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I make probe first, as I see most do. Is there any actual advantage to doing so?
My friend believes it doesn't matter, and that he will actually have minerals sooner than me by sending probes first then building a probe, albeit by a fraction of a second.
I've heard the response, "You're ahead in the worker count," mainly because that was my explanation to him as to why building a probe first is absolutely a fundamental. I was at a loss to give him any kind of evidence as to why it's actually advantageous.
I know this a miniscule point of strategy, but I thought I'd ask more experienced members for more details about this decision at the start of the game that we all make. Is it truly inconsequential?
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You always make the worker first then send. The advantage of having the worker .000001 seconds faster outweighs the advantage of getting extra minerals .0000001 seconds faster.
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sorry this is my first post and i realize it's in the wrong forum.. Should be starcraft 2 strategy. I don't know how to request it moved.
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I understand that that's the given logic we all take for granted. Does anyone know why it is though? Do we scoff because we'd rather not mathematically plot the gain?
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I usually make the worjer and then send them to work. Keep your mouse centered in your screen and you pretty much land on the nexus/hatch/CC right away.
You can even hold the e (for protoss) and then click on the nexus and it will start the probe production right away.
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It's pretty basic in the long term it's better to have a worker .000001 seconds faster because then each time it mines it'll give you minerals .000001 seconds faster than if you send workers first, sending workers first gives you minerals .000001 seconds faster but then you would fall behind the guy who is getting that extra mineral .000001 seconds faster every time his .000001 second faster worker mines.
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There's not really much logic to it. If you don't build your worker first, it means you complete your worker later plus you'll have more than 50 minerals by the time the first worker finishes, and we all know having extra resources in StarCraft is always a bad thing. Having just the right amount of resources for something is always ideal. However, if you did build your worker first, it'll be done sooner plus you'll be able to start another immediately afterwards anyways.
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I find it more efficient in the long term to start the worker saturation process right off the bat then wait.
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The difference is totally insignificant.
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I believe somebody crunched this problem and actually discovered that sending the workers first actually nets a small advantage.
If you think about it, this makes sense.
If we assume the following:
1. Roughly 1 mineral / second per worker
2. Roughly 1/2 second between making the worker and sending the workers or visa versa
Making the extra worker 1/2 second early nets us 1/2 a mineral, whereas sending the workers first nets us 3 minerals.
Then again, you have to count in human reaction time - perhaps it's easier to make the worker first because you know your Nexus/CC/Hatch will be in the center of the screen and using that time you notice where the mineral patches are. The tests which concluded sending workers first was slightly better performed the tests on a build order tester map where the tester knew where the mineral patches were beforehand.
And in the end, none of this matters. I always make my worker first and then send my workers out. When I send my workers out, I don't even bother splitting. Less than optimal? Maybe. Do I care? Not even a tiny bit.
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Before I say anything, the difference is insignificant. This is just an intellectual argument. I've made this argument in previous threads before, but it keeps coming up.
Sending your workers first is better. The popular consensus is that making a worker first is better, I think just because day[9] said it and everyone echoed it, but if you think about it logically you can see sending your workers first is better.
Let's say that your second action takes .5 seconds to execute after your first action. Let's look at both scenarios:
1) You send your workers first. This means that in the first .5 seconds of the game, you are not producing a worker. You are therefore down .5 seconds of mining time from one scv at the point at which the scv hits the mineral line.
2) You create your worker first. This means that you are missing out on .5 seconds of mining time from six scvs.
You can logically extend this comparison and see it more intuitively. What if you were really slow? It takes you 10 seconds to do your second action. In this case, you're missing out on a gigantic 60 seconds of worker time if you choose to build your worker first, as opposed to only 10 seconds of worker time if you choose to send your workers first.
This was worked out by some math wizards in the AoE community and it was reasoned that this is the better option. The SC2 community, though awesome, is a bit less-awesome at math.
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Yea. It seems there's no exact math to tell us. There seem to be arguments to both. I assumed that because in the pro replays I watch I always see them building worker first, that there had to be empirical evidence that it was a benefit.
It seems while getting the worker done will get you that one worker's extra mins in sooner, the guy who sends first will only ever be one worker's worth behind, although his income will hit sooner each time, so he'll be ahead in minerals altogether by a fraction each time.
@ Kantutan -- Your logic doesn't make sense regarding always wanting to never have excess minerals--it just means that whenever your build order requires something, your excess minerals will be applied then--yes you may have more minerals than you need at first, but then maybe when that first gateway's time is come, you'll be using them there to get it up a fraction of a second sooner.
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Aite, this is what i do, it might not work for you but it works for me.
With some practice, this works great:
Build worker.
Spam f1 while right clicking mineral patches, thus assigning each one to a seperate patch.
GL!
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Kennigit
Canada19447 Posts
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I don't know if the numbers show it, but it just intuitively seems faster to build a worker first.
This is why I think it's faster:
If I build a worker, then box my units and click a mineral field, the worker is building while I micro.
If I box my units and click a mineral field, the worker is not building while I micro.
It takes more time to box and click a mineral field than to build a worker.
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It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first.
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On July 24 2010 15:58 Kantutan wrote:
It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first.
When creating a worker first, you often have a very, very slight supply block around when the supply depot/pylon comes up. This would be negated there. Edit: the effect would not be cumulative anyway
This is another reason I prefer sending workers first (although just for aesthetic reasons) - the second your scv pops out you can make a supply depot, and you encounter not even a moment of supply block. Makes builds feel a little bit more well-oiled.
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KevinIX your logic is sound and I considered that too. It is a shorter micro to let's say click Nexus then tap E than to group probes send and then split. So the shorter micro is done first, as opposed to the longer then the shorter.
@ Kantutan -- I thought initially that the gain for the person who is "ahead" in worker count would be cumulative, but on deeper thought I believe it isn't.
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On July 24 2010 15:58 Kantutan wrote:
It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first.
I believe this argument is fallacious.
Let's say we have one nexus start making workers nonstop.
We have a second nexus making workers nonstop start exactly one second after the first one.
The first nexus won't pull extremely far ahead of the second nexus - instead the first nexus will only be one second ahead in minerals of the second one.
Since we're assuming that the queue worker -> send workers procedure takes about a half second, the other way will only be a half second ahead of this method. That half second of having that extra worker results in a ~1/2 mineral gain while sending workers first results in 3 extra minerals.
There may be other factors which play into the whole build worker / send workers first debate, but your argument is not one of them. Most of them have to do with human reaction time, splitting, etc.
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And speaking of the F1 strategy: Do any pros currently use it? I mean F1 right click min patch, repeat 5 more times. It seems to be able to be done fast on my first try, and with practice I wonder if it is better than the split.
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If your first pylon delays probe production, you should send workers --> more early cash --> faster pylon --> more eventual workers.
If your first pylon does not delay probe production, you should build a probe first, because that slight extra probe time will continue throughout the game and add up.
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I build a probe first then send them all to mine. Then by the time it is possible to build another one i already have almost exactly 50 minerals. There is no delay. That means the second one is also faster. And third and so on.
If you send workers first, you'll fall behind in building probes but have a 15-20 (don't know exactly) more minerals at the start. Which is nothing compared to the hundreds of more minerals collected by more probes over the game.
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@ Severedevil -- I don't think it's possible to make probe, send, and not have a delay. Unless you're playing sloppy to begin with, there will always be a delay because 10 probes will be out before pylon is done.
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On July 24 2010 16:04 FC.Strike wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 15:58 Kantutan wrote:
It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first. I believe this argument is fallacious. Let's say we have one nexus start making workers nonstop. We have a second nexus making workers nonstop start exactly one second after the first one. The first nexus won't pull extremely far ahead of the second nexus - instead the first nexus will only be one second ahead in minerals of the second one. Since we're assuming that the queue worker -> send workers procedure takes about a half second, the other way will only be a half second ahead of this method. That half second of having that extra worker results in a ~1/2 mineral gain while sending workers first results in 3 extra minerals. There may be other factors which play into the whole build worker / send workers first debate, but your argument is not one of them. Most of them have to do with human reaction time, splitting, etc.
Upon further thought, I agree. The nexuses will always be equal in resources, just one ahead of the other by .5 seconds. Good thought.
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@ EatCrow -- we've established that staying one worker ahead is not cumulative gain, therefore, if both players built the same amount of probes continuously, the one who was ahead in probe count wouldn't ever be more than 5 mins ahead. I.E. I'm bringing in 7 probes, you're bringing in 8. I'm bringing in 8 probes, you're bringing in 9. See, you only ever stay 5 mins ahead, but my whole batch of probes will hit my nexus each time before yours, so I'll have acess to mins sooner.
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No suggestion on the F1 strategy? Have any pros been seen to use it?
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What is it with everyone saying that building that probe earlier will snowball into this huge advantage later in the game? That's not how it works at all.
Income growth is completely linear. If you start probe production a half second later, it will still grow linearly just a tiny bit later than the first graph. But the initial minerals you get from sending the workers first lift the graph higher than the first to make up for it.
Edit: I made a graph for those of you who aren't so mathematically inclined. Enjoy.
![[image loading]](http://i28.tinypic.com/307omqf.png)
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Yeah, nice argument FC.
I'll still build a worker first, because click + s / click + e /click + s + d is easier to do than select drag + click on patch. So long as I get my 50 mins before the first worker finishes, I'm happy.
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On July 24 2010 16:14 CitanZero wrote:
No suggestion on the F1 strategy? Have any pros been seen to use it?
WhiteRa uses F1, doesn't he?
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On July 24 2010 16:15 Kantutan wrote:
Yeah, nice argument FC.
I'll still build a worker first, because click + s / click + e /click + s + d is easier to do than select drag + click on patch. So long as I get my 50 mins before the first worker finishes, I'm happy.
The funny thing is I totally agree - I don't care about this whole thing at all in game. I make my worker, send all of my workers to a random patch, don't split, and that's that.
It's just that on the forums, I have to point out these sorts of things.
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WhiteRa does? I'll have to check it out. Does he do F1 6 times extremely fast? Or some combination of sending?
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Oh and thanks for the graphs FC
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On July 24 2010 16:17 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 16:14 CitanZero wrote:
No suggestion on the F1 strategy? Have any pros been seen to use it? WhiteRa uses F1, doesn't he?
I believe it was White-Ra who does the triple split? Select two workers at a time and send them off. IMO it's not worth the micro and risk of mis-clicking which is bound to happen occasionally.
On July 24 2010 16:22 FC.Strike wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 16:15 Kantutan wrote:
Yeah, nice argument FC.
I'll still build a worker first, because click + s / click + e /click + s + d is easier to do than select drag + click on patch. So long as I get my 50 mins before the first worker finishes, I'm happy. The funny thing is I totally agree - I don't care about this whole thing at all in game. I make my worker, send all of my workers to a random patch, don't split, and that's that. It's just that on the forums, I have to point out these sorts of things.
Yeah I know, I have no shame in being bested in a logical argument  The sooner you learn, the better.
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White-Ra does the oddest thing. In one of the King of the Beta games, it was:
Select 2 workers, send them to mineral patches.
Build worker
Select 2 workers, send them to mineral patches.
Select 2 workers, send them to mineral patches. Split this group 1-1 between two different patches.
I'm pretty sure that's not even close to optimized, but these things don't determine games and it's White-Ra's signature split. So whatever
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On July 24 2010 16:25 Kantutan wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 16:17 iEchoic wrote:On July 24 2010 16:14 CitanZero wrote:
No suggestion on the F1 strategy? Have any pros been seen to use it? WhiteRa uses F1, doesn't he? I believe it was White-Ra who does the triple split? Select two workers at a time and send them off. IMO it's not worth the micro and risk of mis-clicking which is bound to happen occasionally.
I thought he does the triple split by going f1 click f1 click very fast to select two scvs. Anyone know for sure? That'd be faster, at least.
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Wow that's crazy. I know Day 9 seems to stress that even small edges are significant, but this one seems not to even classify as a small edge.
HERE's ONE I HAVE BEEN WONDERING:
Can anyone, if building their probes and microing perfectly, get a chrono boost off as soon as it hits 25 and have none of the chrono be wasted on idle time waiting on first pylon to finish forming to build probe 11? I can't, and is it optimal if boosting economy to wait until pylon finishes to start chrono boosting so probes will be continuous and no chrono will be on idle time?
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On July 24 2010 16:32 CitanZero wrote:
Wow that's crazy. I know Day 9 seems to stress that even small edges are significant, but this one seems not to even classify as a small edge.
HERE's ONE I HAVE BEEN WONDERING:
Can anyone, if building their probes and microing perfectly, get a chrono boost off as soon as it hits 25 and have none of the chrono be wasted on idle time waiting on first pylon to finish forming to build probe 11? I can't, and is it optimal if boosting economy to wait until pylon finishes to start chrono boosting so probes will be continuous and no chrono will be on idle time?
No. The best you can do is chronoboost when the pylon is about 3/4ths done. And that's only if you throw the pylon down right next to your Nexus and go back to mining.
Edit: That didn't really make sense, so let me clarify. If you're building the pylon by your ramp or at your natural, the time that probe spends not mining makes it such that you can't chrono until the pylon is pretty much done (as the pylon goes down a little later).
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Assuming workers mine 1mineral/second, there is a .5 second delay between building worker/sending and workers are built constantly from one queue.
Sending first will give a 3 mineral advantage at the start however the first worker, and any subsequent worker will be delayed by .5 seconds, so the advantage of sending first will be lost at .5 minerals per worker built. So sending first and building first will be even at 12 supply and building first will be at an advantage after that.
However, Zerg have more than 1 production queue, due to having larvae can use the 3 mineral advantage straight away to build their second drone, third drone, overlord etc. slightly earlier than the person building a drone first. Therefor the person building a drone first will fall slightly behind the person sending drones first as the game progresses.
For Protoss building a probe first is of advantage as long as it does not delay the pylon to the point that probe production has to be stopped for more than .5 seconds longer than the person sending his probes first, as a delay of this length would lose the cumulative benefits of building first, and as a result make sending probes first a better choice.
For Terran (this is the race I'm least familiar with build orders etc.) assuming a 9 supply depot is the optimal build building an SCV first is of advantage as the depot won't be delayed enough to ever lead to being supply blocked therefor the person building an SCV first can constantly produce SCV and as a result gain an advantage over the person sending SCVs first after the 12 supply.
TL;DR
Zerg -> send drones first
Protoss -> depends on much how this affects pylon timing
Terran -> build SCV first
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On July 24 2010 17:10 Clipse wrote:
Sending first will give a 3 mineral advantage at the start however the first worker, and any subsequent worker will be delayed by .5 seconds, so the advantage of sending first will be lost at .5 minerals per worker built. So sending first and building first will be even at 12 supply and building first will be at an advantage after that.
Edit: see below
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What about gather, build, then split?
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On July 24 2010 16:04 FC.Strike wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 15:58 Kantutan wrote:
It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first. I believe this argument is fallacious. Let's say we have one nexus start making workers nonstop. We have a second nexus making workers nonstop start exactly one second after the first one. The first nexus won't pull extremely far ahead of the second nexus - instead the first nexus will only be one second ahead in minerals of the second one. Since we're assuming that the queue worker -> send workers procedure takes about a half second, the other way will only be a half second ahead of this method. That half second of having that extra worker results in a ~1/2 mineral gain while sending workers first results in 3 extra minerals. There may be other factors which play into the whole build worker / send workers first debate, but your argument is not one of them. Most of them have to do with human reaction time, splitting, etc.
This is the fallacious argument.
I'd do the math but it gets all messed up because 1min/s is a huge overestimate, so here's the verbal explanation instead:
Mining occurs at a rate equal to P*K, where P=number of probes and K is a constant minerals/seconds rate for each probe. Let this rate be designated "Rm", and be measured in minerals/second. Total minerals (Mt) accumulated are thus equal to:
Mt = Rm*T (where T is time in seconds)
If we build our worker first, and then send workers, there will be a delay of a certain duration. Let us call this delay "d". In essence, this means that the "T" term in our total minerals function is offset from a start at 0 by d seconds, thus:
Mt1 = Rm*(T-d)
If we build our worker after sending workers, "d" has a value of 0, so T starts at a true 0. Thus:
Mt2 = Rm*T
Workers take 17 seconds to build (I believe). Thus, assuming constant worker production, P increases by 1 every 17 seconds.
If we build our worker first, our 7th worker begins mining at T = 17. At this point, our mineral totals are:
Mt1 = Rm*(17-d) = 17Rm - 17d
Mt2 = Rm*(17) = 17Rm
Send first is in the lead by an amount that scales with the length of the delay we assume. However, if we build our worker second, our 7th worker is not out until T = 17 + d
Thus, there is an interval equal in length to d where worker first is mining at a higher rate than send first.
Crucially, this interval occurs every 17 seconds while constant worker production is maintained. Every time this interval occurs, worker first builds gain Mt relative to send first.
This will only compound for a small amount, because after 15 or so food you're building so much other stuff that there is likely no relevant difference in how fast you get probes out except for the initial delay. In theoretical terms, however, it will continue to increase in size until the end of constant probe production - and it will get you to critical mineral thresholds correspondingly faster.
The threshold that makes send first the correct choice is a d value such that the total gain is less than however much 6 workers mine in d seconds, and the thing is that higher d values increase the rate at which worker first gains on send first.
I'm not good enough at math to prove this, but I am pretty sure it is mathematically demonstrable that for any value of d worker-first is a better choice.
[edit] Nevertheless I will embarass myself by trying to do it:
We have our rate of increase of 1 per 17 seconds, stepwise, and we have an interval of d where worker first is mining with N+1 probes compared to send-first's N probes.
We have a rate of mining per probe, K.
Thus, every 17 seconds, worker-first gains dK minerals relative to send-first, which has gained 6dK minerals as a result of the send-first decision (6 probes, d delay, K rate per probe).
For worker-first to break even with send-first, we must thus achieve 6 intervals*, namely, make 6 probes - which I believe is pretty much guaranteed in most non-ridiculous build orders anyway (even the 2stalker opening stops at 15 probes).
*In fact slightly less, because over such a short period there will be compounding, but probably something like 5.9dK would be necessary so whatever.
There is a very slight kink in this, namely the pylon/depot/overlord. Again, in theory, worker-first will get you to 100min faster than send-first - but given the minimal size of d for most players, almost any delay in building could well wipe out some or all of the advantage (I'm not quite sure on this).
So I have in fact discovered that the key decision is not "how big is my d value" but "can I build 6 or more probes nonstop with no mistakes", contingent on what, precisely, happens if you fuck up pylon/depot/overlord timing.
[edit2] This also, obviously, assumes an absolutely perfect 1-1-1-1-1-1 split, although barring oddities with the AI it should hold true for any given split as long as the split is constant across both options.
[edit3] Goddamnit, I'm supposed to be in bed. However, if we assume that the same player is doing these two things, musn't we also assume that he will fuck up the pylon/depot/overlord timing by an equal amount in both cases? If we do, the timing no longer matters except if we want to keep considering compounding (which I don't think we do since it will be minimal in all real situations).
[edit4] Why do I nerd out on math when I hate it so much? I should also point out here that this doesn't actually conclusively prove my point - we are assuming a mining rate for workers which is an idealization - the function for minerals returned by a probe is stepwise, not continuous, and this will throw wrenches into conclusions drawn from an assumption of continuity.
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I wish I weren't in summer mindless mode so I could actually think properly about these things. Meh :<
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On July 24 2010 17:27 kzn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 16:04 FC.Strike wrote:On July 24 2010 15:58 Kantutan wrote:
It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first. I believe this argument is fallacious. Let's say we have one nexus start making workers nonstop. We have a second nexus making workers nonstop start exactly one second after the first one. The first nexus won't pull extremely far ahead of the second nexus - instead the first nexus will only be one second ahead in minerals of the second one. Since we're assuming that the queue worker -> send workers procedure takes about a half second, the other way will only be a half second ahead of this method. That half second of having that extra worker results in a ~1/2 mineral gain while sending workers first results in 3 extra minerals. There may be other factors which play into the whole build worker / send workers first debate, but your argument is not one of them. Most of them have to do with human reaction time, splitting, etc. + Show Spoiler +
This is the fallacious argument.
I'd do the math but it gets all messed up because 1min/s is a huge overestimate, so here's the verbal explanation instead:
Mining occurs at a rate equal to P*K, where P=number of probes and K is a constant minerals/seconds rate for each probe. Let this rate be designated "Rm", and be measured in minerals/second. Total minerals (Mt) accumulated are thus equal to:
Mt = Rm*T (where T is time in seconds)
If we build our worker first, and then send workers, there will be a delay of a certain duration. Let us call this delay "d". In essence, this means that the "T" term in our total minerals function is offset from a start at 0 by d seconds, thus:
Mt1 = Rm*(T-d)
If we build our worker after sending workers, "d" has a value of 0, so T starts at a true 0. Thus:
Mt2 = Rm*T
Workers take 17 seconds to build (I believe). Thus, assuming constant worker production, P increases by 1 every 17 seconds.
If we build our worker first, our 7th worker begins mining at T = 17. At this point, our mineral totals are:
Mt1 = Rm*(17-d) = 17Rm - 17d
Mt2 = Rm*(17) = 17Rm
Send first is in the lead by an amount that scales with the length of the delay we assume. However, if we build our worker second, our 7th worker is not out until T = 17 + d
Thus, there is an interval equal in length to d where worker first is mining at a higher rate than send first.
Crucially, this interval occurs every 17 seconds while constant worker production is maintained. Every time this interval occurs, worker first builds gain Mt relative to send first.
This will only compound for a small amount, because after 15 or so food you're building so much other stuff that there is likely no relevant difference in how fast you get probes out except for the initial delay. In theoretical terms, however, it will continue to increase in size until the end of constant probe production - and it will get you to critical mineral thresholds correspondingly faster.
The threshold that makes send first the correct choice is a d value such that the total gain is less than however much 6 workers mine in d seconds, and the thing is that higher d values increase the rate at which worker first gains on send first.
I'm not good enough at math to prove this, but I am pretty sure it is mathematically demonstrable that for any value of d worker-first is a better choice.
[edit] Nevertheless I will embarass myself by trying to do it:
We have our rate of increase of 1 per 17 seconds, stepwise, and we have an interval of d where worker first is mining with N+1 probes compared to send-first's N probes.
We have a rate of mining per probe, K.
Thus, every 17 seconds, worker-first gains dK minerals relative to send-first, which has gained 6dK minerals as a result of the send-first decision (6 probes, d delay, K rate per probe).
For worker-first to break even with send-first, we must thus achieve 6 intervals*, namely, make 6 probes - which I believe is pretty much guaranteed in most non-ridiculous build orders anyway (even the 2stalker opening stops at 15 probes).
*In fact slightly less, because over such a short period there will be compounding, but probably something like 5.9dK would be necessary so whatever.
There is a very slight kink in this, namely the pylon/depot/overlord. Again, in theory, worker-first will get you to 100min faster than send-first - but given the minimal size of d for most players, almost any delay in building could well wipe out some or all of the advantage (I'm not quite sure on this).
So I have in fact discovered that the key decision is not "how big is my d value" but "can I build 6 or more probes nonstop with no mistakes", contingent on what, precisely, happens if you fuck up pylon/depot/overlord timing.
[edit2] This also, obviously, assumes an absolutely perfect 1-1-1-1-1-1 split, although barring oddities with the AI it should hold true for any given split as long as the split is constant across both options.
I never thought I'd end up eating my own words on an online forum. But indeed, I have.
The mistake I made was in assuming that economic growth was linear, when in reality it's not at all linear. Instead, the rate of change of growth can be fitted to a linear regression.
My mistake becomes exceedingly obvious with a very simple test, which I've reproduced in excel:
![[image loading]](http://i30.tinypic.com/210ka5t.png)
The first group represents an object which begins moving before the second group begins moving. The groups both accelerate at the same rate (1 unit / unit time), but the second group is given a small head start. After a certain amount of time, the advantage the first group gets in starting the acceleration process first exceeds the advantage given by the second group getting the slight head start.
How deeply embarrassing. I suppose I need to cross check what I'm saying before I actually say it. Thanks for the clarification.
What We Can Conclude: Sending workers first is beneficial if your build ever has you getting supply blocked in the first ~12 or so supply. However if your build never has you getting supply blocked, it's superior to build the worker first and then send your workers. I believe somebody else in this thread touched on that point - he's entirely correct.
Edit: It's probably not even worth taking all of these additional factors into account. In the end it makes such a small difference that it's not even worth losing sleep over. The only reason I followed up on this thread was because I was so outrageously wrong. Made me a sad panda :[
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depends also on races, with zerg i like to split first, cause im able to build more workers at the same time, with terran protoss i first build the worker
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On July 24 2010 17:21 iEchoic wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2010 17:10 Clipse wrote:
Sending first will give a 3 mineral advantage at the start however the first worker, and any subsequent worker will be delayed by .5 seconds, so the advantage of sending first will be lost at .5 minerals per worker built. So sending first and building first will be even at 12 supply and building first will be at an advantage after that. Read thread, this has been disproven.
Because of an earlier start to probe production, there will always be a small window when a new probe is produced, for .5 seconds the build probe first person will have an extra probe then the send probes first person, and therefor the income of the build first person will be higher for .5 seconds each time a new probe is produced, this eventually adds up to negate the advantage of the send first person by the 12th probe and eventually leads to the build first person having an advantage.
The graphs below are there to illustrate my point:
![[image loading]](http://www.4freeimagehost.com/resized/cec7be72d171.jpg)
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[EDIT] the post above me presents it the best, IMO. Read that.
This statement for "Mining-first" was made earlier
On July 24 2010 15:54 iEchoic wrote:(...)
Sending your workers first is better. (...)
Let's say that your second action takes .5 seconds to execute after your first action. Let's look at both scenarios:
1) You send your workers first. This means that in the first .5 seconds of the game, you are not producing a worker. You are therefore down .5 seconds of mining time from one scv at the point at which the scv hits the mineral line.
2) You create your worker first. This means that you are missing out on .5 seconds of mining time from six scvs.
You can logically extend this comparison and see it more intuitively. What if you were really slow? It takes you 10 seconds to do your second action. In this case, you're missing out on a gigantic 60 seconds of worker time if you choose to build your worker first, as opposed to only 10 seconds of worker time if you choose to send your workers first.
(...)
The argument is correct on most accounts except one; when your first worker comes out 1 second earlier, your second worker will start building earlier and come out 1 second earlier as well.
If it takes 10 seconds to do your second action, mining before building gives an extra 60 seconds of worker time. Building before mining gives you an extra 10 seconds of worker time AND the second worker will come out 10 seconds earlier, also granting an extra 10 seconds of worker time. This grants 10 extra seconds of worker time PER WORKER; thus, by the 6th worker built, (assuming continuous production), it will have leveled out, and beyond the 6th worker built, building-first has the advantage, until saturation.
What this means is that a build that wants minerals fast within the first 90 seconds of a game should send workers first, but a build that can afford to be 10 minerals or so behind for the first 90 seconds will eventually pull ahead.
(This is all pure theorycraft. In reality, none of this matters; half a second of build time really is not significant)
[EDIT] the post above me presents it the best, IMO. Read that.
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I solve this problem by not building workers at all until I have floated my command center to an island.
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So that means, while playing protoss mining first is always superior because i have to halt probe production for the first pylon anyways? Excellent, so I dont have to change my habit :>
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What many people have failed to account for is that boxing workers to send them is inefficient. Especially if you send first, it's much better to use ctrl+f1 (selects all idle workers) to select your workers and send them. You can also already hold down ctrl+f1 in the load screen so that your workers will be selected a split second earlier.
I did some testing with zerg on this and concluded that sending first is superior on maps with long mining distances (such as dessert oasis) and both methods are about even on maps with shorter mining distances (such as steppes of war).
I prefer to send my workers first, since when I built a drone first, I often pressed SD too quickly for the game to realise, resulting in no drone being built. Sending first is a lot less prone to errors as you can take slightly more time to press SD and if indeed no drone ends up being built, you realise this immediately.
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On July 24 2010 20:41 Drunken.Jedi wrote:
What many people have failed to account for is that boxing workers to send them is inefficient. Especially if you send first, it's much better to use ctrl+f1 (selects all idle workers) to select your workers and send them. You can also already hold down ctrl+f1 in the load screen so that your workers will be selected a split second earlier.
I did some testing with zerg on this and concluded that sending first is superior on maps with long mining distances (such as dessert oasis) and both methods are about even on maps with shorter mining distances (such as steppes of war).
I prefer to send my workers first, since when I built a drone first, I often pressed SD too quickly for the game to realise, resulting in no drone being built. Sending first is a lot less prone to errors as you can take slightly more time to press SD and if indeed no drone ends up being built, you realise this immediately. More importantly, for zerg the crucial point is when you start your second worker.
The reason for this is that while larvae respawn in 15 seconds, a worker takes 17 seconds to build and with your starting 6 workers it will take them roughly 16 seconds to mine 50 minerals from the second you send them to mine.
This means that you are larvae capped until your second worker is started but not thereafter. Meaning for every second you delay that second drone is a second that your following drones and zerglings and what have you are delayed since most builds are designed to completely avoid larvae wasting.
TLDR: For zerg, send workers first and make sure you build your second worker as soon as you hit 50 minerals, it will make sure that your larvae cycle starts as soon as possible.
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On July 24 2010 20:41 Drunken.Jedi wrote:
What many people have failed to account for is that boxing workers to send them is inefficient. Especially if you send first, it's much better to use ctrl+f1 (selects all idle workers) to select your workers and send them. You can also already hold down ctrl+f1 in the load screen so that your workers will be selected a split second earlier.
I did some testing with zerg on this and concluded that sending first is superior on maps with long mining distances (such as dessert oasis) and both methods are about even on maps with shorter mining distances (such as steppes of war).
I prefer to send my workers first, since when I built a drone first, I often pressed SD too quickly for the game to realise, resulting in no drone being built. Sending first is a lot less prone to errors as you can take slightly more time to press SD and if indeed no drone ends up being built, you realise this immediately.
I really notice this as zerg - having to press s then d means that to be 'perfect' you have to time your execution to your loading. Where as with other races you can just hold down one button and know your worker will be started.
because of this mechanical issue I think worker first makes sense to me.
but assuming non zerg or perfect execution with it seems that worker first is best for the first part of the game until the combined number of a new worker waves catches up and eventuallys takes over.
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You all have missed the most important thing. In the "build order" after the game there is no way to get your worker at 00.00 if you send first.
And the actual difference is so small that it doesnt really matter. So go ahead and build first to work that E-Peen.
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Here's a real practical application of this theory crap (we assume the player is a pro who makes no mistakes microing):
The first player to get a pylon started wins, but the ninth probe must be building before the pylon can be constructed. Which strategy, send first, or make first, allows for the 9 pylon to START earlier? I don't care if it's only a fraction of a second: This way I'm looking at the benefit in the shortest term. Can anyone say that one(send first) or the other(make first) would allow me to lay the pylon earlier than the other once I'm at 9/10?
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Here's how I'm going to look at it.
Suppose it takes you one second to split and send your workers and produce the first worker, no matter which order you do it in.
Having both done immediately upon start is obviously superior to both actions.
Having both done 1 second after start is obviously inferior to both actions.
The difference between the two options is less than that of being one second behind - probably much less. (Actually you can further restrict this bound to the time it takes to perform the longer action)
On July 24 2010 18:05 FC.Strike wrote:
The first group represents an object which begins moving before the second group begins moving. The groups both accelerate at the same rate (1 unit / unit time), but the second group is given a small head start. After a certain amount of time, the advantage the first group gets in starting the acceleration process first exceeds the advantage given by the second group getting the slight head start.
The distance between the two is growing, but that's because both are accelerating. At the same time, the difference in time between the two is remaining constant.
Actually, now that I look at it, you have it set up a bit differently.
The one that starts with a higher initial velocity has effectively a time advantage. It's as though he started moving one second earlier. For the other guy, who starts with a distance advantage, that translates into a smaller and smaller time advantage as the velocity increases (time advantage = distance/speed).
The main point is, that the advantage of doing the correct order does NOT provide any sort of snowballing effect.
If acceleration is maintained throughout the game (e.g. constant worker production), then that advantage (distance) will build up. You may have as much as 50 extra minerals! By the time your workers have already harvested 5000, of course. The instant you stop worker production, your advantage (distance) stops increasing.
This is somewhat like premature optimization - trying to cut CPU cycles when your bottleneck is in your I/O.
On July 25 2010 01:18 CitanZero wrote:
Here's a real practical application of this theory crap (we assume the player is a pro who makes no mistakes microing):
The first player to get a pylon started wins, but the ninth probe must be building before the pylon can be constructed. Which strategy, send first, or make first, allows for the 9 pylon to START earlier? I don't care if it's only a fraction of a second: This way I'm looking at the benefit in the shortest term. Can anyone say that one(send first) or the other(make first) would allow me to lay the pylon earlier than the other once I'm at 9/10?
How long would you say it takes to do each micro action? Let's say .25 seconds for each.
The most effect you'd get out of it is placing the pylon 0.25 seconds earlier, and it's likely to be much smaller than that.
I realize that's not what you're asking for. Then in that case, what assumptions you do want to make on how long each separate action takes? Also how quickly do workers mine - Is that 1min/second on average?
Going with a (time to build), b (time to send), x min/second, ignoring the practical implications that workers don't provide a continuous stream of minerals but are discrete, ignoring that different mineral patches have different distances, time loss from workers navigating to patches (that stuff should cancel out, but will affect the value of x):
Initial benefit from sending workers first: 6*a (distance)
Temporal advantage from sending workers first: 6*a/w, where w is the number of workers produced - that is, 3 at nine pylons.
Benefit from building first: b (temporal)
So the difference [temporal] is 2*a [Send workers first] vs. b at the 9 worker pylon mark.
Using assumptions of .5, .5, 1, wait, .5 seconds?
Okay, you divide that value by 6 to get the real time advantage. Or more, maybe 9. I've kinda lost track of my units.
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Make probe then send. Always have.
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Conclusion:
If you ever get supply blocked in your first 12 supply or so, send workers first. The small burst of extra minerals will allow you to get that supply a little bit earlier.
If you DON'T get supply blocked in your first 12 supply or so, build the worker first. The small time advantage where you kick start your economy is superior to the small burst of extra minerals.
If you're cool, are banging hot girls every night, and love bananas, you should do whatever you want because it really doesn't matter. And who doesn't love bananas?
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I usually make drone first, out of habit... plus it's what most pros do.
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On July 25 2010 02:59 FC.Strike wrote:
If you ever get supply blocked in your first 12 supply or so, send workers first. The small burst of extra minerals will allow you to get that supply a little bit earlier.
If you DON'T get supply blocked in your first 12 supply or so, build the worker first. The small time advantage where you kick start your economy is superior to the small burst of extra minerals.
Yup. I don't know why anyone says things other than this.
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I always send to mins, make drone, split, move OL, hotkey hat & OL. Might be 0,00001% less effective than drone first, specially as zerg due to larva production, but I might survive the deficit.
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On July 24 2010 15:47 Lane wrote:
The difference is totally insignificant.
I agree.. It's more personal preference than anything else.
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On July 24 2010 15:58 Kantutan wrote:
It extends far into the late-game though. If your first worker was made .5 seconds earlier, then every worker after that will be made faster as well, meaning they got in that much more mining time. Since constant worker production often doesn't stop until at least 15 food, it means you would have over 8 workers mining sooner rather than the 6 mining sooner using the method of sending your workers first.
No, your worker will simply be made .5 seconds earlier. Why would it be cumulative???
To me its obvious sending workers first is better, but then again, I play zerg, so I dont really have a training queue
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On July 25 2010 02:59 FC.Strike wrote:
Conclusion:
If you ever get supply blocked in your first 12 supply or so, send workers first. The small burst of extra minerals will allow you to get that supply a little bit earlier.
If you DON'T get supply blocked in your first 12 supply or so, build the worker first. The small time advantage where you kick start your economy is superior to the small burst of extra minerals.
If you're cool, are banging hot girls every night, and love bananas, you should do whatever you want because it really doesn't matter. And who doesn't love bananas?
One other point to note:
If you are building at your choke, you should always send workers first. There is absolutely no way you will consistently time that much travel distance perfectly to start your building the moment you break 100mins.
If you build a worker first, "optimal" play demands that you build around your nexus/cc.
If I still had the beta installed, I'd do some tests to see what kind of advantage is actually accrued from this kind of thing, but I don't. Its probably minimal, as everyone has said.
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First time poster here 
I tried to do the math on a purely economical point of view with the following factors :
- the time to start building a worker before sending the others (d) is different than the time to send workers before building the first (d' )
- income is linear and gives 0.7 mineral per second per worker
- as given by liquipedia, it takes 25s to build a pylon or OV, 30s to build a supply depot
- protoss build the first pylon exactly 25sec before the production of the 11th probe, no travel time
- protoss chronoboost once, right when the pylon is done
- terran build the first depot exactly 30sec before the production of the 12th SCV, no travel time, builder SCV doesn't count in the income during building time
- zerg build the overlord after the 9th drone
In that particular set-up, i tried to compare the two options for each race after 120 sec and stopping the production of workers after 14 max.
My results :
Protoss : it's better to build a probe first IF d <= 1.3*d' (e.g. if it takes you 1 sec to send your probes, you should build the 7th probe before if you can do it within 1.3 sec)
Terran : it's better to build an SCV first IF d <= 1.17*d'
Zerg : it's better to send you drones first and then build the 7th (the ratio where building first is better, is not static and quite improbable, for example, it's better to build first if you need 1.4s to send your drones and 0.2s to build the first)
The high difference between Zerg and the others is off course the fact that you can produce more than one drone at a time due to the larva mechanic.
Mind that those numbers are approximations in a particular set-up, please do not consider them as a rule.
The excel sheet i used for calculation is quite unreadable as of now but I'd be happy to send it if you pm me and try to explain you how i worked.
Just out of curiousity, i tried to start the production of the overlord after the 8th,9th and 10th drone and of course the results showed that the 9th is the best option in that particular set-up.
Last but not least, english is not my motherlanguage so please forgive my mistakes
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Thanks for all the great feedback guys. Being my first post, I am impressed with the community here. I am looking forward to monday night with great anticipation. For the record, if anything, this dialogue has sparked my curiosity into experimenting with F1 possibly, and with send, make, then split, as well as the weird WhiteRa stuff I read in here. Thanks
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Worker first is better imo. I agree with LuckyFool's points 100%
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I have a different claim - it depends on the race! (edit: glad to see it was claimed already )
On July 24 2010 15:54 iEchoic wrote:
1) You send your workers first. This means that in the first .5 seconds of the game, you are not producing a worker. You are therefore down .5 seconds of mining time from one scv at the point at which the scv hits the mineral line.
2) You create your worker first. This means that you are missing out on .5 seconds of mining time from six scvs. Correct. If you play Zerg! Because in the first half minute of the game larva production is not bottleneck. In those periods for Zerg is more important to have optimal minerals as early as possible. (that changes a bit later)
False for Protoss and Terran, because they only produce one worker at a time, so it's bottleneck for them to produce them as early as possible. (hence Protoss better chronoboost those probes)
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Hope this make sense.
Logic tells me that it is better to send your workers first and then make an scv.
Would you rather have your 7th scv mining earlier or your 6 existing workers mining first?
The logic of having JUST ENOUGH minerals to build a probe is broken. What if the reverse was you'll have 25 extra minerals if you do it this way??
Common sense tells me that it is easier to make a sweeping motion towards the mineral line that starts with selecting the Command Center, pressing S, boxing your workers and right clicking on a mineral patch.
Than it does to make 2 motions where you first box your workers and send them to a patch and then go back with your mouse to click the command center and build another worker.
To Finalize.
If you do the start in one motion.
Build SCV
Send probes to mine
If you do the start in two distinct motions.
Send the probes to mine
Build SCV.
Practice how to do it in 1 move. Profit.
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Its not about having just enough minerals to build a probe. If you delay your first probe, your second probe will be delayed by just as much relative to someone who built first.
This alone makes worker-first the "optimal" option, with the caveats mentioned on pages 3 and 4.
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Having read the thread and followed the path of the discussion... right!, wrong!, right!, I just wanted to echo CitanZero in saying this was a great thread with great posts. Nice to see a genial dialogue with coherent arguments, and awesome math work. Control f1 is a revelation!
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On July 25 2010 14:12 CitanZero wrote:
Thanks for all the great feedback guys. Being my first post, I am impressed with the community here. I am looking forward to monday night with great anticipation. For the record, if anything, this dialogue has sparked my curiosity into experimenting with F1 possibly, and with send, make, then split, as well as the weird WhiteRa stuff I read in here. Thanks
Don't do the White-ra send! Its soooo bad!
You'll notice, in a lot of his replays, his first probe finishes building and he still doesn't have enough minerals to build a second probe.
Secondly, selecting and moving 2 probes at a time, quickly, leaves a lot of room for error. A misclick past your minerals once every few games will easily offset the average gain that you might get. Watch white-ra's replays, and you'll see him mis-click every few games.
Personal preference, I like to build my probe first so that I have a fraction of a second to see where the closest mineral stacks are, so that I can split my probes onto the best mineral stacks.
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