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On October 20 2010 01:57 triarii3 wrote:
from a common gamer's perspective:
say if you were to upgrade Terran Infantry +1 = 100min/100gas
you would be seeing effect when you have more than 12 marines. because that 100 minerals can be used to produce 2 marines. and the combined fire power of 2 marines is 12(6+6).
if you have anything less than 12 marines, say 9 marines...after the research each of your 9 marines would get +1 for a total of +9 damage. it would be more beneficial at this time to just get 2 marines for +12 damage than +1 Infantry upgrade for a total of +9 damage.
so it's safe to say a when the benefit of the extra damage output out weights the added damage of an additional unit of that type, it's time to upgrade.
so the equation (Damage output of Minerals of the Upgrade Research > Damage of the Production of an additional unit equal of equal value)
so you can see it differs with each race and unit type...so you gotta do the math
**also i discounted the gas because in the equation minerals are the limiting factor...not gas.
Stupid analysis. What happens when one of your 6 damage marines dies?
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Just upgrade your units, it pays off.
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Intuitively I've disagreed with day[9]s incessant comments about "WOULD LIKE TO SEE UPGRADES HERE"...
Perhaps it is often because the (chamber,forge,turret) is already built, but if you look back at dailys 100-170 he mentions "DONT REALLY LIKE THAT HE ISN'T GETTING UPGRADES"
@ the 7-12 minute marks...
The math seems to largely point towards less upgrades(more units) in most situations.
Factors to consider while playing:
What is the max spread of my x(to be upgd) unit in the battles I expect?
Does this upgrade limit my opponent's tactics when we enter battle?
What is the potential of this upgrade to be effective even if my opponent switches strategies?
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I've noticed the same thing in some daily's. Upgrades are nice but they shouldn't be overrated.
As protoss I feel upgrades definately aren't that fantastic. Shields are horribly expensive, armor effects only about half to 2/3rds of your effective hitpoints and isn't really effective against some armies. For example in the mirror or vs roach/hydra armor will have a very small effect. Attack upgrades aren't too shabby on stalkers either and zealots tend to die more then they actually attack.
As protoss it seems that getting more then 1 forge is never worth it and upgrades are only decent to good in some cases (vs terran they are quite good, especially armor vs rines and vs muta/ling attack is quite good in other cases upgrades don't do that much for their cost).
Terran often uses biomech against zerg so upgrades aren't too fantasitc either then, attack upgrades do rock for T v P and mech upgrades are alright in the T mirror.
With zerg upgrading is most important imo. Roach / hydra benefits quite well from it and muta/ling usually needs armor ups on those lings and banelings.
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One more thing - the first weapon upgrade 100/100 has a different resource efficiency on different units.
If you take the one for vehicles and you build thors you get + 5,5 ground dps and +1,3 air dps where if you go Hellion you get only 0,40 more dps - so because of hellions you should not get the upgrade - but for thors you get more bang for your buck. (besides other valid reason like breakpoints and so on)
I did the math for all terran units:
break even - ungrade or alternative dps building additional units based on gas*3:
marines 48,
marauder 26 (25 vs armed),
hellion 8,
tank (sieged 10 , unsieged 6),
thor 2- 4 (ground or air varies),
viking 8-10 (ground air, light armored varies a bit),
banshee 5,
BC 2-3,
So how to read it?
Unless there are other good reason to upgrade earlier (see posts above) - when you have this kind of army size of one unit [or a composition of units of the same upgrade group (marine+maruader; hellion+tanks+thors ....)!!] resource wise the dps weapon upgrade pays off vs. building more units.
Practally - sieged tanks operate often close to chokes so it makes sense to get the weapon upgrade earlier than 10. Marines in bunker/drop/choke all good reason to get it earlier ....
The second weapon upgrade is 175/175 which means the same gain of dps - at higher cost (later in the game so you better expand  ) what does that mean for the math above?
now here is the math- 175/175 = 700 resources (175+175gas*3)
1 new marines has dps 8,13 (cos upgraded once)
he would gain additional 1,15 for 700 resources - how many marines can you build to stay below the gain of 1,15 dps? Answer = 700r=14 new marines (700/50) => additional 113dps (14x8,13) - how do I get the gain of 113dps with the second upgrade??
Answer: by having 99! (113/1,15) marines.
Well, you better get the upgrade for other reason
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On October 20 2010 07:05 FoxSpirit wrote:
I feel that in regards to upgrade, people tend to miss the long run. Because while 1/1 doesn't look that harsh, a 0/0 vs 2/2 will turn huge number battles in equal tier forces.
A 0/0 marine vs a 3/3 Marine is 3 damage dealt/9 taken vs 9 dealt/ 3 taken. We are talking about marines that are trice as strong. Sure, that 1/1 won't hurt you that much. 2/2 , you suddenly have a ratio of 8/4. His marines already double yours.
On top of that, if your units die twice as fast, there is a cascade. 10 marines vs 10 doesn't mean he'll have 5 left because his are twice as strong. It's more like 8 because you loose firepower so much faster.
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That is exaclty the mis-leading thinking I try to fight here - it is the wrong question!
"Is 3/3 better than 0/0?"
Sure it is, but the question was - how many units could I have built with the spending of 3/3? 3/3 means = 1000 mins and 1000 gas.
100/100 + 175/175 + 225/225 for weapon and the same for armor = 1000/1000.
The real fight is:
"your" 20 marines 3/3
vs.
"mine" 20 marines 0/0 and 2 Thors and 2 ravens and 1 medivac (=1000m/1000gas).
or "mine" 20 marines 0/0 and 2 Battlecruiser and 2 ravens .
or "mine" 20 marines 0/0 and 6 Tanks (no siege)
I doubt you will win - no matter how bad my micro is.
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neverlast your 'math' doesn't account for the fact that making extra units does not only mean more DPS but also more HP. Accounting for that your numbers should almost be double, i calculated it for marines earlier on for example.
The numbers are useless in practice though so I will not go into it any further but your methods seem completely off..
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On October 20 2010 11:23 KandLeMaN wrote:
From a theoretical standpoint, they pay off when the extra damage is more efficient than producing an extra unit or two with the same resources.
This isn't really true, or oversimplifies by a ton. For example you can't just 'create' an extra unit out of thin air. Sure you can drop an extra rax for the cost of the engy bay (more or less), but then you're banking on extra units being more efficient now AND in the future as you've just committed resources to the extra rax you are now obligated to make use of.
Then there's the combat efficiency. Yeah I can make 8 more lings for the mineral cost of +1 melee but if those lings spend all battle just waiting for another ling to die so they can move in it may not be as efficient. Likewise the opposite way, missing 8 lings may cost me a surround making my army dramatically less efficient.
You also need to consider future efficiency in grabbing upgrades. Grabbing +1 when it's not technically efficient may mean that I can grab +2 earlier which might be more efficient than grabbing +1 when it's efficient and +2 following that.
Then there's mixed armies and a bunch of other things to consider.
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If anything upgrades should be compared to your economy. Their real use is to let the resources you have be spent more efficiently. If we just take a theoretical instance in which a zerg player made nothing but zerglings, +1 weapons would equate to a permanent 20% economy bonus, backdated to every unit you still have alive. Comparing it to units that could be made in place of the upgrade is shortsighted and assumes that upgrading is some instant upgrade that you select and only use in a particular battle. It isn't, its a way of making your entire army more efficient at its job for the rest of the game.
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On October 20 2010 21:48 neverlast wrote:Show nested quote +On October 20 2010 07:05 FoxSpirit wrote:
I feel that in regards to upgrade, people tend to miss the long run. Because while 1/1 doesn't look that harsh, a 0/0 vs 2/2 will turn huge number battles in equal tier forces.
A 0/0 marine vs a 3/3 Marine is 3 damage dealt/9 taken vs 9 dealt/ 3 taken. We are talking about marines that are trice as strong. Sure, that 1/1 won't hurt you that much. 2/2 , you suddenly have a ratio of 8/4. His marines already double yours.
On top of that, if your units die twice as fast, there is a cascade. 10 marines vs 10 doesn't mean he'll have 5 left because his are twice as strong. It's more like 8 because you loose firepower so much faster.
. That is exaclty the mis-leading thinking I try to fight here - it is the wrong question! "Is 3/3 better than 0/0?" Sure it is, but the question was - how many units could I have built with the spending of 3/3? 3/3 means = 1000 mins and 1000 gas. 100/100 + 175/175 + 225/225 for weapon and the same for armor = 1000/1000. The real fight is: "your" 20 marines 3/3 vs. "mine" 20 marines 0/0 and 2 Thors and 2 ravens and 1 medivac (=1000m/1000gas). or "mine" 20 marines 0/0 and 2 Battlecruiser and 2 ravens . or "mine" 20 marines 0/0 and 6 Tanks (no siege) I doubt you will win - no matter how bad my micro is.
The major point I think thats being missed on this thread is simple. You can spend the money on units or upgrades... However once those units die, the person spending them on upgrades will still have the benifits the remainder of the game, not just at that instant.
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@Markwerf bringing in this army power hp*dps is definitly a great idea - something worth being considered. I did not adapt this is idea as I try to outweigh another effect Glath pointed out: my alternative units might do not last - upgrades do.
@Glath I am aware of this and Markwerf pointed this out in his post page1
"- upgrades last the entire game so even if you do not have the actual x from the theory yet when you get the upgrade as long as you get that number over the course of the game it was worth it already. The x is basically a bit of a bottom line, if you ever get more then that number you should be thinking seriously about why you didnt get the upgrade"
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EPT
