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Putting an end to the Zerg Opening Economy debate. - Page 5

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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jdseemoreglass
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States3773 Posts
November 29 2010 01:29 GMT
#81
On November 29 2010 10:14 Dragar wrote:
I can't believe people are complaining about increasing the amount of data we have available to draw conclusions.

How else do you think we'll ever work it out? Of course it's not perfect. Welcome to real science, where you go and test things and it's messy but you do your best and it seems to work. Bashing the investigation for being complicated is fruitless! Of course it's complicated. But we've solved harder things in science.

The timing question is in interesting one, and it makes for a nice followup investigation - can an opening that appears sub-optimal at 5.46 become superior at 6.00? Exploring that would help us interpret this data a lot more.


Every investment we make takes a period of time to pay for itself and from that point on all future benefits reach a stable and consistent equilibrium. I think the 6 minute mark is more than enough time for a queen or hatch to reap dividends in relation to it's initial investment. Anything far beyond the 6 minute mark will begin to yield irrelevant results due to the diminishing returns of over-saturation and will require a third base to analyze. Hopefully we can just ignore those who are trolling this thread to death and we can move forward.

Despite the trolling, I think we have some very helpful data to draw conclusions from already. For example, while the worker count is mixed in regard to hatch-first vs. pool-first, it is clear that hatch first yields more mined minerals due to the efficiency of lower saturation. However, we can see that an overpool and 15 hatch build yields surprisingly similar results, which has some interesting implications for the game. Also, note that the overpool build greatly outperformed the simple 10pool builds.

I am interested to see if anyone can improve the build provided by lomilar so that perhaps we can begin to envision a solid yet flexible overpool opening for Zerg.
"If you want this forum to be full of half-baked philosophy discussions between pompous faggots like yourself forever, stay the course captain vanilla" - FakeSteve[TPR], 2006
Nafaltar
Profile Joined May 2008
Germany302 Posts
November 29 2010 01:32 GMT
#82
Well 6 minutes for a pure econ 2 base build works decently because at that point in time you will easily be over saturated so it pretty much covers any later point in time as well (when disregarding taking a third and not taking gas). Of course most of the time you will want a drone scout, as well as gas and at least 2-4 lings but finding a hand full of contenders comes before you increase the complexity of the experiment.

That said:

9 Overlord
15 Pool (finishes @ 2:59)
16 hatch (finishes @ 4:14)
16 Queen (finishes @3:49)
18 Overlord
21 Queen (finishes @4:40)

Results:
Drones: 41 + 8/17 = 41.5
Overlords: 6 +14/25 ~ 6.5
Resources Mined: 4000 + 820 = 4820
Queen Energy: 23 + 20 = 43
Remaining Larva: 0 (4 in air from 23 energy queen inject/other inject @36/40)

[image loading]
pwadoc
Profile Joined August 2010
271 Posts
November 29 2010 01:39 GMT
#83
This is a really great thread, thanks for making it.
Guerrilla705
Profile Joined November 2010
United States16 Posts
November 29 2010 01:40 GMT
#84
So I need to make it more confined but 6:00 is too confined? lol...
Go back and choose 5:45 if you like... I bet you will find the some builds come out in the same exact order. The variables aren't defined? I clearly stated that minerals mined and drone count were the primary variables being tested. I think that is what 99% of us mean when we talk about economy. The methods here are sound. If you have a problem with the constraints, then put out a build that tests the constraints and by all means we will analyze it. Otherwise put the whining to a rest or get off the thread.



As I said in a previous post, no this is fine. You have put constraints awesome. Now label it correctly, you are by no means proving what is the most economic build for zerg. You are reasonably determining what build order willl provide the most drones and minerals at the 6 minute mark. Thats been my prolem this whole time, that youre experiment and what you are claiming to do are totally separate, and that makes both look bad. If you fix the OP to say what you are truly analyzing, I would be content.
"It has become almost a cliche to remark that nobody boasts of ignorance of literature, but it is socially acceptable to boast ignorance of science and proudly claim incompetence in mathematics." -Richard Dawkins
Hurkyl
Profile Joined October 2010
304 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-29 01:49:50
November 29 2010 01:48 GMT
#85
On November 29 2010 08:40 jdseemoreglass wrote:
Show nested quote +
On November 29 2010 08:09 Hurkyl wrote:
On November 29 2010 07:32 jdseemoreglass wrote:The difference between a 1/17 drone and a 16/17 drone is clearly 15 SECONDS. Those have to be weighted more when measuring the prorated value of a drone in production.

Yes, the difference has to be weighted. I'm saying you're weighting it wrong. (well, actually I'm saying you're measuring the wrong thing, and possibly compensating for that inaccurately)

For this to have any relevance to real builds, the point of the drone count has to be a measure of how many units the build is producing. The relevant comparison statistic has to be something like "On average, build X has produced Y more units than build Z."

The statistic you're actually computing is loosely correlated, but I assert it introduces a lot of unnecessary error into the comparison. The hypothetical examples I mentioned were just to demonstrate that your ad hoc statistic measures a lot of irrelevant things.


But resources mined is just as relevant, if not more, than current number of drones. Take a look at the top two builds right now. The hatch first build results in fewer drones and overlords, but because the drones mined longer on two bases, it has higher total resources mined. The overpool build may produce more units, but so much early gathering is sacrificed by staying on 10 drones for so long and also oversaturating the main before the expansion finishes.

You cannot just use a simple measure of supply and larva... That is why so many threads before this one failed to produce meaningful results.

I never said to use just supply + larva. I said that production capacity should be measured via supply + larva. I agree that both production capacity and income are important.

I assert that so long as you measure production capacity in the way you have, this thread will also produce meaningless results.

(I also think ignoring the effect of building zerglings or getting gas is a problem, but at the moment I'm not pushing that)
Antisocialmunky
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States5912 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-29 02:05:35
November 29 2010 01:59 GMT
#86
Okay...

What happens to these builds vs early pressure. I think the 16 hatch/pool just dies to early marine pressure since it can be barely defended by a hatch first. The 10 pool is inflated. You would not have more drones because you would need to pop a few sets of zerglings to actually be safe.

You should account for ~6-12 sets of lings on each build as a worse case for mass marine timings.
[゚n゚] SSSSssssssSSsss ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Marine/Raven Guide:http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=163605
jdseemoreglass
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States3773 Posts
November 29 2010 02:02 GMT
#87
On November 29 2010 10:32 Nafaltar wrote:
Well 6 minutes for a pure econ 2 base build works decently because at that point in time you will easily be over saturated so it pretty much covers any later point in time as well (when disregarding taking a third and not taking gas). Of course most of the time you will want a drone scout, as well as gas and at least 2-4 lings but finding a hand full of contenders comes before you increase the complexity of the experiment.

That said:

9 Overlord
15 Pool (finishes @ 2:59)
16 hatch (finishes @ 4:14)
16 Queen (finishes @3:49)
18 Overlord
21 Queen (finishes @4:40)

Results:
Drones: 41 + 8/17 = 41.5
Overlords: 6 +14/25 ~ 6.5
Resources Mined: 4000 + 820 = 4820
Queen Energy: 23 + 20 = 43
Remaining Larva: 0 (4 in air from 23 energy queen inject/other inject @36/40)

[image loading]


Please do not rally drones to specific patches, simply let the hatch rally do it's work. This has inflated your resource results to a point I have not been able to reproduce.

Your method of placing 2 workers on each patch and then rallying all subsequent drones to the natural seems to be very effective though. I will post the results I obtained using this and also update previous builds using the same technique.
"If you want this forum to be full of half-baked philosophy discussions between pompous faggots like yourself forever, stay the course captain vanilla" - FakeSteve[TPR], 2006
Dragar
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom971 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-29 02:44:55
November 29 2010 02:44 GMT
#88
Certainly will be interesting to see, if oversaturation can be mitigated in this way, the effect on pool first.

Overpool is surprisingly powerful; it may be a nice ZvZ opener for some maps given that.
Lomilar
Profile Joined July 2010
United States130 Posts
November 29 2010 02:51 GMT
#89
Yeah, my build was not refined at all. I think that was my second try doing it, where I actually succeeded in not supply-blocking myself. So, now that is out of the way, here is _why_ I think it is good.

An overpool means that you get 10 drones as fast as possible, before having to spend money on an overlord, giving a minor boost to initial economy.

Utilizing the time waiting for the overlord to build a spawning pool seems very natural, and you end up dropping the spawning pool at 3 larva for about 7 wasted seconds of larva production while you get 50 minerals again, but zero inefficiently used minerals. Because you are not at any time waiting to fit a spawning pool into the build (you are instead waiting for the OL to pop and spawning pool at the same time), waiting for the spawning pool is basically removed as a factor to the build. Plus, you can start a queen at 15, which is _so_ good.

I then spend all my larva on drones until I run out of larva, and can save minerals based on the full reset of the larva spawn timer. (15 seconds to get enough minerals to build a queen)

I then spend all my larva again, and not sure if this overlord should be at 17 or 18, but that is the point where I need to start production of the hatch. I wait for hatch, then spend all my larva, then wait for queen, and right about that time, the first spawn off the hatch pops. By this time, I really need to have all my core stuff built, and need to spend larva on overlords and drones only, because now I have to keep up with larva pops on 1 queen at first, and 2 queens soon after.

At that point, just maynard and drone and OL until 6 minutes.

----

Core principles:

Build buildings only at zero larva.
If you are going to wait for a building, max your supply (if reasonable) and then overlord, then wait for the minerals for a building. This maximizes drone mining time, because you have to wait anyway.
Building drones early is good. Building queens early is really good, because they are cheaper and better than a hatchery.
pwadoc
Profile Joined August 2010
271 Posts
November 29 2010 03:04 GMT
#90
On November 29 2010 10:40 Guerrilla705 wrote:
As I said in a previous post, no this is fine. You have put constraints awesome. Now label it correctly, you are by no means proving what is the most economic build for zerg. You are reasonably determining what build order willl provide the most drones and minerals at the 6 minute mark. Thats been my prolem this whole time, that youre experiment and what you are claiming to do are totally separate, and that makes both look bad. If you fix the OP to say what you are truly analyzing, I would be content.


The "build order" part of the game only lasts for about the first 8 minutes. 6 minutes is a reasonable cutoff The question is very clear: what build order results in the strongest early game economy. Drop the semantic wrangling, it's pointless.
Dromar
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States2145 Posts
November 29 2010 03:43 GMT
#91
On November 29 2010 10:39 pwadoc wrote:
This is a really great thread, thanks for making it.


I agree, this is a great idea.

I look forward to reading the results.
ChiknAdobo
Profile Joined November 2010
United States208 Posts
November 29 2010 06:21 GMT
#92
I think Lomilar's build looks really great, but I was wondering if someone could refine it a bit more. If someone could figure out when to send a scouting drone (if needed), when to make the first zergling to scout the front, and when it would be good to get gas I think this would be a very solid economic build that can hold off early pressure or cheese.
ZERg
Douillos
Profile Joined May 2010
France3195 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-29 09:49:28
November 29 2010 09:48 GMT
#93
Wow cant believe the best contender is an overpool build!

Fuck this was a good initiative, teaches loads about the game!

gg to the OP !
Look a giraffe! Look a fist!!
aka_star
Profile Blog Joined July 2007
United Kingdom1546 Posts
November 29 2010 09:57 GMT
#94
hmm this build Doesn't stop a meka rax >_< and not sure how well it'd contend with the proxy cannon. So from my point of view this data basically is for those that are risky players or playing against the AI...
FlashDave.999 aka Star
Douillos
Profile Joined May 2010
France3195 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-29 10:25:42
November 29 2010 10:25 GMT
#95
On November 29 2010 18:57 aka_star wrote:
hmm this build Doesn't stop a meka rax >_< and not sure how well it'd contend with the proxy cannon. So from my point of view this data basically is for those that are risky players or playing against the AI...


The goal wasnt to find the safest or the riskiest build, or the fastest pool or the fastest ling speed. It's to see the outright most economical build.

OFF TOPIC:
And yeah you can get away with it, a lot of toss go 15 nexus now, but against terran I admit the MAKA rax is qujite popular, and hellion haraass is a pain in the ass! but against a 1 rax expo or (when people eventually start doing it) something like a 15 CC, this is totally viable! Map and positions taken into accouht, ofc
Look a giraffe! Look a fist!!
Bair
Profile Joined May 2010
United States698 Posts
November 29 2010 15:48 GMT
#96
After work I will get a replay of my build order for you op, but basically it is zelniq's zvz order.

Double extractor trick 12 hatch 11 pool 10 ovie. From there my queen timing isn't down but I will play with it and get back to you.
In Roaches I Rust.
Hammurabio
Profile Joined August 2010
152 Posts
November 29 2010 16:13 GMT
#97
OP, thanks for the thread. I understand what you are trying to do. Forget the haters.
Xanbatou
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States805 Posts
November 29 2010 16:52 GMT
#98
I am surprised nobody has said anything about the runner-up build:


10 Overlord
10 Pool (finishes @ 2:30)
15 Queen
17 Overlord
18 Hatch (finishes @ 4:55)
20 Queen
23 Overlord
30 Overlord
10 Overlord
10 Pool (finishes @ 2:30)
15 Queen
17 Overlord
18 Hatch (finishes @ 4:55)
20 Queen
23 Overlord
30 Overlord
Maynard Drones
32 Overlord
35 Overlord
Maynard Drones
32 Overlord
35 Overlord

Has this been a standard build for a while now? If it has, I have been really out of the loop. As the second most economical build, this is incredibly flexible, which makes this a big deal. If you scout some fast expanding shenanigans, instead of pumping drones, you can just pump zerglings. Doesn't anyone else have anything to say about this?
Chill
Profile Blog Joined January 2005
Calgary25990 Posts
November 29 2010 16:59 GMT
#99
I've very happy this thread exists. I've felt helpless not knowing the ideal Zerg FE build.
Moderator
jdseemoreglass
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
United States3773 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-11-29 17:15:04
November 29 2010 17:02 GMT
#100
On November 30 2010 01:52 Xanbatou wrote:
I am surprised nobody has said anything about the runner-up build:


10 Overlord
10 Pool (finishes @ 2:30)
15 Queen
17 Overlord
18 Hatch (finishes @ 4:55)
20 Queen
23 Overlord
30 Overlord
10 Overlord
10 Pool (finishes @ 2:30)
15 Queen
17 Overlord
18 Hatch (finishes @ 4:55)
20 Queen
23 Overlord
30 Overlord
Maynard Drones
32 Overlord
35 Overlord


Has this been a standard build for a while now? If it has, I have been really out of the loop. As the second most economical build, this is incredibly flexible, which makes this a big deal. If you scout some fast expanding shenanigans, instead of pumping drones, you can just pump zerglings. Doesn't anyone else have anything to say about this?


Lomilar claimed this was a variation of the 7RR without the roaches... Unfortunately the longer mining time at ten drones has put it fairly low in the resources mined category relative to all the other builds. Also the overlords seem to be timed for pumping roaches instead of drones at half the supply.

I tried some minor adjustments to the build but haven't come up with anything substantial. Hopefully someone will produce something soon, because I really like the idea of an economical and still extremely flexible build. Once someone can raise the resources mined count higher, I think the added drone and perhaps overlord would make up the remaining difference.
"If you want this forum to be full of half-baked philosophy discussions between pompous faggots like yourself forever, stay the course captain vanilla" - FakeSteve[TPR], 2006
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