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I can see this idea being used more in the future on big maps as people get better at defending early harass.
With earlier scouting options by protoss, and the additional scans you can get with more orbitals, I think that macro styles will get more and more popular and this idea will get better and better. What I think would be a good addition is not doing 4 orbitals on 1 base, but maybe 4 orbitals on 2 base and going back and forth between supply depots and supply drops. Mules helps you mine faster, but supply drop essentially is 100 free minerals. I can see a build that goes something like depot, orbital, supply drop, orbital, depot supply drop, orbital, depot, supply drop, and then mules only after that. Maybe getting the first mule to help you get out a bunker and 4 marines. There are a lot of possibilities, but i think the idea of "If you can get away with it, make orbitals" is something that will become standard. Unlike zerg that need to expand and saturate bases in order to even have production, i can see terran as being the mobile expansion race. Basically you sit on 2 bases most of the game making units to pressure and making orbitals. When you have time, you take an orbital to an expansion and mine it out as fast as possible, and then move it. Terran end game might be about having 1 normal base, and 2-3 mobile bases with only mules.
I don't think Mules are overpowered, but i can see this eventually causing problems if someone figures out a way to exploit it.
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This type of theory-crafting is going to get Terran nerfed even more. Look how the OP rewrites his whole post to highlight a seemingly overpowered macro mechanic that no other race has. Now the MULE is going to get nerfed too, what's next? Terran can't lift off buildings? Ridiculous.
User was temp banned for this post.
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What is... I don't even... This is absolutely ridiculous. The early meta game is too harsh. Those ccs need to be pay off much more quicker. Goes along the same reasoning of the value of 1 scv at 30 food is invaluable compared to 120. This simply will not work in higher levels. Only work if left alone uncontested for 16 min... But what REAL game does that... Competent players WILL scout this either by what they see or what they don't see. Even if this somehow works, you would be so behind in tech, and upgrades.
Switching to OC late game is very viable however, as minerals get pretty ridiculous. But one needs to get to late game first...
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Far forward expansions are usually Planetary Fortresses, so you have your extra orbitals mule mining those expos with little cost. A few SCV's there mining gas. The SCV's can hide inside the Fortress if under pressure while the mules repair. Seems good.
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On December 10 2010 07:45 Kudo wrote:
What is... I don't even... This is absolutely ridiculous. The early meta game is too harsh. Those ccs need to be pay off much more quicker. Goes along the same reasoning of the value of 1 scv at 30 food is invaluable compared to 120. This simply will not work in higher levels. Only work if left alone uncontested for 16 min... But what REAL game does that... Competent players WILL scout this either by what they see or what they don't see. Even if this somehow works, you would be so behind in tech, and upgrades.
Switching to OC late game is very viable however, as minerals get pretty ridiculous. But one needs to get to late game first...
I have to be rude here. What do you mean higher level? Top 200? Pro level? Or just plain top 2% of diamond?
There has been submitted replays to this thread and the 4OC thread, of builds incorporating at least 2 fast command centers versus zergs at the diamond 2k+. So please clarify.
P.S. What is "the early meta game" are you trying to just say the early game?
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Whats nice is that if Terran ever gets mech to be viable again and we get better maps, i can see a mid to l8 game mass repair push followed by mass Orbitals to replace your miners. Since Mech is so mineral heavy im pretty sure you could spam 5-6 orbitals in no time. Plus the mass repair mech push would be super hard to stop.
Or Terran could just sack the workers and keep building his army resulting in a generally bigger army then Protoss. and Zerg(For zerg i think it won't be to game breaking because they can spam larva and production Protoss on the other hand i don't know)
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On December 10 2010 06:34 SKaREO wrote:
This type of theory-crafting is going to get Terran nerfed even more. Look how the OP rewrites his whole post to highlight a seemingly overpowered macro mechanic that no other race has. Now the MULE is going to get nerfed too, what's next? Terran can't lift off buildings? Ridiculous.
Does the OP work for Blizzard balance team? Why would his "theory-crafting" have any value in what gets nerfed and buffed? IF what he discovered is pure rubbish, why the heck would Blizzard even listen to it and risk ruining their huge franchise? However, if people are trying out his method and find it to be way overpowering, then why shouldn't it get nerfed???
I really don't understand the complaint here. Please think before you type.
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On December 02 2010 17:12 30to1 wrote:So this thread has sort of exploded and it seems that it only took two days for this to (some degree according to the replies) enter the meta. The Artosis/TeamLiquid tweets really pushed it over the edge. Over the next few weeks people will use it, test it, and the community will evaluate its overall worth by ... trying it in games and either winning or losing. So good luck, I hope this was worth while, and here is the information that I can help give you guys while trying it out. NOTE - Based on most of the responses I don't think people got many of the reasons this is so good. So I've simplified the shit out of it and focused on what I think the long term less gimmicky use of this is. For those curious about the original numbers that lead me to this post - see spoiler at end. Why is the OC special?In the past, there were only three ways to generate income. ![[image loading]](http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/619/workersx.jpg) SC2 has given us a fourth income generating unit. It is the only one of its kind. ![[image loading]](http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/3017/80537097.jpg) The MULE itself might be the little thingie that carries minerals around, but the thing thats actually special is not the MULE, its the OC itself. The reason? Oversaturation and the fact that the MULEs themselves are renewable for no mineral cost after your initial 550 investment (in other words, the MULEs themselves are disposable). Every Orbital Command you build should provide you will a income of ~180/m per minute every minute. It does not matter how many workers are harvesting and it does not matter where you build or position that OC. It can still generate this income as long as you have a base, any base, anywhere, within walking distance of a mineral patch. It does not matter if a hellion fried a mule 5 minutes ago, it does not matter if you have 0 minerals and have nothing but a single OC. Every 90s an OC will bank 50 energy you can use to place a mule anywhere on the map. It doesn't even matter if you forgot to get your minerals for a few minutes - the OC will bank 4 income boosts if you forgot about it for a while, or if you just want to give yourself a sudden burst of 540/m per minute over the next 90 seconds. Do not think of an OC as you would anything else in SC, it is fundimentally different. The OC is itself an income generating structure. Every 90 seconds an OC will generate you a little mechanical income boost (regardless of where it is or how many workers you have). Note: because OCs generate 50 energy at ~85 seconds there is a period of overlap between two mules, although I constantly cite OC income at ~180/min its closer to ~200 - OC income is higher than MULE income. OCs are really good. Can 4 OCs alone be better than a saturated expansion?Yes. 4OCs will generate an income equal to a saturated expansion but there is more to it. Let's compare the options for generating 800/m/minute (worker costs are food adjusted @12.5 - no adjustment was applied for supply value of base). ~800/m/minute![[image loading]](http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/2438/probesequal.jpg) This costs 1900 minerals / 24 supply ~800/m/minute![[image loading]](http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/4031/dronesequal.jpg) This costs 1800 minerals / 24 supply ~800/m/minute![[image loading]](http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/2456/mulesequal.jpg) This costs 550 minerals / 0 supply Admittedly, this is a favorable oversimplification depending on your perspective, to get those 4 mules working constantly you need 4 OCs. With a bit of a discount considering you start with one CC, getting 3 addl OCs will cost you 1390 (food adjusted cost @12.5 per food not including first CC in food discount or build cost). That doesn't seem that great, sure you save a 400-500 minerals - but not game breaking. The difference is in exposure and vulnerability. Look at those three bases and the costs under them. Thats how many minerals you're risking on your expansion. The real cost of an expansion is not the 3-400 minerals to build the base, the real cost is in the 1500 minerals to build the workers and the eight minutes it takes to replace them if they die. Because an OC/MULE only expansion is nearly risk free compared to other bases and they fly you can take risks with them that you never would have dreamed of with a real expansion. The reality is, if a big threat drops and stims on your door and kills all your mules, it sucks, it hurts, and yeah, it might lose you a game. But often, you can just lift the thing, stick it somewhere else, call more mules and be just fine. OC Farming is superior to a normal expansion since it carries less Risk. That means you can be more aggressive about 'expanding' to vulnerable areas - including gold expos or corner locations. How does this fit into Supply Depots?Every time you build a supply depot, you spend 100 minerals. Once built, those minerals are lost forever. They're just a burden and they die easy. A OC provides you with 137 minerals worth of supply, has a ton of hitpoints and unlike a supply depot will pay for itself in 3:20. In an ideal world, you should absolutely never build a supply depot. The reality is that you will have to build at least a couple supply depots in order to live long enough for an OC to pay for itself (I got a little over excited with my first post ;D). That said, every time you build a depot, you should be aware of the fact that those minerals could have been better spent on more OCs. That in the long run those OCs will catapult you ahead of your opponent. Keep that in mind with every supply depot you make. Each one is a delay in OC Farming, the long term benefit in opting for OCs over Depots (where feasible) is very real. How effective can OC Farming be?Because your OC Farm can be very defensively positioned (you can actually use the OCs to wall off), OC Farming allows you the additional income of an expansion without the additional vulnerability. Because OCs can fly - they also give you tremendous flexibility in repositioning your current MULE fest. There's a tremendous amount of flexibility in how this can be used. I think that it should be strong incentive to take a natural early and I predict terran FE may become really popular. With it, you should be able to produce the income of three or four bases much faster and much safer than any other race. Your MULE income off of the main and FE alone will be half of a third, and that should be a big appeal. Some people may try to use a 4-8 OC mega push and play mass macro style. Frankly, I think this could be viable mid or late game. Sure you will lose at cost, but you can realistically double your opponents income so just throw 60 marines at him every minute, most will die, but your income will replace losses faster, and because you can reposition your expos at will with low risk you can mine shit out with less concern. Or you could just play fairly standard and is drop a couple extra OCs if it looks like the game will go past 10 minutes. You should start to dramatically pull ahead in income compared to any other race with considerably less supply used in workers and with dramatically risk. As this develops, I'll add more edits with notes, builds, replays, etc. Some Replays and comments about games posted around page 18... + Show Spoiler + If you have replays - feel free to PM me and I will include them, win or lose, top diamond or low bronze.gongryong has put together a little FAQ - his comments mostly revolve around helping to clarify the first version of this post - which was much more extreme and focused on a more committed early OC all in - but I thought his points were still good. If he (or anyone else) wants to update or contribute to this, please feel free to PM. FAQ 1. Please summarize what is this strategy/build all about? + Show Spoiler +
(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? + Show Spoiler +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? + Show Spoiler +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? + Show Spoiler +
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? + Show Spoiler +
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? + Show Spoiler +
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.
Original post for those curious as to how this got started... + Show Spoiler +The goal of this thread is honestly, to come up with a game breaking technique for terran by maxing out abuse of mules. How does this end supply depots? We'll get to this soon. I'll be stating a lot of stuff, backed up by with rough math. But I admit this is all theory craft at this point. I'll be refining this as we go - but I wanted to share my conclusions. If anyone is interested in helping me figure out how to absolutely abuse the ideas that follow - please contribute. Background InformationAfter running some numbers on mules in this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=7156269I came away pretty shocked at how incredibly broken mules are. I broke out excel and ran some calculations. The key point is I came away with is that once built, it takes around 3:20 for terran to pay for an orbital command plus 10 scvs (if people are curious I can share the xls). The other key number is 4 orbital commands. That's the number of orbital commands required to call down enough mules to mine ~800 minerals per minute (the same as a fully saturated base). MulesMules are incredible. So incredible that I think they may legitimately break the game if used to their fullest potential. An orbital command can put down a mule every ~85 seconds. A mule lasts 90 seconds and mines 180 minerals per minute. For comparison, 3 scvs mining a mineral patch will produce ~100 minerals per minute (about 40/35/25 if mining the same patch according to my tests). So in one sense a mule comes pretty close to being worth 5-6 scvs. A great ability that you can constantly use. But the part where mules become broken is their ability to oversaturate a mineral patch. Every base in SC2 has 8 patches. In order to get 6 SCVs to mine 200 minerals a second, it takes up 2 mineral patches. A fully saturated base will mine 800 minerals per minute and require 24 scvs. Mules on the other hand can mine 180 minerals a second regardless of how many other workers are there. With 24 scvs and 4 mules mining at a single base you should be able to mine roughly 1520 minerals a second. That's the same as two fully saturated expansions. So 4 mules is roughly equal to a fully saturated base...so what? 4 Mules are much better than a fully saturated expansion.In order to put together a fully saturated base, it costs money. You need to build the command center, and you need to build 24 workers, those 24 workers need to eat - so you also gotta build supply depots. The true cost of an SCV is 50 minerals plus 1 supply (using a supply depot, a supply is worth 12.5 minerals) - so an SCV is costs 62.5 minerals. 24 of these will cost you 1500 minerals + 400 for the command center. So it costs 1900 minerals to build and fully saturate an expansion - the CC itself is only ~25% of the total cost - the vast majority is in the workers and supply. Why does this matter? 1900 minerals is a lot. It costs you that much to take a natural and fully saturate - this is why FE is pretty risky. Taking a quick third and fully saturating both bases will cost you 3800 minerals. Thats a metric shit ton. In this game, its generally not economically feasible to saturate a third base before your main is nearly mined out because of the cost in workers. Additionally, because workers take up supply, building 90 workers to fully saturate 3 bases will leave you with a paper army compared to someone 2 basing. Chances are pretty good, you won't hold that third (we see this happen time and again with zergs who take a third as a response to a FE - they simply do not have enough money to saturate and build any remote defense). So most of the time, we all have to be content with a max income of around 1500 minerals per minute (2 fully saturated bases). It's almost impossible to exceed this (aside from golds, which we'll ignore for a bit). Mules break all those rulesSo here is where we finally get to the interesting shit. Mules are the only unit in SC that can completely break the above. A terran player capable of rolling out 4 mules on 2 fully saturated bases will mine ~2200 minerals per minute. This is realistically more than any other race can do. If you get really ambitious, a terran player capable of rolling out 8 mules on two bases will mine ~3000 minerals per minute. Thats equal to 4 fully saturated bases. With an income that high, you should be able to produce a marine every second. But it's not possible to get a steady stream of 8 mules!Well. Not if you play conventionally but I think that in order to play terran to its maximum potential, you should not play remotely like any other race, nor should you play as the designers intended, because AS TERRAN YOU SHOULD WORK HARD TO NEVER BUILD A SUPPLY DEPOT.Well. Ok. You need that first one to get a barraks. But lets ignore that first depot. Let me say it again... AS TERRAN YOU WORK HARD TO NEVER BUILD A SUPPLY DEPOT.Command centers are always economically better for supply. Why? Because supply depots suck. They're just lost minerals AND they get killed easy leaving you supply blocked. If you can possibly arrange a way to afford it, you should ALWAYS BUILD COMMAND CENTERS FOR FOOD. Why? Because in ADDITION TO BUILDING WORKERS FASTER, THEY GIVE YOU MULES AND ALLOW YOU TO OVERSATURATE. A command center gives you 11 food, this is worth 137 minerals in supply (depot gives 8 @ 100 minerals). The actual cost of a command center is really 263 minerals, the orbital is another 150. Using ONLY MULES the orbital command will pay for itself in about 3:20 (550 minerals) - a single mule will pay for the command center using its food adjusted cost in 90 seconds. After this, unlike a supply depot the orbital command will begin to improve your income. Dramatically. If you can get 2 orbital commands, the mules alone will entirely pay for a constant stream of additional orbital commands. What does this mean? Well. It means that you could have 8 orbital commands in around 9 minutes, and an income of 3,000 minerals per minute (equivilant to 4 fully saturated bases). Obviously, it won't always be possible to avoid building depots.But the point is that this is something you should try very hard to avoid. A supply depot does not improve your income. Orbital commands do. Two will completely pay for a third in mule income alone, 3 will give you 540 minerals / minute, allowing you to continue pumping out additional CCs in mass (paid for by mules alone). So let me just review. Using your main, and your natural, you can have an income equvalent to 4 fully saturated bases. This mechanic is absolutely unparalleled by anything the other two races have -- and we haven't even started looking into planetary fortresses as incredibly cost effective defense yet. TheorycraftI admit completely that this thread is theorycrafting at its best. But I wanted to put this post up so that I could eventually take credit for the inevitable nerf on Mules  . I'll be adding builds, replays as I have time. In the mean time, please feel free to add suggestions, think it out, try builds. The best I did was a 14 CC 15 rax with my 4th orbital at ~ 6 minutes. I walled off the natural with CCs and 2 bunkers. I had an income of 2200-2400 at 9 minutes. I'm sure this is viable. EDIT: Griffith has posted a build with high diamond replays showing that this is viable. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173703The revolution has begun :D EDIT 2: 12/2/10 - I want to claim the phrase "Farming OCs" as this is essentially what this is all about.
Please... please please! there have been numerous posts about "omg mass OC build can rape"... Honestly people are tired of this terran qq fest... all TL forums are now is "marines are OP" "Mass OC's are OP" "Mule's are OP" Let's stopd these qq fests and become constructive and talk about balance.
1) Mass building CC's is never going to win you high competition games.... good opponents scout and respond
2) Command Centers take a long time to produce - compound with the OC tech time - thats a lot of time for opponents to counter you
3) SCVs have to be sacrificed for a period to build army production buildings - the balance is toss can drop down their warp in building and reuse that probe - zerg have to build one tech building and then they can pump ALL their units from one building instead of 3 different ones
4) If you have ever played terran - mineral overproduction is so common that mass OC's to a point become absolutely pointless
Basically is anyone else sick of Terran QQ - terran is NOT easy mode... its heavy micro intensive from base building to army movement, in all honesty the mule is a really good solution to a difficult micro intensive race - if you've ever played terran (not laddered up on gimmicks) it has a very high learning curve
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I could see OCs being a nice mineral dump in the mid and lategame, but not much more than that.
The only thing you can really build with tons of minerals are Marines and Hellions.
Sure you could 12 rax 4 fact with Reactors with OC spam, but 200/200 Marine/Hellion ain't all that good.
The main problem is gas, you cant get any more than 2 base unless you expand further.
Having mass minerals doesn't really help all that much if you don't have the gas for the tech.
Also, so many MULEs are going to deplete your main and natural incredibly fast.
You don't get 270 free minerals, you just get them faster from your mineral patches.
Since this build generally tends to go mid or lategame where mineral units become less effective, there isn't really all that much reason to go mass OC over depots.
And as mentioned, it's rather easy to scout, leaves you vulnerable early game and OCs take ages to build.
Still, OCs do make a nice mineral dump that can help lategame to sature an expansion faster (and build more SCVs faster), get more scans or upgrade your depots should some of them get shot up.
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Why not do this late game when you're maxed?
Build a bunch of orbitals, engage their army with yours + all your scvs, when the scvs die replace the lost supply with units & continue mining with mules.
Next time your army engages you'll be up like 60 supply (I don't play terran, is 60 scvs an overestimation for late game T?)
Not to mention pretty much infinite scans.
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I'm nothing amazing but I am a nearly 2100 rated zerg player and this strat seems to show a lot of promise. Due to zergs nature of early aggression generally being an all in style attack I tend to focus on a very macro heavy build which this seems to take advantage of. I knew something odd was happening in the game but I didn't spot the cc being built with my overlord. I think by the time I got to lair tech the game was actually going to be lost because while I could crush his armies early on I couldn't really attack.
I think its partially luck based on the zergs part early on if they will beat it (via baneling bust) or another all in. I don't see a macro zerg player anywhere near the skill of the terran being able to beat this in the mid/late game. It just seems silly how strong it is against a macro style player. The next time I see this happening though i'll try being extremely aggressive with flooding in zerglings and banelings as soon as I get speed but I don't see it working out well.
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I've seen this before, if it goes into late game terran can easily mass marine. It's sooo annoying to have the game won and an orbital lands at a random base (especially gold) and lands 15 mules so the terran can now support his 15 raxes immediately. Problem with marines is they are good vs everything so they complement OC farming quite well.
The games I'm thinking of the person wasn't OC farming per se, but all you need is three with high energy and you're in good shape. But if you have, say, 8 orbatals? You are in unstoppable shape!
I honestly don't know why this wasn't mainstream strategy 2 months ago. It's so obvious how overpowered mules are, you'd think someone would have come up with something sooner.
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On December 10 2010 13:19 Fats wrote:Show nested quote +On December 02 2010 17:12 30to1 wrote:So this thread has sort of exploded and it seems that it only took two days for this to (some degree according to the replies) enter the meta. The Artosis/TeamLiquid tweets really pushed it over the edge. Over the next few weeks people will use it, test it, and the community will evaluate its overall worth by ... trying it in games and either winning or losing. So good luck, I hope this was worth while, and here is the information that I can help give you guys while trying it out. NOTE - Based on most of the responses I don't think people got many of the reasons this is so good. So I've simplified the shit out of it and focused on what I think the long term less gimmicky use of this is. For those curious about the original numbers that lead me to this post - see spoiler at end. Why is the OC special?In the past, there were only three ways to generate income. SC2 has given us a fourth income generating unit. It is the only one of its kind. The MULE itself might be the little thingie that carries minerals around, but the thing thats actually special is not the MULE, its the OC itself. The reason? Oversaturation and the fact that the MULEs themselves are renewable for no mineral cost after your initial 550 investment (in other words, the MULEs themselves are disposable). Every Orbital Command you build should provide you will a income of ~180/m per minute every minute. It does not matter how many workers are harvesting and it does not matter where you build or position that OC. It can still generate this income as long as you have a base, any base, anywhere, within walking distance of a mineral patch. It does not matter if a hellion fried a mule 5 minutes ago, it does not matter if you have 0 minerals and have nothing but a single OC. Every 90s an OC will bank 50 energy you can use to place a mule anywhere on the map. It doesn't even matter if you forgot to get your minerals for a few minutes - the OC will bank 4 income boosts if you forgot about it for a while, or if you just want to give yourself a sudden burst of 540/m per minute over the next 90 seconds. Do not think of an OC as you would anything else in SC, it is fundimentally different. The OC is itself an income generating structure. Every 90 seconds an OC will generate you a little mechanical income boost (regardless of where it is or how many workers you have). Note: because OCs generate 50 energy at ~85 seconds there is a period of overlap between two mules, although I constantly cite OC income at ~180/min its closer to ~200 - OC income is higher than MULE income. OCs are really good. Can 4 OCs alone be better than a saturated expansion?Yes. 4OCs will generate an income equal to a saturated expansion but there is more to it. Let's compare the options for generating 800/m/minute (worker costs are food adjusted @12.5 - no adjustment was applied for supply value of base). ~800/m/minuteThis costs 1900 minerals / 24 supply ~800/m/minuteThis costs 1800 minerals / 24 supply ~800/m/minuteThis costs 550 minerals / 0 supply Admittedly, this is a favorable oversimplification depending on your perspective, to get those 4 mules working constantly you need 4 OCs. With a bit of a discount considering you start with one CC, getting 3 addl OCs will cost you 1390 (food adjusted cost @12.5 per food not including first CC in food discount or build cost). That doesn't seem that great, sure you save a 400-500 minerals - but not game breaking. The difference is in exposure and vulnerability. Look at those three bases and the costs under them. Thats how many minerals you're risking on your expansion. The real cost of an expansion is not the 3-400 minerals to build the base, the real cost is in the 1500 minerals to build the workers and the eight minutes it takes to replace them if they die. Because an OC/MULE only expansion is nearly risk free compared to other bases and they fly you can take risks with them that you never would have dreamed of with a real expansion. The reality is, if a big threat drops and stims on your door and kills all your mules, it sucks, it hurts, and yeah, it might lose you a game. But often, you can just lift the thing, stick it somewhere else, call more mules and be just fine. OC Farming is superior to a normal expansion since it carries less Risk. That means you can be more aggressive about 'expanding' to vulnerable areas - including gold expos or corner locations. How does this fit into Supply Depots?Every time you build a supply depot, you spend 100 minerals. Once built, those minerals are lost forever. They're just a burden and they die easy. A OC provides you with 137 minerals worth of supply, has a ton of hitpoints and unlike a supply depot will pay for itself in 3:20. In an ideal world, you should absolutely never build a supply depot. The reality is that you will have to build at least a couple supply depots in order to live long enough for an OC to pay for itself (I got a little over excited with my first post ;D). That said, every time you build a depot, you should be aware of the fact that those minerals could have been better spent on more OCs. That in the long run those OCs will catapult you ahead of your opponent. Keep that in mind with every supply depot you make. Each one is a delay in OC Farming, the long term benefit in opting for OCs over Depots (where feasible) is very real. How effective can OC Farming be?Because your OC Farm can be very defensively positioned (you can actually use the OCs to wall off), OC Farming allows you the additional income of an expansion without the additional vulnerability. Because OCs can fly - they also give you tremendous flexibility in repositioning your current MULE fest. There's a tremendous amount of flexibility in how this can be used. I think that it should be strong incentive to take a natural early and I predict terran FE may become really popular. With it, you should be able to produce the income of three or four bases much faster and much safer than any other race. Your MULE income off of the main and FE alone will be half of a third, and that should be a big appeal. Some people may try to use a 4-8 OC mega push and play mass macro style. Frankly, I think this could be viable mid or late game. Sure you will lose at cost, but you can realistically double your opponents income so just throw 60 marines at him every minute, most will die, but your income will replace losses faster, and because you can reposition your expos at will with low risk you can mine shit out with less concern. Or you could just play fairly standard and is drop a couple extra OCs if it looks like the game will go past 10 minutes. You should start to dramatically pull ahead in income compared to any other race with considerably less supply used in workers and with dramatically risk. As this develops, I'll add more edits with notes, builds, replays, etc. Some Replays and comments about games posted around page 18... + Show Spoiler + If you have replays - feel free to PM me and I will include them, win or lose, top diamond or low bronze.gongryong has put together a little FAQ - his comments mostly revolve around helping to clarify the first version of this post - which was much more extreme and focused on a more committed early OC all in - but I thought his points were still good. If he (or anyone else) wants to update or contribute to this, please feel free to PM. FAQ 1. Please summarize what is this strategy/build all about? + Show Spoiler +
(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? + Show Spoiler +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? + Show Spoiler +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? + Show Spoiler +
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? + Show Spoiler +
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? + Show Spoiler +
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.
Original post for those curious as to how this got started... + Show Spoiler +The goal of this thread is honestly, to come up with a game breaking technique for terran by maxing out abuse of mules. How does this end supply depots? We'll get to this soon. I'll be stating a lot of stuff, backed up by with rough math. But I admit this is all theory craft at this point. I'll be refining this as we go - but I wanted to share my conclusions. If anyone is interested in helping me figure out how to absolutely abuse the ideas that follow - please contribute. Background InformationAfter running some numbers on mules in this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=7156269I came away pretty shocked at how incredibly broken mules are. I broke out excel and ran some calculations. The key point is I came away with is that once built, it takes around 3:20 for terran to pay for an orbital command plus 10 scvs (if people are curious I can share the xls). The other key number is 4 orbital commands. That's the number of orbital commands required to call down enough mules to mine ~800 minerals per minute (the same as a fully saturated base). MulesMules are incredible. So incredible that I think they may legitimately break the game if used to their fullest potential. An orbital command can put down a mule every ~85 seconds. A mule lasts 90 seconds and mines 180 minerals per minute. For comparison, 3 scvs mining a mineral patch will produce ~100 minerals per minute (about 40/35/25 if mining the same patch according to my tests). So in one sense a mule comes pretty close to being worth 5-6 scvs. A great ability that you can constantly use. But the part where mules become broken is their ability to oversaturate a mineral patch. Every base in SC2 has 8 patches. In order to get 6 SCVs to mine 200 minerals a second, it takes up 2 mineral patches. A fully saturated base will mine 800 minerals per minute and require 24 scvs. Mules on the other hand can mine 180 minerals a second regardless of how many other workers are there. With 24 scvs and 4 mules mining at a single base you should be able to mine roughly 1520 minerals a second. That's the same as two fully saturated expansions. So 4 mules is roughly equal to a fully saturated base...so what? 4 Mules are much better than a fully saturated expansion.In order to put together a fully saturated base, it costs money. You need to build the command center, and you need to build 24 workers, those 24 workers need to eat - so you also gotta build supply depots. The true cost of an SCV is 50 minerals plus 1 supply (using a supply depot, a supply is worth 12.5 minerals) - so an SCV is costs 62.5 minerals. 24 of these will cost you 1500 minerals + 400 for the command center. So it costs 1900 minerals to build and fully saturate an expansion - the CC itself is only ~25% of the total cost - the vast majority is in the workers and supply. Why does this matter? 1900 minerals is a lot. It costs you that much to take a natural and fully saturate - this is why FE is pretty risky. Taking a quick third and fully saturating both bases will cost you 3800 minerals. Thats a metric shit ton. In this game, its generally not economically feasible to saturate a third base before your main is nearly mined out because of the cost in workers. Additionally, because workers take up supply, building 90 workers to fully saturate 3 bases will leave you with a paper army compared to someone 2 basing. Chances are pretty good, you won't hold that third (we see this happen time and again with zergs who take a third as a response to a FE - they simply do not have enough money to saturate and build any remote defense). So most of the time, we all have to be content with a max income of around 1500 minerals per minute (2 fully saturated bases). It's almost impossible to exceed this (aside from golds, which we'll ignore for a bit). Mules break all those rulesSo here is where we finally get to the interesting shit. Mules are the only unit in SC that can completely break the above. A terran player capable of rolling out 4 mules on 2 fully saturated bases will mine ~2200 minerals per minute. This is realistically more than any other race can do. If you get really ambitious, a terran player capable of rolling out 8 mules on two bases will mine ~3000 minerals per minute. Thats equal to 4 fully saturated bases. With an income that high, you should be able to produce a marine every second. But it's not possible to get a steady stream of 8 mules!Well. Not if you play conventionally but I think that in order to play terran to its maximum potential, you should not play remotely like any other race, nor should you play as the designers intended, because AS TERRAN YOU SHOULD WORK HARD TO NEVER BUILD A SUPPLY DEPOT.Well. Ok. You need that first one to get a barraks. But lets ignore that first depot. Let me say it again... AS TERRAN YOU WORK HARD TO NEVER BUILD A SUPPLY DEPOT.Command centers are always economically better for supply. Why? Because supply depots suck. They're just lost minerals AND they get killed easy leaving you supply blocked. If you can possibly arrange a way to afford it, you should ALWAYS BUILD COMMAND CENTERS FOR FOOD. Why? Because in ADDITION TO BUILDING WORKERS FASTER, THEY GIVE YOU MULES AND ALLOW YOU TO OVERSATURATE. A command center gives you 11 food, this is worth 137 minerals in supply (depot gives 8 @ 100 minerals). The actual cost of a command center is really 263 minerals, the orbital is another 150. Using ONLY MULES the orbital command will pay for itself in about 3:20 (550 minerals) - a single mule will pay for the command center using its food adjusted cost in 90 seconds. After this, unlike a supply depot the orbital command will begin to improve your income. Dramatically. If you can get 2 orbital commands, the mules alone will entirely pay for a constant stream of additional orbital commands. What does this mean? Well. It means that you could have 8 orbital commands in around 9 minutes, and an income of 3,000 minerals per minute (equivilant to 4 fully saturated bases). Obviously, it won't always be possible to avoid building depots.But the point is that this is something you should try very hard to avoid. A supply depot does not improve your income. Orbital commands do. Two will completely pay for a third in mule income alone, 3 will give you 540 minerals / minute, allowing you to continue pumping out additional CCs in mass (paid for by mules alone). So let me just review. Using your main, and your natural, you can have an income equvalent to 4 fully saturated bases. This mechanic is absolutely unparalleled by anything the other two races have -- and we haven't even started looking into planetary fortresses as incredibly cost effective defense yet. TheorycraftI admit completely that this thread is theorycrafting at its best. But I wanted to put this post up so that I could eventually take credit for the inevitable nerf on Mules . I'll be adding builds, replays as I have time. In the mean time, please feel free to add suggestions, think it out, try builds. The best I did was a 14 CC 15 rax with my 4th orbital at ~ 6 minutes. I walled off the natural with CCs and 2 bunkers. I had an income of 2200-2400 at 9 minutes. I'm sure this is viable. EDIT: Griffith has posted a build with high diamond replays showing that this is viable. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173703The revolution has begun :D EDIT 2: 12/2/10 - I want to claim the phrase "Farming OCs" as this is essentially what this is all about. Please... please please! there have been numerous posts about "omg mass OC build can rape"... Honestly people are tired of this terran qq fest... all TL forums are now is "marines are OP" "Mass OC's are OP" "Mule's are OP" Let's stopd these qq fests and become constructive and talk about balance. 1) Mass building CC's is never going to win you high competition games.... good opponents scout and respond 2) Command Centers take a long time to produce - compound with the OC tech time - thats a lot of time for opponents to counter you 3) SCVs have to be sacrificed for a period to build army production buildings - the balance is toss can drop down their warp in building and reuse that probe - zerg have to build one tech building and then they can pump ALL their units from one building instead of 3 different ones 4) If you have ever played terran - mineral overproduction is so common that mass OC's to a point become absolutely pointlessBasically is anyone else sick of Terran QQ - terran is NOT easy mode... its heavy micro intensive from base building to army movement, in all honesty the mule is a really good solution to a difficult micro intensive race - if you've ever played terran (not laddered up on gimmicks) it has a very high learning curve
wtf are you saying, so extra minerals are pointless? so if you have excess minerals you just stop making SCVs or expand? and your other arguments are so flawed im not even gonna waste my time. have fun in bronze bro
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GSL season 4 spoiler!
+ Show Spoiler +Boxer used this strategy vs hyperdub in the GSL! (group C match 2). His mineral gain was insane, and he was able to mass up bases on shakuras. Boxer has just proved that this strategy will work at the highest level of play.
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Austria126 Posts
On January 05 2011 07:56 yoplate wrote:GSL season 4 spoiler! + Show Spoiler +Boxer used this strategy vs hyperdub in the GSL! (group C match 2). His mineral gain was insane, and he was able to mass up bases on shakuras. Boxer has just proved that this strategy will work at the highest level of play.
He proved that if you are in the lead, you can do funny stuff like this and get even more ahead. Or you can build 2 fusion cores.
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On January 05 2011 07:56 yoplate wrote:GSL season 4 spoiler! + Show Spoiler +Boxer used this strategy vs hyperdub in the GSL! (group C match 2). His mineral gain was insane, and he was able to mass up bases on shakuras. Boxer has just proved that this strategy will work at the highest level of play.
Not really. This is about using them for supply, he used them for minerals.
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Russian Federation798 Posts
On January 05 2011 07:56 yoplate wrote:GSL season 4 spoiler! + Show Spoiler +Boxer used this strategy vs hyperdub in the GSL! (group C match 2). His mineral gain was insane, and he was able to mass up bases on shakuras. Boxer has just proved that this strategy will work at the highest level of play.
It was such an epic game, but I dont think one isolated game where his opponent has never encountered the build before does not make it viable. I how ever believe mass orbitals have a lot of potential especially in the late game.
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On January 05 2011 07:56 yoplate wrote:GSL season 4 spoiler! + Show Spoiler +Boxer used this strategy vs hyperdub in the GSL! (group C match 2). His mineral gain was insane, and he was able to mass up bases on shakuras. Boxer has just proved that this strategy will work at the highest level of play.
To be honest, when he built the extra command centers he was already way ahead. He already had a siege tank line in his opponents base, I think he just built them because he was floating ridiculous amounts of minerals and he thought he'd already won.
Also I think every moron who responds to a post with "because of mules" or "finally people realize mules are OP" should be banned.
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if your having issues with the korean terran scv and marine allin's with 2 oc's muleing paying for 3rd, with 7 rax constnatley making marines to reinforce, the 16 scv's at the start are just to build,gather untill 2 oc's and 7x rax are done.
as p, you're going to have to respond with constant ff of ramp to beat this ,
as zerg, a baneling bust can offer some help, depending on the skill of the sim city of the terran
as t, ti's easy make like 2 bunkers and gogo repair
the main reason i sugguest cloak is because it's an allin tactic and once delayed after awhile it's extreamley hard to tranistion out of, marines and versicitle but not that much :D
it's a good tactic but it's a very agressive style mid game strat, playing it myself it just burns your base minerals up so fast it's crazy
the only minerl only units you can make as terran are
scv's (light)
marines (light)
hellions (light)
they all have a crital mass the size of there range (6) - this is generally approaching 20+ level, where the ammount of damage possible in a push is at it's max.
i be honest with u' i got a 100% loss vs this myself but it's not seen by professional players for a reason, i'm not sure why but there a reason u don't see if offen.
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On January 05 2011 08:33 TibblesEvilCat wrote:
if your having issues with the korean terran scv and marine allin's with 2 oc's muleing paying for 3rd, with 7 rax constnatley making marines to reinforce, the 16 scv's at the start are just to build,gather untill 2 oc's and 7x rax are done.
as p, you're going to have to respond with constant ff of ramp to beat this ,
as zerg, a baneling bust can offer some help, depending on the skill of the sim city of the terran
as t, ti's easy make like 2 bunkers and gogo repair
the main reason i sugguest cloak is because it's an allin tactic and once delayed after awhile it's extreamley hard to tranistion out of, marines and versicitle but not that much :D
it's a good tactic but it's a very agressive style mid game strat, playing it myself it just burns your base minerals up so fast it's crazy
the only minerl only units you can make as terran are
scv's (light)
marines (light)
hellions (light)
they all have a crital mass the size of there range (6) - this is generally approaching 20+ level, where the ammount of damage possible in a push is at it's max.
i be honest with u' i got a 100% loss vs this myself but it's not seen by professional players for a reason, i'm not sure why but there a reason u don't see if offen.
Sorry can you rephrase this, I only understand, that you got something like a strategie thats unbeatable and its 7x rax + 2 OCs? and if zerg banelingbust you just build some banshees?
WHAT?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-171233.jpg)
