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So I have been reading the forum for about 2 months now looking at all the different Starcraft 2 information being released and one thing I have noticed is that there is very little talk but just a general knowledge of unit critical mass. Being new to the community as well as new to competitive RTS, I do not have the priviledge of what any units critical mass is.
For example, I have heard a lot of talk about the critical mass of Colossus before a protoss player can effectively move out against zerg or bio-ball terran. However, I do not know what that critical number is. I have heard 4, 6, and 8 from different people I have played against as well as little tidbits here and there from reading posts on this forum as well as other Starcraft 2 forums. Sadly, the posts tend to be so erratic and unfocused that I end up more confused then when I started.
Essentially the question boils down to "How is critical mass defined?" as well as "What is the critical mass for each unit?" If these questions are able to be answered (albeit still in beta with it sadly being closed) I plan on adapting the cumulated information into one forum post as to be able to have it easily accessible for others to view.
I apologize for the length, this is my first post on this forum. Any information will be appreciated but preferably information that can be supported through replays/links to data as to make it more official for a combined knowledge post.
Poll: Do you think this collective information would be useful?Not really... (81) 60% Yes! (54) 40% 135 total votes Your vote: Do you think this collective information would be useful? (Vote): Yes!
(Vote): Not really...
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I guess critical mass is just when your colossus can kill low hp units (zlings, marines) in one volley. I can't remember colossus attack, but 4 sounds about right against those units to cover a decent area. Of course the actual splash area is pretty small, so the critical mass will always dependent on both of your army sizes. A Hydra heavy opponent would require more colossus of course to one-volley them.
A broader definition of critical mass though, probably just means to have enough long range units that kill or cripple a lot of the opponents units before they even get into range. (For example 6 marines can be considered a turning point because they can kill a zergling in volley).
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It's a dynamic thing, there's not going to be a perfect number that works for every situation. Watch some of the top level tournament replays if you really want a general idea, most people will be able to judge how much is enough of a given unit on the fly with experience, it depends on scouting as well. I don't think there's a precise calculation going into it or anything like that.
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On June 25 2010 13:18 Nexic wrote:
It's a dynamic thing, there's not going to be a perfect number that works for every situation. Watch some of the top level tournament replays if you really want a general idea, most people will be able to judge how much is enough of a given unit on the fly with experience, it depends on scouting as well. I don't think there's a precise calculation going into it or anything like that.
The only dynamic thing is upgrades and the current match up. I don't see any other dynamic thing. I believe the calculations will be useful and helpful for timing pushes. Ex: Push out with Critical Mass of Colossi against hydras.
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1 collosus per 25 food is prob a good amount for "critical mass"
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When I voted "Not Really" I really meant "No, and I think that this information would be entirely detrimental to new players."
The absolute worst thing you can do is dive into a situation and just take somebody else's word for it. Doing this sets up mental blocks in your head which prevent you from truly exploring and evolving your strategies.
Instead it promotes this sense of static satisfaction wherein you think that you've already found the "best" way to do something and that's that.
When the beta comes back, just start TESTING things. Try moving out with 3 colossi. Ask yourself how that felt. Now try 4. Ask yourself how that run felt. Etc.
You're looking for structure and shortcuts when there really isn't any. I strongly believe that anything attempting to structure strategy in the way you described does more harm than it does good.
The people who need it (the newer players) gain a skewed concept of the game
The people who don't need it will find it worthless
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Essentially the question boils down to "How is critical mass defined?" as well as "What is the critical mass for each unit?" If these questions are able to be answered (albeit still in beta with it sadly being closed) I plan on adapting the cumulated information into one forum post as to be able to have it easily accessible for others to view.
How is critical mass defined? - As much as many people like the "hardocunters", units in SC2 and their efficiency is also depending on "the right amount" i.e. critical mass. For example a hand full of Mutalisks will rape Marines as long, as you get a small ball of marines that is capable of dealing more dmg to the Mutalisks than they take. If you get double the amount of mutalisks again, you might be able to break the ball because of the high dms through splash damage.
The critical amount can also be achieved through earlier upgrades or right positioning to reduce the efficiency of the opponents army. It is a constantly moving thing because it depends on so many factors. For me the critical mass is the amount of units i need to get, to be ahead of my opponents army, or the quantity of units I need to get, to maximize the dmg output of my units.
What is the critical mass for each unit? - 4 Zerglins for 1 Zealot...as long as the protoss does not have any upgrades, all units are free to atack and the zerg atacks with every zergling at the same time. There are just too many factors for later game scenarios to write them all down. As Nexic sayd It's a dynamic thing .
I don't think you'll be able to define the critical number for every unit composition and situation... It is just too much work and afterall it still depends on execution.
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Critical mass is achieved when a certain number of a given unit is achieved such that a unit or mix that used to be able to combat the given unit is no longer able to do so. This generally applies to a direct confrontation as a very good flank or positional advantage can damage or defeat critical mass.
Easiest example is from BW with Corsairs vs. Scourge.
When corsairs are in small numbers, a handful of scourge is able to combat them or at least make them retreat to the nearest photon cannon. Thereby denying a corsair's ability to exert some degree of map control. This occurs because the damage output of the corsair is too small to kill off a handful of scourge.
Now you add on more corsairs, such that you reach 'critical mass'. No matter how many scourge you throw at the corsairs, they'll kill off most if not all the scourge. This is due to the significant increase in damage output. If you send in all the scourge at once, the splash and a bit of micro will defeat the scourge. Send them in too slowly, and the corsairs will shoot all of them out of the sky. It is at this point when critical mass is achieved and no direct confrontation with scourge will do significant damage to the protoss player.
So onto SC2 and the colossus example. I'll use PvZ as an example. You have your gateway mix with 2 colossi versus some zerg mix (hydras, roaches, lings, whatever) at roughly the same supply. You engage with your gateway mix out front and colossi in the back. Your colossi don't have the damage output to swiftly kill off the zerg mix such that the zerg is capable of breaking through your gateway mix and get to your colossi.
Now imagine you had more colossi (lets say 5 arbitrarily). The damage output of your colossi is now so great that the zerg mix dies too quickly before it can break through your gateway mix. Once again, it is at this point, you've reached critical mass and you will win any direct confrontations with your opponent.
As for the collective information, it's probably hard to say. Critical mass probably has some flexibility at which point you've actually reached it. Medium sized armies probably require fewer units to achieve 'critical mass' compared to larger armies. But the relationship is the same. For example, 36 food in colossi with some gateway mix out front will be able to deal with much larger zerg mixes due to the critical mass.
However, the game and balance is not finished so collecting data at this point while useful immediately, may not be worth it down the road.
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I noticed that people sometimes refer to the amount of a unit reaching "critical mass" when it is so high that normal counters become ineffective.
Marauders trash roaches. However, a large enough army of roaches can take down the marauders.
People might call this a critical mass of roaches.
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On June 25 2010 14:17 Paper117 wrote:
I noticed that people sometimes refer to the amount of a unit reaching "critical mass" when it is so high that normal counters become ineffective.
Marauders trash roaches. However, a large enough army of roaches can take down the marauders.
People might call this a critical mass of roaches.
Really? At some point, the roach numbers become so great that Marauders become cost ineffective against them?
Do you have any proof to back up that claim?
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Just did some quick tests on Colossi vs 30 Roaches w/ speed and Colossi vs 30 Hydralisks with range. In both tests the Colossi has the thermal lance upgrade and all units have no attack or defense upgrades. The map I used was the unit tester with the normal choke and no micro was used.
Edit: Ascii table ftl... oh well
# of Colossus | Hydralisk Kills
(w/ thermal lance) | (w/ range)
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1 | 3
2 | 7
3 | 13
4 | 26
# of Colossus | Roach Kills
(w/ thermal lance) | (w/ speed)
------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0
2 | 5
3 | 7
4 | 14
5 | 24
Results: Not surprisingly in both scenarios, 4 colossus had double the kills of 3 colossus. However, something slightly more surprising was how few roach kills 3 colossi had over 2. I actually tried running those matchups a few more times and got more or less the same result.
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critical mass is generally opinion based, but for the most part it's when YOU feel that you have enough to move out, and if you moved out earlier you wouldn't have enough units.
I don't feel that this information will be helpful, because critical mass depends on the matchup, and the play style of your opponent.
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On June 25 2010 14:19 FC.Strike wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2010 14:17 Paper117 wrote:
I noticed that people sometimes refer to the amount of a unit reaching "critical mass" when it is so high that normal counters become ineffective.
Marauders trash roaches. However, a large enough army of roaches can take down the marauders.
People might call this a critical mass of roaches. Really? At some point, the roach numbers become so great that Marauders become cost ineffective against them? Do you have any proof to back up that claim?
He's just talking about having enough roaches to defeat the marauders, but that's not critical mass.
Obviously, the higher the numbers, the better it is for the marauders, since they have greater range.
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Thank you everyone for your advice. I now understand that it is more of a dynamic concept and not just a set number of units. That was where my main confusion lay as all I understood from replays that I had seen were people saying "He has reached a critical mass of (X) unit and now its time for him to push out." That was why I was interested in finding out what "critical mass" actually was. This makes me even agree that it would not really be useful as I too believe that while having data on hand makes it able to better understand a concept, it greatly reduces the ability of a player to adapt and decide what he needs based of the situation. Adaptation is my favorite part of the game and I would definitely not want to detract other players from learning to adapt just because they saw a post with "suggested" numbers of units.
I also liked memcpy's analyzation because that was how i was originally viewing critical mass as the number of units you needed to one shot or just do massive damage to a certain unit or group of units. But again i see how this is still where you would have to adapt to seeing the amount of units and it would not really benefit anyone to see a chart of 100 different combinations of Marauders v. Roaches or Colossi v. Zerglings/Hydras/etc.
Also Nightfury, Thank you! for the direct relation to SC:BW and how it applies as well in SC2. That was exactly the kind of stuff I was really looking to get to better understand and the comparisons really allowed me to get what you were saying.
I hope this can get more comments so that I can get a wider view of peoples input on critical mass.
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think of the "usefulness" vs "number of units" graph for a particular unit in a particular battle. although more units is always more useful, there are certain points on that graph that are much steeper for some units in some situations.
if you're trying to harass a terran mineral line, having 5 mutas is better than having 2 mutas, but having 8 mutas is much much better than having 5 mutas.
templars with storm: in a big army confrontation, having 5 templar is a LOT better than having none, but having 15 is not that much better than having 10.
the phrase "critical mass" comes from nuclear physics, where if you have under some amount of fissile material, you don't get any explosion, but once you pass a certain point you get a nuke. more mass helps get an even bigger explosion, but there's a set critical mass you need before you can blow anything up at all.
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It’s just something yxou have to feel yourself. Watch Pro Replays and you will get a feeling for when to take a fight and when not to.
What I would advise you to do is check out another thread with Upgrade analasys and a nice Chart that shows how many shots a unit needs to kill a other unit (Including Upgrades Example: When a Collosi has 2-0 he can 2 shot Hydras that are below 0-3, and so on).
Sadly I have the link at home but I’m sure someone knows what thread I’m talking about.
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dude, its not a definite thing, lol
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There are no exact numbers for critical mass. Critical mass refers to the fact that certain units don't scare linearly but faster then that. This effect is usually caused by ranged units or units with splash.
The corsair vs scourge example from BW is a good one. An other one in sc2 could be sieged tanks vs marauders for example. 5 marauders can kill 2 sieged tanks but 25 marauders lose to 10 tanks because the tanks will splash and kill a big deal of the marauders before they even get to shoot the tanks.The tanks are said to have reached critical mass then. Offcourse 60 marauders could still kill the tanks so critical mass isn't absolute.
Critical mass is a term that comes from nuclear physics meaning the amount of fissile material required to sustain fission. In sc2 it generally means a mass of units at which those units are much more efficient then in lower numbers.
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Critical mass can refer to a couple things.
1. The # of units you need to kill an enemy unit in one volley.
Example: Hydra has 80 health and 0 armor. Colossus does 30 damage. It would take 3 colossi to kill a hydra in one hit, so the "Critical mass" of colossi vs hydra is 3. This would usually depend on upgrades, but with the colossus v hydra example, the damage is enough that it's always 3 no matter what armor upgrades hydra get.
Example2: It takes X hellions to kill a drone/probe/SCV in one volley.
Example3: It takes X reapers to kill a drone/probe/SCV in one volley.
2. The # of units you can have before adding more becomes pointless.
Example: Every unit has a certain range, and your army always forms an arc around your front-line units' range. With front-line units like the roach, you can actually have *too many* and the roaches fill up the area you're fighting too much and your "back" units like hydras can't get in and shoot very well until you've lost a lot of roaches. When you've reached the # of roaches that adding more is counterproductive to your army's effectiveness.. then you've reached a "critical mass" of roaches. Not sure if the terminology quite fits this idea, but I've seen it used in this way. Obviously, this version is a lot more dynamic than "it takes X units to kill Y".
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I think some people are leading you a little bit wrong here. Sometimes it is a definite thing as people have mentioned.
I think it is definitely relevant to know that it takes 9 marauders to one shot a stalker. This means if I'm pushing early I like to move out with exactly 10 marauders.
It takes 2 (ignite upgraded) hellions to kill a drone in one shot. I think this kind of information is very important to strategy and a list of this kind of stuff is very good to know, especially for harassing units like hellions.
However that said, it is very easy to test out this kind of stuff and find out for yourself.
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EPT
