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I think there is something else very revolutionary that should be considered.
having 4 orbitals on a single base might be extreme if you cannot hold onto an expansion quickly, but! If you want to save minerals and delay expanding, then why not use supply drop? Unlike a MULE which lets you simply extract minerals faster, supply drops immediately save you 100 minerals. In the early game, Mules are simply too valuable to spend money on supply drops, but when you hit a point in time where you are worried that you won't be able to expand, making mules actually makes your economy worse since you basically cause your scvs to stop mining. The goal of an economy is to always be using your investments in the most productive way possible and so while making mules to mine out faster might be good for short term gain, it might hurt more in the long run.
Therefore, make 1 orbital whole entire purpose is to drop supply on existing supply depots.
Doing a supply drop on a single orbital every time it's up allows you to
1. Worry less about supply, and when supply is less of an issue, allows you to make more orbitals.
2. Provide you with a more productive economy. Even though you won't get minerals as fast, you will use your minerals more efficiently and will be able to mine from your bases for a longer time.
3. Provides flexibility when macroing. If you are planning on 1 basing or 2 basing with orbitals, eventually you will have to expand, but this is not always doable. Supply drop is basically free supply at this point.
This is also theorycrafting, but someone else should look into the math behind this and see if there is a way of mixing making orbitals for supply and orbitals for supply drop in order to maximize your economy.
So maybe 5 orbitals on 2 base (55 supply) + 9 depots with drops (144 supply) might be an efficient way of doing things (the 3 extra orbitals cost like 1100 minerals adjusted for supply, etc and the 9 drops essentially save you 900 minerals).
Need some theorycrafters on this.
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Kennigit is right, but I would change what he says slightly.
An orbital command is not predetermined as being either in-base, or an expand. It can move, and generates energy even while lifted off. This means that you can leave the orbital in your base until it is safe to use it to claim a base, and then start building another command center. In the event that the base is not safe, lift off and either head home or go to a different base.
Units like void rays and mutalisks can put a real cramp in this style, however, since your orbital command is much too slow to escape, and there are no terran units that can effectively cross the entire map to save the orbital command in time. Not even vikings, and those aren't even effective against those types of units. You're going to need scv's for turrets. I've found that you can send an scv to a base both to scout that it is empty and also to build a couple missile turrets as the orbital command is en route.
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On December 04 2010 11:25 Kennigit wrote:
I think a lot of you are missing the point - don't take this as "spawn...make rax, make orbitals, win game". Thats not whats important. What is important is the idea that at certain safe timings, you could add extra OCs (after destroying enemy army when you'd normally expand?) and get a larger advantage.
Very interested to see what top level players can do with this idea.
The big issue I see is that the faster you mine out the faster you're spread out across the map, which means the easier you are to take potshots at.
The only way I can see this working is if you do a timing push. The way I see it is, when you get small advantages that won't secure an expansion but definitely put you a little bit ahead, build an Orbital, use the extra orbitals sparingly and only to get a bit extra income to build production facilities that you'll use once the orbitals reach 200/200 energy and you drop 8 mules from the two (shouldn't be too hard to squeeze out two orbitals if you get two small advantages). Once you drop the 8 mules and the income kicks in use it to build from those extra production facilities you didn't have the income to use and do a timing push while floating your two orbitals to two expansions and building/transfers workers.
I seriously doubt we'll see Pros do this since they take the little advantages here and there and play safe and let those little advantages they get stack up until they can secure an expansion at which point they have enough workers to xfer and some what saturate.
It is a cool idea, not denying that, just don't see it being viable.
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On December 03 2010 14:58 Sanasante wrote:Hopefully blizzard will use this as a reason to fix mules 
Eh... to all the nerf bat fans. The fact that this build has severe flaws in the early game and other two races have similar capacity, such as Zerg early FE saturation.
Edit: This build is imho, balanced due to the above weaknesses.
This is a high risk economic move such as Zerg early hatch + saturation.
Once properly set up, a Zerg player could literally pump waves of 200/200 speedlings/banelings with litte down time.
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 04 2010 11:10 Aeruthus wrote:Mistakes that made it easier for you, thus making this strat not suck enormously. Zerg went Hatch first against Two Barracks. Zerg used all his larvae on drones and had none, 0, when his Spawning Pool finished. Zerg made a banelings nest and more drones instead of Zerglings, even AFTER he saw you were pushing out. Zerg had an overlord in front of his natural. Zerg let you kill his main base queen (no creep between main and natural). Zerg tried to do a bling+ling bust and failed, he then made 12 drones with all his larvae, except 1. Zerg doesn't have Zergling speed (got it at 16:01!) and only got Baneling speed 14:06 minutes into the game. Zerg knew you were on two base and never took a third. Zerg let your factory sit at his front and kept his entire there visible to it (wtf?! lol). Zerg had no map knowledge. Zerg had a third building when yours done and had just landed. Zerg never changed his strategy, it was BANELING+LING BUST!!! into BANELING+ROACH BUST!!!! into SAME ONE AS BEFORE!!!! Zerg sucked extremely hard. It really makes me sad that Amok is ranked 12 in his Diamond league. The second replay. What's with your marine spreading? You're making it so Zerg doesn't have to fight a bioball, which makes it extremely easy for them. The point of splitting is to let a few marines die while the rest kill banelings before they get close enough to hurt them. Pretty much if you're not killing the banelings and just letting them explode on single marines than the Zerglings become the thing that are very cost effective against pure marine. So spreading that much becomes moot. Just saying. Zerg had no creep between his main and natural till 11 minutes into the game (not huge, but both spine crawlers could've been at the front choke instead of at separate bases, add to that if you got a Banshee his other Queen would have never made it in time). Zerg built two spine crawlers for no apparent reason (spine crawlers build in 50 seconds, it took you from the time you left your base at 6:06 till 7:05 to be at the zergs ramp). Zerg went Spire without having any idea what you were doing besides the one built barracks and the second building barracks he scouted in the beginning. Zerg didn't scout as often as he should have, he had overlords in place but didn't use them, nor did he ever research overlord speed. Zerg had his third at the gold finish at 11:30 and only started using it at 13:25, but he never transfered he just built a few drones, the base never was even at 16 drones the entire game.Add to that he used two of the three drones to make extractors that he never used. Zerg rallied up units to his main/natural choke in plain sight of you making it obvious he had a third. Zerg was behind or barely ahead in workers (only by a few) the entire game. At the end of the game he had 37 to your 59. Zerg let you kill 5 mutalisks that were just afking in your base. Zerg had only one unit upgrade (armor/weapon) which was for Muta air attack against your Marine only army...... *sighs*. Zerg had 2825 minerals and 1110 gas at 16:50 into the game, let's just go with his mechanics suck. This Zerg is ranked 28th in his Diamond League. Pretty much you're winning these because you're better than they are. The build in my opinion is very bad and has too much investment at too large an amount before actually benefiting you, meaning you're behind till a bit after it starts benefiting you.
WOW
Let me start be saying I really appreciate your feedback!
Generally I feel you are saying my opponents are worst then what I feel they really are. I mean they are diamond right? :D
Alot of your comments are plagued with hindsight (I mean seriously when have you ever played perfectly even without pressure) and some I simply can't tell are right or not (like pumping drones after half failed baneling bust?)
I would write more, but it is 4:20 AM here.
Personally I am not sure if it is IT!! But I feel these two early command centers really gives and advantage if you survive into mid game, which really shouldn't be that hard.
Either way further testing will be needed.
EDIT: I might try the strat on my main account, to get some 2300+ action
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On December 04 2010 12:21 Bixs wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On December 04 2010 11:10 Aeruthus wrote:Mistakes that made it easier for you, thus making this strat not suck enormously. Zerg went Hatch first against Two Barracks. Zerg used all his larvae on drones and had none, 0, when his Spawning Pool finished. Zerg made a banelings nest and more drones instead of Zerglings, even AFTER he saw you were pushing out. Zerg had an overlord in front of his natural. Zerg let you kill his main base queen (no creep between main and natural). Zerg tried to do a bling+ling bust and failed, he then made 12 drones with all his larvae, except 1. Zerg doesn't have Zergling speed (got it at 16:01!) and only got Baneling speed 14:06 minutes into the game. Zerg knew you were on two base and never took a third. Zerg let your factory sit at his front and kept his entire there visible to it (wtf?! lol). Zerg had no map knowledge. Zerg had a third building when yours done and had just landed. Zerg never changed his strategy, it was BANELING+LING BUST!!! into BANELING+ROACH BUST!!!! into SAME ONE AS BEFORE!!!! Zerg sucked extremely hard. It really makes me sad that Amok is ranked 12 in his Diamond league. The second replay. What's with your marine spreading? You're making it so Zerg doesn't have to fight a bioball, which makes it extremely easy for them. The point of splitting is to let a few marines die while the rest kill banelings before they get close enough to hurt them. Pretty much if you're not killing the banelings and just letting them explode on single marines than the Zerglings become the thing that are very cost effective against pure marine. So spreading that much becomes moot. Just saying. Zerg had no creep between his main and natural till 11 minutes into the game (not huge, but both spine crawlers could've been at the front choke instead of at separate bases, add to that if you got a Banshee his other Queen would have never made it in time). Zerg built two spine crawlers for no apparent reason (spine crawlers build in 50 seconds, it took you from the time you left your base at 6:06 till 7:05 to be at the zergs ramp). Zerg went Spire without having any idea what you were doing besides the one built barracks and the second building barracks he scouted in the beginning. Zerg didn't scout as often as he should have, he had overlords in place but didn't use them, nor did he ever research overlord speed. Zerg had his third at the gold finish at 11:30 and only started using it at 13:25, but he never transfered he just built a few drones, the base never was even at 16 drones the entire game.Add to that he used two of the three drones to make extractors that he never used. Zerg rallied up units to his main/natural choke in plain sight of you making it obvious he had a third. Zerg was behind or barely ahead in workers (only by a few) the entire game. At the end of the game he had 37 to your 59. Zerg let you kill 5 mutalisks that were just afking in your base. Zerg had only one unit upgrade (armor/weapon) which was for Muta air attack against your Marine only army...... *sighs*. Zerg had 2825 minerals and 1110 gas at 16:50 into the game, let's just go with his mechanics suck. This Zerg is ranked 28th in his Diamond League. Pretty much you're winning these because you're better than they are. The build in my opinion is very bad and has too much investment at too large an amount before actually benefiting you, meaning you're behind till a bit after it starts benefiting you. WOW Let me start be saying I really appreciate your feedback! Generally I feel you are saying my opponents are worst then what I feel they really are. I mean they are diamond right? :D Alot of your comments are plagued with hindsight (I mean seriously when have you ever played perfectly even without pressure) and some I simply can't tell are right or not (like pumping drones after half failed baneling bust?) I would write more, but it is 4:20 AM here. Personally I am not sure if it is IT!! But I feel these two early command centers really gives and advantage if you survive into mid game, which really shouldn't be that hard. Either way further testing will be needed.
Haha, no problem.
Yeah, but Diamond doesn't mean anything anymore really, with the amount of people playing SC2 Diamond now just means you're better than everyone below Diamond, but since everyone below Diamond are freaking terrible that means you don't have to be that amazing to get into Diamond or even get high in Diamond. Now I'm not trying to insult anyone, just saying that the ladder is flooded and so the actual good players are spread usually pretty thin between the Diamond leagues meaning the majority of Diamond players aren't that great. As can be seen by many replays of Diamond players or playing them yourself.
None of the things I pointed out were little mistakes, those are some pretty massive mistakes. Now I do agree I have played games where I had mistakes, but the times I had big mistakes were when I hadn't played in a long time (one gay every two weeks etc.) and I was just rusty or if I just had a brain fart for some reason etc. So, I get one or two big mistakes in the case of being rusty or just doing drrrrr for a second, but this many is just poor play.
Lol, no problem man get some sleep.
The issue I see is by getting two early command centers that turn into orbitals you're spending 1100 minerals on something that won't give a benefit for a few minutes, meaning you're giving the other opponent an advantage.
See my reply to the TL Admin (forget name), I mentioned the only way I can see it being viable.
This is the reply + Show Spoiler +The big issue I see is that the faster you mine out the faster you're spread out across the map, which means the easier you are to take potshots at.
The only way I can see this working is if you do a timing push. The way I see it is, when you get small advantages that won't secure an expansion but definitely put you a little bit ahead, build an Orbital, use the extra orbitals sparingly and only to get a bit extra income to build production facilities that you'll use once the orbitals reach 200/200 energy and you drop 8 mules from the two (shouldn't be too hard to squeeze out two orbitals if you get two small advantages). Once you drop the 8 mules and the income kicks in use it to build from those extra production facilities you didn't have the income to use and do a timing push while floating your two orbitals to two expansions and building/transfers workers.
I seriously doubt we'll see Pros do this since they take the little advantages here and there and play safe and let those little advantages they get stack up until they can secure an expansion at which point they have enough workers to xfer and some what saturate.
It is a cool idea, not denying that, just don't see it being viable.
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It may not be viable to go "omg OC spam" but any time you know you're safe for a while but can't/don't choose to attack, you could throw one down. Or when you let your macro slip badly and have 1k minerals, may as well throw down an OC + 3 rax instead of 5 rax or smth
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This build is utterly HILARIOUS in team games. Quadrupling the resource score of the next highest player? Yes please. 20 barracks constantly producing? Yes please.
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hi 301to1,
could you please include this (edit it as you see proper xd) in your OP in order to avoid trolls and plain dumb comments:
FAQ
1. Please summarize what is this strategy/build all about?
(Over the duration of this thread, this strategy has evolve a bit thanks to those willing to
spend time and energy to try it out and prove/disprove it.) At this point, this build is about
going standard early game as you see fit, and after that switching to mass OC for supply
and mules and inevst in a mule heavy economy to support your army. With mass mules,
you can sacrifice some of your scvs in order to get to an army heavy max 200/200
(some say 180/20) scenario
2. Do you mean i DO NOT have to build depots AT ALL?
The idea of this strategy is to reduce dependence on depots as food supply and instead
get it from OCs, especially mid-late game.
3. So you just build the initial depot and spam OC all the way?
That was one of the initial ideas. But early tests indicate that you need standard depot
build early game for the following reasons:
- at 400m and longer build time, OCs are not optimal early game
- you need early game depots to support first batch of scvs and early army
By midgame, or once you have a stable economy and decent army, you can SWITCH to this
"build" by forgetting about depots and spamming OCs for mules (see details above for the
figures on mule-heavy economy).
4. What about scvs?
You will still need scvs particularly early game (per standard) until it is safe to switch to
mule-based economy. At this point, you will need less scvs, mainly for gas harvest, repair,
and building. Reducing scvs is an essential part of this strategy since it will give you a
bigger percentage of army in a 200/200 max out scenario vs others.
5. What are the weaknesses of this strategy?
If you proceed with your game rushing to this strategy, you will clearly have to skimp on
early army. An opponent who scouts this might react to this aggressively with early
pressure or might all-in against you. this could be a major problem. Or, you could simply
go standard early to mid game, 2 basing preferably, and switch to this strategy,
then you could see the potential of this strategy. Moreover, some point that mules only
address the mineral aspect of your economy, what about the gas? I see this a general
economy issue and not particular to this strategy - meaning mule or not, terran or any other
race, one has to always mind gas harvesting. you will have to save some scvs for gas
mining.
6. Do you have replays to prove it?
At this point, this strategy belongs to everyone, including you. If you think this is impossible,
you are welcome ignore this. But IF you argue against it, please be kind enough to post a
rational argument and not just a blanket denial. Otherwise, try it out yourself, experiment
with it, mix it up, do anything to prove by your account if this build is viable or not. By then,
you can post any argument you want with the benefit of personal experience.
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This is interesting, but I think-- at least the OP which I've read-- seems to misunderstand some fundamental game concepts. A CC costs 400 minerals. There is no other "actual" cost or "theoretical" cost. That's how much it costs. You don't pay for things using money you're *going* to have. No matter how you slice it, a 400 mineral investment early in the game is a huge risk, even if it may pay off in ways people may have not foreseen. I shouldn't have to tell anybody here that...
Side note, also: This isn't really new. There were threads discussing this exact thing early in the beta. Around February-March I think it was. Not having the beta It never really panned out, but then again the ladder wasn't flooded with people who would let you pull this kind of stuff back then. >,>
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On December 04 2010 12:11 Aeruthus wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2010 11:25 Kennigit wrote:
I think a lot of you are missing the point - don't take this as "spawn...make rax, make orbitals, win game". Thats not whats important. What is important is the idea that at certain safe timings, you could add extra OCs (after destroying enemy army when you'd normally expand?) and get a larger advantage.
Very interested to see what top level players can do with this idea. The big issue I see is that the faster you mine out the faster you're spread out across the map, which means the easier you are to take potshots at.
1) If you've mined out your main and your expansion 5 minutes faster than your opponent, you should already have a significant advantage.
2) The real beauty of this idea is that you really never need more than 1 or 2 bases actually mining. Mules can functionally simulate the income from a third or fourth base. In the mid/early late game you have all the advantages of 3 base play (at least in terms of minerals) without the downside of actually expanding. Later in the game you may have to take farther away expansions, but you can still limit the # of bases you must to defend to your main and whatever expansion you are currently mining.
The only way I can see this working is if you do a timing push. The way I see it is, when you get small advantages that won't secure an expansion but definitely put you a little bit ahead, build an Orbital, use the extra orbitals sparingly and only to get a bit extra income to build production facilities that you'll use once the orbitals reach 200/200 energy and you drop 8 mules from the two (shouldn't be too hard to squeeze out two orbitals if you get two small advantages). Once you drop the 8 mules and the income kicks in use it to build from those extra production facilities you didn't have the income to use and do a timing push while floating your two orbitals to two expansions and building/transfers workers.
There really isn't any reason to not be continuously mining with your mules. Even if you can't spend all the minerals you mine right away, you'll at least have them in the bank for future use. Waiting just gives your opponent more time to deny your access to the minerals. Once you have them, they are yours to spend or not spend as you please.
Think about it this way. If given the chance to start a game with all the minerals from your main immediately available to spend at the start of the game, but having no actual mineral fields in your main, would you do it? (The answer is yes). Do you really care that your opponent's income rate is going to be higher than yours?
I seriously doubt we'll see Pros do this since they take the little advantages here and there and play safe and let those little advantages they get stack up until they can secure an expansion at which point they have enough workers to xfer and some what saturate.
It is a cool idea, not denying that, just don't see it being viable.
Adding the random OC here and there seems like it would be one of those little advantages that would add up.
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I didn't read the whole thread so I don't know if this has been done, but here's a comparison of OC vs SCVs:
-OC gives a mule every 90s, and 1 mule = 270 minerals, so OC = 180 minerals/minute
-An scv that gets his very own mineral patch mines at ~42.2 minerals/minute
-An scv mining at a saturated base (3 scvs/mineral patch) mines at ~32.65 minerals/minute
-OC takes 135s total to complete, 100s of which is CC building time which is lost mining time
...-100s mining time at a saturated base is ~55 minerals
...-OC provides 11 supply, which if valued at 12.5 minerals/supply (the cost given by supply depots), means 137.5 in mineral value
...-So the total cost of an OC is 550+55-137.5 = 467.5 minerals, and then the OC starts producing 180minerals/minute immediately
...-for interest's sake, from the time you start building a CC to the time you've earned your money back, including lost mining time and the value of supply from the OC, it takes ~291s, nearly 5 minutes
-it takes somewhere between 4.3 and 5.5 scvs to mine 180minerals/minute, depending on saturation. We'll use 5 to simplify things.
...-5 scvs, including cost of supply, costs 62.5*5=312.5
...-5 scvs takes 5*17s=85s to build, and in that time, assuming 36 minerals/minute (approaching saturation), the first 4 scvs to be built will have mined ~102minerals. After 85s have passed the SCVs will have reached 180minerals/minute.
...-135s (time to make an OC) after starting the first SCV, those 5 SCVs will have mined ~252 minerals
...-to be precise, 5 scvs is 5/8 of a supply depot, and a supply depot takes 30s to be built, meaning 36minerals*5/8*0.5=11.25 minerals in lost mining time for the SCV that makes the depot to support them
...-so the cost of 5 scvs, after 135s, is 312.5-252+11.25=71.75minerals
...-and of course, after 135s have passed, OC=5scvs and that's that. Assuming you keep acquiring new bases to provide fresh mineral patches for your SCVs
SO:
over the course of 135s, which is the time to make an OC
-An OC costs an effective 467.5 minerals
-5scvs costs an effective 71.75 minerals
and after that the two are the exact same as far as mining goes, assuming you keep expanding to prevent oversaturation.
Of course, as we all know, it's pretty hard to expand fast enough to keep up with saturation, so the OC is the clear choice when you're fully saturated and can't defend an extra base.
Other advantages of OC:
- Saves you 5 supply worth of SCVs, allowing you a larger max army.
- The OC builds SCVs, and lands at bases to facilitate mining
- The OC can be used to make super-depots, and can provide scans (although these two are at the price of not using mules).
- The OC can allow stripmining, meaning that if you save energy, hold a base for a couple minutes, and mule the shit out of it, you can move on and don't have to defend the location any more. Not always a consideration, but can sometimes be a huge advantage.
- The OC can be used to make a floatable wall. Meh, who cares really, but it's something.
- OCs are harder to kill than SCVs (but individual mules are still easy to snipe)
-As stated, the OC doesn't care about oversaturation
Other advantages of SCVs:
-They build stuff
-They can scout
-They can fight a little bit
-They can repair (so can MULEs, but who wants to waste those on repairing)
-They can mine gas (so you MUST keep at least a few SCVs)
-The first SCV can be built at 50 minerals, rather than waiting for a 400 mineral surplus to start the CC
-SCVs don't take up ridiculous amounts of space (heh...)
All this is when you're considering building SCVs OR building an OC. If you wish, you may build both at the same time, which is a quirky emulation of zerg's ability to mass drones or protoss's ability to chrono boost probes.
After making this lengthy post and considering what it means, here is what I've concluded:
-SCVs >>> Orbital commands in the early game, and it's not even close.
-When you are saturated, you should build stop building SCVs and make an OC every few minutes instead. Once you're able to expand, continue SCV production at an accelerated rate thanks to your new OCs craking out both money & SCVs.
-Any time you're confident you can hold a new base and don't already have an OC to go there, you should probably start CC production ASAP, even if it means you need to cut SCVs for a bit. New bases are awesome, and OCs are awesome. EZ game.
-Once the strategic advantages of the OC start to outweigh the price advantages of SCVs (IE, the mid-late game), you should definitely stop SCV production completely, building OCs instead. I'd probably aim for 50-60 SCVs in the midgame, then use some of them in an attack after maxing out, and eventually keep around 30 in the endgame for gas mining, repairing, and structure-building.
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Played against someone going mass orbital commands. You'd notice that even though I was always ahead in workers by at least 8. His income is always higher than mine except at the end game.
Problem was the map really, jungle basin is not best map for this since expansion besides the natural are limited.
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-171233.jpg)
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Oh... My... GAWD!! Now i am convinced. NERF TERRAN!
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+ Show Spoiler +On December 04 2010 17:17 dahorns wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2010 12:11 Aeruthus wrote:On December 04 2010 11:25 Kennigit wrote:
I think a lot of you are missing the point - don't take this as "spawn...make rax, make orbitals, win game". Thats not whats important. What is important is the idea that at certain safe timings, you could add extra OCs (after destroying enemy army when you'd normally expand?) and get a larger advantage.
Very interested to see what top level players can do with this idea. The big issue I see is that the faster you mine out the faster you're spread out across the map, which means the easier you are to take potshots at. 1) If you've mined out your main and your expansion 5 minutes faster than your opponent, you should already have a significant advantage. 2) The real beauty of this idea is that you really never need more than 1 or 2 bases actually mining. Mules can functionally simulate the income from a third or fourth base. In the mid/early late game you have all the advantages of 3 base play (at least in terms of minerals) without the downside of actually expanding. Later in the game you may have to take farther away expansions, but you can still limit the # of bases you must to defend to your main and whatever expansion you are currently mining. Show nested quote +
The only way I can see this working is if you do a timing push. The way I see it is, when you get small advantages that won't secure an expansion but definitely put you a little bit ahead, build an Orbital, use the extra orbitals sparingly and only to get a bit extra income to build production facilities that you'll use once the orbitals reach 200/200 energy and you drop 8 mules from the two (shouldn't be too hard to squeeze out two orbitals if you get two small advantages). Once you drop the 8 mules and the income kicks in use it to build from those extra production facilities you didn't have the income to use and do a timing push while floating your two orbitals to two expansions and building/transfers workers.
There really isn't any reason to not be continuously mining with your mules. Even if you can't spend all the minerals you mine right away, you'll at least have them in the bank for future use. Waiting just gives your opponent more time to deny your access to the minerals. Once you have them, they are yours to spend or not spend as you please. Think about it this way. If given the chance to start a game with all the minerals from your main immediately available to spend at the start of the game, but having no actual mineral fields in your main, would you do it? (The answer is yes). Do you really care that your opponent's income rate is going to be higher than yours? Show nested quote +
I seriously doubt we'll see Pros do this since they take the little advantages here and there and play safe and let those little advantages they get stack up until they can secure an expansion at which point they have enough workers to xfer and some what saturate.
It is a cool idea, not denying that, just don't see it being viable.
Adding the random OC here and there seems like it would be one of those little advantages that would add up.
Someone who is three basing compared to someone who is two basing but with lots of mules will have the better options. Minerals are for the base low tier of your army, if a Protoss gets a few Colossi and or Templars with Storm than your mass marines due to your muling will be evaporated and it won't matter that you have the extra mineral income, he has the extra gas income which is what has the biggest impact once you reach mid game.
Either way though, being mined out faster than your opponent does mean you have higher mineral income which means more baseline units. But the issue is like I already said, if the person doesn't die to your extra mineral income than you'll be more spread out quicker than he will be. Add on to that if you're not muling correctly (putting one mule on each node before allowing a node to get a second mule) you'll mine out a node faster than the rest and your income will take a hit.
You just said exactly the issue I see in this strat, if you're defending let's say your fourth and your main, your fourth will be quite far away from your main and vice versa. How do you propose to hold off a full on attack at your main when you have your army split between your main and fourth? As well as how do you plan on being aggressive once you're spread out that much? Pretty much this idea boils down to (imo) a two base pressure build.
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On December 04 2010 12:11 Aeruthus wrote:
Someone who is three basing compared to someone who is two basing but with lots of mules will have the better options. Minerals are for the base low tier of your army, if a Protoss gets a few Colossi and or Templars with Storm than your mass marines due to your muling will be evaporated and it won't matter that you have the extra mineral income, he has the extra gas income which is what has the biggest impact once you reach mid game.
The person on three bases will have the advantage of additional gas, but the disadvantage of additional territory to defend. Extra minerals means a Terran player can produce more marines, hellions, or marauders as all of them are limited by minerals. Two of those units are the core of the Terran army, the other is one of the best harassing units in the game. Resource wise the player on three bases would be superior, but only if they can hold it. The extra mineral income would make it harder for the other player to actually take and defend their third. You're also making the mistake of assuming the match up always two base vs three base play.
Either way though, being mined out faster than your opponent does mean you have higher mineral income which means more baseline units. But the issue is like I already said, if the person doesn't die to your extra mineral income than you'll be more spread out quicker than he will be.
So an advantage is balanced out by a disadvantage. It isn't clear to me that because of this the strat not viable. The fact of the matter is that very rarely are having more marines and marauders going to be bad for a Terran player. They are some of the most useful units in the game.
Add on to that if you're not muling correctly (putting one mule on each node before allowing a node to get a second mule) you'll mine out a node faster than the rest and your income will take a hit.
This is simply a matter of the skill of the player.
You just said exactly the issue I see in this strat, if you're defending let's say your fourth and your main, your fourth will be quite far away from your main and vice versa. How do you propose to hold off a full on attack at your main when you have your army split between your main and fourth? As well as how do you plan on being aggressive once you're spread out that much? Pretty much this idea boils down to (imo) a two base pressure build.
This might be true to some extent. I just think you are undervaluing the advantages the Terran player gains by having additional minerals/ defending less space (at least early on)/ higher percentage of army make up supply. Presumably those advantages will have some effect on the game. If frittered away, you'll certainly be in the awkward position of defending a far away expansion from a strong enemy. If used efficiently, your enemy should not be strong enough to take advantage of your expansion.
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This is a response to your other questions in the other post that I didn't notice till after I hit post.
The reason I think it's the best way is if you're spending 550 minerals on two orbitals at any point in the game you're putting yourself 1110 minerals behind for at least two minutes. So the point of my idea is to defend and have a timing attack that you use to secure an expansion that will enable you to constantly produce out of the extra production facilities you setup to use with the OCs that built up energy for 8 mules. Otherwise you'll have production facilities that will have downtimes due to using scans and losing nodes.
Lol yes, I do care if my opponents income rate will be higher than me. If I'm unable to capitalize on the extra income I get from the two orbitals AFTER they had paid for themselves then I'm in a bad place.
It's a little advantage that can add up yes, but it's also attached to a big if and that if is IF you can secure another base in time to stay ahead in income.
+ Show Spoiler +On December 05 2010 03:01 dahorns wrote:Show nested quote +On December 04 2010 12:11 Aeruthus wrote:
Someone who is three basing compared to someone who is two basing but with lots of mules will have the better options. Minerals are for the base low tier of your army, if a Protoss gets a few Colossi and or Templars with Storm than your mass marines due to your muling will be evaporated and it won't matter that you have the extra mineral income, he has the extra gas income which is what has the biggest impact once you reach mid game. The person on three bases will have the advantage of additional gas, but the disadvantage of additional territory to defend. Extra minerals means a Terran player can produce more marines, hellions, or marauders as all of them are limited by minerals. Two of those units are the core of the Terran army, the other is one of the best harassing units in the game. Resource wise the player on three bases would be superior, but only if they can hold it. The extra mineral income would make it harder for the other player to actually take and defend their third. You're also making the mistake of assuming the match up always two base vs three base play. Show nested quote +
Either way though, being mined out faster than your opponent does mean you have higher mineral income which means more baseline units. But the issue is like I already said, if the person doesn't die to your extra mineral income than you'll be more spread out quicker than he will be.
So an advantage is balanced out by a disadvantage. It isn't clear to me that because of this the strat not viable. The fact of the matter is that very rarely are having more marines and marauders going to be bad for a Terran player. They are some of the most useful units in the game. Show nested quote +
Add on to that if you're not muling correctly (putting one mule on each node before allowing a node to get a second mule) you'll mine out a node faster than the rest and your income will take a hit.
This is simply a matter of the skill of the player. Show nested quote +
You just said exactly the issue I see in this strat, if you're defending let's say your fourth and your main, your fourth will be quite far away from your main and vice versa. How do you propose to hold off a full on attack at your main when you have your army split between your main and fourth? As well as how do you plan on being aggressive once you're spread out that much? Pretty much this idea boils down to (imo) a two base pressure build.
This might be true to some extent. I just think you are undervaluing the advantages the Terran player gains by having additional minerals/ defending less space (at least early on)/ higher percentage of army make up supply. Presumably those advantages will have some effect on the game. If frittered away, you'll certainly be in the awkward position of defending a far away expansion from a strong enemy. If used efficiently, your enemy should not be strong enough to take advantage of your expansion.
Marines, Helions, and Marauders become less and less efficient as the game progresses. If you're attacking the third of a Zerg for instance what is stopping that Zerg from counter attacking your natural? The issue is you can only capitalize on someone being spread out if you have the units to do so, or are Zerg lol. As in dropships (send one or two over etc.) or a proxy pylon/warp prism. It's only a mistake if your opponent doesn't scout and see the extra OCs being build which means you won't be pushing out for a bit, which means they CAN secure a third safely. That's the thing I was pointing out earlier, you're giving your opponent an advantage by spending that extra money on OCs instead of on your army making you defensive till the OCs start benefiting you. I'm basing what I'm saying off of a game where there is no advantage to either player until you spend that extra money on OCs that won't be used for an expansion anytime soon.
Yes, it's an advantage/disadvantage, and yes having extra marauders and marines is a disadvantage if it's due to mining out your base faster and those extra units don't deal enough damage to justify mining out faster. Add on to that there is a timing window where you will be weaker than your opponent due to the OCs not benefiting you until X time has past.
Yes and no, it's more about memory than skill, it doesn't take skill to press E and click a different node, it takes a good memory. The issue is that if you have to pull your workers due to a Helion drop, Nydus worm etc. most players even Pros won't remember which node the Mule was on, especially if they have multiple.
I'm definitely not undervaluing it, I just think it's not a great thing to do since you mine out faster and have a rather large window where you'll be behind your opponent. The other issue I see is that with the larger income comes more production facilities which means more supply depots are needed, so you won't be spending all that extra money on just units, especially if you're getting lots of Marauders. The strat pretty much relies on your opponent not taking advantage of a timing window, not holding off your pressure from the extra income, and not denying you a third. As Artosis says, a strategy that relies on your opponent making a mistake/s is a bad strategy. Don't confuse that with a rush or cheese, that relies on the element of surprise more than the other player making a mistake.
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I tried a mass orbital build against a Zerg friend in a few games last night. He's a little rusty because he hasn't played in a month but he is at least as good as me. Only a few games can't give me any conclusive evidence but this feels really viable. I wasn't even doing it nearly as well as I could if I refined things, but it actually felt like Sauron Terran. He wasn't sure what he could do to keep up.
My rough build order is actually pretty conservative, and I still end up building depots. I probably should just keep building orbitals throughout the game though. I open with a no gas 2 rax with some bunker pressure, just to get him to make lings. Then 3 command centers, using one to wall off the ramp, and preferably grabbing the natural if it's easy to secure. It's okay to just keep them in base for a while and pump workers from all four, and wait for all the new barracks to kick in. You mine out the main SO fast when you're doing this. After the fourth cc starts I'll get double gas and drop a bunch of barracks, get stim, cs, conc, decent marauder numbers.
I differ from the OP in that I make scvs from all the orbitals and I still need depots to support it. But the idea is still there. All those mules so early springboard my production and I actually pass the Zerg pretty easily. In our last game on Shakuras, I put on no pressure and he knew what build I was doing, so he droned as hard as he could (only 4 lings) up to about 60 workers, and I kept up, plus mules. After my barracks kick in and I'm constantly pouring m&m into his base, I expand aggressively and supplement with tanks and medivacs. The only problem I had with this was that the expos were floated-off orbitals from my main and they were vulnerable to fast counterattacks. I'll probably just build PFs and leave the orbitals unless the base is very defensible.
I don't race to 200/200 but with constant trading my army just replenishes faster. If I constantly make orbitals I suspect this to be even more true. I'm excited to keep working on this!
Edit: make sure to use the mules on the newest base. If you mine out your main too early it ciuts into your income quite a bit.
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