9 lord is valid, I could be wrong but it just seems bad compared to 10lord. Not even talking about 10lord ET. So just compare the 10lord builds imho.
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On June 11 2010 19:02 choppa wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2010 08:55 Batch wrote:
Finding out how effective extractor trick is could be done with some mathematics.
(T-E-2* D)*M-C = R
M = amonth of minerals a worker collects per second.
T = time it takes to build an overlord.
E = time it takes to build and cancel an extractor.
D = time it takes to move a drone between the mineral line and the gas geyser.
C = cost to build and cancel an extractor.
R = the result of using the extractor trick.
Some of this variables are known:
O = 25
M = 0.75 (according to above)
C = 25*0.25 = 6.25, rounded up to 7
(25-E-2* D)*0.75 - 7 = R
R is positive if:
(E+2* D) < 15.67
I don't have the timings but I guess D is around 3 and E can be as low as 2 which would result in the extractor trick giving about 5 minerals if done perfectly. The trick is probably not worth it unless someone is going for a pool before the first overlord.
(All seconds I have talked about is in game seconds.) With the extractor trick (after overlord), you don't start your drone exactly when the overlord is started so you don't win exactly T*M
In my calculations I did the extractor trick before building the overlord but you are right about more seconds worth of mining time being lost if the overlord is created before the mining trick. This only strengthens the point about extractor trick not being worth it unless going for an early pool before the overlord.
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i also did not belive that a 9 OV is the best econ options.
All my build orders where with 10 ET 11 OV.
After testing again 9 OV is far better if you do not plan to do a pool before OV.
9 OV 14 pool is by far the best econ opening in my tests.
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On June 11 2010 08:55 Batch wrote:
Finding out how effective extractor trick is could be done with some mathematics.
(T-E-2* D)*M-C = R
M = amonth of minerals a worker collects per second.
T = time it takes to build an overlord.
E = time it takes to build and cancel an extractor.
D = time it takes to move a drone between the mineral line and the gas geyser.
C = cost to build and cancel an extractor.
R = the result of using the extractor trick.
Some of this variables are known:
O = 25
M = 0.75 (according to above)
C = 25*0.25 = 6.25, rounded up to 7
(25-E-2* D)*0.75 - 7 = R
R is positive if:
(E+2* D) < 15.67
I don't have the timings but I guess D is around 3 and E can be as low as 2 which would result in the extractor trick giving about 5 minerals if done perfectly. The trick is probably not worth it unless someone is going for a pool before the first overlord.
(All seconds I have talked about is in game seconds.)
The thing is too, your going off perfection so if someones like one or two seconds off it wont work ? Because then if thats the case then the formula should be thrown out the window because perfect timing is most likely impossible, in my eyes.
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Wait, the first result you have here makes no sense to me.
In the test of moving workers to minerals or building new worker first.
Think about it this way, what is more important
1. getting one worker to minerals ~one second earlier (the new one you built)
2. getting 6 workers to minerals ~one second earlier (the 6 you start with)
I cannot figure out any reason why building the worker first would be better. Any explanations?
All of these tests are finding incredibly tiny margins, so if this one is off, it suggests that none of the results you achieved can accurately be measured by your tests.
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On June 11 2010 23:18 Pathetic wrote:Show nested quote +On June 11 2010 08:55 Batch wrote:
Finding out how effective extractor trick is could be done with some mathematics.
(T-E-2* D)*M-C = R
M = amonth of minerals a worker collects per second.
T = time it takes to build an overlord.
E = time it takes to build and cancel an extractor.
D = time it takes to move a drone between the mineral line and the gas geyser.
C = cost to build and cancel an extractor.
R = the result of using the extractor trick.
Some of this variables are known:
O = 25
M = 0.75 (according to above)
C = 25*0.25 = 6.25, rounded up to 7
(25-E-2* D)*0.75 - 7 = R
R is positive if:
(E+2* D) < 15.67
I don't have the timings but I guess D is around 3 and E can be as low as 2 which would result in the extractor trick giving about 5 minerals if done perfectly. The trick is probably not worth it unless someone is going for a pool before the first overlord.
(All seconds I have talked about is in game seconds.) The thing is too, your going off perfection so if someones like one or two seconds off it wont work ? Because then if thats the case then the formula should be thrown out the window because perfect timing is most likely impossible, in my eyes.
The formula includes timings which makes it valid even in situations where timings are bad. The point I wanted to make with the formula was that unless the extractor trick is done with a close to perfect timing then it will result in a loss instead of a gain.
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On June 11 2010 20:24 CharlieMurphy wrote:I don't think 9 lord is valid, I could be wrong but it just seems bad compared to 10lord. Not even talking about 10lord ET. So just compare the 10lord builds imho.
Actually, from testing a while back, 9lord is superior to 10lord but inferior to 10lord ET. The reasons for being superior to 10lord is that with 9lord you don't waste larva spawn time, but with 10lord you do. 10lord with ET fixes the spawn problem however and you have an extra drone mining for longer than you need to recoup the 10 minerals you lose from the ET(since you can never spend those 4 minerals).
There are so many flaws in the OP however that I wouldn't put much weight behind it(larva capping for one, stopping the timer way early before any difference would show is another). It's a nice attempt, but I have to agree that more testing is needed.
Lost my notes on my own tests however so I don't really feel like doing them all over. As far as I remember though a 13-14 pool was usually better than hatch first builds(economically, queen is just way superior to hatch). An exception however is if you want fast spine crawlers at your expo but don't have to worry about any earlier rushes(useful if you know someone is getting a superfast hellion but not attacking with marines at all).
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I'm confused about your conclusion on test 4. You say it puts you 10 minerals behind, but your results show that the 10 overlord tests were mining for roughly 4 seconds longer and ended up with minerals that were only 10-15 ahead of 10 overlord extractor. That means that if you can mine more than 10-15 minerals in 4 seconds, you come out way ahead with the extractor trick.
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is it possible goin 13/10? i.e. constructing a pool/double extractor.. then back to mineral line?
how this may be helpful is going straight to hatchery as soon as 300 minerals is acquired (instead of using that 100 on an oL) Just a thought.. thx
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a extractor trick gets you your larva out faster i believe so i think its worth it
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On June 12 2010 00:17 sob3k wrote:
Wait, the first result you have here makes no sense to me.
In the test of moving workers to minerals or building new worker first.
Think about it this way, what is more important
1. getting one worker to minerals ~one second earlier (the new one you built)
2. getting 6 workers to minerals ~one second earlier (the 6 you start with)
I cannot figure out any reason why building the worker first would be better. Any explanations?
All of these tests are finding incredibly tiny margins, so if this one is off, it suggests that none of the results you achieved can accurately be measured by your tests.
I thought this too at first but then I thought about the cumlative effect. The first worker you build mines for an extra second but then so does the second worker as well. ByY 15 workers you have got nine extra seconds.
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What about the use of larva? Surely getting 2 drones out and delaying OL for a bit lets your larva be most efficient, aka always being under 3. I'm not sure on how the larva spawns but its 3 max with a larva every X seconds and if you get a queen 4 extra every 40sec ideally. I would also think about buildings as having 12 drones and going down to 11 is less significant then having 10 and going down to 9. I don't play zerg at all but when I rarely do I do double extractor trick from drones on their return trip, near the geyser, in about 3seconds each max.
Personally it makes me have higher APM so I am ready to play rather than SD spam.
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larvae pop up when u have 2 or less larvae and ur 3rd is morphing at i think 90-95% then it spawns. im not sure about the time interval inbetween if u have 0/1 larvae
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On June 12 2010 00:17 sob3k wrote:
1. getting one worker to minerals ~one second earlier (the new one you built)
2. getting 6 workers to minerals ~one second earlier (the 6 you start with)
I cannot figure out any reason why building the worker first would be better. Any explanations?
There was a post not to long ago that illustrated that it basically doesn't matter which order you do it in. Unless you're really slow to select the workers and move them after building one, then it's negligible.
I'm on a mac and can't get the sc2mapster program to run a map, can anyone do some more tests involving double extractor trick?
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i just tested extractor trick.
I went up to 13 drones and just built up minerals from there. Should make no difference with regards to this strat. Also made sure to restart until my splits were exactly the same. Minerals at 1:40 -
w/ extractor trick - 494
w/out extractor trick - 485
I don't know what you were doing to get such big differences, but if you actually know how to do it, the extractor trick does give you a couple extra minerals.
Also tested the 9 OL build. Got 480 minerals at the 1:40 mark. Seems like a matter of preference, as human error can easily account for those 5 minerals.
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I did some tests aswell in which I built 15 drones and checked the minerals at 2:30 (gametime).
The tests were done without any worker microing at all pointing all new drones to the same mineral patch. I ran about 10 tests counting only the runs which went flawless. In the extractor trick runs the extractor where built when I had 75 minerals so I immidiately could build a new drone.
ET: 504-524 minerals
No-ET: 505-535 minerals
As seen we probably need a lot of tests to actually find out the true outcome since the ranges are this wide.
I also glanced at the larvas and I would estimate the ET is worth about 5 (in game) seconds of larva spawn (1/3 larva).
With this result I get the conclusion that I probably will skip the ET since I don't think it's worth the trouble. I got pretty bad micro and while trying to do the trick I probably failed twice as often as I succeeded and lost valuable mining times with missclicks...
I would love seeing a video of somebody with great micro trying this out with gamespeed set on slowest and doing a perfect ET.
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On June 12 2010 03:32 sti wrote:
I thought this too at first but then I thought about the cumlative effect. The first worker you build mines for an extra second but then so does the second worker as well. ByY 15 workers you have got nine extra seconds.
This isn't true for zerg. You can build multiple drones at the same time. This is only true for protoss and terran.
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I would say its pretty obvious to anyone that microing your workers, for example, DOES give a benefit.
No wasted mining time > wasted mining time, there is really no point in arguing against that.
The real question, however, is: Is it worth it?
I would say it isnt for me, based on my own observations, and these results.
The simple matter that it comes down to is this:
If you do it absolutely perfectly, you gain about 5 minerals. If you mess up, you can lose a lot more than that.
So it simply comes down to this in the end:
If you can do it absolutely perfectly, 100% of the time, and also have the APM to spare doing it, then do it.
If you cant do it perfectly 100% of the time, and/or you would rather focus your attention and apm somewhere else, then the possible 5 mineral gain simply isnt worth it, and you are better off not doing it.
More minerals is always good, but sometimes, 5 minerals simply isnt worth it.
And yes, thats all it is really. There is no "cumulative effect". That doesnt apply to zerg, unless your build wastes larva. (which neither 9OL or ET do).
Stopping the tests early "before the effects can be seen" is bullshit.
If you have 15 drones mining and 1 larva in all cases, letting it go on for longer is not going to show any "cumulative effect over time" or something random like that. No matter what build you used to get there, 15 drones mine at the same speed. If you are 5 minerals ahead, letting the 15 drones mine for 20 more mining cycles isnt going to put you more minerals ahead compared to another build with 15 drones also mining for 20 cycles.
Summing it up:
Splitting workers at the start: not worth it, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain.
Microing workers: not worth it, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time and have APM to spare. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain.
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
If you are going for a scout, pool, and hatch at 12 food or later, dont bother with the ET. Its not worth the APM investment, for a gain of 5-15 minerals, and a potential loss of double to triple that amount, maybe more depending on how bad you screw it up.
Same thing for microing workers and splitting them.
If you actually are able to pull this all off 100% of the time, completely perfectly, and never screwing it up, ever, and have the APM to do it, and enjoy the pressure of putting yourself in a high-risk low-reward sittuation, where you cannot screw up, and also have a relevant build where 5 extra minerals actually makes a difference (lol), then sure, go ahead. If you are at that point, then you probably know what you are doing already better than anyone else, and dont need any advice.
All others: dont do it!
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On June 12 2010 23:55 Batch wrote:I did some tests aswell in which I built 15 drones and checked the minerals at 2:30 (gametime). The tests were done without any worker microing at all pointing all new drones to the same mineral patch. I ran about 10 tests counting only the runs which went flawless. In the extractor trick runs the extractor where built when I had 75 minerals so I immidiately could build a new drone. ET: 504-524 minerals No-ET: 505-535 minerals As seen we probably need a lot of tests to actually find out the true outcome since the ranges are this wide. I also glanced at the larvas and I would estimate the ET is worth about 5 (in game) seconds of larva spawn (1/3 larva). With this result I get the conclusion that I probably will skip the ET since I don't think it's worth the trouble. I got pretty bad micro and while trying to do the trick I probably failed twice as often as I succeeded and lost valuable mining times with missclicks... I would love seeing a video of somebody with great micro trying this out with gamespeed set on slowest and doing a perfect ET.
if you are getting a 30 mineral discrepancy between "perfect" runs, you aren't doing it very well. When I ran the test I usually had 5 or 0 mineral differences at the 1:40 mark.
btw, what kind of numbers would those be realtime? Not really sure how to see gametime w/out playing an actual game.
On June 13 2010 08:13 morimacil wrote:
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
extractor trick is done after the overlord
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On June 13 2010 08:13 morimacil wrote:
I would say its pretty obvious to anyone that microing your workers, for example, DOES give a benefit.
No wasted mining time > wasted mining time, there is really no point in arguing against that.
The real question, however, is: Is it worth it?
I would say it isnt for me, based on my own observations, and these results.
The simple matter that it comes down to is this:
If you do it absolutely perfectly, you gain about 5 minerals. If you mess up, you can lose a lot more than that.
So it simply comes down to this in the end:
If you can do it absolutely perfectly, 100% of the time, and also have the APM to spare doing it, then do it.
If you cant do it perfectly 100% of the time, and/or you would rather focus your attention and apm somewhere else, then the possible 5 mineral gain simply isnt worth it, and you are better off not doing it.
More minerals is always good, but sometimes, 5 minerals simply isnt worth it.
And yes, thats all it is really. There is no "cumulative effect". That doesnt apply to zerg, unless your build wastes larva. (which neither 9OL or ET do).
Stopping the tests early "before the effects can be seen" is bullshit.
If you have 15 drones mining and 1 larva in all cases, letting it go on for longer is not going to show any "cumulative effect over time" or something random like that. No matter what build you used to get there, 15 drones mine at the same speed. If you are 5 minerals ahead, letting the 15 drones mine for 20 more mining cycles isnt going to put you more minerals ahead compared to another build with 15 drones also mining for 20 cycles.
Summing it up:
Splitting workers at the start: not worth it, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain.
Microing workers: not worth it, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time and have APM to spare. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain.
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
If you are going for a scout, pool, and hatch at 12 food or later, dont bother with the ET. Its not worth the APM investment, for a gain of 5-15 minerals, and a potential loss of double to triple that amount, maybe more depending on how bad you screw it up.
Same thing for microing workers and splitting them.
If you actually are able to pull this all off 100% of the time, completely perfectly, and never screwing it up, ever, and have the APM to do it, and enjoy the pressure of putting yourself in a high-risk low-reward sittuation, where you cannot screw up, and also have a relevant build where 5 extra minerals actually makes a difference (lol), then sure, go ahead. If you are at that point, then you probably know what you are doing already better than anyone else, and dont need any advice.
All others: dont do it!
Yes! You understood the essence of what I was trying to achieve with these experiments. The risk of not microing/doing ET perfectly is too big for the effort/APM put in to it and the rewards you're given.
As far as the other posts directed to me, I'll try to answer them tomorrow. I've been busy the last few days and didn't realize this post got such big attention
Cheers,
Tenn
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@morimacil
Thanks. I've never thought about the cumulative mining effect not existing with zerg!
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the extractor trick is super easy, and there's not much else to use your apm on at the time.
here is what you do:
-wait for drone mining minerals closest to geysers to return minerals
-start extractor with that drone
-make drone
-cancel extractor, send drone to the empty mineral patch right next to it
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The one thing I am not seeing mentioned here is using F1 to send idle workers directly to a mineral deposit instead of allowing the AI to spread them out for you.
I haven't seen any detailed write-ups concerning any benefits for doing that over simply sending them all to one deposit (or splitting them up into groups of 2 or 3). Does anyone have any links to an analysis like this? If not I'll have to see if I can create one and post it.
This is an interesting discussion BTW. Amazing how little benefit you derive from so much extra APM (aside from impressing your opponent with your high APM early in the game I guess).
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On June 13 2010 14:21 Red Alert wrote:Show nested quote +On June 12 2010 23:55 Batch wrote:I did some tests aswell in which I built 15 drones and checked the minerals at 2:30 (gametime). The tests were done without any worker microing at all pointing all new drones to the same mineral patch. I ran about 10 tests counting only the runs which went flawless. In the extractor trick runs the extractor where built when I had 75 minerals so I immidiately could build a new drone. ET: 504-524 minerals No-ET: 505-535 minerals As seen we probably need a lot of tests to actually find out the true outcome since the ranges are this wide. I also glanced at the larvas and I would estimate the ET is worth about 5 (in game) seconds of larva spawn (1/3 larva). With this result I get the conclusion that I probably will skip the ET since I don't think it's worth the trouble. I got pretty bad micro and while trying to do the trick I probably failed twice as often as I succeeded and lost valuable mining times with missclicks... I would love seeing a video of somebody with great micro trying this out with gamespeed set on slowest and doing a perfect ET. if you are getting a 30 mineral discrepancy between "perfect" runs, you aren't doing it very well. When I ran the test I usually had 5 or 0 mineral differences at the 1:40 mark. btw, what kind of numbers would those be realtime? Not really sure how to see gametime w/out playing an actual game. Show nested quote +On June 13 2010 08:13 morimacil wrote:
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
extractor trick is done after the overlord
The extractor trick will always be more effective if being done before starting building the overlord.
I can't think of a single scenario when the extractor trick should be done after the start of the overlord, please enlighten me if there is such a case.
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Thanks for the contribution i like the tests and i usually just stick with the 9 ovie no extractor trick it seems to work out better in the long run
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On June 14 2010 08:21 infuzer wrote:
@morimacil
Thanks. I've never thought about the cumulative mining effect not existing with zerg!
It doesn't really exist with protoss or terran either, because the "standard" terran and protoss builds (pylon on 9, supply depot on 10) both have a slight delay in early worker production, waiting for the first supply structure to finish.
Since you run into a delay anyway (and since the delay is nowhere near a full second when getting workers to mine first as opposed to building your first worker), it really seems to me that getting 6 workers mining slightly faster is better than starting your first worker sooner, and I ran some tests that seemed to verify this, showing a very slight mineral advantage, and no global worker delay, when starting workers mining first.
Also, unless you have a perfect split, you don't have enough minerals to start building your second worker as soon as the first worker finishes, so you end up delaying worker production anyway.
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Ok some answers to questions directed at me. I'm curious if you want me to conduct more tests (if so, what tests?) or help me out to get more data to these tests.
On June 15 2010 04:12 Batch wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2010 14:21 Red Alert wrote:On June 12 2010 23:55 Batch wrote:I did some tests aswell in which I built 15 drones and checked the minerals at 2:30 (gametime). The tests were done without any worker microing at all pointing all new drones to the same mineral patch. I ran about 10 tests counting only the runs which went flawless. In the extractor trick runs the extractor where built when I had 75 minerals so I immidiately could build a new drone. ET: 504-524 minerals No-ET: 505-535 minerals As seen we probably need a lot of tests to actually find out the true outcome since the ranges are this wide. I also glanced at the larvas and I would estimate the ET is worth about 5 (in game) seconds of larva spawn (1/3 larva). With this result I get the conclusion that I probably will skip the ET since I don't think it's worth the trouble. I got pretty bad micro and while trying to do the trick I probably failed twice as often as I succeeded and lost valuable mining times with missclicks... I would love seeing a video of somebody with great micro trying this out with gamespeed set on slowest and doing a perfect ET. if you are getting a 30 mineral discrepancy between "perfect" runs, you aren't doing it very well. When I ran the test I usually had 5 or 0 mineral differences at the 1:40 mark. btw, what kind of numbers would those be realtime? Not really sure how to see gametime w/out playing an actual game. On June 13 2010 08:13 morimacil wrote:
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
extractor trick is done after the overlord The extractor trick will always be more effective if being done before starting building the overlord. I can't think of a single scenario when the extractor trick should be done after the start of the overlord, please enlighten me if there is such a case.
Well I tried to come up with some different scenarios at the start to see what would happen if you did this or that. You're quite right in that the test is more or less useless (as the test's results also confirmed)..
Also, thumbs up for mathematics! It took me a while to follow u, but I think the calculations are somewhat right (although I reckon some tests should be done to see if it actually matches "reality").
Both your calculations and additional tests seems to support that ET can be more profitable, you just need to be very very good at it. I'm going to update the post to reflect this. Thanks!
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On June 10 2010 20:32 Cheerio wrote:
1) I always felt like there is no need to micro the drones, AI is good enough. Now I know it, thanks.
2) The extractor trick results appear to be wrong.
3) I play a lot with 11ET>ov>pool and this way et is very much worth doing.
ET efficiency can be very easily calculated. All u need is timings of drones and the fact that drones mine at speed roughly 0,75minerals/second. The bad thing about 10 ov no ET is that it must delay the larva production which leads to all your future drones to spawn at later time which is economically inferior to any loss of minerals because of ET.
1) You're welcome
2) Why? Please prove me wrong.
3) The time that the larvas are capped is like less than a few second isn't it? You're right that the larva production will be delayed for future production, it would be interesting to see with how much.
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On June 11 2010 01:31 Fizbin wrote:
a few things i would like to note. when doing extractor tricks make sure u have enough minerals to instantly make a drone so u can almost instantly cancel making it. the longer the extractor sits not mining the less accurate ur tests will be. another thing to note is drone count. i think 2 minutes isnt enough time to get an accurate graph. good work though. i was persaonly messing around with build tester lastnight and i found 9-10 OL to be the most economic. THE best reason for doing double extractor trick is to build a spawning pool before and OL. thats the only reason to use it imo.
I made sure to have enough minerals, only using drones close to the gas (without any minerals in their hands) and the extractor was only up for maybe 1 second for all tests where I used ET.
And why shouldn't 2 minutes be enough? All the variations are made before that, so if you just keep producing drones you will get a linear growth, the same no matter which build you start off with.
On June 11 2010 05:17 sti wrote:
Seems like you need to do a lot of tests to account for human error. The differences are so tiny.
Exactly! The differences are so tiny, and yet so much effort is put into doing ETs.
But you've got a point, more tests should be conducted (which I clearly stated) to draw definite conclusions on what type of starting build is actually "best".
On June 12 2010 00:44 onmach wrote:
I'm confused about your conclusion on test 4. You say it puts you 10 minerals behind, but your results show that the 10 overlord tests were mining for roughly 4 seconds longer and ended up with minerals that were only 10-15 ahead of 10 overlord extractor. That means that if you can mine more than 10-15 minerals in 4 seconds, you come out way ahead with the extractor trick.
Well it means that a single drone should mine those 10-15 minerals in 4 seconds doesn't it? And it doesn't. Thinking about it, I've made a weird comparison in test 4 since the 10 OL build is clearly worse than 9 OL build. If you compare the extractor trick in test 4 with 9 OL build you see that it is even more clear that it is not viable.
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On June 15 2010 04:12 Batch wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2010 14:21 Red Alert wrote:On June 12 2010 23:55 Batch wrote:I did some tests aswell in which I built 15 drones and checked the minerals at 2:30 (gametime). The tests were done without any worker microing at all pointing all new drones to the same mineral patch. I ran about 10 tests counting only the runs which went flawless. In the extractor trick runs the extractor where built when I had 75 minerals so I immidiately could build a new drone. ET: 504-524 minerals No-ET: 505-535 minerals As seen we probably need a lot of tests to actually find out the true outcome since the ranges are this wide. I also glanced at the larvas and I would estimate the ET is worth about 5 (in game) seconds of larva spawn (1/3 larva). With this result I get the conclusion that I probably will skip the ET since I don't think it's worth the trouble. I got pretty bad micro and while trying to do the trick I probably failed twice as often as I succeeded and lost valuable mining times with missclicks... I would love seeing a video of somebody with great micro trying this out with gamespeed set on slowest and doing a perfect ET. if you are getting a 30 mineral discrepancy between "perfect" runs, you aren't doing it very well. When I ran the test I usually had 5 or 0 mineral differences at the 1:40 mark. btw, what kind of numbers would those be realtime? Not really sure how to see gametime w/out playing an actual game. On June 13 2010 08:13 morimacil wrote:
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
extractor trick is done after the overlord The extractor trick will always be more effective if being done before starting building the overlord. I can't think of a single scenario when the extractor trick should be done after the start of the overlord, please enlighten me if there is such a case.
Cool how you totally dodged my question and instead responded to a minor point. But it's better in every case to build the extractor after the overlord, if you actually know what you're doing.
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On June 15 2010 00:52 General-Gouda wrote:
The one thing I am not seeing mentioned here is using F1 to send idle workers directly to a mineral deposit instead of allowing the AI to spread them out for you.
I haven't seen any detailed write-ups concerning any benefits for doing that over simply sending them all to one deposit (or splitting them up into groups of 2 or 3). Does anyone have any links to an analysis like this? If not I'll have to see if I can create one and post it.
WhiteRa has a very unique method of splitting that I don't see anybody else do. He'll select 2 workers at a time and send them to separate patches. He does this *very* quickly, and has obviously practiced it a lot.
But if you watch a replay of him against somebody doing a more typical split, where they select all 6 workers, send them to a single patch, then peel off 3 and send them to a separate patch, WhiteRa's "perfect" 2/2/2 split is always 5-10 minerals behind the 3/3 split, simply because there's an ever-so-slight delay where he has 4 and then 2 workers not moving towards the mineral patches, where the 3/3 peel has all workers moving towards minerals from the very beginning.
Obviously WhiteRa believes he's found a method that works for him, but in the 3 or 4 replays I've paid attention to the split efficiency of his split against a 3/3 peel, he is slightly behind.
However, the specific patches that end up being worked makes a much larger difference than any splitting advantages. Making sure the closer mineral patches are being worked first is far more important than a "perfect split", because a worker on a close mineral patch mines about 10% faster than a worker on a far patch.
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I think blizzard made this intentional. Even the name is called the "Extractor trick". The extractor trick was used to make up for the deficiency in worker AI and same with splitting. Now that workers have excellent AI, there is no reason to micro manage them most of the time. Instead of spending time microing that, use it to micro your scout.
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just did some tests of 9 OL vs 10 OL ET, similar to post... although i think its a real bad idea to pause as your 15th drone comes out, instead we should probably drone up to 15 then check minerals at 3mins or something.
10 OL ET:
264 2:05
254 2:05
274 2:05
259 2:05
9 OL:
255 2:05
275 2:05
265 2:05
260 2:05
also whoever posted about the cumulative mining effect... there IS an effect, because you start with 3 larvae so until you build your first drone you are wasting larvae, which could make building the drone first better... dunno i always did ctrl-f1, click on minerals, build drone, then split off 3. which all happens within about a second anyways.
also previously i have tested the time it takes to get to 500 minerals with 9 ol, 10 ol et, 10 ol... and it seemed like they were all within a split second of eachother, so long-term, as long as you spam out your drones, i think your opening has almost no effect. however, i'm still working to split faster etc...
ah, one more thing, i think we should be looking for the single best result in the opening, rather then for the average result. seems like you want to find the perfect opening and then train yourself to do it everytime... even if its more prone to mouseslips etc. at least thats how i like to play.
mid-level diamond player if anybody cares btw.
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On TEST 1:
Im surprised that you would lose as much as 20 minerals(though it looks more like 10 minerals from the spread) just from sending your workers first instead of building one first. Isnt this mostly based on your how fast you can execute both events?
I would actually expect that sending your workers to mine first is more significant since there are 6 of them compared to the one that is building. I should do a test on this myself and see how it goes.
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that extractor trick always was confusing to me so i was theorycrafting about it, lets pretend we have a player with lightning reflexes or its just a computer which does everything w/o any delay
+ Show Spoiler +Game Drones/Cap Gas Order
Time (not food)
Minerals
0:00 6/10 50 0 +Drone
0:11 6/10 50 0 +Drone
0:17 7/10 26.5 0
0:22 7/10 53 0 +Drone
0:28 8/10 34.5 0
0:31 8/10 52.5 0 +Drone
0:39 9/10 50.5 0 +Drone
0:47 9/10 54.5 0 +Drone
0:48 10/10 11 0
_______________________________________ 9-overlord
0:54 9/10 102 0 +Overlord
1:02 9/10 56 0 +Drone
1:19 10/18 121 0 +2xDrone
1:23 10/18 51 0 +Drone
1:30 10/18 53.5 0 +Drone
1:36 12/18 48.5 0
1:37 12/18 57.5 0 +Drone
1:40 13/18 34.5 0 (2 Drones in queue)
1:47 14/18 103 0
1:54 15/18 176.5 0
_______________________________________ 10-overlord
1:00 10/10 101 0 +Overlord
1:25 10/18 188.5 0 +3 drone?
1:33 10/18 248.5 0
1:41 10/18 308.5 0 1:42 13/18 166 0
_______________________________________ extractor trick
0:57 10/10 78.5 0 +Extractor +Drone (you get 18/25 m refund)
1:08 10/10 104 0 +Overlord
1:14 11/10 49 0
1:33 11/18 206 0 +3 drone?
1:41 11/18 272 0
1:50 14/18 196 0
_______________________________________ double extractor trick
1:07 10/10 153.5 0 +2xExtractor +2xDrone (you get 36/50 m refund)
1:16 10/10 107 0 +Overlord
1:24 12/10 67 0
1:41 12/18 220 0 +3 drone?
1:58 15/18 223 0
lines highlighted with red show that even if you can squeeze some extra minerals using extractor trick (272 minerals 11 workers vs 144 minerals 13 workers in 9-OL, so you get 28 extra minerals) you are behind in drone count and this 28 minerals are mined in 3 seconds of game time at this point of the game
it can be viable in case you want to get some super-fast 11-expansion or 11-12 pool, but real players cant perform so well to have perfect timing so i dont think its worth it - its like you can morph some building 5 seconds earlier than you normally would, but your economy would be much worse
and it seems to me you are wasting larvae while pooling resources for ET and afterwards, delaying your overlord, because after it pops-up you shall have more than 150 minerals and use all your larvae for drones so you will be broke on larvae
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ok i just did a quickie 9 OL vs 10 OL ET
9 OL:
2:05
15 drones
270 mineral
10 OL ET:
2:05
15 drones
279 mineral
it doesn't make sense to me that 9 OL is better. other than the fact that i just discovered canceling a structure costs 6 minerals.
also its on another thread, but spawning with minerals underneath the hatch makes a nice difference. probably why there is variance of 30-40 minerals in some people's tests
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it doesn't make sense to me that 9 OL is better. other than the fact that i just discovered canceling a structure costs 6 minerals.
In fact, cancelling a structure costs you 25% of the building cost (which is 6 gold for an extractor).
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On June 15 2010 04:12 Batch wrote:Show nested quote +On June 13 2010 14:21 Red Alert wrote:On June 12 2010 23:55 Batch wrote:I did some tests aswell in which I built 15 drones and checked the minerals at 2:30 (gametime). The tests were done without any worker microing at all pointing all new drones to the same mineral patch. I ran about 10 tests counting only the runs which went flawless. In the extractor trick runs the extractor where built when I had 75 minerals so I immidiately could build a new drone. ET: 504-524 minerals No-ET: 505-535 minerals As seen we probably need a lot of tests to actually find out the true outcome since the ranges are this wide. I also glanced at the larvas and I would estimate the ET is worth about 5 (in game) seconds of larva spawn (1/3 larva). With this result I get the conclusion that I probably will skip the ET since I don't think it's worth the trouble. I got pretty bad micro and while trying to do the trick I probably failed twice as often as I succeeded and lost valuable mining times with missclicks... I would love seeing a video of somebody with great micro trying this out with gamespeed set on slowest and doing a perfect ET. if you are getting a 30 mineral discrepancy between "perfect" runs, you aren't doing it very well. When I ran the test I usually had 5 or 0 mineral differences at the 1:40 mark. btw, what kind of numbers would those be realtime? Not really sure how to see gametime w/out playing an actual game. On June 13 2010 08:13 morimacil wrote:
extractor trick: not worth it when going for a "normal" build, unless you can do it absolutely perfectly 100% of the time. If done absolutely perfectly 100% of the time, provides an incredibly minor gain. Still delays overlord cost, so can still be useful for other reasons (faster scouting drone, faster pool, faster hatch)
extractor trick is done after the overlord The extractor trick will always be more effective if being done before starting building the overlord. I can't think of a single scenario when the extractor trick should be done after the start of the overlord, please enlighten me if there is such a case.
The reason you build the overlord first is so you get your 12th and 13th drone out sooner. Sure, you get your 11th drone sooner with 10 ET 11 OL, but you delay the 12th and 13th, netting a loss. You also lose larva spawn time, so you also delay the 14th drone.
If your going to ET, do 10 OL then ET. As soon as OL pops you will have 2 larva (12th 13th) and a few seconds or so later pops a 14th larva.
Also, I chose 9 OL as the best opener. You get out your 10th drone a little later, but get your 11th 12th 13th drone out a lot sooner (maybe not a lot sooner for 11th) And you waste 0 larva spawn time. Since you don't waste any larva spawn time with this, you can get use of it by getting the 14th drone in the best time, thus the reason why 9OL is most economic when going 13 OR 14 pool.
With some openings, players will lose larva time as they save up 200 minerals for a pool, then another 50 for a drone. This is because they have between 1 and 2 larva and build up to 3 during the mineral saving time and the re-spawn timer stops on generating more larva. The sooner you get your pool, the more larva you waste, until your income is high enough, which is like 12 drones mining. Wasting larva means delaying future drones (or units) but drones are what you really want to be making in any macro oriented strategy with zerg.
The other advantage of 9 OL is a headstart in scouting with the second overlord, good for spotting cheese or whatever. Not a huge advantage, but when people compare it with 10ol ET they are nearly equal, so there is a slight edge in favor of 9 because you get slightly earlier OL positioning and scouting.
Is there anything I missed here? This is all from pure memory.
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EPT
