I feel i have a serious problem when it comes to making Overlords.. I recently switched to zerg from terran and mid game i have 2 scvs constantly making depots and when they finish i just hit f1 and continue building them.. But with zerg i find myself getting supply blocked all the damn time.. and i think to myself "well larva will just stockpile so i will be able to catch back up" so i build like 2 ovies and then use all the food instantly and become supply blocked again.. Then my money starts getting absurbly high. I build more hatches but ofc forget to build ovies lol.

What do you guys do? do you just make like 4-6 ovies at a time when u get blocked or.. do you watch ur food and constantly make ovies when ur 10 food from cap? any tips? thnx.

ddrddrddrddr

1344 Posts

October 29 2010 02:30 GMT

10 food = 5 roaches. For zerg that can be popped out in a heart beat. I build 2 at a time starting after the 4th ovie or so, keeping 20 food surplus. It helps not getting totally supply blocked when you get hit with phoenix. If you're at the stage where you're just making an army, just save ~1 larvae per inject cycle per hatch for ovie and it works out fairly well depending on what you're making. You can always just harass/attack and you won't have to make any.

drdovetalk

Singapore27 Posts

October 29 2010 03:48 GMT

It depends on the number of hatcheries you have and whether you are in (a) safe droning mode [i.e. it is totally safe to drone], (b) unit creation mode, or (c) defensive-droning mode. Defensive-droning modes means you are still droning but you also want the option to suddenly pump out a ton of units if necessary.

With good spawn larvae timing, you get 7 larvae every 45 secs per hatchery. If all those larvae were made into drones, it only takes 7 supply. So generally in a safe zoning mode, you want to make about 1 overlord for every 6 drones per cycle. This allows you to build some supply buffer without being larvae-wasteful, and also allow you to build a queen since 6 drones + 1 queen = 8 supply. In other words, ddddddv + spawn larvae

Now if you are in unit creation mode, most zerg units are 2 supply each with the exception of zerglings and tier 3 units. If you are making zerglings exclusively then follow the above paragraph. Otherwise, if you are not in tier 3 yet, then 7 larvae can give u 6 units + 1 ovie, which is 12 supply required but only 8 supply provided. Not that great of a balance. But if you have 2 hatches, then 14 larvae can give you 11 units (i.e. 22 supply needed) and 3 ovies (i.e. 24 supply provided). So going 2 hatches makes it simpler when you are macroing units, Let's say you were going mass roaches on 2 base - that's rrrrrrrrrrrvvv. You can extrapolate this to a simple rule of thumb: Number of ovies per creation cycle = number of hatches + 50%.

Now if you are heading towards tier 3 (likely ultralisks), you should be creating many ovies in advance. An ultra requires 6 supply so 4 ultras need 3 ovies. Theoretically you could look at your gas and mentally decide how many ultras you will create then multiply that by 3/4 to determine the number of ovies needed. Personally I don't do this calculation - When my hive is being morphed, I make about 6-8 ovies anyway to buy me a buffer for ultras. note - the same logic applies if you are saving up gas for mutas. Make those ovies while the spire is morphing in.

If you are defensively droning, then you need a food surplus commensurate the number of hatcheries you have. You are likely in tier1~2 when in this position, so assuming you are on 1 base you can turn 7 larvae per base into units (lings or others) and that requires between 7 to 14 supply. Since the world is not so perfect that you will have 7 larvae whenever you decide to build units, a general guideline can be to maintain a 10+ supply surplus PER HATCH while in this stance. Or like ddr suggested above, 1 larvae per inject for ovie is a nice guideline.

Arisen

United States2382 Posts

October 29 2010 04:04 GMT

It depends whats going on. Early game you'll probably be building very shortly before the food cap (9 Overlord or 10 overlord with extractor trick is how most people roll), while later in the game, when you're pumping a ton of units, you will want to make them farther in advance. This of course is changed by what's going on. If you see your oppenent is going to 3 rax bio ball you or 4 WG push you early on, you'll want to pop those overlords fairly early so you can respond to him moving out by pumping the appropriate number of roaches/lings/hydras/whatever to defend.

This is also effected by what build you use. If you're real heavy on roaches, which take 2 food, you'll want more overlords faster. If you're going to do a build built around lings/blings with a tier 2 unit to compliment instead of comprising the bulk of your army, you'll need less.

Be aware of what your opponent is doing and respond accordingly. If you just feel like theres a push coming, pump some overlords so you'll be ready when you need to pump units. If you play really aggro, during a big attack, pump an ovie or two because you'll need to be ready if your push fails and he rolls on you now that you just lost a big portion of your units (assuming you'll be making more than what you had originally with the intent of defending and counter pushing him).

As a rule, its always better to build an overlord too early than too late, as being supply blocked at the wrong time spells gg for you. However, during early game, I tend to cut the overlord tighter to food cap to gain an economical advantage, and I like to fast tech, and saving minerals is awesome. However, scout, scout, scout, because all the extra minerals in the world aren't going to save you from the opponent's 6 pool army rolling out when you have 2 food for ling production, 2 lings and no overlord in the works. Toward mid game when I know I'll be pumping units allot is when I'll start to pump 2 ovies at a time, or produce them very far ahead of time (for me when a spire is about to pop).

Good Luck. The biggest piece of advice I can give you is keep an eye on your food and always be asking yourself if you're going to be supply blocked if you don't build an overlord soon, and that will only really come from having that in your mind and playing zerg more. Peace.

FinestHour

United States18466 Posts

October 29 2010 04:11 GMT

these are very good points. when you drone up, you can be a little more lax on your overlord production cuz they are only 1 supply each. but once your army starts to kick in, you always wanna have a good safety gap so you dont get food blocked.

Logo

United States7542 Posts

October 29 2010 04:15 GMT

Do what I've been doing, it helps:

After every game watch the replay and write down what pop you were blocked at, when you queued the overlord, what population you jumped from to cause the block, and a guess as to why you didn't queue the overlord earlier.

This can really help you Identify patterns in why and when you population block yourself and how much earlier you need to be queueing the overlords.

edit... you might want to also include how many larva you aren't able to queue up due to being supply blocked as it'll give you an idea of how behind/slow you are on the OLs.