Putting an end to the Zerg Opening Economy debate. - Page 21

On May 16 2011 22:12 imbecile wrote:


Actually the minerals spent on the hatch don't eat into your drone count. It is still the larva that limit your drone production ... I spend more time waiting on larva than on minerals. When I go 9 overlord 14 hatch 16pool the only drones beyond 10 that are waiting on minerals are the 14 and 15 after the hatch went down. Both those larva lie idle for about 5s. After that you never will have to wait for minerals but always on larva until the spawn larva kicks in. You can easy afford double queening and putting down spines for defense on top of that ... you still will be waiting for larva, not for minerals.

On February 12 2012 13:27 Belial88 wrote:
Bumping this.

People seem to argue with the results here that 14 hatch is better than 15 hatch. I guess because all the koreans go 15 hatch, but koreans also went extractor trick every game until only recently too (some still do). I'm all up for 15 hatch proven to be better, but this thread seems to conclude that 14h/15p is the best hatch first opener.

On February 12 2012 13:27 Belial88 wrote:
Bumping this.

People seem to argue with the results here that 14 hatch is better than 15 hatch. I guess because all the koreans go 15 hatch, but koreans also went extractor trick every game until only recently too (some still do). I'm all up for 15 hatch proven to be better, but this thread seems to conclude that 14h/15p is the best hatch first opener.

I believe 14p15 hatch is best economy assuming you are only making drones, but to defend your drones zerg needs extra queens, spines, mining gas. All these extra things cost money so the 15 hatch 16 pool will get an extra 100 minerals when the pool finishes, maybe even more.

So you get money for these extra things AND the ability to use all larva for drones. If you chose these extra things with an earlier hatch/pool then you wouldn't have enough money to afford the larva leading to a worse economy.

Because the tests take no gas, no worker scout + as mentioned above: there is no room for an extra spine/queen. Also note how close those builds are to each other.

Actually doing a proper split + drone pairing will have a higher impact than the difference between 14 or 15 hatch, so strategic issues/timings/personal preference is more important and will have a higher impact.

Same applies to 9/10 ovie discussion. A 9 ovie will be able to cover your expansion slightly earlier, the economical difference is neglibible.

Also note that comparing cumulated ressources mined does not give a realistic impression of the difference at 6'00. More important is to compare the drone count and the difference in ressourced mined compared to total income.
Example:

If one build A is 50 ressource better at 6'00 compared to build B and the income per minute is 1250 by 6'00, this means build A is ~2 ingame seconds better. 100 resource behind is ~4 to 5 in game seconds (which is significant but not game deciding).

On February 13 2012 01:45 Belial88 wrote:
I believe he showed that assuming identical followups, 14hatch15pool is always best. So if you make 2 lings when pool pops, or you take gas at 20, or you throw down a roach warren, whatever, 14hatch/15pool is always better.
What you are saying doesn't really make sense anyways. It doesn't really matter how much money you have when pool pops, you can always pool money, or whatever, and both 16h/15p and 14h/15p have about 350 minerals right when pool pops.

In his testing he specifically mentioned that gas, worker scout, et cetera, doesn't change the order of the builds.

So if you are comparing 6p, 8p, 10p, 12p, and the order is in that same way it turns out, well, having a drone scout at 9, or gas at 15, doesn't change the order in which builds are better. I believe this was answered in the "Second Look...." thread.

Accroding to the tests done here, no it won't. Drone split+Drone pairing is about 25 minerals extra, while 14 hatch is about 100 minerals ahead of 16 hatch. I think I saw somewhere that it's 50 minerals ahead of 15hatch as well.

He does do that.... are you reading the graphs? Read the OP, he compares drone count and compares resources mined...

All it's doing is showing which build is better. If you make pure drones all game, or if you make pure lings, or take gas at 20, assuming identical follow ups, the 'rankings' of best builds is always the same.

If the build is too tight in minerals, you cannot spend your larvae, so you lose hatchery larvae creation (3 larvae idle). This may happen with 14 hatch more easy. Obviously missing minerals (because of gas or scout) easily can delay a Queen or important tec

This does not make it the truth. In an optimal build you can barely spend your larvae in time = production and income are balanced. If larvae stockpiles, larvae creation stops. So in fact any deviation reducing mineral income (e.g. mining gas, scouting) can delay your build timings. That's the reason why in practice people prefer builds with a slight mineral overhead.

You make me tired sry .. as I mentioned in the previous post (you did not get it there, see below), absolute "mineral advantage" is meaningless. You always have to look at what time the mineral advantage is created. 50 mineral advantage at 3'00 is more than 100 minerals at 6'00. Better think in "time advantage" not "mineral advantage". Drone pairing gives a permanent mining income advantage which snowballs over time .. there was a thread some weeks ago.

On February 13 2012 03:19 Belial88 wrote:
The guy tested it by doing the build in a game and comparing drone counts and resources mined in certain points of the game.

I don't know why 14 hatch is better, but according to the testing done in this thread, it just is. The OP also explained (i believe in the second look thread) that, assuming identical drone scout timing or gas timing or unit production or tech, the ordering of how builds stack up is still the same.

So if you 10 drone scout, make a gas at 15, and pull 8 drones at 17 supply for 30 seconds to deal with a 2 rax, then the 14 hatch will still have the same ~100 mineral advantage over 16 hatch 5 minutes later.

On February 13 2012 02:52 Belial88 wrote:
What you are saying just doesn't make sense. Your bashing 14 hatch, when it's proven to be better in the OP. You say things that are just accusations.

Why don't you just try the build out, I'm sure you'll be surprised that it's actually just like 16 hatch in how it feels and the timings.