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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)
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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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I feel like almost all the people posting about critical mass are just talking about how many units to take out another unit, which I'm pretty sure is NOT critical mass (aka one guy saying 4 zerglings to one zealot??).
It's as some said, a unit that becomes much more effective when massed than when single. A prime example is the BW Carrier. If you only have one, it's pretty ineffective at doing anything. But once you get a "critical mass" of around 6+, you can move around, sniping command centers without ever stopping, while the Goliaths are constantly chasing you, etc. BC's typically have a critical mass effect too unless you're FBH and playing Jaedong, where two BC's at a time can completely trash you.
Same with Siege tanks, you get a critical mass to the point where you have so many, all the splash dmg rapes everything before you get to them, and they become exponentially cost effective.
Units that can't have critical mass are units like Goliaths, Hydralisks, Zealots, Ultralisks, .... This is because even when massed, their counters will still counter them fine. If you have a shitton of Goliath, they'll still get raped by Hydralisks. Even Ultras, their counter such as siege tanks and Archons are not less effective when there's a shitton of them. But carriers, get a ton and they become much better even vs the same ratio of goliaths, simply because of evade + snipe shit abilities, while picking them off.
Imo the BEST example of a critical mass unit in SC2 isn't the Carrier but Void Ray, reason being when you have a ton, they are all able to charge up and literally just melt enemy armies.
That's my definition of it at least.
EDIT: Another good example that someone mentioned is the corsair from BW vs scourge. As soon as you get to a certain number, they become increasingly effective (aka 2 muta beat 1 sair, but 26 mutas would lose to 13 sairs).
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On June 25 2010 23:40 Rakeash wrote:
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 15 damage. It would take 6 colossi to kill a hydra in one hit, so the "Critical mass" of colossi vs hydra is 6. Critical mass depends on upgrades though.
5 w +1 weapon vs 0 armor (5 w +1 weapon vs 1 armor)
5 w +2 weapon vs 0 armor (5 w +2 weapon vs 2 armor)
4 w +3 weapon vs 0 armor (5 w +3 weapon vs 3 armor)
It's good to know that it is really safe to aim for 5 colossi after getting the +1 upgrade, since you know that it is critical mass no matter how many more upgrades you do, or how many they do.
Colossus shoot 2 beams per attack. They do 30 damage, not 15. It takes 3 colossi to one-shot a hydra.
The most basic definition of critical mass, is where once you reach a certain number of a unit, that unit's counters no longer work.
Basic examples from brood war are corsairs v scourge/muta, and M&M v zergling/hydra.
I would say a good example from SC2 is marauders v immortals. Immortals kill marauders very easily in small numbers, but once terran gets 10-12 marauders + stim, they can kill an immortal in 2 hits even with hardened shields, so immortals won't work against marauders once they reach critical mass.
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It's not that the unit's counters no longer work, you have to be careful with that. Colossi have a critical mass, but they are always countered by mutas/corruptors. It's when some unit/mix can be rendered ineffective by getting a certain # of said unit when previously that unit/mix worked fine.
Do marauders really hit critical mass vs immortals? Sure the marauders can shoot immortals down fast, but can't the larger # of immortals do the same to the marauders?
There's also most definitely critical mass numbers, it's just that the numbers are flexible because of stuff like upgrades.
Also hydras and the like do have critical mass in a sense. Ranged units become increasingly cost effective vs single target melee units because they can output more DPS while exposing less surface area. For example lings are fine vs small/mid numbers of roaches in the open, but large numbers of roaches will roll over lings if properly clumped.
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Colossus shoot 2 beams per attack. They do 30 damage, not 15.
Oops yeah, I thought that their cleave damage was 30 to their main target, and 15 to the outside ones (since only one beam hits the outside and they combine to hit the main one) but I tested quick and it does the full 30 to all ~3 targets regardless of what the attack looks like.
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From what I've always known, critical mass is when a unit reaches enough numbers that it can engage in battles and win in an overwhelming advantage, taking usually little to no losses.
Good examples of this are Siege Tanks in SC2. Tanks are very powerful but fire slowly. They can keep enemies at bay, but must be defended or they can be sniped. However, once the tank numbers reach between 8-13, it can become almost impossible for a conventional ground army to advance and do any damage to the tanks before being completely wiped out.
Tanks in old command and conquer games. It was standard in a lot of games to simply mass tanks. While anti-tank infantry were technically better against tanks than tanks were against them (ignoring running over vs scatter command fighting), if you reached a high enough number of tanks, infantry could not scatter enough to avoid getting run over and any attempt at a counter would be killed before it could effectively dwindle the tanks numbers. Disc throwers were a lot like this too, but had more vulnerabilities.
GIs in RA2. Short of an equally massive rhino tank blitz, a super weapon, or snipers, there was no way you could ever approach a big ball of deployed Allied GIs. Individually they were pretty basic infantry and easy to run over with any vehicle. However, once massed in a big enough ball, the combined damage of their machine guns quickly wrecked all but the biggest of hardy tank masses. The USA was very powerful because they could amass free GI armies while spending all their resources on other things such as harrier massing.
Important characteristics of a critical mass are that they are both powerful and not easily killed. You cannot have a critical mass of zerglings or marines, as they can be killed in large numbers no matter how many of them you have in a ball. The overwhelming advantage of a critical mass is that they decimate armies that they could not in smaller numbers, while losing almost nothing.
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On June 26 2010 00:55 Logo wrote:
It's not that the unit's counters no longer work, you have to be careful with that. Colossi have a critical mass, but they are always countered by mutas/corruptors. It's when some unit/mix can be rendered ineffective by getting a certain # of said unit when previously that unit/mix worked fine.
Do marauders really hit critical mass vs immortals? Sure the marauders can shoot immortals down fast, but can't the larger # of immortals do the same to the marauders?
There's also most definitely critical mass numbers, it's just that the numbers are flexible because of stuff like upgrades.
Also hydras and the like do have critical mass in a sense. Ranged units become increasingly cost effective vs single target melee units because they can output more DPS while exposing less surface area. For example lings are fine vs small/mid numbers of roaches in the open, but large numbers of roaches will roll over lings if properly clumped.
Still not a critical mass of hydras. It's never large enough where you can get a ball that's large enough that's "there's too many, it's going to be nigh impossible to counter," unlike a mech ball or a mass carrier/void ray running around sniping. Vs hydra you can always just build more templar (which storm is INCREASINGLY effective vs massed), more marine/medivacs (which counter hydra), more collossi, more siege tanks, etc.
Yes, ALL ranged units become more effective when they are balled up, but because the counters are just as effective it really doesn't cause all ranged units to have the critical mass effect (imo). That's really just the basic concept of ranged vs melee. Although I guess you could say all ranged units DO have a critical mass effect vs melee units, but in general the term "critical mass" as I see it does not pertain to a specific unit, but vs the entire enemy composition. Not to say sairs don't have a critical mass effect, but their ability to run around vs Zerg and kill all OL's and all other air, etc. while hydras don't have that same effect of being massed and being ungodly hard to counter (haha well, you know what I mean  )
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It only applies to ranged units, for obvious reasons. Melee units have more trouble fighting for space to inflict their damage than ranged units do, so they can more easily zip around the place blowing shit up very quickly.
Its not really as straight-forward was saying "Oh, just get 28 Marines. They'll one-shot a Zealot every volley". That only applies in the case of focus-fire and if the Zealots were running at you one at a time...most of the time they'll be firing at whatever the heck is near them.
There's no hard-and-fast rule other than "the more the merrier". The more you play the game and witness these unit interactions, your subconscious mind is secretly keeping track of every encounter, so that when you run into a similar scenario later on, you're going to sit there and 'feel' like a big blob of Marines is too intimidating for your Zealots to take, head-on, causing you to make even more Zealots, or find another way around the Marine blob (stall/split them with Force Field, use Guardian Shield to swing the fight in your favour, get Collossi or HTs, etc.)
Its really a psychological thing, more than anything.
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I don't think there's absolute fixed critical mass for anything. It seems relative and depending on context and goals in the game. Some ways for calculating your own needed critical mass would be:
- enough units to have energy for maintaining some spell non-stop
- enough units to 1-shot some specific unit/structure
- enough units to cover some territory with desired density
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On June 26 2010 00:55 Logo wrote:
It's not that the unit's counters no longer work, you have to be careful with that. Colossi have a critical mass, but they are always countered by mutas/corruptors. It's when some unit/mix can be rendered ineffective by getting a certain # of said unit when previously that unit/mix worked fine.
yes it is that the unit's counters no longer work. I never said Colossi have a critical mass against mutas/corruptors.
Look again at the examples. scourge are the counter to corsairs, but once you get 6 or 7 corsairs, they can take on nearly infinite amounts of scourge i.e. scourge no longer work.
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On June 25 2010 13:54 FC.Strike wrote:
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.
Actually, that's the absolute best thing you can do when first learning a skill or game past just learning the basic rules and methods of doing stuff. No matter how smart you are or how clever your strategies, finding an expert opinion/explanation allows you to pound important fundamentals into your head, learn important basics and strategies, and refine your understanding in a way that putzing around and trying shit out from a novice perspective will never do.
It's better to strategize once you actually understand advanced unit composition, counters, and tactics, and can eyeball these things quickly, rather than doing so blind with no basis for comparison. This should be pretty self-evident but a lot of people seem to make the incorrect assumption for some reason.
In any sport or contest you have an experienced coach or mentor telling you exactly how to do each thing you will be learning, in exactly what order, and how to prepare/train to be able to do so. There is a very good reason for this and it applies to games as well. When someone is trying to learn a fighting game, for example, they will never get ANYWHERE, at all, if they just try to figure stuff out and learn things completely on their own. They will need to play against much, much stronger opponents, learn techniques and combos from pros, and mimic strategies until they are second nature. THEN the player can start experimenting with his/her own playstyle, once everything else is established.
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On June 26 2010 01:13 tedster wrote:Show nested quote +On June 25 2010 13:54 FC.Strike wrote:
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.
Actually, that's the absolute best thing you can do when first learning a skill or game past just learning the basic rules and methods of doing stuff. No matter how smart you are or how clever your strategies, finding an expert opinion/explanation allows you to pound important fundamentals into your head, learn important basics and strategies, and refine your understanding in a way that putzing around and trying shit out from a novice perspective will never do. It's better to strategize once you actually understand advanced unit composition, counters, and tactics, and can eyeball these things quickly, rather than doing so blind with no basis for comparison. This should be pretty self-evident but a lot of people seem to make the incorrect assumption for some reason. In any sport or contest you have an experienced coach or mentor telling you exactly how to do each thing you will be learning, in exactly what order, and how to prepare/train to be able to do so. There is a very good reason for this and it applies to games as well. When someone is trying to learn a fighting game, for example, they will never get ANYWHERE, at all, if they just try to figure stuff out and learn things completely on their own. They will need to play against much, much stronger opponents, learn techniques and combos from pros, and mimic strategies until they are second nature. THEN the player can start experimenting with his/her own playstyle, once everything else is established.
I don't think that applies to the concept of critical mass. Because the concept revolves entirely around the total number of units, which is different from game to game, experience is really going to be your only teacher here. Only when you've had your ass handed to you by a buttload of Carriers are you going to recall and understand the gravity of the situation when you see some later opponent start pumping the things out of several Stargates at once.
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Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that.
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On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that.
I *think* your definition is completely wrong. Your situation does not have hydras at critical mass at all - simply because they can now counter zealots is irrelevant. Because the opponent can just rape that critical mass with colossus. Being able to effectively counter zealots is just a counter system, not a critical mass of units.
For example in BW, Goliaths would handedly counter a handful of carriers. But once you got enough Carriers, even Goliaths, their counters, were not super effective vs them, simply because of Carrier mobility and being able to whittle down goliath numbers by moving in and out until they could finally overpower them. You don't ever have that situation with Hydralisks - once you get more and more hydralisks, the opponent can EASILY counter them with more and more colossi/high temps.
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On June 26 2010 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that. I *think* your definition is completely wrong. Your situation does not have hydras at critical mass at all - simply because they can now counter zealots is irrelevant. Because the opponent can just rape that critical mass with colossus. Being able to effectively counter zealots is just a counter system, not a critical mass of units. For example in BW, Goliaths would handedly counter a handful of carriers. But once you got enough Carriers, even Goliaths, their counters, were not super effective vs them, simply because of Carrier mobility and being able to whittle down goliath numbers by moving in and out until they could finally overpower them. You don't ever have that situation with Hydralisks - once you get more and more hydralisks, the opponent can EASILY counter them with more and more colossi/high temps.
That's why I said " the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective". In other words critical mass can be reached versus some units (hydras v zealots) but still be completely vulnerable to others (collossi). There is no unit in BW or SC2 that has a critical mass versus every unit within the bounds of 200 supply. That's why it's pretty useless to know - you will never be facing a single unit army (ie only zealots, only marines).
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Critical mass is not the number, it is the concept. The concept of some units (or combination of units) in numbers killing the other units using terrain obstacles so efficiently that it becomes a counter to them. Classical example: hydras vs speedlots in sc1. 9 speedlots can fight 12 hydras. But 27 speedlots will be raped by 36 hydras... in most cases. The thing is if you make a perfect flanking you can still be even with speedlots. Other example is carriers vs goliafs. As soon as carriers can exploit the impassable terrain they will have the upper hand as they can ALL shoot on goliafs and only a few goliafs will be able to shoot back on carriers. Some principles of critical mass:
1) unit A takes up much less space for it's value and thus provides more DPS in the battle where space is limitted. Examples: colossus (steps over other units), medeivac (being a part of MMM army it doesnt take space on ground thus making MMM army more concentrated), zealots vs zerglings (zealots have better space/value ratio so when zealots can maintain a tight formation they will end up victorious).
2) unit A has range advantage over unit B. A classic example will be A being ranged and B being melee. Another example will be tanks behind MM against hydraroach or some stalker heavy army.
3) unit A has AoE. Example: lots of tanks will be killing hydras even before they have a chance to shoot back.
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On June 26 2010 01:45 Swede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that. I *think* your definition is completely wrong. Your situation does not have hydras at critical mass at all - simply because they can now counter zealots is irrelevant. Because the opponent can just rape that critical mass with colossus. Being able to effectively counter zealots is just a counter system, not a critical mass of units. For example in BW, Goliaths would handedly counter a handful of carriers. But once you got enough Carriers, even Goliaths, their counters, were not super effective vs them, simply because of Carrier mobility and being able to whittle down goliath numbers by moving in and out until they could finally overpower them. You don't ever have that situation with Hydralisks - once you get more and more hydralisks, the opponent can EASILY counter them with more and more colossi/high temps. That's why I said " the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective". In other words critical mass can be reached versus some units (hydras v zealots) but still be completely vulnerable to others (collossi). There is no unit in BW or SC2 that has a critical mass versus every unit within the bounds of 200 supply. That's why it's pretty useless to know - you will never be facing a single unit army (ie only zealots, only marines).
But that's why I'm saying your definition is wrong. That's not what critical mass is - simply rendering one unit "Y" useless. It's something that renders a large portion of the enemy army ineffective, despite it being the most effective counter to the unit you're using. For example, yes siege tanks at critical mass will get owned by mutas, but Zerg's best option to counter the siege tanks at critical mass is NOT mutas simply because other units, such as Marine/Medic and Science Vessels will decimate the mutas, leaving ultra/ling defiler play the best option (this is assuming Terran played bio and went to the late game where Terran tries to build factories at another main and mass up tanks).
Hydras don't have that situtation. Tanks do. Carriers do. Corsairs do.
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No I think the critical mass advantage comes in as a definition of range difference, enemy unit speed as well as maximum positioning efficiency. We'll use marines because they're a basic unit and a good illustration.
Maximum positioning efficiency is basically how many units in your ball can fire upon a given target at one time. If your marine ball is huge, then those in the back will not be able to fire upon enemies coming in from the front until the enemies have already closed the range difference with your leading marines. This is best illustrated with marines vs melee zerglings, but any unit will do really - even tanks vs marines. However, in the case of ranged vs melee, the tightly packed ball will necessitate the zerg to take out the marines in front to get to those in the back, and only so many zerglings will find space to attack a marine at a time, while marines can shoot freely without concern for positioning as far as their range allows.
Spreading the marines out in a line will increase dps against a mindless wave of zerg if you're past critical mass, but since they allow more space for the zerglings to attack them, they're going to go down much faster.
The faster the enemies can close the range distance, the less effective the ball is. The bigger the range difference, the more effective the ball is. That's my theory from BW.
Oh, and one more thing about splash damage: it obviously becomes more effective in large numbers (i.e. tanks) against units with less range, and is also extremely dependent on space. But there is still a limit.
Imagine if there is a vertical pass 10 zealots/5 tanks wide (no idea, really, about unit size, so we'll take this as an assumption). I know tanks have 13 range, BUT for the purpose of this discussion, let's ASSUME they have 12, because it's easier to work with EVEN numbers. And let's ASSUME they don't do friendly fire splash damage.
So that leaves you with a column | of 5 tanks, with maximum ball efficiency of 6 rows __ deep (12 cell range, 2x2 cell for a tank, assumption!). Any more tanks then that, and the zealots will have to plow through the first line of tanks for the 7th row to fire upon them. When you throw splash damage into the mix, and that the zealots have to force themselves through a narrow pass, you can see why the ball and range difference is so instrumental.
The less mobility the enemy has to flank you, the more powerful the terran ball is. Which may kind of explain why mech is incredibly good on narrow, pass based maps!
Hope this helps.
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On June 26 2010 01:50 Cheerio wrote:
Critical mass is not the number, it is the concept. The concept of some units (or combination of units) in numbers killing the other units using terrain obstacles so efficiently that it becomes a counter to them. Classical example: hydras vs speedlots in sc1. 9 speedlots can fight 12 hydras. But 27 speedlots will be raped by 36 hydras... in most cases. The thing is if you make a perfect flanking you can still be even with speedlots. Other example is carriers vs goliafs. As soon as carriers can exploit the impassable terrain they will have the upper hand as they can ALL shoot on goliafs and only a few goliafs will be able to shoot back on carriers. Some principles of critical mass:
1) unit A takes up much less space for it's value and thus provides more DPS in the battle where space is limitted. Examples: colossus (steps over other units), medeivac (being a part of MMM army it doesnt take space on ground thus making MMM army more concentrated), zealots vs zerglings (zealots have better space/value ratio so when zealots can maintain a tight formation they will end up victorious).
2) unit A has range advantage over unit B. A classic example will be A being ranged and B being melee. Another example will be tanks behind MM against hydraroach or some stalker heavy army.
Critical mass is definitely a number. That is, if you are taking the definition from its original usage in physics.
"The smallest mass of a fissionable material that will sustain a nuclear chain reaction."
If the smallest mass required is X, and you have < X, then you won't sustain a nuclear chain reaction.
It can be applied elsewhere too. The "critical mass" required to win a two party election is 50.01%. If you have 50% then you haven't won.
On June 26 2010 01:52 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:45 Swede wrote:On June 26 2010 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that. I *think* your definition is completely wrong. Your situation does not have hydras at critical mass at all - simply because they can now counter zealots is irrelevant. Because the opponent can just rape that critical mass with colossus. Being able to effectively counter zealots is just a counter system, not a critical mass of units. For example in BW, Goliaths would handedly counter a handful of carriers. But once you got enough Carriers, even Goliaths, their counters, were not super effective vs them, simply because of Carrier mobility and being able to whittle down goliath numbers by moving in and out until they could finally overpower them. You don't ever have that situation with Hydralisks - once you get more and more hydralisks, the opponent can EASILY counter them with more and more colossi/high temps. That's why I said " the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective". In other words critical mass can be reached versus some units (hydras v zealots) but still be completely vulnerable to others (collossi). There is no unit in BW or SC2 that has a critical mass versus every unit within the bounds of 200 supply. That's why it's pretty useless to know - you will never be facing a single unit army (ie only zealots, only marines). But that's why I'm saying your definition is wrong. That's not what critical mass is - simply rendering one unit "Y" useless. It's something that renders a large portion of the enemy army ineffective, despite it being the most effective counter to the unit you're using. For example, yes siege tanks at critical mass will get owned by mutas, but Zerg's best option to counter the siege tanks at critical mass is NOT mutas simply because other units, such as Marine/Medic and Science Vessels will decimate the mutas, leaving ultra/ling defiler play the best option (this is assuming Terran played bio and went to the late game where Terran tries to build factories at another main and mass up tanks). Hydras don't have that situtation. Tanks do. Carriers do. Corsairs do.
If you are only rendering 90% of their army ineffective, and not 100%, then you haven't reached critical mass. It's a strict definition, but it's correct.
That's also why critical mass is a reasonably pointless term. It's extremely situational. If a Protoss ball with collossi destroys a hydra/ling force without taking losses then it was at its critical mass in THAT situation, and only THAT situation. If those hydras/lings were ultras/roaches then the protoss ball would no longer be at critical mass.
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On June 26 2010 01:57 shadymmj wrote:
No I think the critical mass advantage comes in as a definition of range difference, enemy unit speed as well as maximum positioning efficiency. We'll use marines because they're a basic unit and a good illustration.
Maximum positioning efficiency is basically how many units in your ball can fire upon a given target at one time. If your marine ball is huge, then those in the back will not be able to fire upon enemies coming in from the front until the enemies have already closed the range difference with your leading marines. This is best illustrated with marines vs melee zerglings, but any unit will do really - even tanks vs marines. However, in the case of ranged vs melee, the tightly packed ball will necessitate the zerg to take out the marines in front to get to those in the back, and only so many zerglings will find space to attack a marine at a time, while marines can shoot freely without concern for positioning as far as their range allows.
Spreading the marines out in a line will increase dps against a mindless wave of zerg if you're past critical mass, but since they allow more space for the zerglings to attack them, they're going to go down much faster.
The faster the enemies can close the range distance, the less effective the ball is. The bigger the range difference, the more effective the ball is. That's my theory from BW.
Uh what? You're completely going back to "renders one unit effective." The hell? Horrible example. You're just talking about a simple range > melee concept. That's not a critical mass. Especially because Zerg might have something such as lurker ling, etc, not only a single unit, which is why you can't just use the dumb example of marines vs lings only.
Thanks though for simply repeating someone's previous argument with no further insight. I'm straight up telling you I disagree with that concept of critical mass. By your definition every single ranged unit in the game can reach some critical mass - where I'm clearly saying they can't. There's no way pure goliaths could reach critical mass. They might render an opposing unit like the Zergling ineffective, but that is 100% irrelevant of having a critical mass - just build goddamn hydralisks.
Units like Carriers - you're STUCK building mass goliaths to counter them. And at a critical mass of carrires, using them correctly will still tear through Terran armies/have goliaths as not as effective of a counter if there were a lot less carriers and goliaths, but in the same ratio.
PS. Lings are very good even vs large numbers of marines if there aren't any medics.
On June 26 2010 01:58 Swede wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:50 Cheerio wrote:
Critical mass is not the number, it is the concept. The concept of some units (or combination of units) in numbers killing the other units using terrain obstacles so efficiently that it becomes a counter to them. Classical example: hydras vs speedlots in sc1. 9 speedlots can fight 12 hydras. But 27 speedlots will be raped by 36 hydras... in most cases. The thing is if you make a perfect flanking you can still be even with speedlots. Other example is carriers vs goliafs. As soon as carriers can exploit the impassable terrain they will have the upper hand as they can ALL shoot on goliafs and only a few goliafs will be able to shoot back on carriers. Some principles of critical mass:
1) unit A takes up much less space for it's value and thus provides more DPS in the battle where space is limitted. Examples: colossus (steps over other units), medeivac (being a part of MMM army it doesnt take space on ground thus making MMM army more concentrated), zealots vs zerglings (zealots have better space/value ratio so when zealots can maintain a tight formation they will end up victorious).
2) unit A has range advantage over unit B. A classic example will be A being ranged and B being melee. Another example will be tanks behind MM against hydraroach or some stalker heavy army. Critical mass is definitely a number. That is, if you are taking the definition from its original usage in physics. "The smallest mass of a fissionable material that will sustain a nuclear chain reaction." If the smallest mass required is X, and you have < X, then you won't sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It can be applied elsewhere too. The "critical mass" required to win a two party election is 50.01%. If you have 50% then you haven't won. Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:52 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 26 2010 01:45 Swede wrote:On June 26 2010 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that. I *think* your definition is completely wrong. Your situation does not have hydras at critical mass at all - simply because they can now counter zealots is irrelevant. Because the opponent can just rape that critical mass with colossus. Being able to effectively counter zealots is just a counter system, not a critical mass of units. For example in BW, Goliaths would handedly counter a handful of carriers. But once you got enough Carriers, even Goliaths, their counters, were not super effective vs them, simply because of Carrier mobility and being able to whittle down goliath numbers by moving in and out until they could finally overpower them. You don't ever have that situation with Hydralisks - once you get more and more hydralisks, the opponent can EASILY counter them with more and more colossi/high temps. That's why I said " the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective". In other words critical mass can be reached versus some units (hydras v zealots) but still be completely vulnerable to others (collossi). There is no unit in BW or SC2 that has a critical mass versus every unit within the bounds of 200 supply. That's why it's pretty useless to know - you will never be facing a single unit army (ie only zealots, only marines). But that's why I'm saying your definition is wrong. That's not what critical mass is - simply rendering one unit "Y" useless. It's something that renders a large portion of the enemy army ineffective, despite it being the most effective counter to the unit you're using. For example, yes siege tanks at critical mass will get owned by mutas, but Zerg's best option to counter the siege tanks at critical mass is NOT mutas simply because other units, such as Marine/Medic and Science Vessels will decimate the mutas, leaving ultra/ling defiler play the best option (this is assuming Terran played bio and went to the late game where Terran tries to build factories at another main and mass up tanks). Hydras don't have that situtation. Tanks do. Carriers do. Corsairs do. If you are only rendering 90% of their army ineffective, and not 100%, then you haven't reached critical mass. It's a strict definition, but it's correct. That's also why critical mass is a reasonably pointless term. It's extremely situational. If a Protoss ball with collossi destroys a hydra/ling force without taking losses then it was at its critical mass in THAT situation, and only THAT situation. If those hydras/lings were ultras/roaches then the protoss ball would no longer be at critical mass.
I've asked once, I'll ask you again. Where are you getting this strict definition? I'm saying that your definition, in my opinion, is wrong.
And you've still reached a critical mass of units - I'm not sure where you're getting it has to render the entire army completely useless. You can have a critical mass of tanks obliterating Dragoons, but if the goons kill 1 tank before they die, was it not a critical mass?
If you're going to say yes, I suggest you use the connotative form of the word that is being discussed here, because your sense of the word would be completely useless to the discussion, while the connotative form of the word IS useful. As stated, I very well could be wrong, but I think for practical purposes your definition is useless (which you're admitting, so we going in circles now? )
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On June 26 2010 02:10 FabledIntegral wrote:
Uh what? You're completely going back to "renders one unit effective." The hell? Horrible example. You're just talking about a simple range > melee concept. That's not a critical mass. Especially because Zerg might have something such as lurker ling, etc, not only a single unit, which is why you can't just use the dumb example of marines vs lings only.
Thanks though for simply repeating someone's previous argument with no further insight. I'm straight up telling you I disagree with that concept of critical mass. By your definition every single ranged unit in the game can reach some critical mass - where I'm clearly saying they can't. There's no way pure goliaths could reach critical mass. They might render an opposing unit like the Zergling ineffective, but that is 100% irrelevant of having a critical mass - just build goddamn hydralisks.
I'm not talking just about range > melee, I'm talking more range > less range. Of course my example is simplistic, or else it would sail right over many heads, yours included. Also, sorry, the smaller the unit size in relation to damage output, the more powerful the ball and the larger the potential for critical mass advantage is. I'm sure you can figure out why...although that may not bode well against enemy AOE, it is better on paper.
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On June 26 2010 02:19 shadymmj wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 02:10 FabledIntegral wrote:
Uh what? You're completely going back to "renders one unit effective." The hell? Horrible example. You're just talking about a simple range > melee concept. That's not a critical mass. Especially because Zerg might have something such as lurker ling, etc, not only a single unit, which is why you can't just use the dumb example of marines vs lings only.
Thanks though for simply repeating someone's previous argument with no further insight. I'm straight up telling you I disagree with that concept of critical mass. By your definition every single ranged unit in the game can reach some critical mass - where I'm clearly saying they can't. There's no way pure goliaths could reach critical mass. They might render an opposing unit like the Zergling ineffective, but that is 100% irrelevant of having a critical mass - just build goddamn hydralisks.
I'm not talking just about range > melee, I'm talking more range > less range. Of course my example is simplistic, or else it would sail right over many heads, yours included. Also, sorry, the smaller the unit size in relation to damage output, the more powerful the ball and the larger the potential for critical mass advantage is. I'm sure you can figure out why...although that may not bode well against enemy AOE, it is better on paper.
If it doesn't WORK vs aoe, then it's not a critical mass. But thanks for saying it would go over most people's heads when you don't even understand the friggin' concept of my initial argument. I was debating the definition, saying I didn't agree, then you come in and try to "explain it," with the other person's definition that's already been discussed. Which is dumb, useless, and already had been said. You offered nothing new.
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What do you mean if it doesn't work vs AOE? MnM balls (brood war, but same concept) suck terribly against AOE. But obviously it seems to work against early-mid zerg becase other than melee vs range you can just have more marines firing on each hydra than you can have hydras firing on each marine in most kinds of terrain and positions.
Try telling other people that the MnM ball was NOT an example of critical mass. Or try telling other people psistorm etc. didn't wreck the ball.
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It's pretty clear that most of the people posting in this thread have the entirely wrong idea about critical mass. Or maybe I'm just selectively attending to bad replies. I'll try to clear up some misconceptions:
Critical mass is the approximate number of units in a given situation where those units start to become increasingly more effective. So, for example, 3 corsairs may be able to kill 3 scourge, while 6-7 corsairs are able to kill an infinite amount.
Critical mass is exclusive to ranged units. So, hydras have a critical mass against zealots. It scales faster for units with splash damage. Reavers hit a critical mass faster than hydras.
Critical mass is always situational. The critical mass of hydras in a choke against zealots will not be the same as the critical mass on an open field.
Critical mass discussion should not be isolated situations. Sure, you can say things like "the critical mass of lurkers against zealots is X." But, for the discussion to have any relevance whatsoever, you must consider other factors such as other units the Zerg player has to shield the lurkers. If you just think of an isolated lurker versus zealot situation, lurkers are actually not very good versus zealots. But the Zerg player should have other units well, making lurkers extremely effective.
Critical mass is generally used as a vague term (e.g. "critical mass of siege tanks, critical mass of reavers.") Thus, it's usually not quantifiable since it depends on the situation. For example, you can't say "the critical mass of siege tanks against a Protoss army is 32."
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On June 26 2010 02:19 shadymmj wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 02:10 FabledIntegral wrote:
Uh what? You're completely going back to "renders one unit effective." The hell? Horrible example. You're just talking about a simple range > melee concept. That's not a critical mass. Especially because Zerg might have something such as lurker ling, etc, not only a single unit, which is why you can't just use the dumb example of marines vs lings only.
Thanks though for simply repeating someone's previous argument with no further insight. I'm straight up telling you I disagree with that concept of critical mass. By your definition every single ranged unit in the game can reach some critical mass - where I'm clearly saying they can't. There's no way pure goliaths could reach critical mass. They might render an opposing unit like the Zergling ineffective, but that is 100% irrelevant of having a critical mass - just build goddamn hydralisks.
I'm not talking just about range > melee, I'm talking more range > less range. Of course my example is simplistic, or else it would sail right over many heads, yours included. Also, sorry, the smaller the unit size in relation to damage output, the more powerful the ball and the larger the potential for critical mass advantage is. I'm sure you can figure out why...although that may not bode well against enemy AOE, it is better on paper.
If it doesn't WORK vs aoe, then it's not a critical mass. But thanks for saying it would go over most people's heads when you don't even understand the concept of my initial argument. I was debating the definition, saying I didn't agree with what he was saying. So you just extrapolating on that definition just annoyed me.
EDITED to not sound quite as much like a dick
EDIT 2: Concerning MM and Psi Storm, my point is you will NEVER hear someone say "oh shit, that Terran player has a critical mass of MM vs this toss player, he's fucked," simply because it can easily be countered with Psi Storm. Critical masses, at least how term is practically used, are not easily rapable in that sense. Goliaths will not just come out and rape carriers, despite being their counter, when the numbers are high enough, and the opposite is often the case. Same with Siege tanks vs a toss army. Etc. etc.
From what I'm aware, a critical mass of units ISN'T considered a critical mass against ONE other unit, but against the opposing race. It's where the opposing race is using his BEST option to counter your units, but as your units are getting larger and larger in count, his BEST option is becoming less and less effective. The reason I'm using "best" is because for example, the ideal counter for a critical mass of siege tanks is mutalisks, but it isn't the BEST counter because of other variables, and massing mutas vs a Terran with a Sci Vessel ball and turrets is suicide.
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On June 26 2010 02:27 shadymmj wrote:
What do you mean if it doesn't work vs AOE? MnM balls (brood war, but same concept) suck terribly against AOE. But obviously it seems to work against early-mid zerg becase other than melee vs range you can just have more marines firing on each hydra than you can have hydras firing on each marine in most kinds of terrain and positions.
Try telling other people that the MnM ball was NOT an example of critical mass. Or try telling other people psistorm etc. didn't wreck the ball.
First of all - the entire definition we were basing off was a SINGLE unit. Which has been the point of this debate I've been having Swede, his definition of critical mass. It seemed to me you were responding to me in particular in your post despite not quoting me - however, if you were saying "no, I think of it as..." to the general people then I will apologize.
Otherwise, you can't even use MM as an example because by the definition we were arguing MM is two units, and there is no critical mass of marines at any point in the game vs Zerg if there are no medics.
However yes I would argue that MM can NEVER reach critical mass. You saw Flash vs Jaedong game 3 of their first MSL encounter? Fuckton of MM. Absolutely ginormous amount of MM. BAMMMMMM ultras come in and tear them apart. Units at critical mass will not have an effect where other units can come in and destroy them like that. If that was an example of critical mass, then Flash would have lost at most (imo) ~25-40% of his army from that engagement, instead of losing.
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On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that.
It still does for general scenarios, however. For example, if conventional wisdom says "Protoss wants to have 4 collosi vs. Terran at the 9 minute mark to deal with MMM", for example, that actually improves your window to play strategically because you have a baseline with which to understand how Collosi and MMM might interact and what point in the game this would take place and can use that to base builds/tactics around while you try different things.
Think of it like this: I am a fairly new player looking to find ways to deal with a void ray rush as Terran.
There are three possible ways to approach this:
1. I start trying things intending to fend off a void ray rush. I play hundreds of games and get Voidrushed a handful of games. Sometimes what I do works, sometimes it does not. I get to "be creative" but I have no idea what I'm being creative against, or if I'm dealing with an optimal/suboptimal rush, or if the response I am doing is succeeding strictly based on chance. I am firing blind, and am really not being creative at all - I just have no direction.
2. I play with the intention of figuring out what an optimal void ray rush looks like, then figure out how to defend it. This still takes hundreds of games, and I might not get it right in the end - but at least I am establishing a baseline for my efforts. Maybe I even find a rough window when it is supposed to hit. From here I can determine strategies and troop compositions that seem to work against it, and can freely come up with creative strategies to deal with this specific tactic. This lets me be creative, but only if I make a very significant investment into figuring out timings and counters for something I am not initially familiar with. Furthermore, I do not learn how my creative responses and strategies measure up to the "baseline" way of dealing with a void ray rush; I have no real basis for comparison as I try things.
3. I go online and learn the timing that a void ray rush will hit, and what it typically takes to defend against it. This takes a few total hours for me to watch a replay, figure out the timings/counter build order, and learn to spot the signs for a void ray rush. At this point, I am free to experiment with new things with a minimal initial time investment because I have a basis for comparison. I now know what a "standard" response looks and feels like, so whenever I try something new or tricky I can get a real picture for how, exactly, this differs and what the results of my tinkering/wacky BO/timing are. Furthermore, I know that I am timing things to deal with an "optimal" void ray rush, not just one that I happen to come across playing at Gold level 1/15 games or whatnot.
Option 3 is clearly the best use of my time AND results in better results/more opportunities for creativity to flourish. It can easily apply to something like "critical mass" as long as I am operating under certain expectations:
1. Critical mass is a target number of some unit/composition for a player that lets them overcome certain obstacles with relative ease
2. Critical mass is something the player works towards, and thus has timings/tech windows associated with it
3. Critical mass is something the opponent wants to prevent from happening, and if it does, said opponent must change unit comp/gameplan to compensate
So determining what critical mass is for Collosi vs MMM, for example, is a matter of figuring out:
1. How many collusi does Toss want to have before challenging a MMM ball at the earliest possible time?
2. If the MMM ball gets large enough or is supported properly, does this critical mass change or is it still extremely powerful bang for the buck?
3. Is there a timing window (i.e. 2 collosus at earliest possible time but before 3rd pops) where the MMM ball can be expected to exploit the lack of critical mass?
By answering these questions, a player can begin to build strategies and experiment with real hope of success, not just blind firing in the dark.
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On June 26 2010 02:30 Saracen wrote:
It's pretty clear that most of the people posting in this thread have the entirely wrong idea about critical mass. Or maybe I'm just selectively attending to bad replies. I'll try to clear up some misconceptions:
Critical mass is the approximate number of units in a given situation where those units start to become increasingly more effective. So, for example, 3 corsairs may be able to kill 3 scourge, while 6-7 corsairs are able to kill an infinite amount.
Critical mass is exclusive to ranged units. So, hydras have a critical mass against zealots. It scales faster for units with splash damage. Reavers hit a critical mass faster than hydras.
Critical mass is always situational. The critical mass of hydras in a choke against zealots will not be the same as the critical mass on an open field.
Critical mass discussion should not be isolated situations. Sure, you can say things like "the critical mass of lurkers against zealots is X." But, for the discussion to have any relevance whatsoever, you must consider other factors such as other units the Zerg player has to shield the lurkers. If you just think of an isolated lurker versus zealot situation, lurkers are actually not very good versus zealots. But the Zerg player should have other units well, making lurkers extremely effective.
Critical mass is generally used as a vague term (e.g. "critical mass of siege tanks, critical mass of reavers.") Thus, it's usually not quantifiable since it depends on the situation. For example, you can't say "the critical mass of siege tanks against a Protoss army is 32."
This man is right. Critical Mass in RTS games is more about an abstract cost effectiveness skyrocket in the proper situation. It does not have anything to do with countering 100% of the enemy's possible units or compositions nor does it have anything to do with vacuum encounters. This is why melee units cannot reach critical mass. The ultimate cost effectiveness of an army is to destroy all of the opponents army while taking no losses. Critical mass not only approaches this ideal, but can often take out armies twice its cost or more.
Going back to the RA2 vanilla GI example, a GI costs 200 minerals, a Rhino tank costs 900, and an Apocalypse tank costs 1750. 5 GIs will not beat even one Rhino tank. They'd get squished before the tank reaches half health and the tank was 100 minerals cheaper. However, 30 GIs, 6000 minerals (free for USA with airdrops) would drop the tank before it even gets close enough to run over one GI. It would require over a dozen tanks (over 10k minerals) to take out all the GIs. Apocalypse tanks would probably fare even worse due to being slower. Most of the entire russian infantry and vehicle arsenal would require double the cost or more of the GIs to take them out at that number.
Carriers in BW are another great example. One does minor damage and may be able to take out its equivalent cost in enemy resources, but 6 or more carriers become almost unstoppable, capable of taking out an unlimited multiple of its own cost in resources in the right hands and situation.
Siege tanks, too, can do this and do so often. Yes siege tanks don't counter air, yes carriers could be killed with cloaked wraiths or caught in the open, yes the GIs could be sieged with slow as hell V3s, but critical mass is genearal economics, not unit matchups. You can't apply strict numerics because there are too many variables.
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TossFloss
Canada606 Posts
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.
Critical mass occurs when at the maximal marginal effectiveness (in terms of unit count) of a unit composition. That is to say, when a unit composition becomes greater than the sum of its part and additional units will result in equal or declining marginal effectiveness.
This usually involves units with range and/or splash damage. To see how this happens, consider siege tanks vs zealot.
In small numbers, tanks will fire on the zealots, maybe killing a few, but the zealots will be eventually close in and attack the tanks. In contrast, a large number of tanks will vaporize zealots as they enter tank range. No amount of them will ever be able to reach the tanks.
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As somebody else mentioned it's a dynamical thing and cannot really be defined. It really is situationary when you have critical mass. Lets take Brood War TvZ mech as an example. If you go for a 2 base push with 2 groups of goliaths and a couple of tanks with +1 attack, that is critical mass and that's when your timing window occurs which Terran should try to exploit.
In the late game though, the critical mass is much larger and would consist of signifanctly bigger armies. At least this is how I see it 
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theres no set in stone number.
it depends on the game the mu the map and the unit.
for example a tanks critical mass may be smaller on a map with a smaller choke to your nat.
also changes depending on army size.
after reading more posts im getting the idea that alot of people dont know what critical mass is. lol.
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Yeah, it's dynamic depending on the situation. There is no single critical mass of a single unit. It's always the critical mass of a unit, when used against another unit.
A good example is the critical mass of mutas vs. turrets/marines. In addition, it changes depending on what you're trying to do.
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Critical mass is just a term used for units that basically get exponentially better in numbers. For example, units like this would be tanks, colossi, hellions, etc. Mainly splash damage units. Critical mass is basically a general term like "okay, i want about four colossi so i can one shot roaches with them" and stuff like that. It's just a term meaning "enough of this unit to deal a ton of damage"
It's not some big secret we're keeping from you. Sorry to disappoint
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On June 25 2010 13:07 aokces wrote:
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).
I actually think critical mass for collosus vs hydralisk would be lower, because hydras tend to form a line when they attack
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On June 26 2010 02:10 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:57 shadymmj wrote:
No I think the critical mass advantage comes in as a definition of range difference, enemy unit speed as well as maximum positioning efficiency. We'll use marines because they're a basic unit and a good illustration.
Maximum positioning efficiency is basically how many units in your ball can fire upon a given target at one time. If your marine ball is huge, then those in the back will not be able to fire upon enemies coming in from the front until the enemies have already closed the range difference with your leading marines. This is best illustrated with marines vs melee zerglings, but any unit will do really - even tanks vs marines. However, in the case of ranged vs melee, the tightly packed ball will necessitate the zerg to take out the marines in front to get to those in the back, and only so many zerglings will find space to attack a marine at a time, while marines can shoot freely without concern for positioning as far as their range allows.
Spreading the marines out in a line will increase dps against a mindless wave of zerg if you're past critical mass, but since they allow more space for the zerglings to attack them, they're going to go down much faster.
The faster the enemies can close the range distance, the less effective the ball is. The bigger the range difference, the more effective the ball is. That's my theory from BW. Uh what? You're completely going back to "renders one unit effective." The hell? Horrible example. You're just talking about a simple range > melee concept. That's not a critical mass. Especially because Zerg might have something such as lurker ling, etc, not only a single unit, which is why you can't just use the dumb example of marines vs lings only. Thanks though for simply repeating someone's previous argument with no further insight. I'm straight up telling you I disagree with that concept of critical mass. By your definition every single ranged unit in the game can reach some critical mass - where I'm clearly saying they can't. There's no way pure goliaths could reach critical mass. They might render an opposing unit like the Zergling ineffective, but that is 100% irrelevant of having a critical mass - just build goddamn hydralisks. Units like Carriers - you're STUCK building mass goliaths to counter them. And at a critical mass of carrires, using them correctly will still tear through Terran armies/have goliaths as not as effective of a counter if there were a lot less carriers and goliaths, but in the same ratio. PS. Lings are very good even vs large numbers of marines if there aren't any medics. Show nested quote +On June 26 2010 01:58 Swede wrote:On June 26 2010 01:50 Cheerio wrote:
Critical mass is not the number, it is the concept. The concept of some units (or combination of units) in numbers killing the other units using terrain obstacles so efficiently that it becomes a counter to them. Classical example: hydras vs speedlots in sc1. 9 speedlots can fight 12 hydras. But 27 speedlots will be raped by 36 hydras... in most cases. The thing is if you make a perfect flanking you can still be even with speedlots. Other example is carriers vs goliafs. As soon as carriers can exploit the impassable terrain they will have the upper hand as they can ALL shoot on goliafs and only a few goliafs will be able to shoot back on carriers. Some principles of critical mass:
1) unit A takes up much less space for it's value and thus provides more DPS in the battle where space is limitted. Examples: colossus (steps over other units), medeivac (being a part of MMM army it doesnt take space on ground thus making MMM army more concentrated), zealots vs zerglings (zealots have better space/value ratio so when zealots can maintain a tight formation they will end up victorious).
2) unit A has range advantage over unit B. A classic example will be A being ranged and B being melee. Another example will be tanks behind MM against hydraroach or some stalker heavy army. Critical mass is definitely a number. That is, if you are taking the definition from its original usage in physics. "The smallest mass of a fissionable material that will sustain a nuclear chain reaction." If the smallest mass required is X, and you have < X, then you won't sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It can be applied elsewhere too. The "critical mass" required to win a two party election is 50.01%. If you have 50% then you haven't won. On June 26 2010 01:52 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 26 2010 01:45 Swede wrote:On June 26 2010 01:40 FabledIntegral wrote:On June 26 2010 01:34 Swede wrote:
Critical mass - the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective. For example, if you were to continue massing Hydras until no amount of Zealots could inflict damage on your Hydras, you would have reached the critical mass.
Some units will never reach a critical mass versus another unit. For example, you will never mass enough Roaches to render Marauders COMPLETELY ineffective.
In general though, I don't consider any low - mid tier units to be "critical mass" units. In other words, within the limitations of 200 supply, limited resources, space restrictions etc, it would be impossible to mass enough of those kind of units to have a critical mass effect.
Other units obviously lend themselves to the critical mass effect by design. For example, Battlecruisers. If you have a 200/200 supply army of Battlecruisers then no amount of Marines, Hydras or Stalkers will be able to stop them.
The most important part about defining critical mass is in the "no amount of x unit will beat y unit" part. If an army of Battlecruisers had reached it's critical mass then not even infinite Marines could stop it. Obviously that's a pretty strict definition though (and not really helpful).
But with all that said, I don't believe that having knowledge of critical masses is really useful (even within the bounds of 200 supply). You will never be in a situation where a player goes all Zealots and so you can just produce Hydras until reaching critical mass. You won't be able to figure out the "critical mass" of certain unit compositions either (there probably isn't one). Like a lot of other people have said here, it's more about playing the game and learning when your army can beat his army, and vice versa, and then making decisions based on that. I *think* your definition is completely wrong. Your situation does not have hydras at critical mass at all - simply because they can now counter zealots is irrelevant. Because the opponent can just rape that critical mass with colossus. Being able to effectively counter zealots is just a counter system, not a critical mass of units. For example in BW, Goliaths would handedly counter a handful of carriers. But once you got enough Carriers, even Goliaths, their counters, were not super effective vs them, simply because of Carrier mobility and being able to whittle down goliath numbers by moving in and out until they could finally overpower them. You don't ever have that situation with Hydralisks - once you get more and more hydralisks, the opponent can EASILY counter them with more and more colossi/high temps. That's why I said " the number of x units required to render y unit completely ineffective". In other words critical mass can be reached versus some units (hydras v zealots) but still be completely vulnerable to others (collossi). There is no unit in BW or SC2 that has a critical mass versus every unit within the bounds of 200 supply. That's why it's pretty useless to know - you will never be facing a single unit army (ie only zealots, only marines). But that's why I'm saying your definition is wrong. That's not what critical mass is - simply rendering one unit "Y" useless. It's something that renders a large portion of the enemy army ineffective, despite it being the most effective counter to the unit you're using. For example, yes siege tanks at critical mass will get owned by mutas, but Zerg's best option to counter the siege tanks at critical mass is NOT mutas simply because other units, such as Marine/Medic and Science Vessels will decimate the mutas, leaving ultra/ling defiler play the best option (this is assuming Terran played bio and went to the late game where Terran tries to build factories at another main and mass up tanks). Hydras don't have that situtation. Tanks do. Carriers do. Corsairs do. If you are only rendering 90% of their army ineffective, and not 100%, then you haven't reached critical mass. It's a strict definition, but it's correct. That's also why critical mass is a reasonably pointless term. It's extremely situational. If a Protoss ball with collossi destroys a hydra/ling force without taking losses then it was at its critical mass in THAT situation, and only THAT situation. If those hydras/lings were ultras/roaches then the protoss ball would no longer be at critical mass. I've asked once, I'll ask you again. Where are you getting this strict definition? I'm saying that your definition, in my opinion, is wrong. And you've still reached a critical mass of units - I'm not sure where you're getting it has to render the entire army completely useless. You can have a critical mass of tanks obliterating Dragoons, but if the goons kill 1 tank before they die, was it not a critical mass? If you're going to say yes, I suggest you use the connotative form of the word that is being discussed here, because your sense of the word would be completely useless to the discussion, while the connotative form of the word IS useful. As stated, I very well could be wrong, but I think for practical purposes your definition is useless (which you're admitting, so we going in circles now? )
I'm getting this definition from its original usage in Physics. Which I have already said.
Yes, if 1 tank dies it is not critical mass. Critical mass is the number it takes to reach complete efficiency, and the number where adding more won't make a difference.
And WE'RE not going in circles, you are. I've already said all of this.
There are better words for what people mean when they use the "connotative" definition. You can't just redefine a word because it's not practical in the situation you want it to be. That makes communication harder, not easier. Which is evident from the number of conflicting opinions in this post. If everyone just took the meaning from the dictionary (like they should) this post wouldn't exist.
I do understand where you are coming from though.
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Some critical mass situations i can think of are 2 hellions with preigniter so they can 1 shot drones, or 3 hellions without preigniter, enough speedlings to make a surround on hellons.
In your collosus situation i believe it mostly depends on exactly what the zerg is doing, if during mid game you, the protoss, are on 2 base while zerg has been droning up forever on 3 base then you should attack with your 4 collosus. If he however chose to get enough roachs and hydra to fight off a 2-3 collosus attack you want to wait a little longer because he didn't make drones with those larva.
Siege tanks become more effective the more you have, there is no "critical mass" where suddenly their effectiveness skyrockets!!!! Except maybe just barely enough tanks to kill the enemy army just before they can touch your siege tanks will be much more effective than 3 or 4 less tanks at which point you lose 50% of your army in that attack.
Critical mass seems very relative to army positioning, unit matchup, upgrades, micro, if your opponent just got an economy boost, if you want to attack Before he gets a certain unit like Ultralisks.
As a player investigating this "critical mass theory" you can look for things like how zealots with +1 will 2 shot lings, how 1 zealot vs 4 lings differs from 10 zealots vs 40 lings (since all lings cant attack at once, the zealots win easily), if you have enough units to keep your collosus from getting sniped by hydralisk.
The more units you have usually leads to better cost efficiency when using those units, but you have to keep in mind if the other player has AOE at which point that makes your larger army less cost effective. Also if your opponent gets an upgrade lead, an economy lead, or a better unit comp, then your army as it is now will be better than your army later.
I don't think theres a simple answer to what # of units is a critical mass but most units gain more effectiveness the more you make.
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The first time I saw someone use the concept of critical mass was when Day[9] did the daily about the phoenix build. In that case the "functions" being maximized was the number of graviton beam casts available at any given time and the damage done to a particular unit you were lifting. Too few and you either lift a unit and kill it very slowly or you run out of casts too quickly such that you are running away not because someone chased you away but because you didn't have anything left to do.
I think examples of colossi are a good as well. They're an expensive unit that can, in certain configurations, become significantly more effective. 3 shotting a hydra down to 2 shotting a hydra is a big efficiency benefit for a big expensive unit. Adding a fourth colossus doesn't bring a similarly huge increase.
I've seen people say this about voidrays too but that is very much a "give it a try" since their dps is so dynamic.
Marauders probably have some critical mass too, but it's doubtful if that can ever be realized. They're a massed unit, not a high value unit. I don't think critical mass with massed units really works.
Also, the physics definition of critical mass is a self sustaining reaction, not complete efficiency.
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critical mass isn't so muh a defined number as an expression.
for instance having critical mass of mutas, is just getting to that point where all those mutas can't be stopped and just destroy entire masses of armies in seconds.
i think critical mass also varies from match to match, and upgrades have to be taken into account because i believe collosi 1 shot zerglings at some point.
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On June 26 2010 15:38 jerry507 wrote:
Also, the physics definition of critical mass is a self sustaining reaction, not complete efficiency.
Complete efficiency and self sustaining are the same in the case of Starcraft 2. If you have to replenish an army of tanks after a battle then they were not self-sustaining, therefore not at critical mass. If they were not self-sustaining it's because they were not completely efficient, ie they weren't able to destroy all enemy forces before taking damage and/or taking losses. In other words, self-sustaining and complete efficiency rely on each other mutually.
I'm pretty sure that's correct anyway. But I have said enough on the topic now. No point saying more.
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IMO critical mass in SC and sc2 is ONLY obtainable by units with splash dmg. NOTE THAT THIS IS SIMPLY THE WAY I SEE THINGS.
A good example here is the sair vs. scourge from sc1. Get a critical mass of sairs and scourge will never be able to dmg them.
Also true with tanks vs... well just about anything.
Thors vs mutas... get enough thors and no amount of mutas will kill them.
The reason I say it requires splash is that say you are talking carriers... even with 200/200 carriers if your opponent makes 200/200 vikings and keeps getting more, he will eventually kill off your carriers. However if he has 200/200 tanks then no matter how many zealots or stalkers you send at him you wont ever kill them all.
This also holds true with ravens and hsm. <--- if you havent tried this in a game before it is REALLY FUN.
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Another thing that I want to talk about is where carriers fit in this concept of critical mass. Maybe a simple definition is when "units are exponentially more effective in a group" rather than being solitary.
As some people said, 1 carrier can't do much, but 8 of them can do a lot. That is not very surprising. One expects 8 carriers to do 8 times more damage than 1 can. Say the enemy zerg matches 3 mutas for each carrier you have (in no way is this a A > B scenario). That would be 24 mutas against 8 carriers.
Would it be better if you had 1 carrier engaging 3 mutas in 8 places of the map simultaneously, or a ball of 8 carriers taking on the ball of 24 mutas? Even if we take into account the bouncing glaive, the carrier ball will be superior. Why? Something to think about.
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all I got from the OP was that critical mass of colossi could be considered 8.
LoL, wow! if you catch me with my pants down after massing 8 colossi, i am definitely deserving of a loss.
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On June 25 2010 13:54 FC.Strike wrote:
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
What your saying makes sense and I get what your trying to promote but....
For someone who is looking to obtain this information as a basis for comparison or a starting point to honing there own comfort zones it isnt as damaging as you describe. "PvE is checkers and PvP is chess" Obviously if someone takes any advice and applies it as an absolute they are destined to failure but anyone who takes the advice as a baseline for study with the full intention of adaptation and reaction, it can be a helpful tool that eliminates some of the more unnecessary trial and error.
I guess what I'm saying is I agree with your warning but not with your assertion of "No" it isnt helpful at all. It should be used as a baseline for your own comparisons only but it is indeed a useful tool if used correctly.
-Az
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"Critical mass" is really an over used concept.
What most people mean is that
"At equal macro levels, at one point his units will start to beat your units"
The only true "critical mass" is if you can defeat his 200/200 army with said units.
The term is used because of 2 reasons:
1: When 1 unit has higher range than another you get a bigger advantage in bigger numbers due to you being able to abuse the free shots more and more.
2: When 1 unit has a splash damage component the advantage scales up similarly.
Colossus are the usual example because they have 9 range and big splash. However, is 8 colossus unbeatable by a 200/200 army? no you don't even need close to that. What about a 130/200 army with 8 colossus and lots of stalkers and sentries? Well its quite tough to deal with that as zerg if you have mostly hydralisks, So a lot of people say "oh well he's going critical mass of colossus" But if you're on like a high supply on roach/hydra/ling and with a decent surround you can still win comfortably.
I think its way overused because it depends so much on composition and positioning as well as general micro.
The sc:bw was like "6 corsairs kill infinity mutaliks" when in fact like 12-14 with a good surround wins. However if you are both making sairs and mutas his sairs are going to win if you are both putting in similar resources. [He'll win more and more in bigger numbers, due to splash]
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EPT
