EPTVery nice collection of openings, i'll definatly check some of the other BOs out, though i don't understand the fuss about 11p/18h as it is about as economical as any other opening and only slightly faster in getting the pool but has a lot less larva later due to the late hatch. Well, i'll try it out anyways.
Pushing The Limits of Zerg Economy Builds - Page 12
| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
|
Deleted User 101379
4849 Posts
Very nice collection of openings, i'll definatly check some of the other BOs out, though i don't understand the fuss about 11p/18h as it is about as economical as any other opening and only slightly faster in getting the pool but has a lot less larva later due to the late hatch. Well, i'll try it out anyways. | ||
|
Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
On December 14 2010 19:37 Skrag wrote: I highly doubt 3 hatches without a pool would actually be more economic than a build including a pool. A single queen creates larvae 33% faster than a hatch, and costs half as much. 2 Hatch + 2 queens is greater production capacity than 3 hatches by a pretty large margin. In fact, it would be greater than 4 hatches, not even taking the extra cost into account. well, was just mentioned for arguing, however did you try ? build 3rd hatch instead of a pool .. keep on building hatches as sson you can afford until 6'20 .. ofc this is for theorycrafting only .. | ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
On December 15 2010 00:32 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: well, was just mentioned for arguing, however did you try ? build 3rd hatch instead of a pool .. keep on building hatches as sson you can afford until 6'20 .. ofc this is for theorycrafting only .. No point in testing it. This is a pretty easy one to theorycraft in your head. A queen is better larvae production than a hatchery. Saving 300 minerals on making 2 queens instead of 2 hatcheries more than makes up for the cost of the pool, and produces more larvae anyway. Besides, as you mentioned, it's completely useless.  | ||
|
Najda
United States3765 Posts
| ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
On December 15 2010 01:41 Najda wrote: With the 11 pool 18 hatch build you're supposed to transfer 6-8 drones around 28 supply, not 2 drones at 18. Other than that it seems like good information A much more efficient way of doing it (which is what my AI version does), is just build up to 19 drones, then rally any further drones to the natural. The timing works out such that the 20th drone will reach the expansion just as it finishes. No need to transfer at all, because the main never gets oversaturated. Actually, to be perfectly fair, the original post about the 11pool did require a transfer, and the extra workers got there just in time, if I remember correctly. It's entirely possible that the only reason the timings are so clean for the AI run is that it plays as damn near perfectly as I could make it. Still, though, up to that point, there not that much the AI is doing faster than a player reasonably could. The AI is really good at doing stuff simultaneously like using larvae from an inject and also re-injecting exactly on time, but at that point (which would be 24 supply), nothing really intensive like that has happened. Of course, the AI does get the pool and hatch down sooner than I've ever been able to, due to the perfect drone micro. (which was an absolute *BITCH* to figure out for drones 18 and 19 btw. It's sooo hard to fit those in without causing lots of mining delays) | ||
|
jacobman
217 Posts
On December 15 2010 01:41 Najda wrote: With the 11 pool 18 hatch build you're supposed to transfer 6-8 drones around 28 supply, not 2 drones at 18. Other than that it seems like good information I'll be honest, that number might be off. You could be right. My AI doesn't actually need a number input. It follows a simple pattern. If there are two bases up and one has more than 16 while the other has less than 16, then a drone transfer equal to the amount over 16 at the one base is transferred. This continues until both bases have 16, at which point no more transfers occur and the bases just rally to their own mineral patches. This method maximizes early game minerals. Because the AI handles all of this, I don't actually have to worry about how many drones to transfer for any build I put it. | ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
On December 15 2010 02:14 jacobman wrote: I'll be honest, that number might be off. You could be right. My AI doesn't actually need a number input. It follows a simple pattern. If there are two bases up and one has more than 16 while the other has less than 16, then a drone transfer equal to the amount over 16 at the one base is transferred. This continues until both bases have 16, at which point no more transfers occur and the bases just rally to their own mineral patches. Because the AI handles all of this, I don't actually have to worry about how many drones to transfer for any build I put it. The problem with transferring if you already have a fully saturated base (or nearly saturated, I still don't think there's any point in going past max saturation - 1, because that last worker can take *sooo looooong* to settle in) is that you're going to add some settle-in effect. For example, if you have 19 drones at the main, settled into a consistent routine, and you pull 3 of those workers off, adding 3 more workers to the main will cause you to be some amount of minerals behind, where that number depends purely on how long it takes drones 17, 18, and 19 to settle in, which is very random, and which can take quite a long time, especially for drone 19 on xelnaga, where 20 is the max in the main. So you're wasting drone mining time (and potentially a *lot* of it) purely for the sake of balancing the mineral fields, and while it's true that 2 drones per patch will mine more efficiently than 3, it's really not that big of a difference, especially given how quickly the expansion will hit 16 drones anyway. | ||
|
jacobman
217 Posts
On December 15 2010 01:44 Skrag wrote: A much more efficient way of doing it (which is what my AI version does), is just build up to 19 drones, then rally any further drones to the natural. The timing works out such that the 20th drone will reach the expansion just as it finishes. No need to transfer at all, because the main never gets oversaturated. Actually, to be perfectly fair, the original post about the 11pool did require a transfer, and the extra workers got there just in time, if I remember correctly. It's entirely possible that the only reason the timings are so clean for the AI run is that it plays as damn near perfectly as I could make it. Still, though, up to that point, there not that much the AI is doing faster than a player reasonably could. The AI is really good at doing stuff simultaneously like using larvae from an inject and also re-injecting exactly on time, but at that point (which would be 24 supply), nothing really intensive like that has happened. Of course, the AI does get the pool and hatch down sooner than I've ever been able to, due to the perfect drone micro. (which was an absolute *BITCH* to figure out for drones 18 and 19 btw. It's sooo hard to fit those in without causing lots of mining delays) Why 19? | ||
|
Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
On December 15 2010 01:32 Skrag wrote: No point in testing it. This is a pretty easy one to theorycraft in your head. A queen is better larvae production than a hatchery. Saving 300 minerals on making 2 queens instead of 2 hatcheries more than makes up for the cost of the pool, and produces more larvae anyway. Besides, as you mentioned, it's completely useless. Well be careful, build queen + inject takes 80 seconds (hatch 110) the second spawn of a queen does not really have an effect til 6'20, while the hatch start to produce larvae immediately. also you can skip the pool and get 2 supply, you know what .. i have to test it, even if completely meaningless XD | ||
|
jacobman
217 Posts
No point in testing it. This is a pretty easy one to theorycraft in your head. Besides, as you mentioned, it's completely useless. Skrag, you're my hero sometimes  | ||
|
Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
On December 15 2010 02:54 jacobman wrote: Skrag, you're my hero sometimes well i stated that myself before and in my initial posting .. think i have to use <humor> tags for u guys .. Besides that, it does make sense to discover unusual possibilities in order to get in-depth knowledge or find some useful new builds. There is no point in testing 14h15p for the 1000th time, this has been done before, so this is completely useless. However there is little information 'bout unusual builds tweaking timings with extractor tricks etc. Anyway 13 hatch 15 hatch sloppy played comes out at 5100 (with your measurement method), may get to 5200, 5300 if optimized (play on slow etc.). So it gets a mediocre score, even if it is massive larvae capped .. so you should not rely on the score only, as this is obviously not a good build. It ends with stockpiled 1300 minerals 6'20 (no queens). BTW it would be a good idea to mention stockpiled minerals at the end of the test, as some larvae capped builds (such as 14h15p) tend to stockpile .. BTW, TLO played a 3 hatch before pool once .. so it is not completely off (but extremely late pool, kind of eco cheese). | ||
|
jacobman
217 Posts
On December 15 2010 03:27 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: well i stated that myself before and in my initial posting .. think i have to use <humor> tags for u guys .. Besides that, it does make sense to discover unusual possibilities in order to get in-depth knowledge or find some useful new builds. There is no point in testing 14h15p for the 1000th time, this has been done before, so this is completely useless. However there is little information 'bout unusual builds tweaking timings with extractor tricks etc. Anyway 13 hatch 15 hatch sloppy played comes out at 5100 (with your measurement method), may get to 5200, 5300 if optimized (play on slow etc.). So it gets a mediocre score, even if it is massive larvae capped .. so you should not rely on the score only, as this is obviously not a good build. It ends with stockpiled 1300 minerals 6'20 (no queens). BTW it would be a good idea to mention stockpiled minerals at the end of the test, as some larvae capped builds (such as 14h15p) tend to stockpile .. BTW, TLO played a 3 hatch before pool once .. so it is not completely off (but extremely late pool, kind of eco cheese). Stockpiled minerals are not bad, as almost all of these builds end with pretty much the same number of larvae created. Not to mention that stockpiled minerals allow you to tech, can be translated to some vespane gas, can be used to get your 3rd expand early, can be used to make more hatches which allows you to use up the extra resources. | ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
On December 15 2010 02:44 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: Well be careful, build queen + inject takes 80 seconds (hatch 110) the second spawn of a queen does not really have an effect til 6'20, while the hatch start to produce larvae immediately. also you can skip the pool and get 2 supply, you know what .. i have to test it, even if completely meaningless XD So 90 seconds after you start the queen (pretty sure it's 50+40), 4 larvae will pop out. If you built a hatch at the same time as you started the queen, it won't even be finished yet, and will have obviously produced exactly zero larvae at that point. 40 seconds later, the queen will have produced 4 more larvae, while the hatchery would only have popped 2, with a third coming shortly. So when the second spawn finishes, the queen is a full 6 larvae ahead. How does the hatch ever win here, especially given that it has to wait for 150 extra minerals to start in the first place? | ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
Because the 20th drone is the first drone I could rally to the expansion without having it try to come back to the main to deliver minerals. 19 is also a magic number because that's the maximum I would ever want to try to have mining on a regular basis at the xel'naga mains, which can only support 20. Pretty sure I do the same thing with all of the builds. Get to 19 workers, and then rally to the expansion. One of these days I'll actually figure out what the max number of workers at xel'naga expansions is, and cut off the drones entirely at that point. | ||
|
jacobman
217 Posts
On December 15 2010 03:59 Skrag wrote: Because the 20th drone is the first drone I could rally to the expansion without having it try to come back to the main to deliver minerals. 19 is also a magic number because that's the maximum I would ever want to try to have mining on a regular basis at the xel'naga mains, which can only support 20. Pretty sure I do the same thing with all of the builds. Get to 19 workers, and then rally to the expansion. One of these days I'll actually figure out what the max number of workers at xel'naga expansions is, and cut off the drones entirely at that point. That's a really interesting idea. If you're at lets say 18 drones which have already settled and you take two off to bring to the expansion, you will have to settle the drones again when you bring the main to 18 for the second time. In that situation it might be better as you say to rally all the drones to the expansion until you reach 18, to avoid having to resettle drones. Although, when you have equal number of drones, it's definitely better to put the rallies back on their own mineral lines. You do lose drone mining time every time you send a drone to a different hatch. | ||
|
ChickenLips
2912 Posts
| ||
|
Schnullerbacke13
Germany1199 Posts
On December 15 2010 03:54 Skrag wrote: So 90 seconds after you start the queen (pretty sure it's 50+40), 4 larvae will pop out. If you built a hatch at the same time as you started the queen, it won't even be finished yet, and will have obviously produced exactly zero larvae at that point. 40 seconds later, the queen will have produced 4 more larvae, while the hatchery would only have popped 2, with a third coming shortly. So when the second spawn finishes, the queen is a full 6 larvae ahead. How does the hatch ever win here, especially given that it has to wait for 150 extra minerals to start in the first place? Ofc hatch looses in general, but you don't need a pool to build a hatch, so a very early hatch > pool + queen. That's the main reason why hatch first builds > pool first (mostly). If you take this to the extreme you may build a third before pool. E.g. 13 hatch 15 hatch. Ofc this falls behind in larvae production starting from 4..5 (don't know the exact timing). I don't want to promote that build however TLO played it once in a PRO game, and according to my test it is not completely off economically (anyway its extremely low on larvae once the eco kicks in). Ofc TLO build a pool immediately after 3rd. Its just the same principle as hatch first but even more extreme, pool is extremely late and you build 3 queens at once. I would never play that in a real game but it illustrates the mechanics of larvae production and economy. In order to have your larvae production to be on par with your economy you either have to build early pool for early queen and get your nat late (11pool 18 hatch), or you get your hatch first to have some larvae until your (then) late pool+queen+spawn finishes. If you try to combine early hatch AND early pool (e.g. 12hatch 11pool (with 2 extractor trick)) you get plenty of larvae but pay the price of a weaker economy, however once eco kicks in, you can spend your mins more easy. Agree on the remarks on overmins. In real games you likely will scout, get gas and some tech, so you won't have overmins wiht 14 hatch 15 pool. Also Pro's usually build queens from their initial overmins when playing 14h15p, queens do not cost any larvae. So this is a good way to even out slight larvae caps. The real weakness of 12hatch 11pool is not lack of mins at 6'20, it is weak because it lacks minerals in the beginning (round 18 supply), so you have to delay your tech/gas, but you have enough income to pump lings from 2 hatch 2 queens. However 2X12h11p is playable at least at my level of play and reduces the risk of being crushed early on. Because of its earlier and higher larvae production its possible to play somewhat more agressive in mid-early game (lings). 14h15p (and similar builds) tend to be so passive .. | ||
|
jacobman
217 Posts
On December 15 2010 05:01 ChickenLips wrote: So are you guys content with 14/15p being the best build mineral-wise or is there more testing / more ideas coming up? No matter what the 14H/15P is definitely at the very top of possible builds as far as potential economy. With my method, technically there is more testing to be done. My method has a little more variation than Skrags, and one of the data points I collected for the 13H/15P looks like a high outlier, which skews the results towards the 13H/14P. I'm planning on doing a few more trials with the 13H/15P and 14H/15P to settle this, but either way they are both really close economically. Currently my method has the 13H/15P as the most economic build though. I think this will change when I run a few more trials, as the trend with the 4 other data points is that the 14H/15P is better. Skrags method, which optimized drone micro and has less variation puts the 14H/15P about 10 minerals ahead, so like I said, either way, it's practically a tie between the 14H/15P and 13H/15P. On a final note, I would really like to test the 15H/16P. I just have a feeling that this build will do really well. It's just a feeling though | ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
On December 15 2010 05:10 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: Ofc hatch looses in general, but you don't need a pool to build a hatch, so a very early hatch > pool + queen. That's the main reason why hatch first builds > pool first (mostly). The queen matters more for hatch-first builds than the hatch does too. So the second queen is providing more of a benefit than the second hatch. That's the main reason IMO that hatch first builds do better than pool first builds. The pool first builds get one queen faster, but hatch first get the second hatch, and more importantly, the second queen, faster. In order to have your larvae production to be on par with your economy you either have to build early pool for early queen and get your nat late (11pool 18 hatch), or you get your hatch first to have some larvae until your (then) late pool+queen+spawn finishes. If you try to combine early hatch AND early pool (e.g. 12hatch 11pool (with 2 extractor trick)) you get plenty of larvae but pay the price of a weaker economy, however once eco kicks in, you can spend your mins more easy. After looking at your replays, there is a *lot* of larvae wastage early. Not enough to offset the benefits of the earlier hatch+pool completely, but definitely enough to take away that benefit, so you're not really going to be that far ahead in larvae. If larvae are your concern, try 13p15h. That seems to have a big larva advantage over everything else, and doesn't sacrifice nearly as much economy as your replays do. A 300 mineral difference is *HUGE*, way bigger than anything that's been tested so far. | ||
|
Skrag
United States643 Posts
On December 15 2010 04:57 jacobman wrote: That's a really interesting idea. If you're at lets say 18 drones which have already settled and you take two off to bring to the expansion, you will have to settle the drones again when you bring the main to 18 for the second time. Exactly. And settling at max saturation (20 on xelnaga mains) can take a *really* long time. I think I mentioned this before, but I've seen times well over two minutes to settle in that last worker, and until it's settled in, it is basically providing zero benefit to your economy. In that situation it might be better as you say to rally all the drones to the expansion until you reach 18, to avoid having to resettle drones. Although, when you have equal number of drones, it's definitely better to put the rallies back on their own mineral lines. You do lose drone mining time every time you send a drone to a different hatch. Not nearly as much time as you lose if you send drones to a hatch that already has the maximum number of workers, which is why I think 48 is probably at least 6 too many. | ||
| ||
