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[G] Unit production calculator

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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Haploid
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands89 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-26 23:22:24
September 23 2010 13:41 GMT
#1
First time poster, yay.

Inspired by day9's latest cast, the noobie tuesday, I've made a little doodad to help you calculate how many unit-producing structures you can afford on any number of bases. You fill out which buildings you want to use, what mixture of units they should produce, and the doodad will tell you how much percent of your income is required to sustain it.

In day9's cast, he looks at a replay of a gold-level player that builds 3 warpgates and 2 stargates off 1 base, and they are mostly idle, since he doesn't have the income to use them.

The Protoss unit cost doodad is at:
http://haploid.nl/sc2/unit_production/protoss.php

I'll add a Terran version probably tomorrow. The Zerg version requires a little more thinking, but shouldn't be too long after that.

Update: Terran version available at:
http://haploid.nl/sc2/unit_production/terran.php

Update 2: Zerg version available at:
http://haploid.nl/sc2/unit_production/zerg.php
Thank you Carl, you saved me from having to kill them all myself.
CurLy[]
Profile Joined August 2010
United States759 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 13:51:05
September 23 2010 13:50 GMT
#2
nice, is the Percentage of 1-base mining based on that 1 second mining rate or on production cycles of each building? Can't seem to 4 gate or 2 gate robo under 100%
Great pasta mom, very Korean. Even my crown leans to the side. Gangsta. --------->
Haploid
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands89 Posts
September 23 2010 13:56 GMT
#3
Well, both actually.

A gateway consumes resources at a certain rate, expressed in minerals/second and gas/second. A base produces resources, similarly expressed. If it says 4-gate is 148% of your mineral production, that means that you consume 48% more minerals than 1 base can produce.

And that's not even taking into account chronoboosting, which increases your resource consumption quite a bit.
Thank you Carl, you saved me from having to kill them all myself.
MadNote
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Lesotho75 Posts
September 23 2010 14:45 GMT
#4
I know chronoboosting increases your resource consumption if you use it on a warpgate, but what about when you use it on a Nexus. I can't find exact numbers, but I am pretty sure your probes bring in minerals faster when the Nexus is chronoboosted. Maybe it is 50% for 20 seconds, but it is definitely faster. Does this take into account if you are chronoboosting your Nexus (which happens quite a bit)?
Haploid
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands89 Posts
September 23 2010 14:55 GMT
#5
No, chrono-boosting your nexus will only affect the speed at which your probes are being trained (and motherships, of course ). The only way to increase the speed at which your workers gather minerals is to increase your gamespeed.
Thank you Carl, you saved me from having to kill them all myself.
mcneebs
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Canada391 Posts
September 23 2010 15:06 GMT
#6
This seems like it would be a cool site to create some offline templates from, but it sure is hard to look at. Kudos for the effort, but is there any way to make it a little more streamlined and not so cluttered?
You do it to yourself. Just you. You and no one else.
farseerdk
Profile Joined May 2010
Canada504 Posts
September 23 2010 15:25 GMT
#7
Only pro's can 100% utilize their production structures perfectly. Even at the 1400pts diamond level, 4 can be supported off 1 base because you do let them side idle just for a bit.
Perspective is merely an angle.
CookieFactory
Profile Joined June 2010
United States43 Posts
September 23 2010 15:38 GMT
#8
1 probe and 1 zealot out of 1 nexus, 4-gate takes 158% of 1-base minerals? Somethingdoesntseemright.jpg

How are you calculating the building costs over time?
LolnoobInsanity
Profile Joined May 2010
United States183 Posts
September 23 2010 15:41 GMT
#9
On September 23 2010 23:45 MadNote wrote:
I know chronoboosting increases your resource consumption if you use it on a warpgate, but what about when you use it on a Nexus. I can't find exact numbers, but I am pretty sure your probes bring in minerals faster when the Nexus is chronoboosted. Maybe it is 50% for 20 seconds, but it is definitely faster. Does this take into account if you are chronoboosting your Nexus (which happens quite a bit)?


Chronoboosting doesn't increase mining speed at all.
Haploid
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands89 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 15:55:44
September 23 2010 15:50 GMT
#10
A warpgate allows you to warp in a zealot every 28 seconds. That's 100 minerals + 25 minerals (a quarter of a pylon) per 28 seconds, or 4.46 minerals per second.

Similarly, warping in probes costs 50 minerals + 12.5 minerals (an eighth of a pylon) per 17 seconds, or 3.67 minerals per second.

For 4 warpgates and 1 nexus, that sums up to 21.53 minerals per second. Significantly more than the 13.6 minerals per second that a fully saturated base provides. You can check the resource production in this thread.

It feels like you can afford 4 warpgates, because you aren't using them continually and you probably have some minerals saved up when you start warping in. Try it out in a skirmish against an easy AI and focus on nothing but the warpgates. You run out of minerals very quickly.

Oh, also, the cost includes the cost of pylons required to sustain your newly trained units. So if you build some surplus pylons in advance, that's part of the cost you already paid. And if your units die and you don't have to build new pylons, that's even more cost you don't have to pay.
Thank you Carl, you saved me from having to kill them all myself.
coltrane
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Chile988 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 15:58:26
September 23 2010 15:56 GMT
#11
so you are counting zealot cost as 125, stalker as 150/50 and immortal like 300/100?

So any tech I want to add, I just divide the cost of the building/upgrade by its building time and compare with the leftover you provide us in the bottom of that page?


just realized, you didnt provide that i was mental substracting the spending.
Jävla skit
Slayer91
Profile Joined February 2006
Ireland23335 Posts
September 23 2010 15:56 GMT
#12
On September 24 2010 00:38 CookieFactory wrote:
1 probe and 1 zealot out of 1 nexus, 4-gate takes 158% of 1-base minerals? Somethingdoesntseemright.jpg

How are you calculating the building costs over time?


It's about ratio. 1 probe and 1 zealot means nexus building probes 100% and gateways building zealots 100%
1 probe and 2 zealots+2stalkers+1 sentry = nexus with 100% probes, gateways constantly producing zealot/stalker/sentry in a 2:2:1 ratio.
Ichabod
Profile Joined May 2010
United States1659 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 16:13:50
September 23 2010 16:01 GMT
#13
So, by your calculations, it is completely impossible to produce out of 4 warpgates continually, on 1base, even without probe production? What are you using for resources/minute? Found it...still seems weird though

Edit: I guess all the math/concepts make sense...I don't like how this program exposes the flaws in my macro skills
Haploid
Profile Joined August 2010
Netherlands89 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 16:09:00
September 23 2010 16:03 GMT
#14
On September 24 2010 00:56 coltrane wrote:
so you are counting zealot cost as 125, stalker as 150/50 and immortal like 300/100?

So any tech I want to add, I just divide the cost of the building/upgrade by its building time and compare with the leftover you provide us in the bottom of that page?

Yes to the first question. That's the basic idea.

Partial yes to the second question. It is a little hard to get the math right for upgrades and such, because you only build them once, and you build units more like a continual stream. So your upgrade cost / time would only apply for a short period, about 2 minutes or so, less if you chrono-boost. After that, the cost / time of the upgrade is no longer part of the equation. I hope that makes sense.

Most people just skip a unit here and there to have enough resources for an upgrade or tech.

On September 24 2010 01:01 Ichabod wrote:
So, by your calculations, it is completely impossible to produce out of 4 warpgates continually, on 1base, even without probe production? What are you using for resources/minute?

Yes, scroll up a little bit for the exact numbers. If your units don't die and you constantly have to add pylons and warp in zealots, you won't have the resources for it. Not on one base.

I'm not saying 4 gates is not the right number. I think it really is, since very few people really continually warp in zealots with zero delay, and mostly since at least some your units will probably die. Plus, it never hurts to have a slight overproduction capacity. Just in case you do get behind on spending.
Thank you Carl, you saved me from having to kill them all myself.
Elfich
Profile Joined September 2010
20 Posts
September 23 2010 16:05 GMT
#15
Can you add an option that removes the cost of the pylon?

If I am only producing units to replace losses I don't to build additional pylons.
Mikilatov
Profile Blog Joined May 2008
United States3897 Posts
September 23 2010 16:08 GMT
#16
This is really cool. I'll be looking forward to the Terran version! =)
♥ I used to lasso the shit out of your tournaments =( ♥ | Much is my hero. | zizi yO~ | Be Nice, TL.
Roaming
Profile Joined May 2010
United States239 Posts
September 23 2010 17:00 GMT
#17
I will say, i tested it against my own build order (which i know really well) and its pretty much dead on.

I knew exactly where i was capped at 1 base, and my unit ratio, and it came back 95/98%

I assume the CB put me slightly over and my macro pulls me slightly back down. So I gotta say excellent job on this tool.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
MadNote
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Lesotho75 Posts
September 23 2010 18:33 GMT
#18
On September 24 2010 00:41 LolnoobInsanity wrote:
Show nested quote +
On September 23 2010 23:45 MadNote wrote:
I know chronoboosting increases your resource consumption if you use it on a warpgate, but what about when you use it on a Nexus. I can't find exact numbers, but I am pretty sure your probes bring in minerals faster when the Nexus is chronoboosted. Maybe it is 50% for 20 seconds, but it is definitely faster. Does this take into account if you are chronoboosting your Nexus (which happens quite a bit)?


Chronoboosting doesn't increase mining speed at all.


Did this ever work? Maybe at some point during the BETA? I swear I didn't just make this up. I thought I read it somewhere. I could have made it up though ha.
bobcat
Profile Joined May 2010
United States488 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-09-23 18:53:44
September 23 2010 18:49 GMT
#19
I would think that the amount of resources a warp gate uses varies greatly on what units it is producting. For example, a high templar and a sentry are of similar cost, but on has a much longer cooldown. Further more, how does this account for minerals vs. gas? You can 4 gate zealots and sentries off of one base and it will take a very long time to spend your minerals especially if you warped in the gateways progressively as your economy grew rather than all at once.

Dont get me wrong, what you are doing is awesome. However the data still needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

EDIT: just loaded the doodad, it takes unit comp into accout.
"I just want to see bobcat wrist deep in someone's mother's anus" 165 votes
DamageInq
Profile Joined April 2010
United States283 Posts
September 23 2010 19:03 GMT
#20
Chronoboosting increases income INDIRECTLY by increasing your number of probes. All this math is assuming your base is completely saturated, so chronoboosting does not help your income at that point.

This goes to prove my theory: the reason warpgates reduce cooldown (build time) by 5 seconds being to make up for macro flaws (not being able to queue units). You can't press 4-z-z-z-z and keep microing in a battle or while focusing on something, you have to go back to your base and click 4 times to produce


1 base can support 4 gates by practice but not by theory. I don't think it's best to adjust our builds to our skill/playstyle, not the theory.
"Scissors are OP. Rock is fine." -Paper
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