I'm hoping that tl can help figure out what defend-able zerg build is the most economic.
There has been a lot of talk about economic zerg builds lately, and I made this post because I'm the type of player that prefers to try to find ways to make the most economic builds defend-able.
I am aware of this thread, which did some good work.
The thread is really behind as far as the it goes for actually finding the build which can lead to the most economy since all effort in the thread essentially moved to the 11 pool 18 hatch build. It also never tries to address which builds are actually playable, by trying to play them, besides the 11 pool obviously.
This is not a thread for the super early pool builds that have gotten a lot of discussion recently. Although there are some very good builds in that category, there is currently plenty of discussion on those builds on separate threads. I am however including some data on those builds just for reference and so that people don't wonder why they're not included.
Here is the way that a build will be judged in defendability and economy.
For defendability the build simply needs to be played on the ladder. I'm looking for good replays, preferably of the build holding off types of early pressure. I think this is the best way to get evidence for or against a builds ability to be defended.
For economy I will be judging the builds by using replays. The build order will be played by the AI. The minerals will be assessed at the 6:20 mark with a maximum of 48 drones being built, which is absolute two base saturation. After 48 drones, only overlords will be made. The average mineral value between the beginning of the 6:20 second and the end of the 6:20 second will used. Larva coming from spawn larva will be prorated based on the percent completion of spawn larva.
Overtime I will do more runs with the AI and average the numbers. There is a small difference of about plus or minus 15 minerals between trials. This is due to the random walk of the larva, which causes drones mining behavior to be slightly different in each trial. All AI tests are done on Xel'Naga Caverns on the bottom left position.
I'm including some results from Skrag too. He is a user who was producing builds run by the AI also. I'm unsure if the AI runs exactly the same as mine, but the same reliability in how the AI executes should be in those results. Therefore the results from Skrag may be easily compared to other results from Skrag.
In addition to this, results for a build order tester will be included. Although, at this point I will only be using the build order tester to find new builds to check. The build order tester has been found to give very unreliable results, which do not always reflect what will happen in the game. However it does give a VERY ballpark estimate for builds. It just can't be used to compare one build to another because it is not accurate enough. The build order tester I'm using is the following:
As evidence for builds is submitted in the comments, I will update this OP so people have a nice place to access lots of information and analysis on different builds. If you are talking about a build please include a detailed description of the build (aka overlord times ect. ).
Build Suggestions
Also, here are some build base suggestions if you want to help gather data but you don't know what you could try.
13H/15P 14H/14P 13P/15H 11P/18H
If you would like to try your own AI testing here are some things that I learned while writing my own script for this purpose.
Please do not complain to me about the scripting tutorial. This is my first attempt at any type of tutorial. If you do not find the tutorial helpful, simply ignore it. If you do find the information in this tutorial helpful, I am glad.
Scripting can be done right within the StarCraft II Map Editor. The first thing you will need before you begin scripting an AI to test build orders is a map for the AI to play on. For all of my tests the AI played on the bottom left corner of Xel'Naga Caverns. If you would like to compare your results to what I have found, this would be the best map to use.
After you have opened the map you must create a script. First open up the "Triggers" window. This can be done by going to
Modules > Triggers
You may also press f6 or click on the button at the top of the screen with the two gears on it. It will say Triggers if you hover your cursor over it.
Once you have the triggers screen open you will need to create your main script. You will need to click on the white box on the far left that has the Melee Initialization trigger sitting in it, most likely by itself. Right click in this white box and go to,
New > New Custom Script
You can name this whatever you want. It's not important. This script will run right when the map first loads, and it is the script that will contain all the additional functions that you wish to add to the game. To introduce you to some of the important functions in Galaxy Scripting and to help you create a few important functions of your own, I'm going to go over how to create three functions. Those functions are one which will output the number of units of a certain type that a player has, a function that will tell the computer to expand, and a function that will tell the computer to execute an extractor trick. Below are the walkthroughs for these functions. If you don't know what you're doing at all, I highly suggest you go through them in order.
The first function we will create is the function that outputs the number of a particular unit that a player has. To start making a function you must first declare the function. This starts by declaring what this function will output. Since this particular function is going to be outputting a number, we want to use the header "int". This is simply the type of data that your function is going to output when it runs. If your function does not output data you will use "void". After this header put a space and type in the name that you would like this function to be called by. This can be whatever you want it to be. A good choice might be "getUnitCount". The name cannot have any spaces in it.
The next step in declaring your function is to declare the parameters that the function will take in. The parameters are simply the data that the function will need input in order to do anything. For example if your creating a function that give you the time until a particular time, your function might require the current time to be input. For this function we will be declaring two parameters, which will be the number of the player that we want to run this function for and the name of the type of unit we want to look for. To do this add the following to what you already have, "(int player, String Unit)". string is another type of data that can be used in the header, just like int. A string is just a series of characters, like a word. Basically, it is text. The galaxy editor identifies many things, such as units, by strings. Finally add the start and end of the function, which is simply curly brackets "{}". At this point, you should have the following:
int getUnitCount (int player, string Unit) {}
player and Unit are both variables that this function is going to take in before it runs. Player is a variable of the type int and Unit is a variable of the type Unit. unit may not be used as a name as it is actually a data type just like int and string are. That is why I used Unit instead. Since we have have not put anything within the curly brackets this function does not do anything yet. Also, since we have not output an int as we said we would with the int header, this script will return an error currently. We must now add the body of the script. This will be written within the curly brackets.
The first thing we need to do in any function is to declare the variables that we will be using. We already have access to the variables player and Unit, which will be passed the this function when it is run, but most functions make use of other variables within the function as well. In this case we will only be using one other variable. That variable is a unitgroup. A unit group is a type of variable just like int or string. Do define it, simply type,
unitgroup units;
units is the name of our unitgroup in this example. Notice also that the line is ended with a semicolon. Most lines in scripting must end in a semicolon or they will return an error. At this pint the variable units has no data associated with it and should return an error if called. We must put data in the variable units for it to be used. To do this, on a new line type
units = AIFindUnits(player, Unit, PlayerStartLocation(player), 500, 400);
At this point your script should look like the following:
int getUnitCount(int player,string Unit) { unitgroup units; units = AIFindUnits(player, Unit, PlayerStartLocation(player), 500, 400); }
AIFindUnits is a predefined function of the galaxy editor. It takes in 5 parameters. Three of those paremeters are int, one is a string, and one is a point variable, which we have not seen before. The first parameter, player, is the variable that we put within the parameters of our function declaration. This variable is an int, which is number, and it is the number of the player we want to call the function for. The second parameter of AIFindUnits, Unit, is also a variable that is in the parameters of our function declaration. It is a string, and it is the name that represents the unit we are looking for. The third parameter is a location variable. I have used the start location of the player we want in this case. To get that location variable I used the function, PlayerStartLocation(int PLAYER). I input the int player for its parameter. The next parameter in AIFindUnits is an int. This number, 500, represents the distance from the specified point that AIFindUnits will look for the specified type of unit. This number is large so that it will search the entire map. The last parameter, 400, is also an int. It represents the maximum number of units that this function will count to. I put in 400 since with a supply cap of 200 you may get 400 zerglings. The starcraft II Galaxy editor has many of these predefined functions. Some information about them can be found online
Okay, so our variable "units" now has been given a value through the use of the function AIFindUnits. The final thing we need to do is to tell the function to output this number, just as we said we would. To do this, on a new line, type
return UnitGroupCount(units, 1);
Your function is now done and should look like the following:
int getUnitCount(int player,string Unit) { unitgroup units; units = AIFindUnits(2, Unit, PlayerStartLocation(player), 500, 33); return UnitGroupCount(units,1); }
UnitGroupCount is another function. It has parameters of unitgroup and int. We wanted to know how many units were within the unitgroup, units, which contained all the units of the type we declared that were found on the map from the the player we declared. The integer in the parameters is used for special circumstances and for normal use should be 1.
Okay, so now that we have this new function, lets test it out. In order to do this we're gong to add a very small script to the Melee Initialization trigger. Start by clicking on the icon that looks like a piece of paper and says Melee Initialization. On the right you should see a box that has Events, Actions, Conditions, ect. Right click in this box and go to
New > New Action
This will bring up a box with all the different option that you all. We're going to need the one called "custom script". Click this option and then press okay. This will create the new action. If the custom script action is not the last action in the list, click and drag the action to the end of the list. The map is going to run each of these actions in the order that you see them. After this is done click on the new action you created, custom script.
You will see a white box below this. Click in this box and you should see your cursor now. Type the following:
getUnitCount(2, "Drone");
We have just called the function we created earlier. The first parameter is the number of the player we will be looking at, which in this case is player2. The second parameter is the name of the unit that we wish to look for, which is "Drone". Every unit has it's own name, and some are more intuitive than others. The name for drone is really easy, it's Drone.
Calling this function by itself will not be very interesting. To actually be able to see that our function is working we are going to add one more line to this custom script. On the next line type,
This will display a message on the screen at the beginning on the name. In order to get it to display the number or drones that player 2 has at the beginning of the game take the function from the first line and copy and paste that function over the part that says "INTEGER!!!" . This will convert the number we get out of the getUnitCount function to a string, which will be displayed on the screen when we start the game. This script should now look like the following:
Now that we have declared and called the getUnitCount function; lets test it. To do this simply go to
File > Test Document
Alternatively you can press Ctrl + F9. When the map loads and begins you should see the number of drones that player 2 has display at the bottom. That number should be 6 since the game just started. If the number is not 6, go back and check your script to make sure that it's exactly as shown above. If the game does not start and you instead get an error, do the same thing. In this case, also double check that you have included a player 2 and that that player 2 is a computer. Also double check that the action to start the AI was included in the Melee Initialization trigger since computer players whose AI has not been started cannot use AI script functions.
The walkthroughs for the other two functions will be coming in the next couple days.
Feel free to submit any replays of a build you use that you believe to be top tier economically. More replays are needed. I know not every zerg player uses the 11 pool build. It would be nice to get some replays of other builds that are being used.
More data collection is still under way. The builds have each had 5 runs and the results are the average of those 5 runs.
So far for the economic analysis the best Hatch first build is the 13H/15P. The best pool first build is the 13P/15H. The 11P/18H also may deserve to be added because it gets the pool earlier. This conclusion says nothing about how the builds will operate when intricate timings between two builds that exist in the actual game coming into play. Although, it is definitely a good place to start from if you want to test those things.
That thread essentially stopped updating a while ago. All focus moved to the 11 pool. I've found builds better economically than the leading build in that post. Also, I've come to the conclusion that the method used to look at the economy, replays, is too unreliable. It's just too hard to get any replay to be perfect. Like I said in the post, imperceptible differences in the play of the build led to totally different numbers, making it near impossible to figure out how good a build actually is.
Also, I want to try testing builds in actual games in addition to this to figure out which builds are actually viable. I'm hoping some people can figure out ways to pull of some builds that appear really risky at first.
I think you, and the thread on zerg econ/11overpool are looking at this in the wrong way. If hatch first is economically better, even by a small margin, there is no reason not to go hatch first _if your goal is only econ_ (fool saturation on 2 bases). If the problem is that hatch first is too vulnerable, your goal is not econ.
going pool first is obviously safer, but if you are testing only for econ you are not going to find the build you want. You want a build that can fend off early aggression and have the better econ after that. This means you have to put lings, spines and/or gas in your goals.
take the 11overpool build, which wants a hatch on 18/18. I think that is the weakest part of it, because if for some reason you cant or dont want to put that hatch down you are supply blocked. You can obviously build an overlord and say take gas and a roach warren instead, but a build that accounts for that is going to be more efficient when you want a pair of lings around that time, and it probably has a different pool timing.
I think what we need to do is break down types of aggression from different races and see what units (not drones) we typically want against toss/terran/zerg and try to find the optimal build for that. E.g. I suspect that against toss, if you can prevent/hold the cannon rush with only drones, hatch first is going to be the best build. Against terran if it turns out you need banelings to hold the marine+scv rush you have to go for a relatively late hatch to get all that tech out first, etc.
Just setting pool first as a restriction and then making only drones kind of defeats the purpose of a pool first build, and the optimal build for pool + drones is gonna be different from the optimal build for pool + units and tech (which can be reverted back to drones if not under pressure).
On December 05 2010 20:09 dementrio wrote: I think you, and the thread on zerg econ/11overpool are looking at this in the wrong way. If hatch first is economically better, even by a small margin, there is no reason not to go hatch first _if your goal is only econ_ (fool saturation on 2 bases). If the problem is that hatch first is too vulnerable, your goal is not econ.
going pool first is obviously safer, but if you are testing only for econ you are not going to find the build you want. You want a build that can fend off early aggression and have the better econ after that. This means you have to put lings, spines and/or gas in your goals.
take the 11overpool build, which wants a hatch on 18/18. I think that is the weakest part of it, because if for some reason you cant or dont want to put that hatch down you are supply blocked. You can obviously build an overlord and say take gas and a roach warren instead, but a build that accounts for that is going to be more efficient when you want a pair of lings around that time, and it probably has a different pool timing.
I think what we need to do is break down types of aggression from different races and see what units (not drones) we typically want against toss/terran/zerg and try to find the optimal build for that. E.g. I suspect that against toss, if you can prevent/hold the cannon rush with only drones, hatch first is going to be the best build. Against terran if it turns out you need banelings to hold the marine+scv rush you have to go for a relatively late hatch to get all that tech out first, etc.
Just setting pool first as a restriction and then making only drones kind of defeats the purpose of a pool first build, and the optimal build for pool + drones is gonna be different from the optimal build for pool + units and tech (which can be reverted back to drones if not under pressure).
I would agree that it would be better to go hatch first every time if it was the best economic choice AND you could manage to defend it. The only builds I want to exclude are the ones where you will just get owned if you try the build and someone else does a particular thing. Some builds might just be too slow to defend certain types of early aggression. To find out you just need to play.
As far as it goes with adding in lings and such I don't think it's necessary for economy analysis. Take adding a ling pair for example. They are both set back by 50 minerals and one larva cycle. Adding things to builds at certain times interrupts the builds. The build with the better economic potential is still going to be ahead at that point. Obviously there are some nuances, but in general as long as you add the same thing to both builds at the same time, the one that would have performed better before will still perform better with the change. The only time where this is not the case is in the very very beginning of the build when you're income is low, and that's exactly the time that I'm most concerned about seeing game replays for.
I think the other thread would be much more suitable for this post, in all honesty. The only reason that thread moved primarily towards the 11pool/18hatch build was not because it was best, it was because myself and a few others decided to test it extensively, posting our replays and findings. I think if you would do the same thing on other builds, the focus would shift off the Lomilar build. Besides, I've nothing more to ersearch, it's merit has already been proven to me. I think consolidating all these economy build threads into one would be more beneficial (I.E. Putting an end to the zerg economy debate thread...)
On December 05 2010 20:38 roadrunner343 wrote: I think the other thread would be much more suitable for this post, in all honesty. The only reason that thread moved primarily towards the 11pool/18hatch build was not because it was best, it was because myself and a few others decided to test it extensively, posting our replays and findings. I think if you would do the same thing on other builds, the focus would shift off the Lomilar build. Besides, I've nothing more to ersearch, it's merit has already been proven to me. I think consolidating all these economy build threads into one would be more beneficial (I.E. Putting an end to the zerg economy debate thread...)
eh, I made this one because the Putting an end to the zerg economy debate thread stopped updating. Also, I now disagree with the method used to judge economy. Replays are too fickle with their results. That makes this a totally different approach. The data in that thread isn't really too informative here and since the thread didn't really have a replay component, I can't get those from there either.
I do think I will hunt down some of the replays in the other threads and post them in here eventually. Almost all of them are of the 11 pool 18 hatch though. I'm not sure if I want to bring those here because there is already enough discussion about that pool in its own post.
On December 05 2010 20:18 jacobman wrote: As far as it goes with adding in lings and such I don't think it's necessary for economy analysis.
I think it is. take 11pool vs 13 or 14 pool. the 11pool gives you a faster queen which is going to help if you only make drones, evening out the econ. but if you need a few lings early, say around 16 supply, the later pool is going to be economically better because you will have more drones mining when those lings are being made. cutting drones early has a big impact on your economy.
If you tell the evo chamber software that you want to only make drones it will tell you to do 10pool 12 queen. However if you tell it that you want the same amount of drones AND a few lings, it will tell you to do 13pool. I have not tested this thoroughly but I think that with the larva system of choosing between units/drones even a measly amount of early units is going to impact your econ enough to swing the effectiveness of different BOs.
Let's make competiton: Who will mine the most minerals by 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00? Also incude time of first pair_of_zerglings can be made, and when does hatch finishes for creep spreed.
also consider that if you need early tech (warren or nest), with the early pool (and queen) you will have to save up resources to put that down while you have larva stockpiling (and less drones mining); with a later pool you are larva-starved until your injects kick in and its going to be more efficient. I just dont think that testing for only drones is going to give you the best BO for when you need units.
On December 05 2010 20:51 k43r wrote: Let's make competiton: Who will mine the most minerals by 3:00, 4:00, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00? Also incude time of first pair_of_zerglings can be made, and when does hatch finishes for creep spreed.
I would absolutely do this if it weren't for some limitations. It's really cumbersome to figure out the minerals mined at many points in time with the build order testers, and trying to do it in game is too unreliable. That's why I chose just one check after the economy is saturated.
This is the build order tester I'm using right now.
If you know of one that is more user friendly that would allow for the six time test you suggested, let me know, because I would love to have even more detailed data.
On December 05 2010 20:57 dementrio wrote: also consider that if you need early tech (warren or nest), with the early pool (and queen) you will have to save up resources to put that down while you have larva stockpiling (and less drones mining); with a later pool you are larva-starved until your injects kick in and its going to be more efficient. I just dont think that testing for only drones is going to give you the best BO for when you need units.
I mentioned it before, but I really want to rely on game testing to figure out what early game issues a build has. The economy analysis is simply to figure out what is possible. The game tests should help determine if early game pressure will derail the build enough to ruin it.
Also if you're suggesting a build that plans on getting something particular unusually early, like a roach warren or upgrade, then that must be put into the build. The way I play I usually wait until excess income starts piling up to start those types of things. This is usually in the low twenty supply for any build and that is around the time when I have good scouting info on what the opponent is doing.
i think you should introduce a key of real world economy to rate the builds:
Risk / reward
This means: compare the eco improvement of a build with the risk to loose against early pressure. from the numbers posted recently here, i'd say 11 pool is superior, as it is much safer with a very little price in eco. however i agree with op, that even doing minor delays in executing a build makes a huge difference later on, so basically for us amateurs the best investment would be to train executing an 11 pool perfectly. another interesting category to judge a build is the ease of executing the build while being distracted/under opponent pressure. even an extractor trick introduces a (minor) potential of errors (misclick, distraction, delay).
On December 05 2010 21:03 jacobman wrote: I mentioned it before, but I really want to rely on game testing to figure out what early game issues a build has. The economy analysis is simply to figure out what is possible. The game tests should help determine if early game pressure will derail the build enough to ruin it.
this is very hard to do, because any pool-first build can easily defend early pressure but it is not clear how that leaves you economically after that, since to fend off the pressure you had to deviate from the pure economy goal that the build was tested for. I know that if I can survive early with hatch first I feel I get in the midgame in a much stronger position than with a pool-first build after early aggression.
The other thread was much better than this effort. Much more information, and I prefer that it was done using replays of real people playing, rather than a program who's performance is not reflected in real play.
Also the most interesting question, the viability of the 11 pool 18 hatch build is not in this thread.
As far as it goes with adding in lings and such I don't think it's necessary for economy analysis. Take adding a ling pair for example. They are both set back by 50 minerals and one larva cycle.
I don't think this is correct. For example, the strength of the 11 pool build is that it generates more larva than the others. I don't know if this means it would be more or less affected by having to make lings (I would think less so?) but if you are going to address the question of defensibility then you need to tackle this question more directly.
On December 05 2010 21:03 jacobman wrote: I mentioned it before, but I really want to rely on game testing to figure out what early game issues a build has. The economy analysis is simply to figure out what is possible. The game tests should help determine if early game pressure will derail the build enough to ruin it.
this is very hard to do, because any pool-first build can easily defend early pressure but it is not clear how that leaves you economically after that, since to fend off the pressure you had to deviate from the pure economy goal that the build was tested for. I know that if I can survive early with hatch first I feel I get in the midgame in a much stronger position than with a pool-first build after early aggression.
It is a bit hard. I think the only way you can tease out the early game nuances of a build though is to play it and see what happens. As far as the deviation is concerned, if you have to deviate somewhat early, both builds will be hit by that. Any real issues caused by this should be fairly apparent in the replay, otherwise both builds should be delayed by approximately the same amount.
the 11pool sacrifices a bit of early econ to get more larva. if those larva are going to become drones it comes out ahead, but if you need units or tech you are economically behind a later pool. and if you don't need units you are still economically behind a hatch first build.
On December 05 2010 21:25 barrykp wrote: The other thread was much better than this effort. Much more information, and I prefer that it was done using replays of real people playing, rather than a program who's performance is not reflected in real play.
Also the most interesting question, the viability of the 11 pool 18 hatch build is not in this thread.
As far as it goes with adding in lings and such I don't think it's necessary for economy analysis. Take adding a ling pair for example. They are both set back by 50 minerals and one larva cycle.
I don't think this is correct. For example, the strength of the 11 pool build is that it generates more larva than the others. I don't know if this means it would be more or less affected by having to make lings (I would think less so?) but if you are going to address the question of defensibility then you need to tackle this question more directly.
The 11 pool 18 hatch is not in this thread because it has enough coverage already. It is being thoroughly tested on this post.
I can add it here I suppose, but I risk that build overshadowing anyone looking into other builds advantages and disadvantages then, while that build already has good analysis.
As far as replays go, the replays are even less reliable for any given persons "real play". The replays vary so much from person to person and trial to trial that they become nearly useless in comparing builds.
An example is the 14 Hatch 15 Pool. I have at least 3 replays of different builds which perform better than the replay that is posted for the 14 Hatch 15 Pool. These weren't small differences either. We're talking about a 100 mineral difference for at least one of them. However, as much as it pains me to say this, when I put the 14 Hatch 15 Pool build into the build tester, it actually came out ahead of the other builds even though it was significantly behind those builds in the replay.
Another example is the 11 Pool 18 Hatch. If you read some of the thread you will see that there was a point where I brought up the 13 Pool 15 Hatch build as a possible alternative. After tons of redoing replays for that build people finally managed to eek out enough minerals to match the replay of the 13 Pool 15 Hatch that I provided. They had to make about a 100 minerals gain in this situation too to catch up. When put into the build tester it says that the 13 Pool 15 Hatch build actually ahead minerals a small amount and that it isn't quite 3 larva behind. While it wasn't ahead by an astronomical amount, my point is that none of this is even close to obvious by looking through all the replays that were made. Replays just vary too much to be able to use them to compare builds.
On December 05 2010 21:09 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: i think you should introduce a key of real world economy to rate the builds:
Risk / reward
This means: compare the eco improvement of a build with the risk to loose against early pressure. from the numbers posted recently here, i'd say 11 pool is superior, as it is much safer with a very little price in eco. however i agree with op, that even doing minor delays in executing a build makes a huge difference later on, so basically for us amateurs the best investment would be to train executing an 11 pool perfectly. another interesting category to judge a build is the ease of executing the build while being distracted/under opponent pressure. even an extractor trick introduces a (minor) potential of errors (misclick, distraction, delay).
Safety is somewhat an overrated term. Most of the time you can either adequately defend the build from early pressure or you can't. It's usually obvious when the build is failing to defend pushes to the point where it is detrimental. My goal is to find out what build, with the best economic potential, can adequately be defended from all hypothetical forms of pressure.
First of all, what people doesn't tend to see is that if they're looking for most economical build they are actually looking for a build that has best production capacity with only sufficient economy to support it. It is very important to keep that in mind!
The idea behind this 11 pool is sound, but currently it is not optimized. Pool-first builds rely on early queen to increase larvae production rate, which is in fact higher than hatchery(4/40 larvae per second compared to 1/15). So logically we should get the queen as fast as possible even sacrificing production at hatchery, building a pool maybe @8-9-10 as queens production is higher than hatchery's? Not exactly! The sooner we get a queen the later we get a hatchery as we are sacrificing economy for quicker queen. So the best solution must lie somewhere in the middle, a compromise between quicker queen, later hatch & later queen, quicker hatch.
I have a optimized version that i have used some time now. 9 overlord 12 pool (why not 11: because it will not sacrifice production rate by idling larvae) 16 queen 18 hatch 17 drone 18 overlord 18 extractor trick (best time to take gas) 17 drone second queen as soon as the first queen is ready
I also have compared it to 14 hatch 14 pool double queen build. They are nearly identical in terms of production capacity. (>1 larvae/drone)
Practically speaking early pool builds will offer more flexibility and you don't have pull off your drones to protect against early harassment as you probably sacrifice a lot more than you gain from going hatch first.
I'll post a replay soon
EDIT: ups a minor error 18 extractor trick (best time to take gas) 17 drone 18 overlord
should be: 18 overlord 18 extractor trick (best time to take gas) 17 drone EDIT#2: http://www.upload.ee/files/966083/12pool18hatch.SC2Replay.html
On December 05 2010 23:03 scAre wrote: First of all, what people doesn't tend to see is that if they're looking for most economical build they are actually looking for a build that has best production capacity with only sufficient economy to support it. It is very important to keep that in mind!
The idea behind this 11 pool is sound, but currently it is not optimized. Pool-first builds rely on early queen to increase larvae production rate, which is in fact higher than hatchery(4/40 larvae per second compared to 1/15). So logically we should get the queen as fast as possible even sacrificing production at hatchery, building a pool maybe @8-9-10 as queens production is higher than hatchery's? Not exactly! The sooner we get a queen the later we get a hatchery as we are sacrificing economy for quicker queen. So the best solution must lie somewhere in the middle, a compromise between quicker queen, later hatch & later queen, quicker hatch.
I have a optimized version that i have used some time now. 9 overlord 12 pool (why not 11: because it will not sacrifice production rate by idling larvae) 16 queen 18 hatch 17 drone ( best time to build lings if necessary) 18 extractor trick (best time to take gas) 17 drone 18 overlord second queen as soon as the first queen is ready
I also have compared it to 14 hatch 14 pool double queen build. They are nearly identical in terms of production capacity. (>1 larvae/drone)
Practically speaking early pool builds will offer more flexibility and you don't have pull off your drones to protect against early harassment as you probably sacrifice a lot more than you gain from going hatch first.
I'll post a replay soon
Thanks, I'll try figuring out what the theoretical optimal economic yield on that should be and I'll add your replay as soon as you post it.
Also of note, it's not totally true what you say about production capacity and economy to support it. Pretty much any extra economy you can get in these builds can be put to use in some way. Most notably the economy affects when you can take your 3rd. In addition to this the economy listed is actually just a translation from total worker time in the build. This means that the better economy builds have more of an opportunity to get gas, which is extremely important to zerg even if you don't use it right away.
I think 18 hatch is an awkward timing. versus terran and zerg that's when you'll get the early aggression we are trying to fend off, the hatch is only a liability at that time and we sacrifice econ/tech to get it that early... and if you plan on delaying the hatch if you see bunker rush/banelings at your door, you were better off with a later pool in the first place.
On December 05 2010 23:25 dementrio wrote: I think 18 hatch is an awkward timing. versus terran and zerg that's when you'll get the early aggression we are trying to fend off, the hatch is only a liability at that time and we sacrifice econ/tech to get it that early... and if you plan on delaying the hatch if you see bunker rush/banelings at your door, you were better off with a later pool in the first place.
There is actually a thread for the 11 pool 18 hatch that has a bunch of replays. You can take a look at those and it might help you decide if 18 hatch really is an awkward timing. I'm staying slightly away from that build in this thread just because it's already so well covered.
On December 05 2010 23:17 Alpina wrote: 14/15 gives more minerals that 16/15, interesting.......
Yeah, I wasn't expecting that either since I had replays where I was ahead compared to the replays of the 14/15 that were posted. However I've had plenty of experience with replays varying wildly in results from one to the other, so I'm not that surprised.
Although, if you notice something wrong in the build orders that can be fixed or if you notice the program doing anything glitchy that it shouldn't be, definitely mention it to me. If it's the program also mention it on this thread that is dedicated to the build tester:
On December 05 2010 23:03 scAre wrote: First of all, what people doesn't tend to see is that if they're looking for most economical build they are actually looking for a build that has best production capacity with only sufficient economy to support it. It is very important to keep that in mind!
The idea behind this 11 pool is sound, but currently it is not optimized. Pool-first builds rely on early queen to increase larvae production rate, which is in fact higher than hatchery(4/40 larvae per second compared to 1/15). So logically we should get the queen as fast as possible even sacrificing production at hatchery, building a pool maybe @8-9-10 as queens production is higher than hatchery's? Not exactly! The sooner we get a queen the later we get a hatchery as we are sacrificing economy for quicker queen. So the best solution must lie somewhere in the middle, a compromise between quicker queen, later hatch & later queen, quicker hatch.
I have a optimized version that i have used some time now. 9 overlord 12 pool (why not 11: because it will not sacrifice production rate by idling larvae) 16 queen 18 hatch 17 drone ( best time to build lings if necessary) 18 extractor trick (best time to take gas) 17 drone 18 overlord second queen as soon as the first queen is ready
I also have compared it to 14 hatch 14 pool double queen build. They are nearly identical in terms of production capacity. (>1 larvae/drone)
Practically speaking early pool builds will offer more flexibility and you don't have pull off your drones to protect against early harassment as you probably sacrifice a lot more than you gain from going hatch first.
I'll post a replay soon
I got the results up for your 12 pool variation of the 18 hatch build. It looks to be about on par with the 11 pool variation. It's kind of to be expected though since it wasn't too big of a change.
EDIT: I saw your edit and I'm a little confused. Are you doing an extractor trick (make extractor, make drone, cancel extractor) or are you actually making an extractor? It's ambiguous from your wording and supply count. An extractor trick should leave you at one higher supply and actually making an extractor is what would leave you with one less supply.
In the end of the day, I think all this zerg economy talk is useless unless you're playing against yourself. There's too much things that can happen in a game that can make one build better than another and the 100 extra minerals from this or that wont matter. While its somewhat nice to know which build gets the most minerals out, its pretty pointless and the build thats safest with a nice eco and preferred by the player will be used.
As far as replays go, the replays are even less reliable for any given persons "real play". The replays vary so much from person to person and trial to trial that they become nearly useless in comparing builds
Yes there is a certain amount of variance in everyone's play and in the maps (for example there is a difference between minerals above the hatchery and minerals below, or to the side), but this means that your purely-theorycrafted approach is even less relevant: the results from the calculator you use (and from Lomilar's build order optimiser) aren't reproducible in-game. Experimentation is an error-strewn process, but it's still a better predictor than just using theory.
I got the results up for your 12 pool variation of the 18 hatch build. It looks to be about on par with the 11 pool variation. It's kind of to be expected though since it wasn't too big of a change.
EDIT: I saw your edit and I'm a little confused. Are you doing an extractor trick (make extractor, make drone, cancel extractor) or are you actually making an extractor? It's ambiguous from your wording and supply count. An extractor trick should leave you at one higher supply and actually making an extractor is what would leave you with one less supply.
Well if you like to make it a race then I suppose extractor trick would be more appropriate, as you can pump only drones and overlords, nothing else. To make it actually a practical build i suggest taking a gas at that timing. In fact It will work out quite beatifully if you are taking a gas, because there will be at all times 2 drones per mineral, so there will be no oversaturation. Later you can set worker rally points to expansion.
I tried to make a showcase replay but failed due 3 times in a row i got cheesed lol and had to deviate from my standard.
Simplest way to get the replay is to play with computer.
As far as replays go, the replays are even less reliable for any given persons "real play". The replays vary so much from person to person and trial to trial that they become nearly useless in comparing builds
Yes there is a certain amount of variance in everyone's play and in the maps (for example there is a difference between minerals above the hatchery and minerals below, or to the side), but this means that your purely-theorycrafted approach is even less relevant: the results from the calculator you use (and from Lomilar's build order optimiser) aren't reproducible in-game. Experimentation is an error-strewn process, but it's still a better predictor than just using theory.
I can't use the data from actual game play unless I have a whole ton of replays for each build by the same person to reduce all the error. Without that it's impossible to compare the replays because you don't know if you're 50 minerals from the ideal, 100 minerals from ideal, 150 minerals ect. The results from the predictor can't be reproduced because it's perfect timing, but it's consistently perfect timing, which is more important. The only way the predictor is bad is if it's actually wrong.
On December 06 2010 01:19 raf3776 wrote: In the end of the day, I think all this zerg economy talk is useless unless you're playing against yourself. There's too much things that can happen in a game that can make one build better than another and the 100 extra minerals from this or that wont matter. While its somewhat nice to know which build gets the most minerals out, its pretty pointless and the build thats safest with a nice eco and preferred by the player will be used.
Eh, I somewhat agree with you amazingly enough. I think you can do anything from 10 - 18 pool hatch whatever and unless you're really good, the build you use is going to be less important than what you do after you get the game started. It does make a difference, but for many people other factors will hold much more weight.
I got the results up for your 12 pool variation of the 18 hatch build. It looks to be about on par with the 11 pool variation. It's kind of to be expected though since it wasn't too big of a change.
EDIT: I saw your edit and I'm a little confused. Are you doing an extractor trick (make extractor, make drone, cancel extractor) or are you actually making an extractor? It's ambiguous from your wording and supply count. An extractor trick should leave you at one higher supply and actually making an extractor is what would leave you with one less supply.
Well if you like to make it a race then I suppose extractor trick would be more appropriate, as you can pump only drones and overlords, nothing else. To make it actually a practical build i suggest taking a gas at that timing. In fact It will work out quite beatifully if you are taking a gas, because there will be at all times 2 drones per mineral, so there will be no oversaturation. Later you can set worker rally points to expansion.
I tried to make a showcase replay but failed due 3 times in a row i got cheesed lol and had to deviate from my standard.
Simplest way to get the replay is to play with computer.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the replays. Don't fret about it too much. I'm figuring it's your main build, so if you just have a good game, drop the replay by. If we're making it a race, then I think I got your build right in what I posted originally. I did extractor trick at that point.
A practical build order: 9 overlord 12 pool 16 queen (i suggest sending it after a single larvae inject to expansion, so queen will arrive the same moment hatchery finishes) 18 hatch 17 lings 18 gas 17 drone 18 overlord 18 queen (i suggest making a creeptumor as soon as queen#2 finishes and not a inject as it is more practical, sacrificing some production) 22 overlord @100 gas zergling speed @100 gas lair -> second gas
Yeah, I know what you mean about the replays. Don't fret about it too much. I'm figuring it's your main build, so if you just have a good game, drop the replay by. If we're making it a race, then I think I got your build right in what I posted originally. I did extractor trick at that point.
If you want to compare builds, it is more accurate to calculate them using as few timings from a replay as possible. For example, I suggest get a time when pool is started, and time when hatch is started, everything else you can calculate. This will minimize "the human factor" and will estimate "the potential" of that build.
Building times: Pool = 65 Queen = 50 Hatch = 100 etc. And if you want even more accuracy, then there should be multiple attempts to get a average times.
EDIT: Here is a tool that i made in beta to compare the potential of different builds https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkbMC3lhYNFjdFVqM1dZaENSaThwakRmTW9CYi1EZFE&hl=en#gid=0
NB! It assumes that there is no delay between actions. For example queen injects larvae immediatly as its complete, and doesnt count in time if it has to get to expansion. Nor does it count in time when larvae is idling(production rate stopped) etc. These factors must be added or subtracted separatly. (using a simple formulae: +-<production rate>*<time interval>= <larvae count>
You simply *cannot* rely on the results of build order calculators or optimizers for comparisons. It is absolutely necessary to do the comparisons in-game, in the best way you possibly can.
Build order calculators have a simplified version of reality that simply does not reflect actual results to the letter, and you *will* get the incorrect answers from them.
Yeah, I know what you mean about the replays. Don't fret about it too much. I'm figuring it's your main build, so if you just have a good game, drop the replay by. If we're making it a race, then I think I got your build right in what I posted originally. I did extractor trick at that point.
If you want to compare builds, it is more accurate to calculate them using as few timings from a replay as possible. For example, I suggest get a time when pool is started, and time when hatch is started, everything else you can calculate. This will minimize "the human factor" and will estimate "the potential" of that build.
Building times: Pool = 65 Queen = 50 Hatch = 100 etc. And if you want even more accuracy, then there should be multiple attempts to get a average times.
EDIT: Here is a tool that i made in beta to compare the potential of different builds https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AkbMC3lhYNFjdFVqM1dZaENSaThwakRmTW9CYi1EZFE&hl=en#gid=0
NB! It assumes that there is no delay between actions. For example queen injects larvae immediatly as its complete, and doesnt count in time if it has to get to expansion. Nor does it count in time when larvae is idling(production rate stopped) etc. These factors must be added or subtracted separatly. (using a simple formulae: +-<production rate>*<time interval>= <larvae count>
I was hoping I wouldn't have to address this, but I will add the timings in, as it's not that hard to do. It shouldn't change things as it regards to how one build is relative to another. The queen didn't have any move time, but unless I messed up, the builds where it was required that the first queen move to the expansion, there was enough time allowed for the queen to move.
Also, it does count idling larvae time.
ps. before I forget, I just checked to the general timings for movements. It takes about 28 seconds to move a queen to a new base. It takes about 15 seconds to move a drone to a new base, and it takes about 2 seconds to move a drone to make a spawning pool. These are the timings I'm going to add.
On December 06 2010 08:47 Skrag wrote: You simply *cannot* rely on the results of build order calculators or optimizers for comparisons. It is absolutely necessary to do the comparisons in-game, in the best way you possibly can.
Build order calculators have a simplified version of reality that simply does not reflect actual results to the letter, and you *will* get the incorrect answers from them.
Use them as a guide, not a deciding factor.
As I said before, the in-game comparisons are just as unreliable. The best you can do is use the replays as a general guide and not a deciding factor. Unless you have a lot of replays, you can't really be sure at all of any comparisons between two builds. Most builds that were compared before only had a couple replays. Personally I would say that best replay analysis would be one where you had a lot (just guessing on how many you need to reduce the error good enough, but maybe 15) of replays for for both builds and the replays were from the same person on the same map with the same position on the same game speed. It's important to note that replay results seem to vary a lot between who plays and how many times they have played the particular build before. In order to avoid those differences it would put a lot of work on one person to test each and every build over and over again. A build order calculator doesn't have to mimic how any one person plays in reality. It just has to reflect the results if the computer were to play build perfectly. That's true potential of a build.
FWIW, the most effective way I've currently found to truly compare builds for economy advantages is to perform the build on Slowest (which gives you plenty of time to not mess up important stuff), and then rather than recording mineral counts, which can vary a lot depending on exactly what instant you take the measurement at, record drone finish times, and compute the difference in available worker-seconds for the various time frames.
For example, worker 9 comes out at 46 seconds in all builds.
11 pool finishes worker 10 at 53 seconds, worker 11 at 67 seconds, pulls a worker to build the pool at 87 seconds, finishes worker 11 again at 114 seconds, worker 12 at 121 seconds, and worker 13 at 129 seconds.
13 pool finishes worker 10 at 73 seconds, workers 11 & 12 at 89 seconds, and worker 13 at 96 seconds.
From this, you can say that from 53-67 seconds, 11pool is 1 worker ahead, from 67-73, it's two ahead, from 73-87 it's 1 ahead, from 87-89 it's even, from 89-96 it's 2 behind, and from 96-114 it's 1 behind.
So at the 1:54 mark, 11pool is ahead a total of 8 workerseconds, or 5.6 minerals. (workerseconds*7)
It's a huge pain in the ass to do this, especially if you want to go up through the first 20-24 workers, and your timings have to be as clean as possible (which is why I do it on slow) but it's by far the most accurate comparison method I've found, because it uses actual in-game timings, but doesn't have time-of-measurement issues.
It also gives you a much clearer picture of who is ahead during which timeframes, and by how much.
On December 06 2010 08:58 jacobman wrote: As I said before, the in-game comparisons are just as unreliable. The best you can do is use the replays as a general guide and not a deciding factor.
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
On December 06 2010 09:05 Skrag wrote: FWIW, the most effective way I've currently found to truly compare builds for economy advantages is to perform the build on Slowest (which gives you plenty of time to not mess up important stuff), and then rather than recording mineral counts, which can vary a lot depending on exactly what instant you take the measurement at, record drone finish times, and compute the difference in available worker-seconds for the various time frames.
For example, worker 9 comes out at 46 seconds in all builds.
11 pool finishes worker 10 at 53 seconds, worker 11 at 67 seconds, pulls a worker to build the pool at 87 seconds, finishes worker 11 again at 114 seconds, worker 12 at 121 seconds, and worker 13 at 129 seconds.
13 pool finishes worker 10 at 73 seconds, workers 11 & 12 at 89 seconds, and worker 13 at 96 seconds.
From this, you can say that from 53-67 seconds, 11pool is 1 worker ahead, from 67-73, it's two ahead, from 73-87 it's 1 ahead, from 87-89 it's even, from 89-96 it's 2 behind, and from 96-114 it's 1 behind.
So at the 1:54 mark, 11pool is ahead a total of 8 workerseconds, or 5.6 minerals. (workerseconds*7)
It's a huge pain in the ass to do this, especially if you want to go up through the first 20-24 workers, and your timings have to be as clean as possible (which is why I do it on slow) but it's by far the most accurate comparison method I've found, because it uses actual in-game timings, but doesn't have time-of-measurement issues.
It also gives you a much clearer picture of who is ahead during which timeframes, and by how much.
This is possible solution. I haven't tried it myself yet. Have you tried doing two replays of the same build and checking to see if they both end up giving the same results? I'm just curious because I found me and other people would get different mineral results between different tries. I'll check how it seems to work with my first two replays of a build I have. If it doesn't have practically any difference. I'll try it again to double check. I don't when I'll do this since I still have some other things to post first.
On December 06 2010 08:58 jacobman wrote: As I said before, the in-game comparisons are just as unreliable. The best you can do is use the replays as a general guide and not a deciding factor.
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
In game results are simply a bunch of math too. You can claim that a particular build simulator is flawed, but you can't say that simulators can't simulate perfect play. Unless you have a mistake in the math of the build simulator though, there's no reason to think that the build order calculator does not simulate perfect play.
On December 06 2010 09:11 jacobman wrote: This is possible solution. I haven't tried it myself yet. Have you tried doing two replays of the same build and checking to see if they both end up giving the same results? I'm just curious because I found me and other people would get different mineral results between different tries. I'll check how it seems to work with my first two replays of a build I have. If it doesn't have practically any difference. I'll try it again to double check. I don't when I'll do this since I still have some other things to post first.
Simply recording minerals is problematic for a couple reasons.
#1: The time at which you measure can make a *big* difference. For example, if you were to measure at a specific time when there just happened to be 8 drones about to return there minerals, and then measured one second later, there would be a 40 mineral difference.
#2: Small differences can have a significant impact on the mineral count. Missing a perfect inject by a second or two can make a difference, so can overlord timings. Even the way that the larvae randomly move, causing a particular drone to have to move further to get to the minerals, can make as much as a 5-10 mineral difference over time.
So yeah, obviously replays are not perfect. But if you play on slower, so you don't miss any important timings, and save often and reload every time you mess something up, they are still a lot better than the build order calculators, whose results don't even match reality, and can give you completely incorrect answers.
The nice thing about recording worker finish times is that as long as you're playing as perfectly as possible, and doing the same thing each game, they will always line up. Back when I was doing the 9OL vs extractor trick comparisons, I had a custom map that would spit out true start and finish times, down to the nearest 1/256th of a second (the smallest time increment measurable in the game), and it was actually pretty damn impressive how consistent the timings were.
But, like I said, it's a huge pain in the ass to calculate things that way, and you still have to have the build down as near-perfect as possible, including overlord timings, optimal (and consistent!) times to pull drones off to place buildings, when and how to inject vs using larvae from the previous inject, etc.
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
Yes, but we can estimate its "potential" to another build, if hypothetically we had a computer which executes perfectly.
Alas we do not have such a computer, but we can, like i said before, minimize the "human factor" to make results more reliable.
On December 06 2010 08:58 jacobman wrote: As I said before, the in-game comparisons are just as unreliable. The best you can do is use the replays as a general guide and not a deciding factor.
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
In game results are simply a bunch of math too. You can claim that a particular build simulator is flawed in simulated, but you can't say that simulators can't simulate perfect play. Unless you have a mistake in the math of the build simulator though, there's no reason to think that the build order calculator does not simulate perfect play.
None of the simulators that currently exist make any attempt whatsoever to simulate reality. They're not trying to simulate a game as it is played, they simplify the simulation drastically. For example, instead of trying to simulate trips to and from specific mineral patches, they just assume a .7 minerals/second mining rate for every active worker, when the fact of the matter is that having minerals come in 5 at a time rather than continuously at a constant rate *is important*.
It makes a difference, and sometimes a *big* difference. I'm not speaking theorycraft here. I have personally seen cases where the calculator flat out gave incorrect results, and cases where the build order optimizers would spit out builds that simply weren't possible to execute in game because the timings were all off.
So yes, they *could* simulate a perfect and realistic game. But they don't, because doing that would be an absolutely insane amount of work, and would involve basically reproducing the game's simulation loop. But they're not simulating perfect play. They're simulating perfect SIMPLIFIED play, which is something very different.
I think what all the people saying that "build order simulators are unreliable" are trying to say is that because the simulators don't take into account the nuances such as transfer time, they may skew the end result in favor of one opener over another--not just a constant change over all openers. I mean, I don't know how these build order simulators calculate the numbers, but being able to transfer more drones from the first base to the natural (like you would with the 11/18, for example) instantly would definitely give that opener the edge.
At the same time, though, I understand why using replays where the build is used in context of a ladder match, for example, is equally unreliable for reasons you already stated.
I agree with Skrag on how to test all these, though, with the repeated tests on slowest. It's the most tedious, but also the most accurate. However, instead of worker-mining time, I just looked at the income graph in the post-game screen (which I let run a few minutes past full saturation).
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
Yes, but we can estimate its "potential" to another build, if hypothetically we had a computer which executes perfectly.
Alas we do not have such a computer, but we can, like i said before, minimize the "human factor" to make results more reliable.
Again, the simulators do not emulate a computer that executes perfectly. They simplify the simulation drastically so that the results can be calculated quickly and without a ridiculous amount of work trying to reproduce the game's simulator.
You absolutely can use them to *estimate* the potential. But that is purely an estimation, and you cannot draw conclusions from it without showing valid in-game results.
The fact that it's extremely difficult to get consistent in-game results doesn't remove the requirement.
On December 06 2010 08:58 jacobman wrote: As I said before, the in-game comparisons are just as unreliable. The best you can do is use the replays as a general guide and not a deciding factor.
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
In game results are simply a bunch of math too. You can claim that a particular build simulator is flawed in simulated, but you can't say that simulators can't simulate perfect play. Unless you have a mistake in the math of the build simulator though, there's no reason to think that the build order calculator does not simulate perfect play.
None of the simulators that currently exist make any attempt whatsoever to simulate reality. They're not trying to simulate a game as it is played, they simplify the simulation drastically. For example, instead of trying to simulate trips to and from specific mineral patches, they just assume a .7 minerals/second mining rate for every active worker, when the fact of the matter is that having minerals come in 5 at a time rather than continuously at a constant rate *is important*.
It makes a difference, and sometimes a *big* difference. I'm not speaking theorycraft here. I have personally seen cases where the calculator flat out gave incorrect results, and cases where the build order optimizers would spit out builds that simply weren't possible to execute in game because the timings were all off.
So yes, they *could* simulate a perfect and realistic game. But they don't, because doing that would be an absolutely insane amount of work, and would involve basically reproducing the game's simulation loop. But they're not simulating perfect play. They're simulating perfect SIMPLIFIED play, which is something very different.
I tried looked at when drones popped for replays. Even playing it on slower I accumulated 2 seconds differences in timings sometimes. Even with your analysis that doesn't account for those fluctuations. 2 seconds is really easy to accumulate too. I couldn't even find where it was coming from when I watched the replay.
On December 06 2010 09:32 jacobman wrote: I tried looked at when drones popped for replays. Even playing it on slower I accumulated 2 seconds differences in timings sometimes. Even with your analysis that doesn't account for those fluctuations. 2 seconds is really easy to accumulate too. I couldn't even find where it was coming from when I watched the replay.
Then you personally are simply not quick enough or consistent enough to generate replays that can be accurately measured. As I said, when I was doing 9OL vs extractor trick comparisons, my timings ended up being very consistent, almost ridiculously so, since I was having the game tell me times down to 1/256th of a second. Then again, I never tried to go any higher than 15 supply in any of those tests, because all I needed to see was where the early advantages were.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is easy by any means. It's actually *really fucking hard*.
But that doesn't change the fact that it needs to be done, and that build order calculators/simulators can, and will, give you incorrect results that will lead you to flawed conclusions.
On December 06 2010 08:58 jacobman wrote: As I said before, the in-game comparisons are just as unreliable. The best you can do is use the replays as a general guide and not a deciding factor.
The build-order calculators are even MORE unreliable, especially when the results are close, because their results simply do not match reality.
It doesn't match what the computer could do if it played perfectly. It only matches what the simulation says would happen, which is not the same thing at all.
In game results are simply a bunch of math too. You can claim that a particular build simulator is flawed in simulated, but you can't say that simulators can't simulate perfect play. Unless you have a mistake in the math of the build simulator though, there's no reason to think that the build order calculator does not simulate perfect play.
None of the simulators that currently exist make any attempt whatsoever to simulate reality. They're not trying to simulate a game as it is played, they simplify the simulation drastically. For example, instead of trying to simulate trips to and from specific mineral patches, they just assume a .7 minerals/second mining rate for every active worker, when the fact of the matter is that having minerals come in 5 at a time rather than continuously at a constant rate *is important*.
It makes a difference, and sometimes a *big* difference. I'm not speaking theorycraft here. I have personally seen cases where the calculator flat out gave incorrect results, and cases where the build order optimizers would spit out builds that simply weren't possible to execute in game because the timings were all off.
So yes, they *could* simulate a perfect and realistic game. But they don't, because doing that would be an absolutely insane amount of work, and would involve basically reproducing the game's simulation loop. But they're not simulating perfect play. They're simulating perfect SIMPLIFIED play, which is something very different.
That is the only real simplification that can't be changed in a build order tester, except in the very beginning when you're low on minerals, it is largely irrelevent since by treating mining as continuous you actually get a better idea of worker minutes produced than by looking at minerals in a replay, since, as you said, a worker that hasn't dropped off it minerals yet has still been doing work since the last time it dropped off minerals.
On December 06 2010 09:32 jacobman wrote: I tried looked at when drones popped for replays. Even playing it on slower I accumulated 2 seconds differences in timings sometimes. Even with your analysis that doesn't account for those fluctuations. 2 seconds is really easy to accumulate too. I couldn't even find where it was coming from when I watched the replay.
Then you personally are simply not quick enough or consistent enough to generate replays that can be accurately measured. As I said, when I was doing 9OL vs extractor trick comparisons, my timings ended up being very consistent, almost ridiculously so, since I was having the game tell me times down to 1/256th of a second. Then again, I never tried to go any higher than 15 supply in any of those tests, because all I needed to see was where the early advantages were.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying this is easy by any means. It's actually *really fucking hard*.
But that doesn't change the fact that it needs to be done, and that build order calculators/simulators can, and will, give you incorrect results that will lead you to flawed conclusions.
To be honest, it would probably be just as much work, AND be more reliable to simply come up with a build order simulator that doesn't make the continuous mineral production assumption. As far as I can tell that is the only thing that is not realistic about the simulators since in the beginning of the game when each scv arrives at the hatchery affects when the next unit is built or when the next building is built. I suspect that it doesn't make as much as a difference as you think, not to mention that there is a similar affect just by changing maps. Mineral collection rates are different on each map, yet most people don't seem to have an issue with taking results on what the most economic build is and applying it other maps, where the timing on when you get a certain amount of minerals is absolutely different.
On December 06 2010 09:39 jacobman wrote: That is the only real simplification that can't be changed in a build order tester, except in the very beginning when you're low on minerals, it is largely irrelevent since by treating mining as continuous you actually get a better idea of worker minutes produced than by looking at minerals in a replay, since, as you said, a worker that hasn't dropped off it minerals yet has still been doing work since the last time it dropped off minerals.
It's very far from irrelevant.
.7 is only an average. The actual mining rate depends on how close the specific patch is, and varies quite a bit.
In cases where you're waiting for minerals to do something, the constant mining rate has you doing that something sooner than you should be able to, because minerals don't come in constantly, they come in batches.
The "settle in" effect, where you have workers bouncing from patch to patch looking for a spot to mine, is not taken into account, and I've seen cases where the 22nd drone didn't actually even start actively contributing to the economy for TWO FULL MINUTES after it was built, because it took that long for the workers to settle into a consistent routine.
The calculators don't take travel time into account, ever, nor do they take into account the diminishing returns you get after the 16th worker, where 2 workers mining a single patch get exactly double the mining rate of a single worker on the same patch, but 3 workers don't get triple.
Look, we can argue this all day, but as I said, I have seen specific cases where the results of a build order simulator flat out gave the wrong answer, saying one path was superior to another, when it was fairly easy to demonstrate that the reverse was actually true, and have seen output from build order optimizers (which use the same simplified reality as the simulators) that spit out impossible builds that couldn't actually be executed in-game no matter how hard you tried.
Simulation can give you a head-start, and it can give you an approximation of the best thing to do, but at the end of the day it is a simulation that is flawed in a number of ways, and you simply cannot say "build x is better than build y" based on the results of that simplified simulation.
Btw, when I was doing 9OL vs extractor trick and spawning pool timing testing, I tried *really* hard to get the AI to perform the builds perfectly and consistently.
Unfortunately, it turns out that you just don't have enough flexiblity in the map editor to do the sorts of things that would need to be done. It doesn't give you the option of giving commands at the level that would be required to get an AI player to execute perfectly. I could get it to execute a single extractor trick reliably and *almost* perfectly, but there wasn't any way to get it to execute a double-extractor trick at anything even remotely approaching maximal efficiency.
Which is unfortunate, because if you could, that would be an extremely consistent way of producing replays.
Eh, I'll respect that. I still tend to think the results are going to be better than through replays. I've had bad replay comparison experiences with so many differences between different replays that I pretty much gave up on it.
One last point though. The affect of drones searching for mineral patches is very minimal. It doesn't happen a ton in the beginning of the game, and later on in the game it simply does not matter since you have a surplus of minerals at all times and no build timings are affected. Yes you may end up with less minerals but all builds will suffer the exact same mineral deficit due to this. This affect only affects replays in the later (after 20ish supply) game because each replay is usually affected differently by it.
On December 06 2010 10:07 Skrag wrote: Btw, when I was doing 9OL vs extractor trick and spawning pool timing testing, I tried *really* hard to get the AI to perform the builds perfectly and consistently.
Unfortunately, it turns out that you just don't have enough flexiblity in the map editor to do the sorts of things that would need to be done. It doesn't give you the option of giving commands at the level that would be required to get an AI player to execute perfectly. I could get it to execute a single extractor trick reliably and *almost* perfectly, but there wasn't any way to get it to execute a double-extractor trick at anything even remotely approaching maximal efficiency.
Which is unfortunate, because if you could, that would be an extremely consistent way of producing replays.
That is actually really unfortunate because that would pretty much be the end all be all for build order testing.
Perhaps I made a mistake in the topic of this thread Maybe I should have made it a thread to discuss what the most precise and accurate method of testing build orders relative to one another is.
On December 06 2010 10:07 jacobman wrote: Eh, I'll respect that. I still tend to think the results are going to be better than through replays. I've had bad replay comparison experiences with so many differences between different replays that I pretty much gave up on it.
One last point though. The affect of drones searching for mineral patches is very minimal. It doesn't happen a ton in the beginning of the game, and later on in the game it simply does not matter since you have a surplus of minerals at all times and no build timings are affected. Yes you may end up with less minerals but all builds will suffer the exact same mineral deficit due to this. This affect only affects replays in the later (after 20ish supply) game because each replay is usually affected differently by it.
The effect is not "very minimal". Two minutes is worth about 80 minerals. Granted, that was the most extreme case I saw, adding the last possible worker on a base where 22 was the max, but 20-30 second times were not unheard of, even for earlier workers.
It will typically affect different builds in similar ways, but the simulator doesn't take it into account *at all*, and will again have the build doing things before it could actually do them. That's exactly the sort of thing that can have the simulator saying "build X is better than build Y" when it's not actually true, because it executes things in a way that is actually impossible in-game.
It's true that most build have the minerals they need most of the time, but there are very key points in all of them where that's not true, and the build is in fact waiting for minerals. Typically this will happen around big spending points, such as the spawning pool, possibly the first queen, and *always* the hatch.
On December 06 2010 10:07 jacobman wrote: Eh, I'll respect that. I still tend to think the results are going to be better than through replays. I've had bad replay comparison experiences with so many differences between different replays that I pretty much gave up on it.
My experience is exactly the opposite of yours. I've been able to pretty consistently reproduce results in replays, especially when playing on slower (for example, I've *never* seen a full two-second difference in timings when trying to accurately measure them), but have seen cases where the simulators and optimizers just flat out gave the wrong answer because the results aren't based on reality.
On December 06 2010 10:07 jacobman wrote: Eh, I'll respect that. I still tend to think the results are going to be better than through replays. I've had bad replay comparison experiences with so many differences between different replays that I pretty much gave up on it.
One last point though. The affect of drones searching for mineral patches is very minimal. It doesn't happen a ton in the beginning of the game, and later on in the game it simply does not matter since you have a surplus of minerals at all times and no build timings are affected. Yes you may end up with less minerals but all builds will suffer the exact same mineral deficit due to this. This affect only affects replays in the later (after 20ish supply) game because each replay is usually affected differently by it.
The effect is not "very minimal". Two minutes is worth about 80 minerals. Granted, that was the most extreme case I saw, adding the last possible worker on a base where 22 was the max, but 20-30 second times were not unheard of, even for earlier workers.
It will typically affect different builds in similar ways, but the simulator doesn't take it into account *at all*, and will again have the build doing things before it could actually do them. That's exactly the sort of thing that can have the simulator saying "build X is better than build Y" when it's not actually true, because it executes things in a way that is actually impossible in-game.
It's true that most build have the minerals they need most of the time, but there are very key points in all of them where that's not true, and the build is in fact waiting for minerals. Typically this will happen around big spending points, such as the spawning pool, possibly the first queen, and *always* the hatch.
I think you missed my point. My point was that after about 20 supply when you always have an excess in minerals, as far as timings go, it doesn't matter if you're missing the few minerals from a lost scv because you already have enough minerals anyways. Before the 20 supply mark there isn't too much of this problem anyways, because most of that time is spent under 16 workers. That's why I said I think the affect on doing comparisons is minimal. Yes, you may lose 80 minerals for one worker, but it's much more likely to happen after the 20 worker mark, when it doesn't affect timings anymore and when it is a bigger problem for replays rather than simulations.
I think you're underestimating the settle-in effect by quite a lot.
I just looked at your 13pool/15hatch replay from the other thread, trying to measure how much mining time was lost due to bouncing workers (which turns out to be *really* hard), and it came up with almost 30 seconds of wasted time by 2:32. That's a 20 mineral difference just in the first 14 workers.
Some of the differences in builds we've been measuring appears to be less than 20 minerals by the 6 minute mark.
On December 06 2010 10:44 Skrag wrote: I think you're underestimating the settle-in effect by quite a lot.
I just looked at your 13pool/15hatch replay from the other thread, trying to measure how much mining time was lost due to bouncing workers (which turns out to be *really* hard), and it came up with almost 30 seconds of wasted time by 2:32. That's a 20 mineral difference just in the first 14 workers.
Some of the differences in builds we've been measuring appears to be less than 20 minerals by the 6 minute mark.
Yeah, but in the beginning that can be pretty much avoided. The rule was that we were going to just rally all the workers to the middle in that replay test. Microing the workers was not allowed.
If I am actually underestimating the final affect that bouncing will have, then honestly any builds where the bouncing will change, through slightly altering building times, which build is better are so close that they can't really be separated.
What I've been doing is only getting the economy of my build down. Workers, supply, and Town Halls. Then I have a chart of money/time and I decide how to best spend this. You can then theorycraft forever what to do with whatever money isn't your economy. Then when I've theorycrafted something good I take it into the game and try it out and see what tactics will be good with it. I find this is much faster than trying to refine every build in game. I only have to play through it once per expansion timing, and a few times to get used to the timings.
On December 06 2010 10:51 GoldenH wrote: What I've been doing is only getting the economy of my build down. Workers, supply, and Town Halls. Then I have a chart of money/time and I decide how to best spend this. You can then theorycraft forever what to do with whatever money isn't your economy. Then when I've theorycrafted something good I take it into the game and try it out and see what tactics will be good with it. I find this is much faster than trying to refine every build in game. I only have to play through it once per expansion timing, and a few times to get used to the timings.
haha, my friends were actually just playing age of empires II today
Are you trying to say that you theorycraft in order to figure out the defendability of a build? I was a little unsure exactly what you were saying.
On December 06 2010 10:44 Skrag wrote: I think you're underestimating the settle-in effect by quite a lot.
I just looked at your 13pool/15hatch replay from the other thread, trying to measure how much mining time was lost due to bouncing workers (which turns out to be *really* hard), and it came up with almost 30 seconds of wasted time by 2:32. That's a 20 mineral difference just in the first 14 workers.
Some of the differences in builds we've been measuring appears to be less than 20 minerals by the 6 minute mark.
Yeah, but in the beginning that can be pretty much avoided. The rule was that we were going to just rally all the workers to the middle in that replay test. Microing the workers was not allowed.
If I am actually underestimating the final affect that bouncing will have, then honestly any builds where the bouncing will change, through slightly altering building times, which build is better are so close that they can't really be separated.
20 of those 30 seconds came from the last 2 workers added though, which are the ones that are going to be the most difficult to micro perfectly.
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong though. It is very difficult to get the AI to execute *perfectly*, but it's actually pretty easy to get it to execute build orders imperfectly, and to be perfectly honest, outside of the very top level players, nobody is executing anywhere near perfect anyway.
Maybe setting the AI up to execute the various builds, and measuring that way, would be "good enough".
It would certainly be better than relying on the results of the simulators IMO.
On December 06 2010 10:44 Skrag wrote: I think you're underestimating the settle-in effect by quite a lot.
I just looked at your 13pool/15hatch replay from the other thread, trying to measure how much mining time was lost due to bouncing workers (which turns out to be *really* hard), and it came up with almost 30 seconds of wasted time by 2:32. That's a 20 mineral difference just in the first 14 workers.
Some of the differences in builds we've been measuring appears to be less than 20 minerals by the 6 minute mark.
Yeah, but in the beginning that can be pretty much avoided. The rule was that we were going to just rally all the workers to the middle in that replay test. Microing the workers was not allowed.
If I am actually underestimating the final affect that bouncing will have, then honestly any builds where the bouncing will change, through slightly altering building times, which build is better are so close that they can't really be separated.
20 of those 30 seconds came from the last 2 workers added though, which are the ones that are going to be the most difficult to micro perfectly.
Maybe we're thinking about this all wrong though. It is very difficult to get the AI to execute *perfectly*, but it's actually pretty easy to get it to execute build orders imperfectly, and to be perfectly honest, outside of the very top level players, nobody is executing anywhere near perfect anyway.
Maybe setting the AI up to execute the various builds, and measuring that way, would be "good enough".
It would certainly be better than relying on the results of the simulators IMO.
I'm totally up for that actually. The biggest problem I have with replays is they are inconsistent. That's why I want the computer to do it, except I chose to have the computer do it through simulation. Having the computer actually play through the builds seems like it would work pretty well.
How hard is it to set the computer up to play a build?
You could, you know, do what every other researcher anywhere does and aggregate a collection of results, instead of relying on rather flawed simulators...
On December 06 2010 13:43 Dominator1370 wrote: You could, you know, do what every other researcher anywhere does and aggregate a collection of results, instead of relying on rather flawed simulators...
I'm guessing you're willing to do all the very slow games it will take to get a reliable picture of each build too. Researches also use models and simplifications to analyze complex problems that would normally take up too much time and/or resources to be practical.
The difference here is that you suspect the simplifications are not acceptable.
Anyone else think that the earlier queen from 11 pool helps a great deal more than you'd expect? Helps make up for the slow arse larvae mechanic Zerg suffers from.
"Finding the most defendable economical build" is a bit too general IMO.
First of all, all economic builds are more or less equivalent in term of income. You can't really nitpick a ~100 mineral difference between builds.
Then it comes down to pool vs hatch timings. Faster pool allows you to have zerglings faster. Faster hatch makes you ahead of other builds as far as defending your expo goes... as long as the pool is up fast enough too. Most timings are give or take 15-30sec build from the pool or the hatch.
My personnal preference goes to pool first. While it makes you a bit more vulnerable to pylon/bunker block crap, you're also in a far less dangerous position if it happens. You'll have lings in time to make a not-too-delayed hatch, whereas if you went hatch first and got blocked, you have to put a delayed pool down while using ~4 drones to kill whatever he put at your nat.
What I'm trying to say is that pretty much all the BOs in the OP are viable. In order to find the "most optimal defendable economical build" you need to add more variables, such as what you're trying to defend against. Ex: you'll need early spine at your nat if you want to hold a protoss 4gates but you'll need ASAP gas if you want to have any chance against a double hellion harass.
Also cannot assume that most optimal minerals income will get you the most optimal mineral/gas income. Extractor timing can have a pretty big impact here because you're toying with supplies as well as resources.
On December 06 2010 10:51 GoldenH wrote: What I've been doing is only getting the economy of my build down. Workers, supply, and Town Halls. Then I have a chart of money/time and I decide how to best spend this. You can then theorycraft forever what to do with whatever money isn't your economy. Then when I've theorycrafted something good I take it into the game and try it out and see what tactics will be good with it. I find this is much faster than trying to refine every build in game. I only have to play through it once per expansion timing, and a few times to get used to the timings.
haha, my friends were actually just playing age of empires II today
Are you trying to say that you theorycraft in order to figure out the defendability of a build? I was a little unsure exactly what you were saying.
No I just use theorycrafting to perfect the order I should get stuff in. It turns it into an optimization problem which is easy for any math student, and then I play the build on the ladder to see if I have enough stuff or too much stuff. I can just say "I want X units for a push at Y food, what is the best way of getting that?" and see.
For instance lets say you're playing a game and you are doing fine with a build but at some point you notice you are getting too much money. With my technique you can mathematically find the best time to build a new production facility, instead of just guessing.
Then you play it on the ladder to see if you need more units sooner or later, its good.
Good news! After doing some research on sc2mapster, I found the set of commands that will let me set up the AI to execute perfectly at every point, including exact worker gather micro and transfer logic. It'll be a little bit of work to get things set up to execute various build orders, but now that I know where to look, it's pretty easy to get the AI to follow exact directions.
On December 07 2010 04:56 Skrag wrote: Good news! After doing some research on sc2mapster, I found the set of commands that will let me set up the AI to execute perfectly at every point, including exact worker gather micro and transfer logic. It'll be a little bit of work to get things set up to execute various build orders, but now that I know where to look, it's pretty easy to get the AI to follow exact directions.
I found those commands too. I was looking around. It would be ten times easier if we could just alter the AI scripts. The ones that the game uses are so simple. Using triggers to me appears to be much more complicated. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to get the game to follow an altered AI script.
What were the commands you found? They're probably the same one's I was thinking of. They might not be though, so I might as well ask.
On December 07 2010 04:56 Skrag wrote: Good news! After doing some research on sc2mapster, I found the set of commands that will let me set up the AI to execute perfectly at every point, including exact worker gather micro and transfer logic. It'll be a little bit of work to get things set up to execute various build orders, but now that I know where to look, it's pretty easy to get the AI to follow exact directions.
Do you know how to set up a drone transfer and a rally point change in the galaxy scripts? I'm trying to set the computer up to run the builds in a game, but currently I don't know how to do those two parts.
That thread essentially stopped updating a while ago. All focus moved to the 11 pool. I've found builds better economically than the leading build in that post. Also, I've come to the conclusion that the method used to look at the economy, replays, is too unreliable. It's just too hard to get any replay to be perfect. Like I said in the post, imperceptible differences in the play of the build led to totally different numbers, making it near impossible to figure out how good a build actually is.
Also, I want to try testing builds in actual games in addition to this to figure out which builds are actually viable. I'm hoping some people can figure out ways to pull of some builds that appear really risky at first.
it is not impossible to get any replay perfect you just set your game speed to as low as you need it and when it comes out in the replay it looks like you were playing normal speed
That thread essentially stopped updating a while ago. All focus moved to the 11 pool. I've found builds better economically than the leading build in that post. Also, I've come to the conclusion that the method used to look at the economy, replays, is too unreliable. It's just too hard to get any replay to be perfect. Like I said in the post, imperceptible differences in the play of the build led to totally different numbers, making it near impossible to figure out how good a build actually is.
Also, I want to try testing builds in actual games in addition to this to figure out which builds are actually viable. I'm hoping some people can figure out ways to pull of some builds that appear really risky at first.
it is not impossible to get any replay perfect you just set your game speed to as low as you need it and when it comes out in the replay it looks like you were playing normal speed
The results still vary by a quite a bit. I've tried replays a lot myself and seen other peoples attempts.
On December 07 2010 04:56 Skrag wrote: Good news! After doing some research on sc2mapster, I found the set of commands that will let me set up the AI to execute perfectly at every point, including exact worker gather micro and transfer logic. It'll be a little bit of work to get things set up to execute various build orders, but now that I know where to look, it's pretty easy to get the AI to follow exact directions.
Do you know how to set up a drone transfer and a rally point change in the galaxy scripts? I'm trying to set the computer up to run the builds in a game, but currently I don't know how to do those two parts.
Rally points can be changed by issuing an order to the unit/building you want to change the rally for.
Transfering could be achieved by giving the drones you want to transfer a harvest order targeting the mineral patches at the expansion. (That was the key order I couldn't figure out how to do before btw, sending a specific drone to a specific mineral patch)
On December 07 2010 04:56 Skrag wrote: Good news! After doing some research on sc2mapster, I found the set of commands that will let me set up the AI to execute perfectly at every point, including exact worker gather micro and transfer logic. It'll be a little bit of work to get things set up to execute various build orders, but now that I know where to look, it's pretty easy to get the AI to follow exact directions.
Do you know how to set up a drone transfer and a rally point change in the galaxy scripts? I'm trying to set the computer up to run the builds in a game, but currently I don't know how to do those two parts.
Rally points can be changed by issuing an order to the unit/building you want to change the rally for.
Transfering could be achieved by giving the drones you want to transfer a harvest order targeting the mineral patches at the expansion. (That was the key order I couldn't figure out how to do before btw, sending a specific drone to a specific mineral patch)
Do you know what the syntax is for that?
It's really hard to find the names for abilities since there isn't complete documentation yet. Here are my guesses so far.
Mineral Patch: either C_MineralField or C_CU_MineralField Gather Minerals: C_AB_DroneHarvest Move: C_AB_Move
Can you confirm any of those so I might know which terms aren't causing syntax errors?
On December 07 2010 04:56 Skrag wrote: Good news! After doing some research on sc2mapster, I found the set of commands that will let me set up the AI to execute perfectly at every point, including exact worker gather micro and transfer logic. It'll be a little bit of work to get things set up to execute various build orders, but now that I know where to look, it's pretty easy to get the AI to follow exact directions.
Do you know how to set up a drone transfer and a rally point change in the galaxy scripts? I'm trying to set the computer up to run the builds in a game, but currently I don't know how to do those two parts.
Rally points can be changed by issuing an order to the unit/building you want to change the rally for.
Transfering could be achieved by giving the drones you want to transfer a harvest order targeting the mineral patches at the expansion. (That was the key order I couldn't figure out how to do before btw, sending a specific drone to a specific mineral patch)
Do you know what the syntax is for that?
It's really hard to find the names for abilities since there isn't complete documentation yet. Here are my guesses so far.
Mineral Patch: either C_MineralField or C_CU_MineralField Gather Minerals: C_AB_DroneHarvest Move: C_AB_Move
Can you confirm any of those so I might know which terms aren't causing syntax errors?
I can't answer that question, because I'm using triggers exclusively, not writing scripts. I'm *very* close to having a fully working 11 overpool though. (so close that it might be done, I just have to test out the final results) Once that's done, adding other build orders should be relatively easy, since the overpool does some fairly complex things that won't be needed for other builds.
My AI-driven 11overpool is FINALLY working. I ran into a problem at the very end where the AI would have the queen cast inject as long as the queen was at the main hatchery, but wouldn't do it automatically at the expansion hatch, so I had to manually watch for energy and inject.
The 6 minute results are better than my previous "best" replay by 65 minerals, a completed drone (bumping the total up to 45 drones completed), 5/17 better on in-progress drone completion, and 9/40 better on injects.
After that huge headache, and figuring out how to do everything I needed to be able to do, it should be fairly easy to add other build orders, as well as a frequent state output to a file which should smooth out a lot of the problems that can be caused by your choice of when to actually measure.
On December 08 2010 13:35 Skrag wrote: My AI-driven 11overpool is FINALLY working. I ran into a problem at the very end where the AI would have the queen cast inject as long as the queen was at the main hatchery, but wouldn't do it automatically at the expansion hatch, so I had to manually watch for energy and inject.
The 6 minute results are better than my previous "best" replay by 65 minerals, a completed drone (bumping the total up to 45 drones completed), 5/17 better on in-progress drone completion, and 9/40 better on injects.
After that huge headache, and figuring out how to do everything I needed to be able to do, it should be fairly easy to add other build orders, as well as a frequent state output to a file which should smooth out a lot of the problems that can be caused by your choice of when to actually measure.
I haven't tried to optimize miner micro past the first 9 workers, though (9 total, so the 6 you start with plus the next 3). It's pretty difficult to figure out which patch to send them to, and involves a lot of restarting. I may do that at some point, but if not, the micro for the first 9 will work just the same for other builds, and still give a reasonable comparison.
Ok, so here's the bad news. Even having the AI do the same things every time, and even using a fixed random seed when testing from the map editor, I'm seeing small differences between individual runs.
On the 11 pool, there's been as much as a 55 mineral and a full drone difference by the 6 minute mark, and I have no idea why.
Hm, that is really odd. I would have expected that sc2 plus AI are a purely deterministic system and given the same starting parameters the output is identical every time. Is the AI perhaps running in different threads, so that it is not guaranteed that the exact order of execution of AI and sc2 commands might vary slightly? But good to know that there is this uncertainty.
However, on a more practical note, when it is impossible do obtain deterministic results, one either accepts an error of say 50 minerals and a drone, or one has to do some statistical averaging, giving say the mean and min/max over 10 trials. That is a lot of work of course.
Skrag, that is some very impressive testing. Having the AI do the builds is really the only way to comparable results.
I'm guessing the small differences are down to larva positions and drone movement AI. You should still get very good results for comparing builds if you do multiple runs and taking the averages.
I would love to see what you results you get for a 14 hatch 15 pool. Again, great job!
On December 08 2010 18:44 Ctuchik wrote: Skrag, that is some very impressive testing. Having the AI do the builds is really the only way to comparable results.
I'm guessing the small differences are down to larva positions and drone movement AI. You should still get very good results for comparing builds if you do multiple runs and taking the averages.
I would love to see what you results you get for a 14 hatch 15 pool. Again, great job!
Yeah, it certainly makes it easier to get multiple test points. Doing runs on super slow over and over again is annoying. I'm really intrigued that there is still variations in the end results. I had figured the computer would do things exactly the same every time.... so weird.
I'm basically at the same point as you right now. I'm pretty much done with the maynard function, and when that is done I'll be able to get the computer to run any builds too. I'm curious to test out this variation in results you mentioned. I wonder where the differences are.
PS. I figured out the script question I had earlier. SC2mapster is awesome. Thanks for mentioning it earlier.
On December 08 2010 18:44 Ctuchik wrote: Skrag, that is some very impressive testing. Having the AI do the builds is really the only way to comparable results.
I'm guessing the small differences are down to larva positions and drone movement AI. You should still get very good results for comparing builds if you do multiple runs and taking the averages.
I would love to see what you results you get for a 14 hatch 15 pool. Again, great job!
Yeah, it certainly makes it easier to get multiple test points. Doing runs on super slow over and over again is annoying. I'm really intrigued that there is still variations in the end results. I had figured the computer would do things exactly the same every time.... so weird.
I'm basically at the same point as you right now. I'm pretty much done with the maynard function, and when that is done I'll be able to get the computer to run any builds too. I'm curious to test out this variation in results you mentioned. I wonder where the differences are.
PS. I figured out the script question I had earlier. SC2mapster is awesome. Thanks for mentioning it earlier.
Okay so I've finished doing a few preliminary tests with the AI running a build order. I chose the 13 Pool 15 Hatch build since I have the most experience with the results of that build.
Just like with you, the AI improved on my best attempt (which I had started to think the max) by 70 minerals. The good news is that I tried a few attempts and each time it ended with the same minerals mined at the 6:00 mark. I think you should double check your replays. You might not be taking the data at the exact beginning of the 6:00 mark. Even small fractions of a second can lead to some variation, like you were experiencing.
I'm going to start applying the AI to all the build orders I have. I'll update some time tomorrow.
On December 09 2010 00:50 johanngrunt wrote: From what Idra and ret said, you can't hold off terran 2 rax unless you go hatch first, not for the econ, but for the larva,
they tested it too, but didn't post results though.
Interesting that getting the hatch up is so important.
If you have a specific build order, with overlord timings to 52 supply, let me know. I'm going to be doing build order runs later with the AI.
On December 09 2010 01:02 nTwLegy wrote: Shouldn't you add 15 hatch and 14 pool. ? it's the most common thing psy does(the dude from utube)
Sure thing. Do you have overlord timings I could use, or do you mind getting some good overlord timings to test?
If not I may not have the results up for a couple days. I'm a little bit busy currently, but I will check out that build order too. It would be helpful if you knew the overlord timings though.
On December 08 2010 17:44 Skrag wrote: Ok, so here's the bad news. Even having the AI do the same things every time, and even using a fixed random seed when testing from the map editor, I'm seeing small differences between individual runs.
On the 11 pool, there's been as much as a 55 mineral and a full drone difference by the 6 minute mark, and I have no idea why.
So it turns out that I just got lucky on the first two tests I did. There is some variance between tests. I thought about it a little bit, and I realized the difference is due to the random walk of the larva. That causes drones to spawn at different locations, which leads to slightly different mining behavior each time. I'm going to do like ten trials for each BO eventually to make up for this a bit. For now though, I'm just doing one test for each one to get started. Here are my results so far at the 6:20 mark.
On December 09 2010 00:35 jacobman wrote: Okay so I've finished doing a few preliminary tests with the AI running a build order. I chose the 13 Pool 15 Hatch build since I have the most experience with the results of that build.
Just like with you, the AI improved on my best attempt (which I had started to think the max) by 70 minerals. The good news is that I tried a few attempts and each time it ended with the same minerals mined at the 6:00 mark. I think you should double check your replays. You might not be taking the data at the exact beginning of the 6:00 mark. Even small fractions of a second can lead to some variation, like you were experiencing.
I'm going to start applying the AI to all the build orders I have. I'll update some time tomorrow.
I saw you came to the same conclusion I did, which is that the random larvae walk is causing the variance between runs. It should be exactly the same with a fixed random seed, but for some reason it's not, and I've definitely been seeing drones pop up at different spots. It's also possible that the AI itself has a small amount of inconsistency, like maybe the AI doesn't run at the same rate as the simulation and there can be differences in exactly what frames it runs on.
I'm currently using SetStock in some places, and my own custom build triggers in others (because SetStock builds things in the order that you specify most of the time, but changes the order sometimes occasionally, and queens seem to be delayed by a second or two when using SetStock for them). I might try to figure out a cleaner way to make sure that everything gets built the instant it's possible to build it, because it seems like there might be a slight delay on building things that are waiting on larvae.
How are you doing things in script? I don't actually know how to create a custom AI script. The only instructions I managed to find online involve modifying the MPQ files, and I really don't want to do that if I can avoid it.
As far as measuring inconsistencies go, I'm 100% positive I'm measuring at exactly the same time every run, because I'm using a timer and printing the stats on-screen (and to a debug file, which will make it really easy to make graphs based on data spit out every 2-3 seconds) rather than getting data from the replay. There's a player property for resources collected, which shows the total amount of resources that have actually been taken from the patches.
One problem I'm running into is that 6 minutes is too long for a build that creates only drones on XelNaga caverns. Many maps only have 2 close spots, giving a maximum number of drones at the base of 22, but XelNaga has 4 close spots, so the maximum is 20, and there can be *very* long delays between the time the 19th and 20th drones are added and the time the workers all settle into a routine. In the tests I've been running, I've been cutting off the main base at 19 workers, but in almost every test, the drones still haven't settled into a routine at the 6 minute mark. Since you can only have 19-20 drones max at the main, this is oversaturating the expansion well before the 6 minute mark.
I used to go 17 or 18 hatch all the time, but at diamond level, this ain't happening! The best build ever is 13 hatch, 12 pool. Best of both worlds. you are safe, and have a good economy. Pool first, sucks, unless you have to defend against a rush.
To mitigate the oversaturation problems, and to be able to do some real comparisons of builds in action rather than just drone races, I'm thinking about adding things like gas, a pair of zerglings, and a spine crawler or two at the appropriate points in the various builds, while trying to do all the "extra" things as close as possible to the same time for each build.
Also, I decided to go ahead and try to optimize the drone micro on mineral patches for all of the drones going to minerals at the main. This definitely made a much larger difference than you were thinking it would. The difference between minimal micro (the first 9 workers) and full optimal micro (or as close as possible, it's *really* hard to get drones 17+ to go to a spot without causing any interruption in mining) was almost 100 minerals at the 6 minute mark in both 11p18h and 13p15h. And when microing optimally, the 11pool went down a second sooner, and the hatchery went down a full 5 seconds sooner.
It's actually kind of discouraging that these very small things can make such large differences, because once again, it means that the small nitty-gritty details can have a larger impact than what build you choose to begin with.
Some results, after optimizing drone micro as much as possible for all the drones that end up at the main hatchery. (expansion drones were all just rallied to a center patch) The numbers in these reports are minerals collected, vespene collected, supply used, supply available, completed drone counts, drone count including partial drones in progress, larvae count, and inject progress seconds (so 79 would mean two injects are almost done, 40 could mean one just started and one almost done, or two midway).
Started Hatchery at 117.813 Started Spawning Pool at 143.938 Finished Spawning Pool at 208.875 Finished Hatchery at 217.75
Conclusions:
11P vs 13P: It looks to me like 13pool is slightly better off at pretty much every point in both resources and partial drone count, as well as being ahead on coompleted drones a good percentage of the time.
14H15P vs 14H14P: I've had a suspicion that you could pool on 14 after a 14 hatch, only sacrifice a small amount of economy, and gain a larva advantage. The numbers appear to bear that idea out, but the larva advantage of 14pool seems really small, and doesn't seem to kick in until 5 minutes or so.
Adding the drone micro seems to have made the results *much* more consistent, by the way.
Next stop will be adding some more typical choices, like 14p16h, which seems a lot more common than 13p15h.
On December 10 2010 02:12 Skrag wrote: Want to exchange maps? Sounds like we've both taken very different approaches, and it might be interesting to peek over the fence.
Yeah, I think our approaches are very similar. I just used script because triggers seem overly and unnecessarily complicated/limited. On the plus side though, you don't have to know any syntax for triggers
I'll post the maps later though. I want to get a few more test runs done first. Also, my map for the 12/18 isn't done, and I probably won't do that one for a while. For some reason one of my flags that I added to that build isn't working and the computer does endless extractor tricks
On December 10 2010 07:22 Skrag wrote: Some results, after optimizing drone micro as much as possible for all the drones that end up at the main hatchery. (expansion drones were all just rallied to a center patch) The numbers in these reports are minerals collected, vespene collected, supply used, supply available, completed drone counts, drone count including partial drones in progress, larvae count, and inject progress seconds (so 79 would mean two injects are almost done, 40 could mean one just started and one almost done, or two midway).
Started Hatchery at 117.813 Started Spawning Pool at 143.938 Finished Spawning Pool at 208.875 Finished Hatchery at 217.75
Conclusions:
11P vs 13P: It looks to me like 13pool is slightly better off at pretty much every point in both resources and partial drone count, as well as being ahead on coompleted drones a good percentage of the time.
14H15P vs 14H14P: I've had a suspicion that you could pool on 14 after a 14 hatch, only sacrifice a small amount of economy, and gain a larva advantage. The numbers appear to bear that idea out, but the larva advantage of 14pool seems really small, and doesn't seem to kick in until 5 minutes or so.
Adding the drone micro seems to have made the results *much* more consistent, by the way.
Next stop will be adding some more typical choices, like 14p16h, which seems a lot more common than 13p15h.
hey Skrag, I'm going to add your results to the main post. You seem to have come to the same general conclusion as me.
By the way, what trigger did you use to print out the total minerals mined?
By the way, what trigger did you use to print out the total minerals mined?
Can't tell you how to do it in script, but there's a player property called Minerals Collected or something like that, as well as one for gas.
Script and triggers are actually the same thing. The things you use in triggers are just script functions layed out with selection boxes and such. Actually to figure out the syntax for some things I occasionally set up a script and then made a "debug" script to run after it. It was just a scrip with an error in it, and the program would give me an error, which had the trigger written in galaxy script before it. A lot of script functions don't have triggers made for them though.
On December 10 2010 07:22 Skrag wrote: Some results, after optimizing drone micro as much as possible for all the drones that end up at the main hatchery. (expansion drones were all just rallied to a center patch) The numbers in these reports are minerals collected, vespene collected, supply used, supply available, completed drone counts, drone count including partial drones in progress, larvae count, and inject progress seconds (so 79 would mean two injects are almost done, 40 could mean one just started and one almost done, or two midway).
Started Hatchery at 117.813 Started Spawning Pool at 143.938 Finished Spawning Pool at 208.875 Finished Hatchery at 217.75
Conclusions:
11P vs 13P: It looks to me like 13pool is slightly better off at pretty much every point in both resources and partial drone count, as well as being ahead on coompleted drones a good percentage of the time.
14H15P vs 14H14P: I've had a suspicion that you could pool on 14 after a 14 hatch, only sacrifice a small amount of economy, and gain a larva advantage. The numbers appear to bear that idea out, but the larva advantage of 14pool seems really small, and doesn't seem to kick in until 5 minutes or so.
Adding the drone micro seems to have made the results *much* more consistent, by the way.
Next stop will be adding some more typical choices, like 14p16h, which seems a lot more common than 13p15h.
If you don't mind me asking, what level did you run those on? The numbers seem a little bit low for Xel'Naga Caverns bottom left. Did you use a different level?
It is XelNaga. The numbers seem low because the minerals are recorded slightly differently, using minerals collected, because that's what can be spit out during play by triggers.
When I used a replay to compare the 11P to my previous "best" using the same recording method that was being used previously (spent + current resources), it was ahead by quite a bit.
Obviously we can't exchange replays without the map, but if you want to give the 6:00 numbers for your recordings, and tell me exactly what method you're using to report resources (spent+current seems like the easiest by far to get out of a replay even though it includes 700 for the starting units), we can compare directly.
On December 11 2010 02:01 Skrag wrote: It is XelNaga. The numbers seem low because the minerals are recorded slightly differently, using minerals collected, because that's what can be spit out during play by triggers.
When I used a replay to compare the 11P to my previous "best" using the same recording method (spent + current resources), it was ahead by quite a bit.
Obviously we can't exchange replays without the map, but if you want to give the 6:00 numbers for your recordings, and tell me exactly what method you're using to report resources (spent+current seems like the easiest by far to get out of a replay even though it includes 700 for the starting units), we can compare directly.
I think it's actually better if we don't try and compare our results directly since we don't know if our AI is exactly the same. What is useful though is seeing if trends are the same. For example is build A outperforming build B.
I was just curious why the numbers were so much lower. If you get any more data that you want me to post, let me know. When I get a few more builds tested I will try and get a graph with the top builds up and your data would be really convenient. As it stands right now, I don't think I have enough hatch first builds to really say much about which one is best.
There are some discrepancies between our methods as well. For example, my 14h15p finishes both the hatch and pool faster than yours. I'm guessing this is purely based on the drone micro advantage.
On December 11 2010 03:10 Skrag wrote: There are some discrepancies between our methods as well. For example, my 14h15p finishes both the hatch and pool faster than yours. I'm guessing this is purely based on the drone micro advantage.
That could be it. If it is, it's alright because the AI runs it the same way with all the builds. What times did you get for the 14H 15P? I'll double check my replays to make sure that everything is going alright and I'll check my numbers to make sure I didn't copy and paste the wrong numbers by accident.
The reason why I prefer 12pool in every situation right now in both non-zvz MUs is that you get the pair of lings just before you'd place your hatch, so they have time to chase their worker out / kill their pylon and so on before you need to place the hatchery. 14-hatch is nice but I wouldn't use it as my standard ladder build, and 14pool 16hatch might be better in econ but is super vulnerable to hatch block. 11pool done the way the original OP stated doesn't get lings until later and if you cut some econ by getting the OV and lings out earlier, your econ advantage goes to waste, pretty much.
On December 11 2010 03:14 Shikyo wrote: The reason why I prefer 12pool in every situation right now in both non-zvz MUs is that you get the pair of lings just before you'd place your hatch, so they have time to chase their worker out / kill their pylon and so on before you need to place the hatchery. 14-hatch is nice but I wouldn't use it as my standard ladder build, and 14pool 16hatch might be better in econ but is super vulnerable to hatch block. 11pool done the way the original OP stated doesn't get lings until later and if you cut some econ by getting the OV and lings out earlier, your econ advantage goes to waste, pretty much.
I'm assuming you place the 18 hatch? If you're going to go pool first I actually suggest 13 Pool 15 Hatch. It gets the hatch out earlier so that you can get creep to put a spine on.
Although if you're dead set on getting the lings out before the hatch, you could make the hatch later than 15. I don't know which 18 hatch build has the best economy. That's a good question for your purposes though.
How are you recording larvae? I added larva counting to mine last night (using a very simple method: number of completed drones + drones in progress + total overlords + total hatcheries + pool + inject seconds/10), and I show 14h14p being slightly behind 14h15p at the 6 minute mark where you show it being 2 larvae ahead. Both of our tests show 13h15p being about 2 larvae ahead of everything else though. From my data, that advantage kicks in at about 4:20, taking the lead from 11pool, which is ahead from 3:40-4:20.
On December 11 2010 03:10 Skrag wrote: There are some discrepancies between our methods as well. For example, my 14h15p finishes both the hatch and pool faster than yours. I'm guessing this is purely based on the drone micro advantage.
That could be it. If it is, it's alright because the AI runs it the same way with all the builds. What times did you get for the 14H 15P? I'll double check my replays to make sure that everything is going alright and I'll check my numbers to make sure I didn't copy and paste the wrong numbers by accident.
3:34 for pool, 3:37 for hatch. 6 seconds better on the pool, and 2 seconds on the hatch.
From what I'm seeing so far, I'm really liking 13h15p more and more. It seems to be ahead of 11p economically, and has a pretty good larvae advantage over all the other builds.
I also have a lot more confidence in this testing method than anything else that's been done so far.
On December 11 2010 03:50 Skrag wrote: How are you recording larvae? I added larva counting to mine last night (using a very simple method: number of completed drones + drones in progress + total overlords + total hatcheries + pool + inject seconds/10), and I show 14h14p being slightly behind 14h15p at the 6 minute mark where you show it being 2 larvae ahead. Both of our tests show 13h15p being about 2 larvae ahead of everything else though. From my data, that advantage kicks in at about 4:20, taking the lead from 11pool, which is ahead from 3:40-4:20.
I'm recording larva the same way as you. I'm actually looking at the 6:20 mark. I listed that somewhere in the post. It allows all the builds to get to full saturation. Anyways, the difference might be due to me doing multiple trials, and I only listed it as one larva ahead. Also, do you use the builds I posted?
My method is, number of overlords + number or drones + number of queens + number of units in progress + injectSeconds/10 - 7. I take away the seven to make up for the 6 drones and 1 overlord you start with. I include the queens to make up for the two drones you lose to the expansion and spawning pool.
Tell me if you're still getting the 14p 15h having more larva with multiple tests. If you do then I'll do some more trials to see if anything changes. Logically though, I would expect the 14/14 to have more larva anyways since its pool finishes earlier and it does so without wasting any larva.
On December 11 2010 03:10 Skrag wrote: There are some discrepancies between our methods as well. For example, my 14h15p finishes both the hatch and pool faster than yours. I'm guessing this is purely based on the drone micro advantage.
That could be it. If it is, it's alright because the AI runs it the same way with all the builds. What times did you get for the 14H 15P? I'll double check my replays to make sure that everything is going alright and I'll check my numbers to make sure I didn't copy and paste the wrong numbers by accident.
3:34 for pool, 3:37 for hatch. 6 seconds better on the pool, and 2 seconds on the hatch.
That's interesting. I'm definitely going to take a look at my replays for the 14/15 to make sure that there isn't a hang up with the spawning pool or hatchery. Otherwise it probably is due to the drone optimization you did in the beginning.
EDIT: So I looked at a replay and it showed 38 for the pool and 41 for the hatch. The drone didn't idle at all so the difference between yours and mine has to be just the mining optimization.
On December 11 2010 03:58 Skrag wrote: From what I'm seeing so far, I'm really liking 13h15p more and more. It seems to be ahead of 11p economically, and has a pretty good larvae advantage over all the other builds.
I also have a lot more confidence in this testing method than anything else that's been done so far.
I'm assuming you meant 13 Pool 15 Hatch. I agree. I'm more confident in the AI results than anything that's been done yet. I've looked at quite a few pool first builds too, so the 13P 15H is definitely near the top of the pool first builds.
I wish more people would post build orders with ovie timings though The analysis seems incomplete with so few builds tested.
First of all I have to say I find it confusing that there are like 4 or 5 threads about BO for us zerg, why not just continue the old ones?
Also something that isnt really relating to the whole BO thing but rather a general question. I allways feel that when I have 2 bases fully saturated that its not enough to have only those hatches. I mean spending gas is of course ussually not a problem but getting rid of all the mins sometimes really gets hard. Do you fellow zerg actually put up extra hatches up often or not? I feel that even if I have like 5 bases it sometimes isnt enough to produce units...well 5 is actually really enough but really the number of hatches/expos has to be high for me to really use up all my mins all the time unless maybe building tons of ultras or the like.
Also isnt it relativ unimportant which BO gives you the theoretical highest eco? I often feel like getting a good eco is really no prob but having units early enough or plentyfull enough. I know I am still making alot wrong with this but I have often an eco to pump troops en masse but then get stomped before I can get a second wave of units out and just because these waves come into battle seperatly I loose. If I'd get that second wave out I'd have enough to defend and a third wave would probably allready crush my opponents hard...
So I kinda think the optimizing to no end really is a bit unnessecary allthough I was happy to read about the 11 pool possibilty.
Earlier in the beta I actually did alot of ten pools but these kinda seem to lack the one drone to really profit from the queens larvae;).
^^ To be honest, I've started getting a lot less drones recently. You only need like 16 for all your minerals, and you can instantly saturate your next expo anyway so it doesn't matter as it does with P and T, but you'll have a much stronger army and won't really lose out in anything, unless you like getting many speedlings(vs T might be good). If you also overdrone you're going to also have a weaker lategame army. I will rather use my larger army to secure additional expansions and gases and have more gas-based units(And banelings are so much better than speedlings vs Terran anyway and vs P I never get speedlings past the early game).
And yeah its unimportant, I want a good build that gives me a guaranteed hatch in time and good econ, and 12pool feels perfect.
On December 11 2010 04:09 Igaryu85 wrote: First of all I have to say I find it confusing that there are like 4 or 5 threads about BO for us zerg, why not just continue the old ones?
Also something that isnt really relating to the whole BO thing but rather a general question. I allways feel that when I have 2 bases fully saturated that its not enough to have only those hatches. I mean spending gas is of course ussually not a problem but getting rid of all the mins sometimes really gets hard. Do you fellow zerg actually put up extra hatches up often or not? I feel that even if I have like 5 bases it sometimes isnt enough to produce units...well 5 is actually really enough but really the number of hatches/expos has to be high for me to really use up all my mins all the time unless maybe building tons of ultras or the like.
Also isnt it relativ unimportant which BO gives you the theoretical highest eco? I often feel like getting a good eco is really no prob but having units early enough or plentyfull enough. I know I am still making alot wrong with this but I have often an eco to pump troops en masse but then get stomped before I can get a second wave of units out and just because these waves come into battle seperatly I loose. If I'd get that second wave out I'd have enough to defend and a third wave would probably allready crush my opponents hard...
So I kinda think the optimizing to no end really is a bit unnessecary allthough I was happy to read about the 11 pool possibilty.
Earlier in the beta I actually did alot of ten pools but these kinda seem to lack the one drone to really profit from the queens larvae;).
It is confusing. I would have continued to post on the other thread, but it kind of died when the 11 pool 18 hatch build showed up. It never really got updated and the OP didn't use reliable methods anyways. Hence why I had to start a new thread.
If you're not too worried about econ then none of this really matters. In all honesty, unless you're pro, you can improve your game in much easier ways than all this research. However, if other people do it for you, I guess it's useful.
If you look though, so far the 13 Pool 15 Hatch has the most benefits out of the pool first builds.
As far as extra hatches go, I usually do build extra hatches with my main. I don't do it until later in the game though, after like my 3rd or 4th expansion. Here's some useful information though. The minerals from one mineral line can support 2 hatches and one queens worth of zergling/drone larva. It can also support 2 hatches worth of roaches (no queens). All other units will use your resources with only one hatch and a queen.
In short this means that if you're going heavy ling, you should throw up an extra hatch at each base when you get the extra minerals. This will allow you to produce to capacity.
Thanks for all your hard work along with everyone else that has contributed. Naturally, when trying to find a best-fit solution, how the problem is originally framed is most important. What is our goal? I've heard economy, early rush defense, larvae, etc. The 13P/15H looks solid in numbers, however, when an opponent sees an 11 pool, this can have an immeasurable dynamic effect.
Zerg is a bend, don't break strategy. Therefore, the criterion that puts the Zerg in the best position to win the game is one that allows them to fend off a rush without taking a single drone off the line and where all units produced to fend off the attack die (including crawlers). This fact, when executed perfectly, is why it's best to expand immediately after an attack (economy permitting) since you maximize the time between which the last and next aggression will occur and you maximize your macro potential in a game, best enabling the Zerg to reach the late game and overwhelm the opponent.
I have not tried the feel of the 13P/15H yet, I will tonight. But, please note the psychological impact of the 11 pool which unfortunately, cannot be measured.
On December 11 2010 08:59 jdseemoreglass wrote: Lol this thread is funny...
I've already shown with empirical evidence that 13P/15H is inferior economically to 11Pool, and the debate continues...
I know you guys are using some program or something for all your results... When you can post results than can beat this, then let me know.
Weird.
Cause we've both shown that with superior (and consistent) testing, 13P/15H is superior economically to 11Pool, and generates more larvae as well.
These results are straight from the game, having the AI play.
Oh yeah, and I *totally* believe that you gave it your absolute best when recording the 13p15h game that you're using for comparison.
Sorry, but you crossed the line from somebody providing potentially useful ideas to complete trollbait a long time ago.
I must say i totally agree here. I was really enthousiast when i saw the first thread, got disgusted when it became something ego-related and lost any neutrality. This thread is far more objective imho.
In fact, just cause you seem to like pretty pictures so much, and that a graph showing one build is superior is 100% incontrovertible:
Resource graph comparing 14h15p, 14h14p, 13p15h, and 11p18h, using the AI to execute the build order in a way that is completely consistent and repeatable, and recording data every 10 seconds.
See that blue line below all the others? Yeah, that's you.
I do 11 pool and 18 hatch. Works wonders. You get the pool up fast, just incase they do an all in rush your covered. Also sets you up very strong economically. Only drawback is that when you go to 16 and get your queen your 18/18 which is the point where u throw down your hatch. Between this time you cant produce many fighters just incase a rush comes in at that time. but I find this build great either way.
On December 11 2010 10:18 Chinesewonder wrote: I do 11 pool and 18 hatch. Works wonders. You get the pool up fast, just incase they do an all in rush your covered. Also sets you up very strong economically. Only drawback is that when you go to 16 and get your queen your 18/18 which is the point where u throw down your hatch. Between this time you cant produce many fighters just incase a rush comes in at that time. but I find this build great either way.
Take this back to the other thread please. We're not debating the merits of one build vs another here, only comparing potential economy. Nobody here is trying to argue that 11pool can't be a solid build. The psychological implications alone can be huge imo.
But since you posted here: 13pool gets the pool up almost as fast, gets the hatch up faster, and also appears to set you up even more strongly economically, both resource and larvae-wise.
I originally only read the OP and thought 'meh' just another Zerg BO circle-jerk.
After reading the last page I decided to read the entire thread though and it's just amazing what can happen if 2 guys with somewhat different opinions get together and do something productive without all the ego bs that can be found in other threads.
This is the only thread that deserves attention and the incredible amount of rationality and work the two main-poster Skrag and jacobman have put into it put it above all other threads created in the SC2 section in the past month alone. A big thank you from me
I've watched the 11 18, 13 15 and 14h 15 replays and they all seem to be executed perfectly! Really nice work.
also
See that blue line below all the others? Yeah, that's you.
Huh? You've watched the replays? We don't have those. Unless Jacob gave you the map.
Or, rather, we do have them, but you'd also have to have the custom map containing the AI.
But if you could see a replay of my trigger-based AI, you'd see that it executes as damn near perfectly as possible, and it does so consistently, every single game.
I haven't added other pool-first builds to my AI yet, but based on jacob's results, I'd guess that mine will also show that 14p and 15p are both superior *economically* to the 11pool, with smaller differences than the 13p.
That's not to say that I think the 11pool is a piece of junk. I think the fact that it's even viable is absolutely incredible, and even if I don't use it every game, it's something I will definitely use occasionally.
As soon as I get a few more build orders added, and try to stick with some of the same consistencies that jacob has (only building up to 48 drones, which is still actually way too many for xelnaga, the absolute maximum number of drones that can be effectively mining on the main is 20, not 24), I'll host the map somewhere so you can check the results yourselves.
On December 11 2010 10:54 Skrag wrote: Huh? You've watched the replays? We don't have those. Unless Jacob gave you the map.
Or, rather, we do have them, but you'd also have to have the custom map containing the AI.
But if you could see a replay of my trigger-based AI, you'd see that it executes as damn near perfectly as possible, and it does so consistently, every single game.
I haven't added other pool-first builds to my AI yet, but based on jacob's results, I'd guess that mine will also show that 14p and 15p are both superior *economically* to the 11pool, with smaller differences than the 13p.
That's not to say that I think the 11pool is a piece of junk. I think the fact that it's even viable is absolutely incredible, and even if I don't use it every game, it's something I will definitely use occasionally.
As soon as I get a few more build orders added, and try to stick with some of the same consistencies that jacob has (only building up to 48 drones, which is still actually way too many for xelnaga, the absolute maximum number of drones that can be effectively mining on the main is 20, not 24), I'll host the map somewhere so you can check the results yourselves.
My SC2 automatically downloaded the maps needed for the replays provided in the OP.
Skrag, what effect does delaying the hatch have in the 13+ pool first builds?
I don't see a reason to pool first vs Terran at all, but against Protoss an 11 pool can be nice at shutting down cheese or forge expands, especially on small maps. The sacrifice is economy, but given that a late pool leads to a pylon at the expansion, I'm wondering how badly a 13 pool 15(or whatever it turns out to be) hatch is affected by having to remove a pylon at the expansion. By contrast an 11 pool can usually get lings out in time to remove the pylon a lot sooner.
I've also played a few games with the 11 pool, and sadly I don't even think it's early enough to stop a cannon wall in. The timings just don't seem to work out unless you get super early lings - ruining any hope of keeping up with a 13 pool.
You didn't list 15 hatch, 14 pool? That's my favourite opening and I use it almost exclusively in each match up, just make sure to send out a scout as you send your drone to expo. I've found it can hold off pretty much any cheese imo. Except for steppes. But that's thumbed down.
On December 11 2010 12:07 Rb6v King wrote: You didn't list 15 hatch, 14 pool? That's my favourite opening and I use it almost exclusively in each match up, just make sure to send out a scout as you send your drone to expo. I've found it can hold off pretty much any cheese imo. Except for steppes. But that's thumbed down.
The other thread showed that 14 hatch 15pool was superior economically to everything else, but given the obvious testing flaws, it's probably worth testing 15 hatch. If I have some time this weekend, I plan on adding the whole range of builds, but since it turned out that specific drone micro was necessary to make the testing completely consistent, and that drone micro is *incredibly* difficult and time-consuming to get right (requiring lots of trial and error and restarting as the drone counts get higher), don't hold your breath please. You might turn blue or die or something.
The fact that an 11overpool can even compete at all with the more economic builds at all would indicate that the queen timing is very important, so it wouldn't surprise me that much if 14h15p was in fact economically superior to 15h14p
I think the impact drone micro has had on this discussion is almost more interesting than the build orders themselves. Skrag have you noticed any patterns that can be employed by a human with less than than the 4000 APM your AI has to help improve improve the mining in the early game. I see many top players trading a small amount of mining time early to pair up workers on close patches asap, and I've seen other replays simply preferring to get a worker on each patch quickly without worrying about which patches are close.
On December 11 2010 10:18 Chinesewonder wrote: I do 11 pool and 18 hatch. Works wonders. You get the pool up fast, just incase they do an all in rush your covered. Also sets you up very strong economically. Only drawback is that when you go to 16 and get your queen your 18/18 which is the point where u throw down your hatch. Between this time you cant produce many fighters just incase a rush comes in at that time. but I find this build great either way.
Take this back to the other thread please. We're not debating the merits of one build vs another here, only comparing potential economy. Nobody here is trying to argue that 11pool can't be a solid build. The psychological implications alone can be huge imo.
But since you posted here: 13pool gets the pool up almost as fast, gets the hatch up faster, and also appears to set you up even more strongly economically, both resource and larvae-wise.
Okay, even though we really don't need this (I provided replays and a link to the 11 Pool thread for people to make their own decision), this thread isn't just for comparing potential economy. I do hope people can post some ladder replays of builds they like eventually so that we can get an idea of the problems and bonuses of each build. 11 pool is the only one I don't care about because it's already well documented with replays, so new ones are not needed.
On December 11 2010 10:54 Skrag wrote: Huh? You've watched the replays? We don't have those. Unless Jacob gave you the map.
Or, rather, we do have them, but you'd also have to have the custom map containing the AI.
But if you could see a replay of my trigger-based AI, you'd see that it executes as damn near perfectly as possible, and it does so consistently, every single game.
I haven't added other pool-first builds to my AI yet, but based on jacob's results, I'd guess that mine will also show that 14p and 15p are both superior *economically* to the 11pool, with smaller differences than the 13p.
That's not to say that I think the 11pool is a piece of junk. I think the fact that it's even viable is absolutely incredible, and even if I don't use it every game, it's something I will definitely use occasionally.
As soon as I get a few more build orders added, and try to stick with some of the same consistencies that jacob has (only building up to 48 drones, which is still actually way too many for xelnaga, the absolute maximum number of drones that can be effectively mining on the main is 20, not 24), I'll host the map somewhere so you can check the results yourselves.
I'm pretty sure that 24 drones can actually mine effectively on 8 patches. Each patch can support 3 drones as far as I know. The issue is that it takes them a really long time to reach equilibrium.
I never actually tested this though. It's possible some patches are close enough that they can't support 3 drones? It's also possible that the line doesn't reach equilibrium before it's mined out. I don't really know, but I've always thought that 24 drones can mine on a line.
On December 11 2010 12:07 Rb6v King wrote: You didn't list 15 hatch, 14 pool? That's my favourite opening and I use it almost exclusively in each match up, just make sure to send out a scout as you send your drone to expo. I've found it can hold off pretty much any cheese imo. Except for steppes. But that's thumbed down.
Do you know the build order? I would really love to test it, but it's quite tedious getting good ovie timings to 52 supply.
On December 11 2010 12:53 jacobman wrote: I'm pretty sure that 24 drones can actually mine effectively on 8 patches. Each patch can support 3 drones as far as I know. The issue is that it takes them a really long time to reach equilibrium.
I never actually tested this though. It's possible some patches are close enough that they can't support 3 drones? It's also possible that the line doesn't reach equilibrium before it's mined out. I don't really know, but I've always thought that 24 drones can mine on a line.
I'm absolutely positive they can't, and did *extensive* testing during the beta on it.
Mineral patches that are "close" to the hatchery can only be mined by 2 workers at a time. Patches that are further away can be mined by 3. If you ever see any workers bouncing around from patch to patch, those workers are not contributing to your economy at all.
Xel'Naga has 4 close patches, where most maps only have 2, so the maximum number of workers in the mains is 20. (4 patches that can support 2 workers, 4 that can support 3)
In that base, 24 workers will mine at almost exactly the same rate as 20. I didn't test this on XelNaga specifically (because it didn't actually exist at the time), I tested on Lost Temple, which has two "close" patches in the main, and 30 workers mined at almost the exact same rate as 22. There is a *very* small improvement, because the timing on the close patches is not 100% perfect, and there's a very small gap that can be improved upon if there are enough extra workers bouncing around, but the benefit is really really really small, and definitely not worth the extra worker.
Also, even though the base *can* support 20 miners, the last worker or two that the patches can support will often take so long to settle in that they're not worth building unless you're intentionally oversaturating to expand, and even then, it's going to be better to have them distance mine at the expansion than to interfere with the routines at the main.
I haven't figured out which patches on the expansions are too close to support 3 workers, so I don't know what the max number of drones at the expansion is, but more than 20 at the main is definitely too many.
On December 11 2010 12:53 jacobman wrote: I'm pretty sure that 24 drones can actually mine effectively on 8 patches. Each patch can support 3 drones as far as I know. The issue is that it takes them a really long time to reach equilibrium.
I never actually tested this though. It's possible some patches are close enough that they can't support 3 drones? It's also possible that the line doesn't reach equilibrium before it's mined out. I don't really know, but I've always thought that 24 drones can mine on a line.
I'm absolutely positive they can't, and did *extensive* testing during the beta on it.
Mineral patches that are "close" to the hatchery can only be mined by 2 workers at a time. Patches that are further away can be mined by 3. If you ever see any workers bouncing around from patch to patch, those workers are not contributing to your economy at all.
Xel'Naga has 4 close patches, where most maps only have 2, so the maximum number of workers in the mains is 20. (4 patches that can support 2 workers, 4 that can support 3)
In that base, 24 workers will mine at almost exactly the same rate as 20. I didn't test this on XelNaga specifically (because it didn't actually exist at the time), I tested on Lost Temple, which has two "close" patches in the main, and 30 workers mined at almost the exact same rate as 22. There is a *very* small improvement, because the timing on the close patches is not 100% perfect, and there's a very small gap that can be improved upon if there are enough extra workers bouncing around, but the benefit is really really really small, and definitely not worth the extra worker.
Also, even though the base *can* support 20 miners, the last worker or two that the patches can support will often take so long to settle in that they're not worth building unless you're intentionally oversaturating to expand, and even then, it's going to be better to have them distance mine at the expansion than to interfere with the routines at the main.
I haven't figured out which patches on the expansions are too close to support 3 workers, so I don't know what the max number of drones at the expansion is, but more than 20 at the main is definitely too many.
Interesting. I didn't know that. I'm not going to change it though. I want to keep the builds consistent.
On December 11 2010 13:14 IzieBoy wrote: wow cool so 14 hatch 15 pool might be the winning ticket for 4v4s
It might be. Don't get too attached to one build yet. Check back in like a week and we'll likely have more builds for comparison. Right now the number of hatch first builds tested is kind of weak.
On December 11 2010 15:01 Drae wrote: Simple question.
Why is the seconds lost for transferring workers in the build order 19 seconds for 13p15h and 21 seconds for the other builds?
First of all, just for clarification, that note is only meant for the BO tester that I listed. I'm currently only using that to help with overlord timings and finding new builds. That is not used in any way for the AI testing.
I included in this time the time lost when you brought the drone to make the hatchery. Since there was no easy way to input this in the BO tester that I knew of. I found it to take about 15 seconds to get to the expansion location. Minus the 3 seconds already included in the building delay brings it to 12. If you divide that between two transfered drones that is 6 extra per drone to make up for the drone that went to make the hatch. 15+6 = 21. With 3 drones transfered 12/3 = 4 and 15+4=19
On December 11 2010 15:14 jacobman wrote: First of all, just for clarification, that note is only meant for the BO tester that I listed. I'm currently only using that to help with overlord timings and finding new builds. That is not used in any way for the AI testing.
I included in this time the time lost when you brought the drone to make the hatchery. Since there was no easy way to input this in the BO tester that I knew of. I found it to take about 15 seconds to get to the expansion location. Minus the 3 seconds already included in the building delay brings it to 12. If you divide that between two transfered drones that is 6 extra per drone to make up for the drone that went to make the hatch. 15+6 = 21. With 3 drones transfered 12/3 = 4 and 15+4=19
The problem with this method is that you are accounting for lost income from the hatchery drones transfer time much later in the build order than actually would occur.
Based on the syntax info page for that BO tester, I think a better way to account for time lost for travel time for the expansion would be the scout then proxy command. Then just use the transfer command as normal.
BO tester script then looks like this;
# Startup Build Delay = 3 Seconds 10 Extractor trick 11 Overlord 11 Spawning Pool 16 Queen then constant Spawn Larvae @150 minerals scout (15 seconds) @300 minerals proxy Hatchery, then transfer 2 Drones (15 seconds) 17 Overlord 18 Overlord 21 Queen then constant spawn larvae 28 Overlord 36 Overlord
The same can be used for any of the builds you listed.
On December 11 2010 15:14 jacobman wrote: First of all, just for clarification, that note is only meant for the BO tester that I listed. I'm currently only using that to help with overlord timings and finding new builds. That is not used in any way for the AI testing.
I included in this time the time lost when you brought the drone to make the hatchery. Since there was no easy way to input this in the BO tester that I knew of. I found it to take about 15 seconds to get to the expansion location. Minus the 3 seconds already included in the building delay brings it to 12. If you divide that between two transfered drones that is 6 extra per drone to make up for the drone that went to make the hatch. 15+6 = 21. With 3 drones transfered 12/3 = 4 and 15+4=19
The problem with this method is that you are accounting for lost income from the hatchery drones transfer time much later in the build order than actually would occur.
Based on the syntax info page for that BO tester, I think a better way to account for time lost for travel time for the expansion would be the scout then proxy command. Then just use the transfer command as normal.
BO tester script then looks like this;
# Startup Build Delay = 3 Seconds 10 Extractor trick 11 Overlord 11 Spawning Pool 16 Queen then constant Spawn Larvae @150 minerals scout (15 seconds) @300 minerals proxy Hatchery, then transfer 2 Drones (15 seconds) 17 Overlord 18 Overlord 21 Queen then constant spawn larvae 28 Overlord 36 Overlord
The same can be used for any of the builds you listed.
That does sound like it would be better. Thanks for the idea. I'll use that from now on. I'll probably go back and change the old BO when I get the chance.
This doesn't change my final results at all, since those weren't reliant on the BO tester, but your idea will make me a little more confident that I've found a good build on the BO tester when I do.
Have any build orders that you think would stack up with the 14/14 or 14/15 builds? I'm really curious if those actually are the builds with the greatest economic potential.
That does sound like it would be better. Thanks for the idea. I'll use that from now on. I'll probably go back and change the old BO when I get the chance.
This doesn't change my final results at all, since those weren't reliant on the BO tester, but your idea will make me a little more confident that I've found a good build on the BO tester when I do.
This news probably wont make you more confident
I just reviewed the output from the script and its bugged for multiple queens;
Its probably not a great script to using to base your analysis on.
Is there a link to the AI that Skragg is using? I am sure its on one of the four or so threads, but I cant find it.
On December 11 2010 18:48 jacobman wrote:
Have any build orders that you think would stack up with the 14/14 or 14/15 builds? I'm really curious if those actually are the builds with the greatest economic potential.
First thing I am going to do is post an optimized version of the 11p18h build. The one that is being used is off by a fair bit. The 18OL should be a 20 OL. Ill post a proper build once I can get a replay of it in a ladder 1v1.
Ill look at the other builds if I can find the time.
not a great player but just looking at the graphs it would seem that the difference is up to 200 mins at the 6:20 mark. I know that can make a difference but with the flexibility of earlier pools it makes sense to go pool first especially with all the terrans rushing. And so although the arguements for and against might rage on what at least this information purely shows, is that no matter what bo you go you won't really suffer in the early game enough economically to justify saying hatch first is a must for eco games.
Unless I suck at reading graphs...
Not talking about the top pros... 200 mins will probably make a difference if they can defend the early hatch. But for the other 99% of us pool first won't really make a huge difference.
Haha, I'm using AI too Drae. I don't when the last time you checked this thread was, but we actually changed directions from a day or two ago. None of the analysis is based on the build order tester. That's only a tool to help perhaps steer us towards other builds to try.
AI testing was the best idea we could come up with for testing the builds, so each build has been run by AI in the REAL GAME. The results for that are the one's that are posted. Each build was run 5 times too to get an average which better represents the build.
If you have any improvements to the builds I already have listed or if you have a new build, I would love to hear them. If you give me a detailed build order I'll actually test it right away.
Also, there is no link to the AI that Skragg is using. However, I did post example replays of my AI running each build. If you watch those, it should download the map and you can see the script that I'm using there. I have to warn you though, my coding is really really really unorganized and inefficient. I was just trying to get the job done, and I did not worry about making the code pretty. Also, there are some artifacts in the code from things I tried that did not work, which do not affect the game-play.
Ignore that, its actually a bug in the completion time for the second queen, not the first larvae spit from the second queen. The second queen is listed as having a 60second production time, when it should be 50. That means that the second queens first larvae spit is on time at 50 secs.
So the bug has no impact on the output.
On December 11 2010 19:06 jacobman wrote: Haha, I'm using AI too Drae. I don't when the last time you checked this thread was, but we actually changed directions from a day or two ago. None of the analysis is based on the build order tester. That's only a tool to help perhaps steer us towards other builds to try.
AI testing was the best idea we could come up with for testing the builds, so each build has been run by AI in the REAL GAME. The results for that are the one's that are posted. Each build was run 5 times too to get an average which better represents the build.
If you have any improvements to the builds I already have listed or if you have a new build, I would love to hear them. If you give me a detailed build order I'll actually test it right away.
Also, there is no link to the AI that Skragg is using. However, I did post example replays of my AI running each build. If you watch those, it should download the map and you can see the script that I'm using there. I have to warn you though, my coding is really really really unorganized and inefficient. I was just trying to get the job done, and I did not worry about making the code pretty. Also, there are some artifacts in the code from things I tried that did not work, which do not affect the game-play.
Fair enough, I'll just post the build orders when I have one optimized and let you test it
On December 11 2010 19:01 Bobgrimly wrote: not a great player but just looking at the graphs it would seem that the difference is up to 200 mins at the 6:20 mark. I know that can make a difference but with the flexibility of earlier pools it makes sense to go pool first especially with all the terrans rushing. And so although the arguements for and against might rage on what at least this information purely shows, is that no matter what bo you go you won't really suffer in the early game enough economically to justify saying hatch first is a must for eco games.
Unless I suck at reading graphs...
Not talking about the top pros... 200 mins will probably make a difference if they can defend the early hatch. But for the other 99% of us pool first won't really make a huge difference.
Haha, you don't suck at reading graphs. I understand where you're coming from. I'm trying not make up peoples mind on which build they want to use. That's why I break down the analysis into pool first and hatch first. Although the good players can defend hatch first on many maps, many other people just aren't skilled enough to do this and will have more fun with other builds, even if other builds will work better if played best.
For many people I just want this thread to be informative and perhaps help them decide which build works best for them. For the really good players it helps pinpoint the builds that will give them that essential tiny boost to their game if they figure out how to defend it.
I don't think this is good way to develop solid build orders. Yes it is always good to know what advantages and disadvantages each build order give you. But for hatch 1st builds what happen when you hatch get denied by manner pylon or bunker ? That is more important to me than how much minerals and larva you have @ 6:20. Becouse pool 1st builds will always give you better results in such cases. So we need to find the Best economy build considering all the factors.
On December 11 2010 19:46 AcOrP wrote: I don't think this is good way to develop solid build orders. Yes it is always good to know what advantages and disadvantages each build order give you. But for hatch 1st builds what happen when you hatch get denied by manner pylon or bunker ? That is more important to me than how much minerals and larva you have @ 6:20. Becouse pool 1st builds will always give you better results in such cases. So we need to find the Best economy build considering all the factors.
If you don't like hatch first builds, then don't use them. Currently I'm not saying much of anything about the competative dynamics of the builds. I haven't received a single replay on any of the builds, which is what I was going to base such analysis on.
If you are right about hatch first builds, then I have a multitude of pool first builds with different economic potentials for you to try.
Your criticism, while possible, isn't really constructive. You give no direction to head in. At least with the current testing there is some information being delivered.
In addition to this, when you find the top builds, without interference, you can then branch off into different scenarios to figure out what effect certain challenges have and how those might be tackled. The kind of information we're gathering right now gives you a good base to branch off from.
Really, when it comes down to it, the more information the better. People can make different assumptions based off of what I'm posting, but having this information is still better than not having it.
On December 11 2010 18:56 Drae wrote: Is there a link to the AI that Skragg is using? I am sure its on one of the four or so threads, but I cant find it.
No. The AI is just a bunch of triggers added to the official Xel'Naga Caverns map. I could post the map somewhere, but I wanted to add a few more builds to it before doing so, and even then, unless you're comfortable using the map editor, you won't be able to switch between builds and run it, which required a trigger change. It's a very simple change, but it does require using the map editor.
I'm going to try to post a replay though, to see if other people can watch it without actually having the map, which seems to work for jacobman's version. Maybe enough data is stored in the replay that you don't actually have to have all the trigger logic and whatnot.
Ok, gamereplays.org won't even let me upload the replay, claiming it's corrupted, presumably because the way I've done things won't allow for viewing the replay without the map. I'm guessing it's because I actually made changes to the terrain layer, adding some locator points.
* Early hatch (=more larvae) makes up somewhat for the larvae loss while waiting at 11 * Scout block of hatch not that easy, because its very early * Hatch finished round 3.20 => harder to bunker rush, because of creeps spread * earlier pool, earlier queen => more larvae * economically not that weak, feels like a true hatch first :-)
10 Extractor Trick into Drone 11 Overlord 11 Hatchery 13 Spawning Pool 16 Queen, then constant Spawn Larvae 18 Overlord 23 Overlord 24 Queen, then constant Spawn Larvae 26 Overlord
Because an early queen is better than an early hatch, and I guarantee that build is going to waste so much larvae while waiting for 300 that it will at least offset (and maybe worse) the extra larvae from the faster hatch. 11 overpool barely squeaks by wasting half a larva, and it doesn't have to wait for 300 mins.
Building your second queen at 24supply is going to put you even further behind just about everything else in larvae as well.
Unless you can produce a replay that can compete economically with any of the other builds tested, it doesn't even seem worth the time to add the AI for it.
Replay of build vs AI There are two errors in the replay. I Maynard 7 drones instead of 8, and make a 35OL instead of 36.
The main differences between this build and the previous one; 1: 20 OL instead of 18 OL. 18OL was finishing well in advance of the Larvae pop from the Queens first Larvae Spit and was unnecessarily early and delaying 19 drone. 2: Maynarding 8 drones instead of 2. This is a significant difference between the 11p18h and the 14h15p builds. 11p18h has 24 drones when the hatchery finishes, compared to the 18 that 14h15p has. Maynarding for the 11p18h is therefore much more effective than it is for the 14h15p.
I'll look at the other builds you mentioned and post up any results if they look decent.
Also, I'd like to see the results for 16 pool 15 hatch. Very economical, while being a little safer because pool finishes around 3:10. Though the hatch is susceptible to getting blocked . Don't really have a refined build for it.
Hmm...while trying to find a refined build for it, EvolutionChamber came up with this build:
It'd be interesting to see how a 3 hatch build compares to all these 2 hatch builds. The extra larva would be nice if you're planning on making a lot of lings or roaches (larva intensive units) after you get your econ going.
On December 12 2010 10:36 Skrag wrote: Because an early queen is better than an early hatch, and I guarantee that build is going to waste so much larvae while waiting for 300 that it will at least offset (and maybe worse) the extra larvae from the faster hatch. 11 overpool barely squeaks by wasting half a larva, and it doesn't have to wait for 300 mins.
Building your second queen at 24supply is going to put you even further behind just about everything else in larvae as well.
Unless you can produce a replay that can compete economically with any of the other builds tested, it doesn't even seem worth the time to add the AI for it.
1) "Queen is better than hatch". In general: yes, but not at this point in time. A hatch at 3.20 produces larvae immediately. There is no way to have additional larvae at this time in the game by using a queen, because you need pool to build a queen ofc. 2) loosing larvae. Summarized, you loose ~0.8 larvae (compared to 14h15p) while waiting, because the early hatch produces larvae earlier, which makes up a bit (1 larvae). 3) second queen. Can be produced earlier, however in real world games i tend to delay it, maybe i should experiment a bit. 4) economy. According to the bo-calculator it is ~130 behind 14h15p at 6'11. That's not significant. Having to pull off drone to fend of some early harass is much more expensive.
the build is pretty equal to 14h15p, however it sacrifies a minimal amount of eco (.8 larvae) to have your expansion to finish ~17 seconds earlier. The economic differences look huge if you compare at 6 minutes because of the exponential nature of the economy process. However in real world even slight errors in timings can cause 200-300 difference in income at 6'00, so one should weight defendability and safety higher. Ever thought of presenting percentage numbers instead of absolute "minerals mined" numbers ? Actual 4600 at 6'00 compared to 4400 should be regarded econonmy-wise equal. IMHO Prefer the 4400 build, if it lowers the risk of early trouble somewhat.
Any hatch first build will give you a large production advantage, the main problem is early defendatibility. BTW 12h12pool looks interesting also XD
Can you generate a rep of it coming anywhere close to any of the posted builds? I'd also want a full drone race build out to 52 supply, including optimal overlord timings, before I'd consider adding it.
Also, I *really* don't trust the results of build order calculators or optimizers. I've seen them give completely nonsensical results too often.
Also, eco sacrifice isn't just larvae. A decent amount of the 11pool's eco sacrifice comes from the fact that drones after 11 come later. Early drone delays matter a lot more than late ones.
One more quick note. Hatch at 3:20 is just *barely* faster than a 14 hatch.
On December 12 2010 11:54 Skrag wrote: Can you generate a rep of it coming anywhere close to any of the posted builds? I'd also want a full drone race build out to 52 supply, including optimal overlord timings, before I'd consider adding it.
Also, I *really* don't trust the results of build order calculators or optimizers. I've seen them give completely nonsensical results too often.
Also, eco sacrifice isn't just larvae. A decent amount of the 11pool's eco sacrifice comes from the fact that drones after 11 come later. Early drone delays matter a lot more than late ones.
One more quick note. Hatch at 3:20 is just *barely* faster than a 14 hatch.
Maybe you're right .. i've got a better one (well never played it actually (but played 11h13p) )
10 Double Extractor Trick into Drone [2] 12 Hatchery 11 Overlord 11 Spawning Pool 15 Queen, then constant Spawn Larvae 17 Overlord 23 Overlord 23 Queen, then constant Spawn Larvae 26 Overlord
again scnd queen timing is questionable. however pool and hatch are earlier. will post a replay tomorrow (even if this is worse, its interesting to find out how much eco is sacrificed in favor of timings).
I actually tried 12hatch, both before and after the overlord, when the other thread was running its course, and couldn't get it to be better than 11pool, much less anything else.
On December 12 2010 12:18 Skrag wrote: I actually tried 12hatch, both before and after the overlord, when the other thread was running its course, and couldn't get it to be better than 11pool, much less anything else.
if its equal to 11p18h, that's fine. actually i am looking for a safe hatch first, having expo and a spine up before those damned marines arrive ;-). 11 pool is easily containable .. viable zvz at best. if you get your queen sniped while being still one base its instant gg.
On December 12 2010 07:18 Skrag wrote: Ok, gamereplays.org won't even let me upload the replay, claiming it's corrupted, presumably because the way I've done things won't allow for viewing the replay without the map. I'm guessing it's because I actually made changes to the terrain layer, adding some locator points.
Hey Skrag. I've encountered this issue before. It may not be the map. I know this because I got the same issue with a replay on the original Xel'Naga map. I think the difference at that time was that I didn't include a computer opponent when I played. I just played by myself. I just thought you should know since you seemed to be assuming it was because you changed the map.
I was able to post those replays on a different replay sites by the way. You should try that.
Okay, just for future reference, in order for me to do a full test on a build it has to beat one of the 5 hatch first or pool first builds listed in the OP on its first try. If I try and it doesn't do this, I will let you know, but I will not do a full test.
Also, nothing against you Schnullerbacke13, but none of your build orders work economically. Also, they're slow.
On December 12 2010 11:04 Cambam wrote: SCBuildOrder says 12 pool 16 hatch is best. Sounds good if it's true, since the pool finishes around 2:40. Here's the BO:
Also, I'd like to see the results for 16 pool 15 hatch. Very economical, while being a little safer because pool finishes around 3:10. Though the hatch is susceptible to getting blocked . Don't really have a refined build for it.
Hmm...while trying to find a refined build for it, EvolutionChamber came up with this build:
It'd be interesting to see how a 3 hatch build compares to all these 2 hatch builds. The extra larva would be nice if you're planning on making a lot of lings or roaches (larva intensive units) after you get your econ going.
I tried the 12/16 you proposed. It turned out barely behind the 11/18 in the trial.
Actually a 13 hatch + most economical pool is of big interest since it is the _perfect_ timing on 4player maps against a 9pylon scout on cross positions and later. With a 14 hatch he arrives just in time to deny it. Sure it isn't of big theoretical relevance compared to more economical builds, however in a real game you will not be able to do these anyway since your friendly opponent will deny your hatchery.
On December 12 2010 21:43 ChickenLips wrote: Actually a 13 hatch + most economical pool is of big interest since it is the _perfect_ timing on 4player maps against a 9pylon scout on cross positions and later. With a 14 hatch he arrives just in time to deny it. Sure it isn't of big theoretical relevance compared to more economical builds, however in a real game you will not be able to do these anyway since your friendly opponent will deny your hatchery.
Interesting point. I do note that I haven't tested any 13H builds I'll have to try one.
EDIT: I tried a 13H/15P build and it actually didn't do bad at all on the first try. I'll be posting the results when I'm finished doing the analysis. From it's first trial it may actually be better than the 14/15.
On December 12 2010 19:21 jacobman wrote: Okay, just for future reference, in order for me to do a full test on a build it has to beat one of the 5 hatch first or pool first builds listed in the OP on its first try. If I try and it doesn't do this, I will let you know, but I will not do a full test.
Also, nothing against you Schnullerbacke13, but none of your build orders work economically. Also, they're slow.
Wut ?! Prepare for war ;-)
i actually refined and tried 12 hatch 11 pool, played it on "slowest" on xel naga. Its not executed perfect (did not have time to test when and how many drones to maynard). Then played 14h15p (with same imperfectness) and you know what ? 12h11p is equal to slightly better at 6'20. Even if it feels really awkward waiting such a long time at 10/12, earlier queen and pool make up for this later on. You can spend your ressources much better.
compared to 14p15h
* pool is 14 seconds earlier * hatch is 20 seconds earlier (no probe block) * queens are 15..20 seconds earlier (that's ~ half a spawn larvae)
Here is the BO (times are computed, ignore them, i use them for comparision purposes only):
On December 12 2010 19:21 jacobman wrote: Okay, just for future reference, in order for me to do a full test on a build it has to beat one of the 5 hatch first or pool first builds listed in the OP on its first try. If I try and it doesn't do this, I will let you know, but I will not do a full test.
Also, nothing against you Schnullerbacke13, but none of your build orders work economically. Also, they're slow.
Wut ?! Prepare for war ;-)
i actually refined and tried 12 extractor 11 pool, played it on "slowest" on xel naga. Its not executed perfect (did not have time to test when and how many drones to maynard). Then played 14h15p (with same imperfectness) and you know what ? 12h11p is equal to slightly better at 6'20. Even if it feels really awkward waiting such a long time at 10/12, earlier queen and pool make up for this later on. You can spend your ressources much better.
compared to 14p15h
* pool is 14 seconds earlier * hatch is 20 seconds earlier (no probe block) * queens are 15..20 seconds earlier (that's ~ half a spawn larvae)
Here is the BO (times are computed, ignore them, i use them for comparision purposes only):
Thanks for the ovie timings. I'll try the build one more time. If it does really well like you're saying I'll do some more tests.
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
?? it is the most larvae generating build (around 4:00 .. 5:00 because of earlier inject) and gets pool significantly faster than any other hatch first. Also you get a spine up (in case) earlier than any other hatch first. Its real safe, since the weak timing window is extremely early (before any 2 rax push or 2 gate arrives), so it is way more safe than 14h 15 pool. maybe it will be not 200 mins behind if you tweak it a bit (drone maynard). I'd recommend to add this to your build list, its a close position-safe hatch first build. Anyway beeing 200 mins behind at 6'20 is not too much a price for earlier defense.
Pls check the timings of early pressure .. 2 rax is ~4:30 earliest. You'll have earlier lings to defend bunker rush.
EDIT: can you post the numbers of your AI test, i'd be interested on the exact price payed for earlier hatch ? EDIT1: do you have replays of the AI build execution ? I can't reproduce the results. I am not about to get the "Hey my build is the best"-syndrome (like the overpool guys out there). I just want to know the price of timings. 14h15p tends to stockpile mins, 12h11p tends to stockpile larvae somewhat while having earlier lings+queens. Maybe one suits close position maps, the other larger ones. I am just curious to get exact numbers 'bout the trade off. At the end there is no one-size-fits-it-all build.
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
?? it is the most larvae generating build (around 4:00 .. 5:00 because of earlier inject) and gets pool significantly faster than any other hatch first. Also you get a spine up (in case) earlier than any other hatch first. Its real safe, since the weak timing window is extremely early (before any 2 rax push or 2 gate arrives), so it is way more safe than 14h 15 pool. maybe it will be not 200 mins behind if you tweak it a bit (drone maynard). I'd recommend to add this to your build list, its a close position-safe hatch first build. Anyway beeing 200 mins behind at 6'20 is not too much a price for earlier defense.
Pls check the timings of early pressure .. 2 rax is ~4:30 earliest. You'll have earlier lings to defend bunker rush.
2rax is 2 marines + whatever amount of SCVs he wants by 4.00 -4.10 in your natural.
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
?? it is the most larvae generating build (around 4:00 .. 5:00 because of earlier inject) and gets pool significantly faster than any other hatch first. Also you get a spine up (in case) earlier than any other hatch first. Its real safe, since the weak timing window is extremely early (before any 2 rax push or 2 gate arrives), so it is way more safe than 14h 15 pool. maybe it will be not 200 mins behind if you tweak it a bit (drone maynard). I'd recommend to add this to your build list, its a close position-safe hatch first build. Anyway beeing 200 mins behind at 6'20 is not too much a price for earlier defense.
Pls check the timings of early pressure .. 2 rax is ~4:30 earliest. You'll have earlier lings to defend bunker rush.
2rax is 2 marines + whatever amount of SCVs he wants by 4.00 -4.10 in your natural.
well depends .. at least 12h11p has lings + spine finished at that time
Okay, so I've done more tests on the 13H/15P and it has come out ahead of the 14H/15P. It's really close, but after 5 runs it was ahead. It's possible with more tests it would be behind, but not by much. It's really close. Either way, if what lips said is true about a 13 hatch being able to be quicker than a normal 9 pylon scout on most maps, this would easily make the 13H/15P build the best hatch first build so far.
On December 13 2010 01:29 jacobman wrote: Okay, so I've done more tests on the 13H/15P and it has come out ahead of the 14H/15P. It's really close, but after 5 runs it was ahead. Either way, if what lips said is true about a 13 hatch being able to be quicker than a normal 9 pylon scout on most maps, this would easily make the 13H/15P build the best build so far.
I can confirm it 100% from personal experience. On LT and Metalopolis if he does the normal scout timing and heads straight for your natural expansion. If your opponent isn't bad and turns around in each main right as he has vision of the area where the creep is supposed to be he will arrive in time for a 14 hatch every time.
Anyways, what about 13h/14p ? So far I've really loved x hatch / x+1 pool builds because both buildings finish at the exact same time and allow for very smooth double queenage.
If you give me the timing of the 13h I can compare it to some practice games I've played yesterday against Terran and Protoss opponents that regularely try to deny hatch firsts.
Also 13/13 and 13/12 would be interesting. Sometimes you see your opponent going for zealot+cannon pressure or 2rax builds and you want zerglings as fast as possible. I wonder how much the economic trade-off is. If f.e. 13/12 is only behind by a few minerals it would certainly pose a very attractice combination of economy and flexibility. (And after all this thread seems to also take defendability into account)
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
?? it is the most larvae generating build (around 4:00 .. 5:00 because of earlier inject) and gets pool significantly faster than any other hatch first. Also you get a spine up (in case) earlier than any other hatch first. Its real safe, since the weak timing window is extremely early (before any 2 rax push or 2 gate arrives), so it is way more safe than 14h 15 pool. maybe it will be not 200 mins behind if you tweak it a bit (drone maynard). I'd recommend to add this to your build list, its a close position-safe hatch first build. Anyway beeing 200 mins behind at 6'20 is not too much a price for earlier defense.
Pls check the timings of early pressure .. 2 rax is ~4:30 earliest. You'll have earlier lings to defend bunker rush.
EDIT: can you post the numbers of your AI test, i'd be interested on the exact price payed for earlier hatch ? EDIT1: do you have replays of the AI build execution ? I can't reproduce the results. I am not about to get the "Hey my build is the best"-syndrome (like the overpool guys out there). I just want to know the price of timings. 14h15p tends to stockpile mins, 12h11p tends to stockpile larvae somewhat while having earlier lings+queens. Maybe one suits close position maps, the other larger ones. I am just curious to get exact numbers 'bout the trade off. At the end there is no one-size-fits-it-all build.
4930 something was the result of the test. No other build I have tested so far has dropped below 5100. Also, the pool gets up slower than a 14H/13P with less minerals to spend.
On December 13 2010 01:29 jacobman wrote: Okay, so I've done more tests on the 13H/15P and it has come out ahead of the 14H/15P. It's really close, but after 5 runs it was ahead. Either way, if what lips said is true about a 13 hatch being able to be quicker than a normal 9 pylon scout on most maps, this would easily make the 13H/15P build the best build so far.
I can confirm it 100% from personal experience. On LT and Metalopolis if he does the normal scout timing and heads straight for your natural expansion. If your opponent isn't bad and turns around in each main right as he has vision of the area where the creep is supposed to be he will arrive in time for a 14 hatch every time.
Anyways, what about 13h/14p ? So far I've really loved x hatch / x+1 pool builds because both buildings finish at the exact same time and allow for very smooth double queenage.
If you give me the timing of the 13h I can compare it to some practice games I've played yesterday against Terran and Protoss opponents that regularely try to deny hatch firsts.
Also 13/13 and 13/12 would be interesting. Sometimes you see your opponent going for zealot+cannon pressure or 2rax builds and you want zerglings as fast as possible. I wonder how much the economic trade-off is. If f.e. 13/12 is only behind by a few minerals it would certainly pose a very attractice combination of economy and flexibility. (And after all this thread seems to also take defendability into account)
I tried 13/13 first and it did not do nearly as well. I'll double check the replay. I posted the build order and the timings. It's basically just the 14/15 though. It's not a huge change.
If you try it on the ladder, let me know what you find as far as your expansions getting blocked.
On December 13 2010 02:52 greenkid wrote: 9 overlord 12 Hatchery 13 Spawning Pool 16 Overlord 18 Queen then constant spawn larvae 20 Queen then constant spawn larvae 24 Overlord 32 Overlord 42 Overlord 48 overlord
I'll check later today. I'm heading out for now though. I did run a 12H/14P test just a moment ago though. It didn't turn out too bad, so I expect 12/13 not to do too bad.
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
?? it is the most larvae generating build (around 4:00 .. 5:00 because of earlier inject) and gets pool significantly faster than any other hatch first. Also you get a spine up (in case) earlier than any other hatch first. Its real safe, since the weak timing window is extremely early (before any 2 rax push or 2 gate arrives), so it is way more safe than 14h 15 pool. maybe it will be not 200 mins behind if you tweak it a bit (drone maynard). I'd recommend to add this to your build list, its a close position-safe hatch first build. Anyway beeing 200 mins behind at 6'20 is not too much a price for earlier defense.
Pls check the timings of early pressure .. 2 rax is ~4:30 earliest. You'll have earlier lings to defend bunker rush.
EDIT: can you post the numbers of your AI test, i'd be interested on the exact price payed for earlier hatch ? EDIT1: do you have replays of the AI build execution ? I can't reproduce the results. I am not about to get the "Hey my build is the best"-syndrome (like the overpool guys out there). I just want to know the price of timings. 14h15p tends to stockpile mins, 12h11p tends to stockpile larvae somewhat while having earlier lings+queens. Maybe one suits close position maps, the other larger ones. I am just curious to get exact numbers 'bout the trade off. At the end there is no one-size-fits-it-all build.
4930 something was the result of the test. No other build I have tested so far has dropped below 5100. Also, the pool gets up slower than a 14H/13P with less minerals to spend.
Hum, pretty lame. I don't know what you are testing there man, i checked back with 14h13p, it gets the pool 3 seconds later and the hatch comes 20 seconds later .. pls check the replay i posted.
Anyway i found 13 hatch 12 pool to be equal in pool timing compared to 2extractor12h11pool, which renders 12h11pool pretty useless ;-) .. however 13h12p gets the hatch 15 seconds later, but this won't matter in most cases .. 13 hatch seems to be kind of equilibrium .. depending on scouting you can drop the pool late at 15 or drop it immediately at 12 in case a rush is detected.
EDIT: I tested your build with the AI. It came out 200 minerals behind any other build that has been tested so far with the first test. That, coupled with how little you have to defend yourself in the beginning with this build would appear to make this build both not good economy and very risky.
?? it is the most larvae generating build (around 4:00 .. 5:00 because of earlier inject) and gets pool significantly faster than any other hatch first. Also you get a spine up (in case) earlier than any other hatch first. Its real safe, since the weak timing window is extremely early (before any 2 rax push or 2 gate arrives), so it is way more safe than 14h 15 pool. maybe it will be not 200 mins behind if you tweak it a bit (drone maynard). I'd recommend to add this to your build list, its a close position-safe hatch first build. Anyway beeing 200 mins behind at 6'20 is not too much a price for earlier defense.
Pls check the timings of early pressure .. 2 rax is ~4:30 earliest. You'll have earlier lings to defend bunker rush.
EDIT: can you post the numbers of your AI test, i'd be interested on the exact price payed for earlier hatch ? EDIT1: do you have replays of the AI build execution ? I can't reproduce the results. I am not about to get the "Hey my build is the best"-syndrome (like the overpool guys out there). I just want to know the price of timings. 14h15p tends to stockpile mins, 12h11p tends to stockpile larvae somewhat while having earlier lings+queens. Maybe one suits close position maps, the other larger ones. I am just curious to get exact numbers 'bout the trade off. At the end there is no one-size-fits-it-all build.
4930 something was the result of the test. No other build I have tested so far has dropped below 5100. Also, the pool gets up slower than a 14H/13P with less minerals to spend.
Hum, pretty lame. I don't know what you are testing there man, i checked back with 14h13p, it gets the pool 3 seconds later and the hatch comes 20 seconds later .. pls check the replay i posted.
Anyway i found 13 hatch 12 pool to be equal in pool timing compared to 2extractor12h11pool, which renders 12h11pool pretty useless ;-) .. however 13h12p gets the hatch 15 seconds later, but this won't matter in most cases .. 13 hatch seems to be kind of equilibrium .. depending on scouting you can drop the pool late at 15 or drop it immediately at 12 in case a rush is detected.
I don't know man. I didn't do an extractor trick on that test, so perhaps that's why. The real point is that the 14/13 is much more economical and gets the pool practically at the same time. I'm not going to be looking at anything else involving the 12H/11P. Sorry. As for the 13H/12P, I will probably look at later.
On December 12 2010 07:18 Skrag wrote: Ok, gamereplays.org won't even let me upload the replay, claiming it's corrupted, presumably because the way I've done things won't allow for viewing the replay without the map. I'm guessing it's because I actually made changes to the terrain layer, adding some locator points.
Hey Skrag. I've encountered this issue before. It may not be the map. I know this because I got the same issue with a replay on the original Xel'Naga map. I think the difference at that time was that I didn't include a computer opponent when I played. I just played by myself. I just thought you should know since you seemed to be assuming it was because you changed the map.
I was able to post those replays on a different replay sites by the way. You should try that.
Ah, yeah, that might be it. I don't actually have a human player set up at all in the map, which puts you in as an observer, letting you get detailed info on what the AI is doing. I'll try turning the human player back on and then see if it lets me upload the replay, and if anybody can watch it.
On December 12 2010 07:18 Skrag wrote: Ok, gamereplays.org won't even let me upload the replay, claiming it's corrupted, presumably because the way I've done things won't allow for viewing the replay without the map. I'm guessing it's because I actually made changes to the terrain layer, adding some locator points.
Hey Skrag. I've encountered this issue before. It may not be the map. I know this because I got the same issue with a replay on the original Xel'Naga map. I think the difference at that time was that I didn't include a computer opponent when I played. I just played by myself. I just thought you should know since you seemed to be assuming it was because you changed the map.
I was able to post those replays on a different replay sites by the way. You should try that.
Ah, yeah, that might be it. I don't actually have a human player set up at all in the map, which puts you in as an observer, letting you get detailed info on what the AI is doing. I'll try turning the human player back on and then see if it lets me upload the replay, and if anybody can watch it.
Sweet. I don't even know if my replays work anymore I'm only allowed to publish 11 maps and I'm not sure if the game downloads maps if they're were published in the past and not present.
On December 13 2010 05:12 Skrag wrote: Ok, making that change let me upload it. Can anybody watch this?
No, it says the map data loaded does not match the map data originally loaded. I bet some of my replays have that issue at this point.
Also, don't you have to "publish" the map to even get a replay? It's the part where you upload it to bnet.
I don't actually know what you're talking about here with the uploading to bnet, never having published a map before. The replay just comes from testing the map from the map editor.
On December 13 2010 05:12 Skrag wrote: Ok, making that change let me upload it. Can anybody watch this?
No, it says the map data loaded does not match the map data originally loaded. I bet some of my replays have that issue at this point.
Also, don't you have to "publish" the map to even get a replay? It's the part where you upload it to bnet.
I don't actually know what you're talking about here with the uploading to bnet, never having published a map before. The replay just comes from testing the map from the map editor.
Oh, I didn't even know you could get a replay off of the map editor game test. That's why I uploaded it to battle net. Anyways, you can upload it to bnet by publishing it. It should be under file > publish. That will probably solve your problems, because as of now people who want to see the replay don't have the map you made it under.
On December 13 2010 05:12 Skrag wrote: Ok, making that change let me upload it. Can anybody watch this?
No, it says the map data loaded does not match the map data originally loaded. I bet some of my replays have that issue at this point.
Also, don't you have to "publish" the map to even get a replay? It's the part where you upload it to bnet.
I don't actually know what you're talking about here with the uploading to bnet, never having published a map before. The replay just comes from testing the map from the map editor.
Oh, I didn't even know you could get a replay off of the map editor game test. That's why I uploaded it to battle net. Anyways, you can upload it to bnet by publishing it. It should be under file > publish. That will probably solve your problems, because as of now people who want to see the replay don't have the map you made it under.
Oh. IRSMRT. Like I said, I've never actually published a map before, didn't know how to do that. The replays from the map editor show up in documents/Starcraft II/Replays, rather than the normal spot, which is documents/Starcraft II/Accounts/RandomNumbers/MoreRandomNumbers/Replays
As a side note, your results pretty much confirm my distrust of the build order calculators. Ordered results from the AI test, with final mineral count:
There are some pretty significant differences there, most notably the calculator putting 14h14p all the way at the bottom of the list, being 232 minerals behind 14h15p, with the AI test putting 14h14p only 26 minerals behind 14h15p.
On December 13 2010 05:12 Skrag wrote: Ok, making that change let me upload it. Can anybody watch this?
No, it says the map data loaded does not match the map data originally loaded. I bet some of my replays have that issue at this point.
Also, don't you have to "publish" the map to even get a replay? It's the part where you upload it to bnet.
I don't actually know what you're talking about here with the uploading to bnet, never having published a map before. The replay just comes from testing the map from the map editor.
Oh, I didn't even know you could get a replay off of the map editor game test. That's why I uploaded it to battle net. Anyways, you can upload it to bnet by publishing it. It should be under file > publish. That will probably solve your problems, because as of now people who want to see the replay don't have the map you made it under.
Oh. IRSMRT. Like I said, I've never actually published a map before, didn't know how to do that. The replays from the map editor show up in documents/Starcraft II/Replays, rather than the normal spot, which is documents/Starcraft II/Accounts/RandomNumbers/MoreRandomNumbers/Replays
As a side note, your results pretty much confirm my distrust of the build order calculators. Ordered results from the AI test, with final mineral count:
There are some pretty significant differences there, most notably the calculator putting 14h14p all the way at the bottom of the list, being 232 minerals behind 14h15p, with the AI test putting 14h14p only 26 minerals behind 14h15p.
You're absolutely right about the BO calculators. I noticed the same thing a while ago when I first started getting my AI run data. I think they're still a good investment in finding new builds, as they don't take much time to work with.
You should try the 13H/15P. I posted results for that today. After 5 trials it was ahead of the 14/15. As someone else mentioned, that's significant for a lot of levels because it gets the hatch up before the 9 pylon scout arrives.
The nice thing about going overboard with the drone micro is that I don't have to run 5 times and average the results, cause once I did that, the results started being 100% consistent every game.
Which actually confuses me a little bit, because although I'm perfectly microing the first 19 drones, I'm just rallying to a middle patch at the expansion. There should still be some *small* differences.
bleh. I dunno. The fact that there are differences at all still confuses the shit out of me. Even if it's caused by random larva walks, that randomness should even be consistent when using a fixed random seed. :/
Also agree about the usefulness of BO calcs and optimizers. What I've been saying all along is that they can be useful starting points, and idea generators, but that you can't just blindly use the results without ingame testing, an opinion I formed very early on when one of the first build order optimizers spit out results for a particular target that were completely impossible to execute in-game, because the timings simply didn't work the way it said they should.
Obviously that opinion hasn't changed in the slightest.
omg I feel like a complete moron. I've been struggling to get the 13h15p build working consistently, seeing far more differences than I'm used to seeing.
Turns out I'm working on a different computer than all the other testing I've done, and I forgot to turn on fixed random seed on this one.
If you don't mind me asking, what were your results? One of my five data points looked like an outlier, so I suspect that even though the 14/15 and 13/15 are probably nearly exactly alike, the 14/15 still might be ahead by like 10 minerals or something.
One more test to run, but it looks to me like 13h15p is going to be 15-20 minerals behind 14h15p. Can't get a final larva comparison until I re-run 14h15p, since the larva data is on another computer I don't have access to right now. My guess is that it will be pretty comparable, with the hatch being slightly faster but the pool being slightly later.
On December 13 2010 08:58 Skrag wrote: One more test to run, but it looks to me like 13h15p is going to be 15-20 minerals behind 14h15p. Can't get a final larva comparison until I re-run 14h15p, since the larva data is on another computer I don't have access to right now. My guess is that it will be pretty comparable, with the hatch being slightly faster but the pool being slightly later.
Thanks. I was figuring that might be the case. I was contemplating extending the number of trials to 10 for really close ones like these two builds.
I was thinking about how you use the fixed random seed. Although that makes for great quick testing, I'm going to guess that it's probably more accurate to do it the way I have the main post set up. In the fixed seed version you're only looking at one state, which can affect different builds differently since each build usually has different times that particular drones hatch.
Basically, I think I'm going to continue doing the multiple attempt approach. It is likely to some extent more accurate if you're trying to get a final result.
Ok, so my results have 13h15p being 10 minerals behind 14h15p at the 6 minute mark, but about half a larva ahead. Between 1:50 and 5:30, 13h is 20-40 minerals behind, after 5:30 it seems to be 5-10.
I have the 13hatch being 4 seconds faster, and the pool being 2 seconds later.
On December 13 2010 08:58 Skrag wrote: One more test to run, but it looks to me like 13h15p is going to be 15-20 minerals behind 14h15p. Can't get a final larva comparison until I re-run 14h15p, since the larva data is on another computer I don't have access to right now. My guess is that it will be pretty comparable, with the hatch being slightly faster but the pool being slightly later.
Thanks. I was figuring that might be the case. I was contemplating extending the number of trials to 10 for really close ones like these two builds.
I was thinking about how you use the fixed random seed. Although that makes for great quick testing, I'm going to guess that it's probably more accurate to do it the way I have the main post set up. In the fixed seed version you're only looking at one state, which can affect different builds differently since each build usually has different times that particular drones hatch.
Basically, I think I'm going to continue doing the multiple attempt approach. It is likely to some extent more accurate if you're trying to get a final result.
I'm not sure the fixed seed really will really have that big of an effect, and I think it actually makes the testing *more* accurate. While it's true that it is only testing one exact state, with different seeds (and different specific drone micro), the end result should be pretty damn near identical, because the thing that the drone micro is gaining is consistency due to the fact that each drone that comes out mines as optimally as it can from the point it is created.
Without doing that optimal micro, your results will actually vary by a lot more, because the settle-in effect can make a pretty big difference.
Obviously there could be slight differences with different random seeds, but I'm pretty convinced those differences will be a *lot* smaller than the differences I saw before adding the drone micro, and the differences that runs without micro can show, because without the drone micro, even using a fixed seed (which is obviously not perfect somehow), I was seeing differences as big as 80 minerals on different runs of the same build.
Please don't read that as me trying to discourage you from the method of testing you're using though, because having different testing methods, and showing consistent results between the two, gives even that much more weight to the results.
On December 13 2010 09:12 Skrag wrote: Ok, so my results have 13h15p being 10 minerals behind 14h15p at the 6 minute mark, but about half a larva ahead. Between 1:50 and 5:30, 13h is 20-40 minerals behind, after 5:30 it seems to be 5-10.
I have the 13hatch being 4 seconds faster, and the pool being 2 seconds later.
Yeah, that's about the number I was intuitively guessing just from looking at the results as they came in. One of the trials put the 13H/15P at over 5400 minerals at the 6:20 mark! That's the largest number I saw from any build and seemed high compared to the other numbers. Like I said it just seemed like an outlier, so I figured it would skew the final results slightly.
Just wondering if any of the data accounts for the scouting drone? Because it's a pretty huge factor. Especially since any early pools and hatches really miss that one drone.
I just wanted to point out that the conclusions I think are somewhat misleading. While it's clear that the graphs show that the bars looks significantly higher for some builds over others, I'd like to put some of the results into perspective:
So let's put that into perspective. A drone mines about 2/3 minerals per second. Over 60 seconds that's about 40 minerals. So do the best econ build, pull a drone off a close mineral patch for 4 minutes. That's what we're saying the difference is between 11pool and 13pool 15hatch so to say it's "the best" is objectively true but somewhat misleading in that the margin by which it's winning seems pretty small.
Also for the larvae, as far as I can see the difference between the best and worst is 4 larvae...so I mean drop a creep tumor and now you're back at the "worst" build.
By no means am I trying to say what the OP said is wrong, just trying to make sure nobody interprets the results incorrectly.
On December 13 2010 16:09 TanukTanukTuk wrote: I just wanted to point out that the conclusions I think are somewhat misleading. While it's clear that the graphs show that the bars looks significantly higher for some builds over others, I'd like to put some of the results into perspective:
So let's put that into perspective. A drone mines about 2/3 minerals per second. Over 60 seconds that's about 40 minerals. So do the best econ build, pull a drone off a close mineral patch for 4 minutes. That's what we're saying the difference is between 11pool and 13pool 15hatch so to say it's "the best" is objectively true but somewhat misleading in that the margin by which it's winning seems pretty small.
Also for the larvae, as far as I can see the difference between the best and worst is 4 larvae...so I mean drop a creep tumor and now you're back at the "worst" build.
By no means am I trying to say what the OP said is wrong, just trying to make sure nobody interprets the results incorrectly.
Very true, +-200 mins at 6'19 is not as important as strategic/timing factors such as the possibility to block hatch or timing of lings/queens. A 15 seconds blocked hatch ends without doubt behind a undistorted 12 hatch .. if you are forced to drone fight because of late pool, say good bye to your eco build ..
On December 13 2010 15:39 Blisse wrote: Just wondering if any of the data accounts for the scouting drone? Because it's a pretty huge factor. Especially since any early pools and hatches really miss that one drone.
Okay, so there are a lot of people who want to know how scouting drones/gas/whatever else affect a particular build.
How a build is affected by this is actually governed by a simple statistic, how many drones do you have at the time of the variation? All these things are merly interruptions in a build, and the size of the interruption is simply dependent on how quickly you can gather the resources to put said interruption into place. So a build that has less drones early on is going to suffer more from one these interruptions than other builds.
I am actually hoping to get some plots of some of the builds drone counts for the first 2-3 minutes up at some late date. This will help determine which builds will be affected more by adding in some sort of diversion at different times.
On December 13 2010 16:09 TanukTanukTuk wrote: I just wanted to point out that the conclusions I think are somewhat misleading. While it's clear that the graphs show that the bars looks significantly higher for some builds over others, I'd like to put some of the results into perspective:
So let's put that into perspective. A drone mines about 2/3 minerals per second. Over 60 seconds that's about 40 minerals. So do the best econ build, pull a drone off a close mineral patch for 4 minutes. That's what we're saying the difference is between 11pool and 13pool 15hatch so to say it's "the best" is objectively true but somewhat misleading in that the margin by which it's winning seems pretty small.
Also for the larvae, as far as I can see the difference between the best and worst is 4 larvae...so I mean drop a creep tumor and now you're back at the "worst" build.
By no means am I trying to say what the OP said is wrong, just trying to make sure nobody interprets the results incorrectly.
I understand what you're saying, and I'm not actually trying to claim that the differences between any of the builds are larger than those differences you get from other choices you make in the game, which are numerous (while this is only one choice).
I do however think you guys are talking about it slightly wrong. Yes, your economy is affected by many factors, but if you look at 1000 +- 400 vs. 800 +- 400, the first build is still 200 minerals ahead on it's best day and 200 minerals ahead on it's worst day.
While choosing an opening is only one choice out of tons of decisions that affect your game, and this decision is not likely to be a game breaker for most people, I am simply providing information to inform your decision.
jacobman: I don't know man. I didn't do an extractor trick on that test, so perhaps that's why. The real point is that the 14/13 is much more economical and gets the pool practically at the same time. I'm not going to be looking at anything else involving the 12H/11P. Sorry. As for the 13H/12P, I will probably look at later.
well, if you did not do the extractor trick, you built ovie before hatch which completely changes the whole build. No wonder you find the pool late and economy is screwed in your test (early pool = early queen = earlier spawn larvae, early hatch = earlier larvae). The point is that extremely early hatch enables you to catch up the initial drone delay, and 12 hatch before ovie is unblockable .. If you play 9 ovie 12 hatch, you get 11+12 drone later (missing minerals), you spent 100 for the ovie (missing minerals for hatch, delays hatch) .. hope this isn't your general attitude in testing haha
jacobman: I don't know man. I didn't do an extractor trick on that test, so perhaps that's why. The real point is that the 14/13 is much more economical and gets the pool practically at the same time. I'm not going to be looking at anything else involving the 12H/11P. Sorry. As for the 13H/12P, I will probably look at later.
well, if you did not do the extractor trick, you built ovie before hatch which completely changes the whole build. No wonder you find the pool late and economy is screwed in your test (early pool = early queen = earlier spawn larvae, early hatch = earlier larvae). The point is that extremely early hatch enables you to catch up the initial drone delay, and 12 hatch before ovie is unblockable .. If you play 9 ovie 12 hatch, you get 11+12 drone later (missing minerals), you spent 100 for the ovie (missing minerals for hatch, delays hatch) .. hope this isn't your general attitude in testing haha
I find the pool and economy to be as I said because I had watched your replay too. It was over 200 minerals behind the 11P/18H and over 300 minerals behind most hatch first builds. I'm comparing this to older tests I had done on builds by hand too, not the AI. Also, your pool finished at 3:25 while the 14H/13P finished at 3:27, which like I said, was essentially equal. Your hatch started around 1:44, which is pretty good, but I actually decided to test the timings for 9 pylon scout today, and the scout will reach your expansion around 1:30 on most maps. There are only a few maps where a 12 hatch will make a difference, and in that case I do not suggest the build you posted. I tried a 12H/14P build. I will post the results later, but ended with 5212 minerals. Your build was already over 200 minerals behind by the 6:00 mark. This is for a trade off of 5 seconds in hatch time and early game larva, which since you're hatching so early are likely to be important for fending off early aggression. From what I remember that 5 seconds does not make a difference on any of the maps either. I could have forgotten one, but all the maps I remember had a 9 pylon scout of ~1:30 or ~1:55.
EDIT: if anyone wants to document the scouting times of T and P that would be really useful in determining how important reductions in hatch times are. I simply tested it a few times this morning, but I did not write down any of the information.
@jacobman How do you get the economy data? I tried sc2gears, however it seems to have severe bugs. E.g. it displays for 2Xtractor12Hatch11pool a minerals spent of 4600, and for 11hatch11pool a value of ~5075. However in both replays exactly the same amount of drones, queens and ovies is built, they both have been terminated at 6:20. So how could this be ?
hm .. anyway i am currently testing 11 h 11 pool (with extractor trick but ovie before hatch), which gets very early hatch too and seems to perform slightly better.
My results (Xel Naga, plyed slowest for accuracy). Minor delays/errors easily make up +-150 mins in the end.
all replays drone until 52/52 and then wait until 6'20 (however the replays happen to end at 6'17 somehow).
All build create a double queen ASAP Pool Timings: 2X12h11p => pool set at 2:20 11pool11h => pool set at 2:23 14h15p => pool set at 2:39 Hatch Timings: 2X12h11p => hatch set at 1:43 (1:41 should be possible, made some mistakes) 11pool11h => hatch set at 1:48 (not much room to get this faster, screwed an ovie timing once) 14h15p => hatch set at 2:06
Minerals at 6'20: 2X12h11p ends with an excess of 678 minerals (replayed it with correct drone dispatch) 11h11p ends with an excess of 684 minerals 14h15p ends with an excess of 984 minerals
BUT 14h15p is behind in drones (larvae capped), it might get overtaken later on
14h15p = you wait for larvae most of the time 11h11p = you wait for minerals sometimes
14h15p Submitted by Fenam, modified by jdseemoreglass 9 Overlord 14 Hatch 15 Pool 17 Overlord 17 Rally main to expo 19 Queen 21 Queen 26 Overlord 30 Overlord 30 Overlord 42 Rally main to main 43 Overlord 54 Overlord would be interested in replays + data of 13 hatch stuff .. playing in slowest starts boring me ;-)
Correct me if I'm wrong, I am but a humble n00b. But if the idea is to find the most economic build shouldn't builds like 15h or later be tested? It seems to me it would be most economic if you kept constant drone production, afaik all of these builds "cut" drones (not that they lose larvae but they are built a bit later). I could be totally wrong though. Definitely not the guy to do the tests I really appreciate all the people putting work into this, it is very good info.
On December 14 2010 05:26 telfire wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, I am but a humble n00b. But if the idea is to find the most economic build shouldn't builds like 15h or later be tested? It seems to me it would be most economic if you kept constant drone production, afaik all of these builds "cut" drones (not that they lose larvae but they are built a bit later). I could be totally wrong though. Definitely not the guy to do the tests I really appreciate all the people putting work into this, it is very good info.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking when I started this too. I did test a 16 hatch build and a 15 hatch build. Neither of those outdid the 14/15 or 13/15 though. The results were on the main page. The 15 Hatch 14 Pool did not do bad though. I might try testing the 15/16. It's really time consuming to flesh out builds and test them though. It's great when people give me builds to test. Also, when you start reaching builds in the 16 range, your pool gets out so extremely late that I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't hold off 2 gate pressure ever.
It turns out that delaying the hatchery and delaying the queen have more of a negative impact than simply delaying a couple drones, which explains why the later hatch or later pool builds, which everybody has always assumed are more economic, turn out not to actually be more economic.
The impact of the queen alone is the reason that 11p18h can even compete at all with any of these other builds.
On December 14 2010 05:12 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: + Show Spoiler +
@jacobman How do you get the economy data? I tried sc2gears, however it seems to have severe bugs. E.g. it displays for 2Xtractor12Hatch11pool a minerals spent of 4600, and for 11hatch11pool a value of ~5075. However in both replays exactly the same amount of drones, queens and ovies is built, they both have been terminated at 6:20. So how could this be ?
hm .. anyway i am currently testing 11 h 11 pool (with extractor trick but ovie before hatch), which gets very early hatch too and seems to perform slightly better.
My results (Xel Naga, plyed slowest for accuracy). Minor delays/errors easily make up +-150 mins in the end.
all replays drone until 52/52 and then wait until 6'20 (however the replays happen to end at 6'17 somehow).
All build create a double queen ASAP Pool Timings: 2X12h11p => pool set at 2:20 11pool11h => pool set at 2:23 14h15p => pool set at 2:39 Hatch Timings: 2X12h11p => hatch set at 1:43 (1:41 should be possible, made some mistakes) 11pool11h => hatch set at 1:48 (not much room to get this faster, screwed an ovie timing once) 14h15p => hatch set at 2:06
Minerals at 6'20: 2X12h11p ends with an excess of 678 minerals (replayed it with correct drone dispatch) 11h11p ends with an excess of 684 minerals 14h15p ends with an excess of 984 minerals
BUT 14h15p is behind in drones (larvae capped), it might get overtaken later on
14h15p = you wait for larvae most of the time 11h11p = you wait for minerals sometimes
14h15p Submitted by Fenam, modified by jdseemoreglass 9 Overlord 14 Hatch 15 Pool 17 Overlord 17 Rally main to expo 19 Queen 21 Queen 26 Overlord 30 Overlord 30 Overlord 42 Rally main to main 43 Overlord 54 Overlord would be interested in replays + data of 13 hatch stuff .. playing in slowest starts boring me ;-)
Your data looks like it pretty much mirrors what I was saying before. As far as where I get the data from, you can find it right within the replay. In the menu on the left you can select to see minerals spent. If you combine this with the minerals that you currently have, that gives you a good number to compare builds with (NOTE: the minerals spent includes an extra 700 minerals for what you start with. Since all builds start with this, it does not affect comparisons).
If you're really sure about the 11 hatch builds, give me a replay that ends with ~4600 minerals at the 6:00 mark (minerals spent + current minerals). That is about where the 11P18H and 13P/15H builds ended with human testing on slowest.
Another thing you might try is testing the time that the 9 pylon scout will reach your base on different levels. If you can show me that the difference in the hatch timings between the 11 Hatch and the 12 Hatch I mentioned will preclude a hatch block by a 9 pylon scout on many levels, then this will make the 11 Hatch more interesting to look at. Note that the 12 hatch I mentioned puts the hatch up at 1:49 and ends with 5237 minerals (minerals spent + current minerals) at the 6:20 mark.
On December 14 2010 05:26 telfire wrote: Correct me if I'm wrong, I am but a humble n00b. But if the idea is to find the most economic build shouldn't builds like 15h or later be tested? It seems to me it would be most economic if you kept constant drone production, afaik all of these builds "cut" drones (not that they lose larvae but they are built a bit later). I could be totally wrong though. Definitely not the guy to do the tests I really appreciate all the people putting work into this, it is very good info.
Well the OP states its looking for the "most economic defendable build". The most economic build probably is a 3 hatch without pool .. however this would not be defendable in real games. Since there is lots of coverage of 13..16 hatch first, i just wanted to get the numbers of those "crazy" early hatch builds.
The 11,12 hatch builds put the hatch earlier by cutting drones, i'd tested them just to find out, how much eco is lost.
Advantages of 11,12 hatch:
* early hatch can't be denied that easy (at least the probability is lower) * early hatch+pool gives you tons of larvae, which enables you to play more reactive, e.g. pump lings quickly in case. The 14h15p are low on larvae, so you need better scouting in order to build an army in time. This build is more noob friendly in my opinion. Harder to harass, earlier defense (queens, lings, larvae, creep).
Disadvantages
* you are about 300 minerals behind compared to 14h15p at 6'20 (thats an expansion or additional 2 queens) * in real world, you probably will get gas and scout, so the real world 14h15p will not be larvae capped and stockpile not that much money.
Conclusion: 2extractor12hatch11pool is better one would assume. If the better timings are worth the eco sacrification depends on a player's skill, map and style. For me as a 50..60 APM player, i prefer a safe uninterrupted build with larvae excess and earlier lings (you still can switch to a pretty early ling rush). However if you're a pro and have the capability to fend off hatch block, bunker rush and all that stuff with drone micro, there is obviously no need to sacrifice your eco for earlier timings.
If you're really sure about the 11 hatch builds, give me a replay that ends with ~4600 minerals at the 6:00 mark (minerals spent + current minerals). That is about where the 11P18H and 13P/15H builds ended with human testing on slowest.
Another thing you might try is testing the time that the 9 pylon scout will reach your base on different levels. If you can show me that the difference in the hatch timings between the 11 Hatch and the 12 Hatch I mentioned will preclude a hatch block by a 9 pylon scout on many levels, then this will make the 11 Hatch more interesting to look at. Note that the 12 hatch I mentioned puts the hatch up at 1:49 and ends with 5237 minerals (minerals spent + current minerals) at the 6:20 mark.
Err .. just scroll up for replays. Pls note, that the early hatch builds have more drones (because of earlier inject), i measured at 6'20, and droned to 52/52 with all tests. Because of the spawn larvae effects, the time of measurements is important (earlier queen gets 0.8 more spawn larvae cycle).
I am at work, can't test ;-). However its better to think "in probabilities". The earlier the hatch, the lower the risk of beeing blocked. Even if a 9 probe might block in time, the following factors still reduce the probability of a successful block in case of early hatch:
* bad luck in scouting order on 4 player maps * probe runs to your main first, while you already set your hatch at nat * opponent does 10 or 11 scout (which will reach you in time to block a 14 hatch, but not a 11 or xtractor-tricked 12 hatch)
however it would be interesting if 8 or 10 seconds do matter ..
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.
It's nice to see that my favourite - 14 hatch, 13 pool - is not that far behind. It actually has a nice timing where, as soon as the pool finishes, your hatch will finish, too, and you will have enough minerals to immedatly get 2 queens out, as well as 2 spine crawlers at the expansion a few seconds after starting the queens. Around 5:15 you then have 8 extra larva you can turn either into drones or units, depending on the situation... until then you have 2 spine crawlers and 2 queens to keep you safe.
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.
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 ..
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 ..
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.
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
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)
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.
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.
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.
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)
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 ..
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
Besides, as you mentioned, it's completely useless.
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).
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
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.
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?
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)
Why 19?
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.
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)
Why 19?
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.
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?
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 ..
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
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.
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.
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?
I think 14h/15p, 15h/14p, 13h/15p, and 14h/14p are pretty much all interchangable. They are so close that your mechanics and execution will have at least 10x more impact than the differences that have actually been measured.
14h/14p is slightly behind the others, but has a decent larva advantage thanks to the slightly faster pool. That's the one I'll probably start using for hatch first, with 13p/15h probably taking over from 11p/18h when I want to pool first. 13 is still fast enough to hold off all the cheese, and the faster hatchery helps with some other issues.
Also, I'm going to make a prediction on the 15h/16p: I'm guessing it will be significantly worse than any of the main hatch-first builds, but probably still ahead of the pool-first builds.
Actually, I'm going to take that prediction one step further. I'm betting you'll find 15h16p is almost identical to 16h15p, which you've already measured.
To me I place some value on having both my pool and hatch finished at the same time and have enough minerals for two queens, that then inject larva at the same time. I think having the timing line up makes a big difference for me.
That said, I think it's been pretty well established at this point that 14h/15p, 15h/14p, 13h/15p, and 14h/14p are all very strong, if not the strongest builds. What interests me now is the build orders that let every sync and provide timings for rushs or just general defensive upgrades, etc. That I would think is more important.
So are you guys content with 14/15p being the best build mineral-wise or is there more testing / more ideas coming up?
I think 14h/15p, 15h/14p, 13h/15p, and 14h/14p are pretty much all interchangable. They are so close that your mechanics and execution will have at least 10x more impact than the differences that have actually been measured.
14h/14p is slightly behind the others, but has a decent larva advantage thanks to the slightly faster pool. That's the one I'll probably start using for hatch first, with 13p/15h probably taking over from 11p/18h when I want to pool first. 13 is still fast enough to hold off all the cheese, and the faster hatchery helps with some other issues.
Also, I'm going to make a prediction on the 15h/16p: I'm guessing it will be significantly worse than any of the main hatch-first builds, but probably still ahead of the pool-first builds.
Actually, I'm going to take that prediction one step further. I'm betting you'll find 15h16p is almost identical to 16h15p, which you've already measured.
Interesting prediction. We will find out. I'm not saying anything about it, since all I have right now is a gut feeling.
Also, I would be really really careful about using the larvae data. Although I have posted it, I recently realized that my method of measuring larava completed has a huge flaw. I do not prorate larvae based on the last time since a larvae was produced from a hatchery. I do prorate the spawn larvae but not the normal larvae production. This leaves open the possibility that some builds are very close to producing their next larvae compared to others. This would give a possible difference from the posted results of +2 (one for each hatch). Because the differences are so small this could easily bring all builds to parity (although I doubt this will happen for all builds). Because of this I am removing the lavae data until I have the time to go back to my replays and prorate the normal larvae production instead of just the spawn larvae production.
On December 15 2010 05:42 opm1s6 wrote: To me I place some value on having both my pool and hatch finished at the same time and have enough minerals for two queens, that then inject larva at the same time. I think having the timing line up makes a big difference for me.
That said, I think it's been pretty well established at this point that 14h/15p, 15h/14p, 13h/15p, and 14h/14p are all very strong, if not the strongest builds. What interests me now is the build orders that let every sync and provide timings for rushs or just general defensive upgrades, etc. That I would think is more important.
I absolutely agree with you. I think we've reached the point where builds should be tested in actual gameplay. However before I do this I do want to try one last test with 15H builds. The only 15H build I tested so far was the 15H/14P and if the 15H follows the same trend as the 14H builds, the 15H/14P should perform worse than the 15H/16P and 15H/15P, which would present the possibility that a 15H build would outdo the current builds.
On December 15 2010 05:45 jacobman wrote: Also, I would be really really careful about using the larvae data. Although I have posted it, I recently realized that my method of measuring larava completed has a huge flaw. I do not prorate larvae based on the last time since a larvae was produced from a hatchery. I do prorate the spawn larvae but not the normal larvae production.
Ugh. Good point. I didn't think of that either.
Ok yeah, so completely ignore everything that's been said about larvae advantages, cause they're pretty much all so close that they could be within the possible error range.
That actually explains some spikes in larvae counting that confused me when I graphed out my larva data.
Probably wouldn't be too difficult to measure hatch partial larva production with a couple timers though. Just have to make sure they aren't running when the hatch already has 3 larvae.
On December 15 2010 05:45 jacobman wrote: Also, I would be really really careful about using the larvae data. Although I have posted it, I recently realized that my method of measuring larava completed has a huge flaw. I do not prorate larvae based on the last time since a larvae was produced from a hatchery. I do prorate the spawn larvae but not the normal larvae production.
Ugh. Good point. I didn't think of that either.
Ok yeah, so completely ignore everything that's been said about larvae advantages, cause they're pretty much all so close that they could be within the possible error range.
That actually explains some spikes in larvae counting that confused me when I graphed out my larva data.
Probably wouldn't be too difficult to measure hatch partial larva production with a couple timers though. Just have to make sure they aren't running when the hatch already has 3 larvae.
Exactly, it will probably be harder for me since I have to go back and count seconds on all the replays I did, but If you write a script to just keep count while you don't have 3 larvae, it would be really easy. I don't want to redo all of my tests though, so I'm just going to look at the replays whenever I get the chance.
On December 15 2010 05:49 jacobman wrote: The only 15H build I tested so far was the 15H/14P and if the 15H follows the same trend as the 14H builds, the 15H/14P should perform worse than the 15H/16P and 15H/15P, which would present the possibility that a 15H build would outdo the current builds.
Ahh, I see where your prediction comes from. Mine comes from the fact that 14h15p and 15h14p are practically identical (slightly faster pool vs slightly faster hatch), and the indication from 13p15h being the best of the pool-first builds that there definitely is a pretty narrow window where if you build too soon you delay early production too much, but if you build too late, you delay later production too much, and 14h/15p 15h/14p just feels like it's right about at that sweet spot.
I'd offer a small friendly wager on the results, but I could only pay you in full tilt poker dollars if I lost. lol
When you play with constant Drone production, neglecting defence, gas and extra Queens, Larva inevitable becomes the limiting factor. Thus openings which produce a lot of Larva, especially early Larva, do very well.
In a real game, however, minerals tend to be the limiting factor. Even a close to constantly Drone producing opening like 15 Hatch 16 Pool can't support all its Larva in most real game situations and you have to lay down a Creep Tumor.
For example, if you want to make a 3 Queen build with a normally timed Extractor and a defensive Spine Crawler from an 11 Pool 18 Hatch you'll have to let go of 10 Larva in favor of Creep Tumors.
On December 15 2010 07:44 greenkid wrote: when will the 12 hatch 13 pool test be done im quite curious to see the results?
It's already been shown to be pretty far behind all the other openings in resources, makes big sacrifices to get the pool and hatch out just 20 seconds faster, and it has some pretty serious resource problems right around the time you'd want to actually be doing things (gas, lings, speed, spines, whatever) because it sacrifices so many early drones for later ones.
Because of all that, I don't see any reason to add it to my tests, and I don't believe jacobman plans to either.
On December 15 2010 06:28 ZerG~LegenD wrote: When you play with constant Drone production, neglecting defence, gas and extra Queens, Larva inevitable becomes the limiting factor. Thus openings which produce a lot of Larva, especially early Larva, do very well.
In a real game, however, minerals tend to be the limiting factor. Even a close to constantly Drone producing opening like 15 Hatch 16 Pool can't support all its Larva in most real game situations and you have to lay down a Creep Tumor.
So why 11/12 hatch then, if you've said that they have a resource shortage at key spots in the early game?
One thing to keep in mind here is that the builds that are going to suffer the most from these effects are going to be the ones that sacrifice early drone production, because those are the drones that matter the most for your total mineral count. Obviously, the timing on your first 15 drones (number picked randomly, I could just as easily have said 12 or 17) have a much bigger impact on your income than the timing of drones 30-45.
11pool sacrifices half a larvae early, and delays drones 12 through 17 or so. 11/12 hatch both sacrifice almost 3 full larvae early, and delay that same set of drones even more.
So if you're trying to make an argument that makes 11/12 hatch seem better in comparison to any of the other builds, I'm pretty sure you're failing miserably, because in a real game, those ultra-fast hatch builds are going to be much shorter on resources at key times.
I've actually been playing around with changing my AI so that it does some sort of "real" opening, but I'm having trouble deciding on what to actually do, because some builds are inherently going to be better at getting certain things than others.
Any ideas? I'm looking for something along the lines of "scout at time X, one pair of zerglings at time Y, gas at time Z, ling speed with the first 100 gas, 2 spine crawlers at the expansion ASAP", something along those lines.
On December 15 2010 06:28 ZerG~LegenD wrote: When you play with constant Drone production, neglecting defence, gas and extra Queens, Larva inevitable becomes the limiting factor. Thus openings which produce a lot of Larva, especially early Larva, do very well.
In a real game, however, minerals tend to be the limiting factor. Even a close to constantly Drone producing opening like 15 Hatch 16 Pool can't support all its Larva in most real game situations and you have to lay down a Creep Tumor.
So why 11/12 hatch then, if you've said that they have a resource shortage at key spots in the early game?
One thing to keep in mind here is that the builds that are going to suffer the most from these effects are going to be the ones that sacrifice early drone production, because those are the drones that matter the most for your total mineral count. Obviously, the timing on your first 15 drones (number picked randomly, I could just as easily have said 12 or 17) have a much bigger impact on your income than the timing of drones 30-45.
11pool sacrifices half a larvae early, and delays drones 12 through 17 or so. 11/12 hatch both sacrifice almost 3 full larvae early, and delay that same set of drones even more.
So if you're trying to make an argument that makes 11/12 hatch seem better in comparison to any of the other builds, I'm pretty sure you're failing miserably, because in a real game, those ultra-fast hatch builds are going to be much shorter on resources at key times.
You're in for such a lovely realisation the next time you read this =)
On December 15 2010 06:28 ZerG~LegenD wrote: When you play with constant Drone production, neglecting defence, gas and extra Queens, Larva inevitable becomes the limiting factor. Thus openings which produce a lot of Larva, especially early Larva, do very well.
In a real game, however, minerals tend to be the limiting factor. Even a close to constantly Drone producing opening like 15 Hatch 16 Pool can't support all its Larva in most real game situations and you have to lay down a Creep Tumor.
So why 11/12 hatch then, if you've said that they have a resource shortage at key spots in the early game?
One thing to keep in mind here is that the builds that are going to suffer the most from these effects are going to be the ones that sacrifice early drone production, because those are the drones that matter the most for your total mineral count. Obviously, the timing on your first 15 drones (number picked randomly, I could just as easily have said 12 or 17) have a much bigger impact on your income than the timing of drones 30-45.
11pool sacrifices half a larvae early, and delays drones 12 through 17 or so. 11/12 hatch both sacrifice almost 3 full larvae early, and delay that same set of drones even more.
So if you're trying to make an argument that makes 11/12 hatch seem better in comparison to any of the other builds, I'm pretty sure you're failing miserably, because in a real game, those ultra-fast hatch builds are going to be much shorter on resources at key times.
You're in for such a lovely realisation the next time you read this =)
You might have to enlighten me. Rereading didn't trigger any sort of epiphany.
On December 15 2010 09:40 Cambam wrote: Any ideas from all your testing what the best response to a pylon block is?
My initial response would be that the best response to a pylon block is to simply expand to the next best option. An alternative that has less possibilities for reward would be to early pool in order to get earlier lings out. This will take longer though.
From what I can tell, no practical build will get the hatch out before a 9 pylon scout. There are only a couple maps (those with long scout distances or multiple start locations) which can get a hatch up early enough. In those cases I would suggest the 13 Hatch 15 Pool. This is among the most economic builds and it should get your hatch up in time to avoid a pylon block. As I said though, this will only work on levels with long scout times and if you're on a level that has multiple start locations where your opponent gets unlucky scouting you late.
On December 15 2010 07:44 greenkid wrote: when will the 12 hatch 13 pool test be done im quite curious to see the results?
I'm going to be doing it tomorrow. I expect the result to be in the range of the 11P/18H since the 12H/14P is in the range of the 13P/15H. I may not include the 12H/13P in the graph on the OP because I'm running out of space for builds, but I will definitely let you know what the results are.
On December 15 2010 06:28 ZerG~LegenD wrote: When you play with constant Drone production, neglecting defence, gas and extra Queens, Larva inevitable becomes the limiting factor. Thus openings which produce a lot of Larva, especially early Larva, do very well.
In a real game, however, minerals tend to be the limiting factor. Even a close to constantly Drone producing opening like 15 Hatch 16 Pool can't support all its Larva in most real game situations and you have to lay down a Creep Tumor.
So why 11/12 hatch then, if you've said that they have a resource shortage at key spots in the early game?
One thing to keep in mind here is that the builds that are going to suffer the most from these effects are going to be the ones that sacrifice early drone production, because those are the drones that matter the most for your total mineral count. Obviously, the timing on your first 15 drones (number picked randomly, I could just as easily have said 12 or 17) have a much bigger impact on your income than the timing of drones 30-45.
11pool sacrifices half a larvae early, and delays drones 12 through 17 or so. 11/12 hatch both sacrifice almost 3 full larvae early, and delay that same set of drones even more.
So if you're trying to make an argument that makes 11/12 hatch seem better in comparison to any of the other builds, I'm pretty sure you're failing miserably, because in a real game, those ultra-fast hatch builds are going to be much shorter on resources at key times.
You're in for such a lovely realisation the next time you read this =)
You might have to enlighten me. Rereading didn't trigger any sort of epiphany.
On December 15 2010 08:32 Skrag wrote: I've actually been playing around with changing my AI so that it does some sort of "real" opening, but I'm having trouble deciding on what to actually do, because some builds are inherently going to be better at getting certain things than others.
Any ideas? I'm looking for something along the lines of "scout at time X, one pair of zerglings at time Y, gas at time Z, ling speed with the first 100 gas, 2 spine crawlers at the expansion ASAP", something along those lines.
If you read my post earlier in this thread, I suggest just plotting the drone count over the first 2-3 minutes or so.
Really any deviation you're going to make in a build will have a larger affect if you have less drones at the time that you do it. Therefore you can tell which builds will be more affected by changes just from looking at the drone count. The only exception is with such things as the scout and/or patrolling drone at the ramp. These types of things will have to be just be added to the build to see the exact effects.
On December 15 2010 09:40 ZerG~LegenD wrote: Try counting the number of times I mention 11/12 Hatch.
ACK! Sorry. Somehow I got you mixed up with Schnullerbacke13.
You inserted a comment into the middle of a rather long discussion about 11/12 hatch, my brain farted, and somehow you OBVIOUSLY must have been talking about 11/12 hatch.
On December 15 2010 08:32 Skrag wrote: I've actually been playing around with changing my AI so that it does some sort of "real" opening, but I'm having trouble deciding on what to actually do, because some builds are inherently going to be better at getting certain things than others.
Any ideas? I'm looking for something along the lines of "scout at time X, one pair of zerglings at time Y, gas at time Z, ling speed with the first 100 gas, 2 spine crawlers at the expansion ASAP", something along those lines.
If you read my post earlier in this thread, I suggest just plotting the drone count over the first 2-3 minutes or so.
Really any deviation you're going to make in a build will have a larger affect if you have less drones at the time that you do it. Therefore you can tell which builds will be more affected by changes just from looking at the drone count. The only exception is with such things as the scout and/or patrolling drone at the ramp. These types of things will have to be just be added to the build to see the exact effects.
Anything you build, like gas timings, queen timings, spine crawlers, ling speed, etc drastically alter which builds are more efficient, as a build with less larva but more minerals will be superior if you plan to make an early structure. For example, 11 overlord 11 pool is superior economically to a 9 overlord 11 pool, as it gives more minerals early when they are needed to build the early pool, whereas the 9 overlord is superior for 14 pool/14 hatch as it gives more minerals later when they are needed to build the later pool.
This is just a small example of how structure timing can drastically alter the efficiency of a build. Gas timings are very critical as well, as getting the gas earlier in many builds means that you cannot get enough minerals to use all your larva, and so this has to be considered, because the build that optimizes mineral gathering cannot be assumed to be the best build for any gas timing.
There is no "best economy build", because the best build depends on what you want, and when you want it, specifically tech. The best resource build for straight minerals will not be the best econ build in general, as gas timings will drastically alter the efficiency of the build.
On December 15 2010 10:45 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: There is no "best economy build", because the best build depends on what you want, and when you want it, specifically tech. The best resource build for straight minerals will not be the best econ build in general, as gas timings will drastically alter the efficiency of the build.
So gimme a target, and I'll try to fit it into the builds I currently have. Obviously that's only going to show the results for one specific opening, but I think it will still be interesting to see.
On December 15 2010 10:45 FrostedMiniWeet wrote: There is no "best economy build", because the best build depends on what you want, and when you want it, specifically tech. The best resource build for straight minerals will not be the best econ build in general, as gas timings will drastically alter the efficiency of the build.
So gimme a target, and I'll try to fit it into the builds I currently have. Obviously that's only going to show the results for one specific opening, but I think it will still be interesting to see.
A good place to start would be 4 Zerglings started by the time <insert time latest of to-be-compared build's pool finishes> and a gas extractor rather early, for pool first builds it would definitely be around 14-15 supply since they need it due to lack of creep. (anything else isn't safe) For hatch first builds you can delay it to around 16-17 supply since you have the opportunity to place a spine crawler if you feel the need to. If you really want to do it for both builds at the same time do it at 16 supply (always mine gas from it consistently). Also send out a drone at 14 supply to scout and another one at 16 supply to prevent ramp blocks. To make it even more realistic also build a 3rd queen at 35 supply. To finish it off, getting a spine crawler at 5:00 is a good idea. You also want to connect you main and natural with creep so get a creep tumor to do that, pool first builds generally do it with their 2nd set of energy, hatch first builds do it with the first set of energy from the queen in the main.
This is about as generic an opening you can do. It's very safe and the things included are those that I would want in a normal ZvT / ZvP on anything but very far positions. I regularely beat 2.4k-2.6k players in practice and watch every single professional Z replay I can get my hands on, so take my advice for what you will, however I think if you compare it to what was posted by players better than me you will find it matches it to a large extent.
p.s. This might be a lot to implement, but I promise you, it will shut up almost all critics and gain a LOT of interest by the more skilled players that look for stuff to include into their standard gameplay. Theoretical drone races are interesting for the mind, but rather irrelevant for an actual game of SC2
Well, the drone races aren't totally irrelevant just because you don't actually ever do that in a real game.
What's really being measured is the total available worker time a build could have. Whether those workers are gathering minerals, gas, creating buildings, scouting, etc, the builds that have more worker time available (ie, more resources at the 6 minute mark) will suffer less when you start doing real things, and will still be better off economically.
The actual amounts will change, but as a guide, I think it's still a very good and useful measurement.
As far as comparing builds doing something real goes, using supply counts as a measuring stick is a bad idea, which was one of the things that I tried to beat into people's heads in the original thread, but that nobody ever seemed to get. Time should be used instead, since that's really the only thing that matters. Whether you're doing an 11 pool or a 16 hatch, the 4:30 double rax marine push always comes at 4:30.
What I can do is take download some pro zerg replays using different builds and record the times that specific things happen.
So what I'm thinking of as a test is this: a reasonably early scout, 4 lings, speed, a third queen, a spine crawler at the expansion ASAP, and as many drones as possible given those constraints.. All the builds being compared are fast expand builds, and most of them get the hatch up early enough that you could at the very least start it in the main and move it down.
I think that seems like a pretty reasonable target as a basis for comparison. Agree?
Also, since one of my main goals throughout has been consistent and repeatable results, which means I have to add drone micro, it will probably be a bit much to try to do this for more than 3 or 4 separate builds. It takes a surprisingly long time to figure out exactly which patch to send every single drone to when it spawns, even though I'm only doing it for the first 20. That makes what I'm generating basically an unachievable goal, because not even the best players can micro as perfectly and as quickly as the AI can, but I think it's very reasonable to show the theoretical maximum potential, even if that potential isn't quite achievable by a human.
Since we know 14h15p, 15h14p, 13h15p and 14h14p all seem basically equivalent, I'd only do one of those, with 14h15p being the best candidate IMO. Because 13p15h seems to be the best of the pool-first builds, I'd want to do that one, and because there are a lot of things I really like about 11p18h, even though it's not totally economically what it was originally claimed to be (although it's still *way* better than I ever would have though), I'd include that as well. Any other particular opening that would be useful to see? I could probably manage 4 without too much trouble, although it'll definitely take me a while.
On December 15 2010 17:47 Skrag wrote: Well, the drone races aren't totally irrelevant just because you don't actually ever do that in a real game.
What's really being measured is the total available worker time a build could have. Whether those workers are gathering minerals, gas, creating buildings, scouting, etc, the builds that have more worker time available (ie, more resources at the 6 minute mark) will suffer less when you start doing real things, and will still be better off economically.
The actual amounts will change, but as a guide, I think it's still a very good and useful measurement.
As far as comparing builds doing something real goes, using supply counts as a measuring stick is a bad idea, which was one of the things that I tried to beat into people's heads in the original thread, but that nobody ever seemed to get. Time should be used instead, since that's really the only thing that matters. Whether you're doing an 11 pool or a 16 hatch, the 4:30 double rax marine push always comes at 4:30.
What I can do is take download some pro zerg replays using different builds and record the times that specific things happen.
So what I'm thinking of as a test is this: a reasonably early scout, 4 lings, speed, a third queen, a spine crawler at the expansion ASAP, and as many drones as possible given those constraints.. All the builds being compared are fast expand builds, and most of them get the hatch up early enough that you could at the very least start it in the main and move it down.
I think that seems like a pretty reasonable target as a basis for comparison. Agree?
Also, since one of my main goals throughout has been consistent and repeatable results, which means I have to add drone micro, it will probably be a bit much to try to do this for more than 3 or 4 separate builds. It takes a surprisingly long time to figure out exactly which patch to send every single drone to when it spawns, even though I'm only doing it for the first 20. That makes what I'm generating basically an unachievable goal, because not even the best players can micro as perfectly and as quickly as the AI can, but I think it's very reasonable to show the theoretical maximum potential, even if that potential isn't quite achievable by a human.
Since we know 14h15p, 15h14p, 13h15p and 14h14p all seem basically equivalent, I'd only do one of those, with 14h15p being the best candidate IMO. Because 13p15h seems to be the best of the pool-first builds, I'd want to do that one, and because there are a lot of things I really like about 11p18h, even though it's not totally economically what it was originally claimed to be (although it's still *way* better than I ever would have though), I'd include that as well. Any other particular opening that would be useful to see? I could probably manage 4 without too much trouble, although it'll definitely take me a while.
Yeah that's what I originally thought you would do, gather the timings from some replays Get the 16 gas timing from a 14 hatch build and that should fit the bill.
Also you don't need a spine ASAP at the expansion. It will slow down everything _considerably_ (i know since I've started doing it vs 2rax and i hate it). Get it at 5:00, you only need it asap vs very early marine agression.
You also always want something blocking the ramp. Fruitdealer got straight up ramp-pyloned a whole lot vs Hongun even though he always went pool first. No matter the build you always want something blocking the ramp because a 2 bunker / cannon block throws you behing WAY more than the few minerals it costs you in mining time.
I don't know when you want to build the 3rd queen but you also don't need it asap, get a pro ZvT/ZvP replay where the Z is largely unharassed and get an approximate timing of 35 supply and build it then. Ling speed is a good idea, I kind of forgot about it in my other post^^
I think you have a misconception regarding the 2rax, the first marine is at your expansion in the 3:45-4:00 range, if he builds 2 12 supply barracks he can have a marined bunker blocking your ramp4 at 4:30 easily. It's not that easy however, if you do your build in a way that is perfectly safe at 3:50 you might be very vulnerable a minute later when 4 more marines and 5 SCVs arrive. You have to adapt very individually and I don't think playing vs that strategy should be the focus of this thread.
Seeing as how this new (very exciting) method of testing puts such a large emphasis on early dronage, a build like 16hatch/15pool (like dimaga does) or at least 15hatch/16pool would be very interesting. If you can find a lot of differences between the hatch firsts between 14 and 16 it might be interesting to test all of them to get a rather definitve statement of what hatch first is best.
So what kind of conclusions can we draw from the data? Having more income is more important than having extra larva before 20 food?
Can you guys also start testing speed first builds against these other ones? I'm actually still looking for the best build against protoss. You have to assume that they're going to try very hard to block your nat and maybe plop down a pylon. Also, tosses seem to like to spam pylons and cannons now to punish 14 hatches (Not even at the ramp, but I mean behind the mineral lines at the nat). So you have to take that into consideration. Minimal damage might be your pulling drones for a little while. So I'm curious if an 11 overpool opening is actually better in those cases since you get those early 2 lings so early that you deter any blocking or cannon rushes in the first place. And you don't have to pull any drones. Does that make up for the 150 minerals or so that you would've gained from the hatch first openings?
Based on the results so far I'll probably continue to 14 hatch vs protoss on cross positions and maybe 13 pooling on close positions. And I'll also start 14 hatching 14 pooling vs terran over 14 hatching/15 pooling. That extra larva will be very useful vs 2 raxes.
Lastly can you update the OP a little? It took 12 pages for me to spot that http://sc2calc.org/build_order/ is too inconsistent to test out builds. Maybe you can replace it with a quick tutorial on how to set up AI to test builds so others can start to test builds they have in mind.
Yeah that's actually a pretty good idea. Put a 14 gas 14 pool speedling build in there to show the world how good/bad it actually is and how much that early speed costs them in economy.
The build continues 15OL 15Queen 17Speed (pull drones and put them back on when the other builds start speed) 17+18Lings 19 Hatchery (hatch asap is more economical than drones)
* 2cnd hatch finished at the time scv's and marines come in * 2 .. 4 lings to attack the initial marine and scv, in real games you build 2..4 lings and delay 2cnd queen somewhat (it still pops out about the same time as scnd queen with 14h builds). * 1st queen at nat would have been finished round 4'15 right when the 2cnd marine comes in, right to attack the bunker building scv. * alternatively one could skip the lings and build an early spine (don't like that personally)
you do not have to pull drones to defend, so you come out better economically ..
Give it a try on ladder, as this build moves the weak timing window from 4..4:30 to 3:30 .. 4:00. Your eco will still be strong enough to overpower any protoss or terran, and its much safer. (full build at page 11 of this thread, however delay scnd queen in favor of lings or spine).
Okay, I tried the 12H/13P and the 15H/16P. I did not do a full blown test on them, but I did run them through a few times and compare the numbers to the ones I had for the 12H/14P and 15H/15P. They were pretty practically equal. All this means for all of the testing that I've heard going around so far is that if you wanted to try the 15H/16P out in your test with gas and such then it might not be a bad idea.
I maintain my position that you can predict which builds will be affected greatest by added scout, gas, roach warren, speed, baneling nest, lings, ect by simply looking at the number of drones present at the time that you are adding the change and the size of investments made after the change (eg. hatch being a large invesment compared to pool).
I think I am done with the testing of builds for now. While I do think I can predict the results of the test you guys are doing, I also think it's a great idea to test. Making predictions is never as good as actually testing and getting results. Despite the fact that I think it is a good idea, I do not believe I will be doing that testing. I think I'm just going to help analyse any data that I see come out from other people this time around. My contribution is the OP. If you guys get some more good data I will more than happily add it to the OP. I think it's good to have all the information about the economy of builds in one place. It's confusing to have to hunt all over the place.
On December 15 2010 20:18 Warrior Madness wrote: + Show Spoiler +
So what kind of conclusions can we draw from the data? Having more income is more important than having extra larva before 20 food?
Can you guys also start testing speed first builds against these other ones? I'm actually still looking for the best build against protoss. You have to assume that they're going to try very hard to block your nat and maybe plop down a pylon. Also, tosses seem to like to spam pylons and cannons now to punish 14 hatches (Not even at the ramp, but I mean behind the mineral lines at the nat). So you have to take that into consideration. Minimal damage might be your pulling drones for a little while. So I'm curious if an 11 overpool opening is actually better in those cases since you get those early 2 lings so early that you deter any blocking or cannon rushes in the first place. And you don't have to pull any drones. Does that make up for the 150 minerals or so that you would've gained from the hatch first openings?
Based on the results so far I'll probably continue to 14 hatch vs protoss on cross positions and maybe 13 pooling on close positions. And I'll also start 14 hatching 14 pooling vs terran over 14 hatching/15 pooling. That extra larva will be very useful vs 2 raxes.
Lastly can you update the OP a little? It took 12 pages for me to spot that http://sc2calc.org/build_order/ is too inconsistent to test out builds. Maybe you can replace it with a quick tutorial on how to set up AI to test builds so others can start to test builds they have in mind.
I'll consider adding a few pointers on the OP for writing the BO AI. Although, you can see and modify the script yourself if you download any of the maps. My script is actually messy, but it gets the job done.
How do you do the AI in a script? I actually program for a living, so I'm going to be *way* more comfortable doing more complex stuff that way. And I could probably even simplify what I already have.
thanks for the efforts skrag & jacobman, however i'd would prefer if anybody could veryfy those tests ;-).
just for the books:
10 hatch 13 pool gets hatch down at 1'30 (practically not blockable). Pool is set at 2'39 (identical to 14h15p).
with my testing scenario (played at lowest speed, 2 queens (2cnd delayed), drone to 52/52) it ends with 734 minerals at 6'20 which is ~250 minerals behind 14h15p. However a bit tweaking might reward an additional 50-100 mins. While waiting for the hatch you loose 2..3 larvae. But since hatch is very early you get them back later on (so you roughly loose mining time of 3 drones for 140 seconds ~= 230 mins, 140 seconds = 110 until hatch builds + 30 seconds wait without droning).
On December 15 2010 23:17 Skrag wrote: How do you do the AI in a script? I actually program for a living, so I'm going to be *way* more comfortable doing more complex stuff that way. And I could probably even simplify what I already have.
I just added a brief scripting tutorial in the main post. The first paragraph should get you started. The rest of it might be a little bit boring for you since you program for a living. If you just skim it for the examples of the code, that will probably be more helpful to you.
I'll be adding two more walkthroughs to it in a little bit, which will probably have more useful functions for someone who already knows what they're doing.
On December 16 2010 00:31 Schnullerbacke13 wrote: thanks for the efforts skrag & jacobman, however i'd would prefer if anybody could veryfy those tests ;-).
just for the books:
10 hatch 13 pool gets hatch down at 1'30 (practically not blockable). Pool is set at 2'39 (identical to 14h15p).
with my testing scenario (played at lowest speed, 2 queens (2cnd delayed), drone to 52/52) it ends with 734 minerals at 6'20 which is ~250 minerals behind 14h15p. However a bit tweaking might reward an additional 50-100 mins. While waiting for the hatch you loose 2..3 larvae. But since hatch is very early you get them back later on (so you roughly loose mining time of 3 drones for 140 seconds ~= 230 mins, 140 seconds = 110 until hatch builds + 30 seconds wait without droning).
Alright, we really need you to start reporting your minerals in the same manner that we've been collecting the data (minerals spent + current minerals).
The current minerals alone is not enough to know anything about the build. This build that you mention sounds much more practical than any of the other builds you mentioned. Delaying the pool a little bit has tended to give better economic results, and if what you say about 1:30 hatch is correct, that could be very useful. I'll check it out.
Seriously though, you need to start reporting minerals spent + current minerals instead of just current minerals so the data actually means something
Alright, we really need you to start reporting your minerals in the same manner that we've been collecting the data (minerals spent + current minerals).
The current minerals alone is not enough to know anything about the build. This build that you mention sounds much more practical than any of the other builds you mentioned. Delaying the pool a little bit has tended to give better economic results, and if what you say about 1:30 hatch is correct, that could be very useful. I'll check it out.
Seriously though, you need to start reporting minerals spent + current minerals instead of just current minerals so the data actually means something
@6'20 ?
since i am always building 2 hatches, 2 queens and drone to 52/52 until 6'20, that's easy:
Note: i am not investing too much into fine tuning drone micro etc. So you'll probably get higher numbers with all builds (e.g. your 14h15p yielded 5330, i got 5200). Expect the 10 hatch/11 hatch/extractor 12 hatch to be in range of 11p18h economically.
"practical" .. do you actually play ladder (at which level?). Currently lotso terrans (starting from gold)
a) block nat and/or b) 2 rax rush
this means you mostly never get a 14h15p to play ;-) .. most of the time i end with putting the pool before hatch (because blocked) and nat gets delayed up to 20 supply. So wtf is impractical in 2XtractorTrick12hatch11pool ? Its very practical, as it has a good chance to get down the hatch and is better of in case of 2 rax. Just get you some decent 2 barracks terran opponent and try those builds. I know, perfect micro and control may overcome this .. however i don't have 200+ APM, do you have ? A lot of pros recently lost against 2 rax pushes (GSL!). And even artosis stated "you can't play hatch before pool on the korean server".
one answer is 11p18h (ask yourself why this is so popular), second answer might be fast hatch first builds .. dunno if this holds true for very high level play, but i think so, as even pro's nowadays do not get their 14h15p played undistorted ..
Yeah, and I'm sure most people have heard, idra and ret said you can't play pool before hatch and win against a 2rax. There are many theories about play going around right now.
Also, I already told you why 12hatch 11pool isn't practical. It doesn't get the hatch down early enough to matter in regards to the 12hatch14pool or the 13hatch15pool, which outperforms the 12/11 economically. So while you MIGHT be able to pull of the 12hatch 11pool, why do it? It has no advantages of its own. I'm not quite sure how you came to the conclusion that it's better against 2rax either.
I will check out your 10H 13P because it sounds like it could have its own unique advantages. However based off of your information and my quick tests of the 12H/11P I do not see a niche for the 12H/11P build. You seem to interpret the data differently, and that is your prerogative. There's not much else I can say though, because we're looking at the same data, yet I still disagree.
If you think 12H/11P outperforms the 13H/15P, 14H/15P and 12H/14P then perhaps you should make a thread about it to bring it to peoples notice. People can then make up their own minds, but I've already seen the build and my mind is made up on it.
On December 16 2010 01:49 jacobman wrote: Yeah, and I'm sure most people have heard, idra and ret said you can't play pool before hatch and win against a 2rax. There are many theories about play going around right now.
Also, I already told you why 12hatch 11pool isn't practical. It doesn't get the hatch down early enough to matter in regards to the 12hatch14pool or the 13hatch15pool, which outperforms the 12/11 economically. So while you MIGHT be able to pull of the 12hatch 11pool, why do it? It has no advantages of its own. I'm not quite sure how you came to the conclusion that it's better against 2rax either.
I will check out your 10H 13P because it sounds like it could have its own unique advantages. However based off of your information and my quick tests of the 12H/11P I do not see a niche for the 12H/11P build. You seem to interpret the data differently, and that is your prerogative. There's not much else I can say though, because we're looking at the same data, yet I still disagree.
If you think 12H/11P outperforms the 13H/15P, 14H/15P and 12H/14P then perhaps you should make a thread about it to bring it to peoples notice. People can then make up their own minds, but I've already seen the build and my mind is made up on it.
Wtf. Do you actually read ?. We are looking at the same numbers, there are replays, the timings are known. 2X12h11pool is ~250 mins behind 14h15p at 6'20 in an absolute theoretical scenario.
However i insist on the fact, that an early pool and early hatch is more important than some minerals at 6'20. Its about timings. You better fend of 2 rax because *you got lings* in time and the hatch is *UP*. A Queen is done at ~4'15, you might have a spine up (i dislike). You probably know, a completed building has an armor of 1, while a morphing one has no armor. So it makes up a difference if hatch is finished in case you get bunker rushed (also you already have creep).
That's why i asked if you actually play ladder and at what level ;-) ..
Possibility a) you play bronze/silver opponents and never get attacked before 8'00 b) you play diamond and i am a complete uebernoob c) a) and partially b) are true ;-)
with 10 hatch 13 pool, hatch is unblockable however pool is pretty late (same as 14h15p) ..
Lets not be rude. This thread has been fairly respectful so far.
I play high gold since it is so important to you. I used to play platinum, but I haven't been playing much recently, so basically I play high gold/low plat players. However, whatever league you're in has no bearing on if what you say is true or not. Really the only people who really know the game well are those in 2700+ diamond, but that's besides the point.
The early hatch is irrelevant when compared to the 12H/14P and 13H/15P I mentioned. The early pool is nice, but it's not worth the extra minerals. I would rather just use my mineral advantage to throw up more spine crawlers if they're coming that early.
I'm assuming that you're in gold? I'm also guessing that you have trouble fending off early pressure since you seem to really like the really early pool/hatch type builds. I'm not sure why this would be. I have very little trouble fending off early pressure when I play, and I do not only play people who don't attack before 8 minutes. I'm far from the best play either, so I would guess that if I can fend off early pressure running a 14H/14P, which is what I do, many other players can. Is it possible that you just need more practice in doing so yourself?
I'm 2100 plat and I've had a lot of success recently using 11P and 18H (opponent and map depending).
The earlier you get a hatch, the worse your "worst case scenario." 14H leaves you very vulnerable, especially on maps like Scrap Station and Steppes of War. Especially in ZvZ, if your opponent is 1-basing, 14H or even 18H can be deadly, especially against 5RR or 7RR.
Lets not be rude. This thread has been fairly respectful so far.
I play high gold since it is so important to you. I used to play platinum, but I haven't been playing much recently, so basically I play high gold/low plat players. However, whatever league you're in has no bearing on if what you say is true or not. Really the only people who really know the game well are those in 2700+ diamond, but that's besides the point.
The early hatch is irrelevant when compared to the 12H/14P and 13H/15P I mentioned. The early pool is nice, but it's not worth the extra minerals. I would rather just use my mineral advantage to throw up more spine crawlers if they're coming that early.
I'm assuming that you're in gold? I'm also guessing that you have trouble fending off early pressure since you seem to really like the really early pool/hatch type builds. I'm not sure why this would be. I have very little trouble fending off early pressure when I play, and I do not only play people who don't attack before 8 minutes. I'm far from the best play either, so I would guess that if I can fend off early pressure running a 14H/14P, which is what I do, many other players can. Is it possible that you just need more practice in doing so yourself?
sorry, reads more rude than meant. Ofc i am bad player ;-). About 10..20% of terrans in high silver/gold/low plat (that's my opponents most of the time) currently play pure 2 rax. Anyway more and more do so. Most players nowadays block the early hatch. However i don't want to rely on a build which fails deterministically, if the opponent responds correctly. Btw there is no time for spines, when playing 13/14 hatch, see the youtube link i posted some posts ago.
regarding early hatch .. say 14 hatch is blocked very often. 2 extractor into 12 hatch (1'41 hatch) is blocked not that often but it can be blocked, however often the scout is still goofing round in your base. 10 hatch is hard to block (think i'll stick with it). Pool timing can be adjusted by scouting, but if you get proxied its nice to have lings early on.
The metagame has shifted and i recently was blocked, proxied and 2 rax rushed more than in the past (metagame shift => response to zerg hatch first builds), since i switched to earlier hatch and pool timings my loosing streak ended. All i want to say is, that those early build timings have some advantages which are of very practical use. It depends on map, metagame and your micro abilities. IMHO you should not simply ignore the fact, that a solid played pylon block or proxy build (P) or hatch block/2 rax play (T) very often crushes (or at least cripples) hatch first builds easily, even if played by pros. So it is not useless to discover the economics of hatch/pool timings adressing these issues (just watch some shoutcasts/gsl vods to see what i am talking about).
Lets not be rude. This thread has been fairly respectful so far.
I play high gold since it is so important to you. I used to play platinum, but I haven't been playing much recently, so basically I play high gold/low plat players. However, whatever league you're in has no bearing on if what you say is true or not. Really the only people who really know the game well are those in 2700+ diamond, but that's besides the point.
The early hatch is irrelevant when compared to the 12H/14P and 13H/15P I mentioned. The early pool is nice, but it's not worth the extra minerals. I would rather just use my mineral advantage to throw up more spine crawlers if they're coming that early.
I'm assuming that you're in gold? I'm also guessing that you have trouble fending off early pressure since you seem to really like the really early pool/hatch type builds. I'm not sure why this would be. I have very little trouble fending off early pressure when I play, and I do not only play people who don't attack before 8 minutes. I'm far from the best play either, so I would guess that if I can fend off early pressure running a 14H/14P, which is what I do, many other players can. Is it possible that you just need more practice in doing so yourself?
sorry, reads more rude than meant. Ofc i am bad player ;-). About 10..20% of terrans in high silver/gold/low plat (that's my opponents most of the time) currently play pure 2 rax. Anyway more and more do so. Most players nowadays block the early hatch. However i don't want to rely on a build which fails deterministically, if the opponent responds correctly. Btw there is no time for spines, when playing 13/14 hatch, see the youtube link i posted above.
regarding early hatch .. say 14 hatch is blocked very often. 2 extractor into 12 hatch (1'41 hatch) is blocked not that often but it can be blocked, however often the scout is still goofing round in your base. 10 hatch is hard to block (think i'll stick with it). Pool timing can be adjusted by scouting, but if you get proxied its nice to have lings early on.
The metagame has shifted and i recently was blocked, proxied and 2 rax rushed more than in the past (metagame shift => response to zerg hatch first builds), since i switched to earlier hatch and pool timings my loosing streak ended. All i want to say is, that those early build timings have some advantages which are of very practical use. It depends on map, metagame and your micro abilities. IMHO you should not simply ignore the fact, that a solid played pylon block or proxy build (P) or hatch block/2 rax play (T) very often crushes (or at least cripples) hatch first builds easily, even if played by pros. So it is not useless to discover the economics of hatch/pool timings adressing these issues (just watch some shoutcasts/gsl vods to see what i am talking about).
My biggest confusion is what advantage do you think the 12 hatch build you mention has over the 12H/14P and 13H/15P builds that are already posted?
My biggest confusion is what advantage do you think the 12 hatch build you mention has over the 12H/14P and 13H/15P builds that are already posted?
2 extractor into 12 hatch into 11 pool (in fact 11 hatch 11 pool is quite similar, maybe some seconds later).
* gets pool 15 seconds earlier (so lings are done, queen is mostly done when first marines arrive) * gets hatch 8 seconds earlier.
compared to 12h 14p.
This is not huge, and its questionable if its worth. Anyway 8 seconds earlier hatch lowers the risk of beeing blocked, this is definitely a timing race and a matter of probability. The earlier pool is worth it IMHO (maybe its just a personal preference) as i get queens earlier, spawn larvae earlier, get lings for xel nagas earlier. However one might change your 12h14p to 12h12pool to get an earlier pool ..
BTW today i got hatch blocked (by a SCV) barely on shakuras plat with 2Xtr12h ...
The point of the 2 extractor trick is, that you save money and time to build an ovie, so you can squeeze out the hatch earlier while still having 12 drones built. I tried triple extractor into hatch, but the distance to nat is too long on xel naga, so the drone walks instead of mining ;-) ..
On December 16 2010 06:50 raded wrote: I'm 2100 plat and I've had a lot of success recently using 11P and 18H (opponent and map depending).
The earlier you get a hatch, the worse your "worst case scenario." 14H leaves you very vulnerable, especially on maps like Scrap Station and Steppes of War. Especially in ZvZ, if your opponent is 1-basing, 14H or even 18H can be deadly, especially against 5RR or 7RR.
No offense, but scrap station is one of the BEST maps to 14hatch on. Long rush distance and easily defended natural. I agree with not hatching first on Steppes though.
On December 16 2010 06:50 raded wrote: I'm 2100 plat and I've had a lot of success recently using 11P and 18H (opponent and map depending).
The earlier you get a hatch, the worse your "worst case scenario." 14H leaves you very vulnerable, especially on maps like Scrap Station and Steppes of War. Especially in ZvZ, if your opponent is 1-basing, 14H or even 18H can be deadly, especially against 5RR or 7RR.
No offense, but scrap station is one of the BEST maps to 14hatch on. Long rush distance and easily defended natural. I agree with not hatching first on Steppes though.
On December 18 2010 13:38 greenkid wrote: how does a
9 ovi 12 hatch 11 pool 16 ovie 16 queen 18 queen 24 ovie 33 ovie 40 ovie
do eco wise?
It doesn't do well economy wise. I actually already tried that build. I only did one run, but if you would like to compare it to the other builds I have listed, it had a final mineral collection rate of ~4900 minerals. It's much better to just delay the pool a little bit. Basically, every second you spend in those really really low supply counts hurts your economy.
I must say that except for Teamgames I went back to 14hatch 14pool most of the time I think its not that hard to defend once you get used to building a couple more lings early on.
Of course the havíng the hatch get blocked is still an issue though;)
Also, I finally spent the time to figure out the max number of workers at the expansion on xel'naga caverns. There are 2 "close" patches, so the absolute max is 22, but 4 of the "far" patches seem to be closer than other "far" patches I've looked at, making it *really* difficult for workers to settle into a 3 worker routine on those patches, so the settle in time can be really big. I'd say more than 20 is likely to be extremely wasteful.
So the target number of workers I'm going to building up to on minerals is 19 at the main and 20 at the expansion, for a total of 39. Anything else is overkill for the purposes of economic testing.
On December 18 2010 03:55 ChickenLips wrote: Hey Skrag, still waiting for the results of the 'real' tests
Sorry. They're a LOT of work, and I've been doing a lot more playing than testing.
I have the next two weeks off work though, so I should be able to find some time.
No problem
I'm still not finally settled on pool vs hatch first and even though I can only say from personal experience that hatch first feels better when getting all that shit you want in a real game, those AI tests would settle the case for me (and pretty much everyone bar the hardcore-believers). Take your time as long as you do it right and proper^^
Another interesting thing I've come across. I started suspecting that the AI itself might be the source of the variance between tests of the same build, because it doesn't seem to always act immediately. For example, I actually had to manually force the queen builds because in one build a SetStock call had the queen delayed by 2-3 seconds unnecessarily.
So what I've done is completely removed the AI from the equation, issuing orders directly at exactly the right time for every single order, and after doing that, I haven't been able to get anything but completely consistent results, even without the drone micro.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that it was actually the AI adding the variance, which can only mean that the AI code only runs on one player's box, rather than all of them. Which actually makes sense, because then the AI synchronization could happen in exactly the same way that player synchronization happens, based on what orders are given when. It's probably quite a bit simpler to sync everything the same way than to make sure the AI code itself is completely deterministic.
Having said that, I probably am going to have to add the drone micro back in, because my current round of tests (just getting back to the state I was in before, running a drone test) has 11p18h being slightly superior to 13p15h economically (by 15 minerals at the 6 minute mark). However, I can see that the drones at the main settle in on the 11p at around 4:30, but at 6:00, those first 19 drones *still* haven't settled in on the 13p build and there are bouncers.
Which is totally fine, because I think as perfect an execution as possible is a better testing base than an execution that can be subject to all the random timings that can make large differences, it just means that I have to recalculate the optimal micro for all the builds I'm doing. :/
On December 20 2010 12:54 Skrag wrote: Another interesting thing I've come across. I started suspecting that the AI itself might be the source of the variance between tests of the same build, because it doesn't seem to always act immediately. For example, I actually had to manually force the queen builds because in one build a SetStock call had the queen delayed by 2-3 seconds unnecessarily.
So what I've done is completely removed the AI from the equation, issuing orders directly at exactly the right time for every single order, and after doing that, I haven't been able to get anything but completely consistent results, even without the drone micro.
I'm pretty convinced at this point that it was actually the AI adding the variance, which can only mean that the AI code only runs on one player's box, rather than all of them. Which actually makes sense, because then the AI synchronization could happen in exactly the same way that player synchronization happens, based on what orders are given when. It's probably quite a bit simpler to sync everything the same way than to make sure the AI code itself is completely deterministic.
Having said that, I probably am going to have to add the drone micro back in, because my current round of tests (just getting back to the state I was in before, running a drone test) has 11p18h being slightly superior to 13p15h economically (by 15 minerals at the 6 minute mark). However, I can see that the drones at the main settle in on the 11p at around 4:30, but at 6:00, those first 19 drones *still* haven't settled in on the 13p build and there are bouncers.
Which is totally fine, because I think as perfect an execution as possible is a better testing base than an execution that can be subject to all the random timings that can make large differences, it just means that I have to recalculate the optimal micro for all the builds I'm doing. :/
I'm still a fan of multiple trials If you give me some data when you're done, I can post it on the OP.
On December 20 2010 14:27 jacobman wrote: I'm still a fan of multiple trials If you give me some data when you're done, I can post it on the OP.
Yeah, at this point I'm not doing drone micro so that repeated trials aren't necesssary, but to make sure that really big drastic differences don't happen because of randomness.
Although I guess doing multiple trials and not using a fixed seed would still be fine.
Hey guys, just dropping a replay of me defending a double proxy gateway zealot rush using 11 pool 18 hatch. Pretty sure a pool that was 10 seconds later than that one would have meant the end for me (Note: I didn't scout in this game, I probably could have avoided this doing so, but I just want to show 11P18H's awesome early defense capabilities)
Ok, I'm getting very close on a 14h15p build that reproduces Idra's timings from the replay that was posted earlier in the thread as closely as possible. (he went 14h14p, but that wastes a little bit of larva spawn time waiting for the pool, so I'm going to stick with 14h15p).
The timings I got from his replay are:
Gas @ 2:57 16 scout @ 3:00 One set of lings @ 3:43 Ling speed @ 4:28 Creep tumor with first queen's first 25 energy @ 4:37 Crawler @ 5:04
He also did a second creep tumor with the second queen's first 25 energy, but the map was lost temple, and that's a safety thing for cliff drops, and shouldn't be necessary on most maps.
So, the problem I'm having is that it's taking a *long* time to tune the build order because I have to micromanage every detail in code, which involves a lot of trial and error, progressing further and further through the sequence each time until I get it right.
I just have to work the spine crawler in to be basically done with 14h15p, and the first one was a lot harder than the rest will be, because I had to lay out a ton of support code, so I'm going to move onto 13h15p next, but I could *really* use some help generating basic build orders for 11p18h and 16h15p. It would save me a ton of time just laying out the basics if somebody(s) wouldn't mind taking the time to work out timings for those two builds.
By the way, I started by recreating the drone races under my new framework (using mostly script now, with support from triggers where they made things easier), and using my new drone max rules (no more than 39 total), just to make sure that the economic races gave results consistent with my previous runs and jacob's testing, and everything looked about right. However, by extending the time by just building shitloads of overlords and zerglings after reaching the max drone count, it looks like 13h15p truly does have about a 2 larva advantage over 14h15p, and therefore very likely the same lead over just about everything else larva-wise. I'm still a little unclear on why that is exactly, but the ~2 larva lead was very consistent over a 10 minute run, so I'm pretty sure it's real. It's possible using early queen energy will reduce or eliminate that lead, but I thought it was pretty interesting that it was there.
I just realized something that's going to make my life a whole hell of a lot easier for tuning.
Now that I'm not using the AI at all, I can set the player as human controlled, which lets me SAVE. So once I get a sequence figured out, I can save and not have to start over from the beginning.
I could still use some help figuring out build orders for 11p18h and 16h15p though.
EDIT
Ahshit, nevermind, that doesn't help me, cause the map logic would need to change after loading.
So I think I'm done with 13p15h and 14h15p. I'll probably wait until I get all 4 builds in before posting stats and graphs (I'm recording data every second now which gets rid of most of the effects caused by choice of measurement time), but a rundown of the differences between 13p15h and 14h15p is interesting.
13p15h ends up about 280 resources behind.
More specifically, from 2:00 - 3:00, it's about 10 minerals behind, from 3:00 - 5:00 it steadily drops behind hitting a short pause at ~170 behind, and from 5:30 til just before the 7 minute mark, it steadily drops to ~280 behind where it sticks, because that's the point where both builds have the same number of workers mining (19 on the main, 20 on the expansion), and all the workers are settled in.
Larvae-wise, between 3:00 and 4:00, 13p has about a .5 larva disadvantage, which after 4:00 (the time the first inject completes), 13p has an advantage whose size is extremely difficult to measure due to the way I'm calculating larva, but my best guess is either 1.77 or 2.77, or a 1.77 advantage that somehow turns into 2.77 around the 7 minute mark, which doesn't make a lot of sense. (in my data, the most frequent difference that shows up is 2.7, but that number doesn't show up at all until 6:57, and the number that shows up most frequently before that is 1.77)
It's for *sure* at least a 1.5 larva advantage starting at 4:00 though.
9 OL 14 Hatch 15 Pool 17 Extractor (not ASAP though, I was able to wait and still match the timing from the idra build) 16 OL 18 Queen at main (tumor then inject expansion) 20 Zergling 21 Queen at expansion (inject expansion) 26 OL 27 Speed 30 Crawler 29 OL 36 OL Drone to 48 supply then build nothing but lots of overlords and zerglings
13p15h
9OL 13 Pool 15 Hatch 14 Queen at main (inject main, tumor, inject expansion) 17 Extractor (ASAP on this one) 17 OL 19 Queen at main (inject main) 21 Zergling 24 OL 26 Speed 29 Crawler 30 OL 36 OL Drone to 48 supply then build nothing but lots of overlords and zerglings
Interestingly, because the 13 pool is so much faster, the first queen was able to inject and still get a tumor down faster than 14h, even though 14h created a tumor as soon as the first queen popped. The second tumor, linking the main and expansion completely, finishes and starts generating creep just a little longer than a minute after the first one starts.
11p18h is next. It took me a good chunk of the day to get 13p15h in though (although a lot of that was spent trying to debug a specific situation where the build order code thought it was making 2 drones that didn't actually get made, throwing everything off). Even with all the support code in, it's still an extremely time consuming process to try to figure out when to fit in the extra stuff. Because it's taking so long, I *definitely* won't be doing any builds other than the original 4 I planned (14h15p, 13p15h, 11p18h, and 16h15p) unless somebody is willing to take the time to figure out how best to insert gas, tumors, speed, and a spine at approximately the same times as listed above. Those 4 are enough to satisfy my own curiousity, if you want to satisfy yours, you're going to have to do the legwork.
Pretty sure 11p18h is going to be quite a bit behind 13p15h, and that the timings of adding the extra stuff will be awkward. Trying to get the same gas and speed timing might actually be completely impossible.
Oh yeah, and the important conclusion that can be drawn so far:
Adding the extra stuff definitely does hurt 13p more than 14h, because 280 is quite a bit more behind than it was with the drone races, by about 180. (my data and jacob's both showed 13p being about 100 resources behind 14h)
I've got 11p18h in, and I need to double-check to make sure I haven't screwed something up, but 11p18h had a much easier time adding the extra stuff than I thought it would, and it actually felt quite a bit cleaner and easier than 13p15h.
Initial data puts 11p18h only 60-ish resources behind 14h15p at 9:00, which puts it *way* ahead of 13p15h. (although I did find some a few small problems with the 13p15h build that increased the results somewhat)
A couple departures that I allowed:
#1: Rather than sending a drone scout at around the 3:00 mark, I moved the lings earlier, starting them at 2:58 and finishing at 3:23. This delays the scouting by about 20 seconds, but it's *much* better scouting, and we were saying we wanted a pair of lings anyway.
#2: I allowed 2 injects before tumor, which delayed the tumor until 4:51, which is about 20 seconds later (1/2 an inject) later than the other builds. I felt like this was an acceptable tradeoff because 11p has more defensive options available than just "have creep", and a little more flexibility.
The build:
10 Extractor 11 OL 11 Pool 16 Queen (inject main twice, tumor, inject exp) 18 Hatch 17 Extractor 16 Zergling 17 OL 20 OL 20 Queen (inject main) 26 Speed 28 OL 28 Crawler 36 OL Drone to 47 supply then build nothing but lords and lings.
I'm going to double-check both the 13p15h and 14h15p builds to make sure I haven't screwed anything up, and I might try getting a creep tumor faster just to see how much of an effect that has, but unless I've massively screwed something up (and I spent quite a bit of extra time on the 13p just to see if I could get it better than the previous results which were pretty bad), it seems 11p18h actually adjusts *better* to a little bit of added reality than both 13p and 14h.
This result kinda makes me want to try 14p16h though. 13p15h is not an opening I had ever heard of or seen used before this whole 11pool thing started, and the only reason I've been looking at it at all is because it did seem to be the best pool-first build by quite a big margin based on earlier testing.
Seeing how much trouble it has dealing with reality makes me wonder if 14p16h might not do better.
I just got owned by this . Tought my opponent was going for 10 pool rush into mutalisks . I fended off the zerglings and finded lot's of zerglings + hydras at his main .......... Seriously , zerg haves it to easy early game , bring back reapers revert zealot build time so u can punish zerg players for going verry economicall builds
Ok, watching the 14h go again, it looks like it takes almost 2 full minutes longer for the expansion drones to settle in. But 13p and 11p are both settling at almost exactly the same time (6:50 for the main and 6:35 for the expansion), and even after the improvements I made to 13p (one of which was getting the drones to settle, in the previous run, neither base had settled by 10:00, despite the fact that no drones had been added after 6:30 or so), 13p is still just over 100 resources behind 11p.
I've spent enough time micromanaging the two pool-first builds that I'm pretty confident that's a valid comparison. Going to give 14h one more pass and see what happens.
But geez. It looks like we've pretty much come full-circle here, with 11p possibly being the best pool-first build again, and *really* close economically to even 14h15p.
On December 23 2010 06:38 metalsonic wrote: I just got owned by this . Tought my opponent was going for 10 pool rush into mutalisks . I fended off the zerglings and finded lot's of zerglings + hydras at his main .......... Seriously , zerg haves it to easy early game , bring back reapers revert zealot build time so u can punish zerg players for going verry economicall builds
How exactly would you "punish" an 11pool, if it turns out that the build can in fact be *very* close economically to the best hatch-first builds?
Improving the 14h15p settle-in time (basically by randomly shuffling the last 4 drones added to different patches, which improved the settle-in time by a minute and a half, but still leaving it 30 seconds behind the other 2) increased the 14h lead to around 100 resources.
I'm going to try to figure out how to publish the map in such a way that I can post the 3 replays and let you guys try to pick them apart.
On December 23 2010 06:56 ChickenLips wrote: Ok im gonna figure out the build order for 14 gas 14 pool brb
Did you mine gas after speed?
I never pulled drones off gas. The reason to do so is so that you can expand faster, and in every case, the hatchery is already up.
It's going to be *really* difficult to draw meaningful conclusions from a comparison against 14g14p though. The goal is completely different. (speed asap, as opposed to expansion asap)
Something went screwy in my attempts to make the map playable on battle.net. Going to fix the map and go back to what I was doing before and then try to post reps
Ok, replay problem. I tried to make it playable on battle.net by adding a human player (I have only one player set to AI when running from the editor, because it allows me to be a spectator in the game), and that caused the random seeding to be off.
So I put it back, but now I can't upload the replays to any of the sites I've tried, presumably because there's only one player. Anybody know of a replay site that doesn't do replay parsing?
Skrag: Thank you soo much for doing this. From what you've posted I'm doing some of my own mathematics to access different build orders. What can you conclude will be your "Go-To" opener as of right now.
Also: can you try 16 hatch 17 pool? I know it sounds soo silly but I do it against Zerg and it feels right..
On December 23 2010 08:20 Jeffbelittle wrote: Skrag: Thank you soo much for doing this. From what you've posted I'm doing some of my own mathematics to access different build orders. What can you conclude will be your "Go-To" opener as of right now.
Unless somebody can poke holes in the replays (if anybody can even download and watch them), I really think I'm going to go back to 11p18h on just about every map and every matchup, and 14h15p or 14h14p on shakuras and jungle basin.
Also: can you try 16 hatch 17 pool? I know it sounds soo silly but I do it against Zerg and it feels right..
No. Cause I'm 90% sure it will be worse than 16h15p because of the very late pool, and as I mentioned, it's really not easy for me to add new orders. Especially if all you tell me is "16 hatch 17 pool".
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On December 23 2010 08:43 ChickenLips wrote: Invalid or Deleted File.
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You tried to download in like the 15 seconds it took me to reupload the files and update the links. lol
I have no clue how to get it published so that people can watch reps generated from it.
The files should be there now though, but I did update the links, if you haven't refreshed. And I can click on the links and download the file. (and watch the replay, but the map is in my cache from testing it with the map editor)
Guess I could share the map itself, and you could run it from the map editor yourself if you really wanted to see what it was doing.
Great thread, I think the work you are doing here is both really helpful, and really awesome. A couple brief questions... -- am I to understand that yoru most recent 11p18h tests are better than the ones shown in OP?
-- I know that the people yelling about ling/gas timings can get annoying, but I can see how the necessity to get gas might alter your results significantly if it ended up delaying a crucial queen for example, leading to a missed inject, and thus spiraling the build out of control. This is a problem that might be unique to a certain build (IE if we need gas by 18 food, we might already have our queen from 11p but have to delay our 14p queen even farther if we get gas, or cut drones) -- is this something you have considered abstractly or through testing?
The most recent tests have followed the builds I posted earlier, all of which include gas, ling speed, a pair of lings, a creep tumor, and a spine crawler.
And it turns out that 11p actually isn't nearly as poorly affected by adding those things as the other two builds, because it passes 13p15h (which was significantly ahead in the drone races), and narrows the gap to 14h15p significantly.
I've followed a few of these Zerg econ threads, and I've not seen any Pool-before-Overlord builds that perform. I'm curious if this is a matter of optimization, or if they really aren't competitive for anything but Zergling rushes. Regrettably, I don't have access to SC2 to check.
My calculations suggest these timings line up, and that there's no larva wasted after the 9 pool 8 drone. Would you please check if this is overambitious?
To use it, load it in the map editor, make sure Use Fixed Random Seed is checked in preferences (if weird stuff happens, and drones don't look like they're doing what they should, then you've probably forgotten to check that box), and then Test Document.
The default build is 11p18h, but you can change that by either changing a line in the script, or by typing "13p15h" or "14h15p" (exactly like that) in the chat within the first 8 seconds after the map starts.
Replays get stored in Documents/Starcraft II/Replays/Unsaved, and the data logs get stored in Documents/Starcraft II/UserLogs/SkragAIBuildTester
The data is stored as two separate logs, as files named NameStats.txt and NameTimings.txt, where Name is the name of the build (13p15h, etc). The stats file is the data recorded every second, and the timings file contains start and completion times of all buildings and upgrades, and completion times of all units. (couldn't figure out an easy way to record the start time of units that come from larvae)
Once you've run it from the map editor, you can watch the replays by either just double-clicking them in an explorer window, or copying them to Documents/Starcraft II/Accounts/RandomNumbers/MoreRandomNumbers/Replays/Multiplayer
After an improvement to the settle-in times for 14h15p, 11p is closer to 100 minerals behind. Which is still really damn good IMO, and still better than 13p15h.
I've started generating graphs from the generated data comparing the three builds I've completed. I'll finish them later tonight and post them.
Awesome work Skrag. Is it possible to test the economics of 1 base builds? Let's say you'd want ling speed started and a handful of lings out before you make your expansion.
On December 23 2010 10:04 VoirDire wrote: Awesome work Skrag. Is it possible to test the economics of 1 base builds? Let's say you'd want ling speed started and a handful of lings out before you make your expansion.
The map's posted, with a bunch of support logic for scripting build orders.
Alright I've got the BO for 14gas/14pool, i.e. the probably most played Z build ever, getting real stuff (tm).
14 gas (at 100 minerals) 14 pool 15 OL 16 Ling (since you've decided to only make a pair of lings, I've allowed myself to sneak a drone in that is usually saved for lings) 17 Queen + speed (those and the lings happen at almost the same time) + pull drones off gas and put them back on at 4:20 which is the speedtiming for other builds (and surprisingly enough fits almost perfectly when you would put them back in a 'real' game) 19 Hatch 19 Queen (1 drone snuck in) 25 OL 25 Spine crawler 30 OL 36 OL
The timings are: scout 3:00, ling 3:11, tumor 4:45, crawler 4:45, drones back on gas 4:20
your drone micro and AI testing will probably be able to make it even more efficient but this is an approximate BO. I'm really interested in how much the earlier speed costs compared to hatch first and 11p, if it turns out to be dramatically worse it would be a really strong argument to forsake this build (since there is almost no point to getting speed THAT early in 90% of games, yet people blindly do it since it's what has been done for months)
Ok, I've just watched the 11pool build and that was really amazing to see it reach 2 fully saturated bases with real stuff at 6:00, I'm pretty wowed :D
Also that extractor trick was probably the coolest one I've ever seen. Really nice work, Skrag.
On December 23 2010 10:48 ChickenLips wrote: Ok, I've just watched the 11pool build and that was really amazing to see it reach 2 fully saturated bases with real stuff at 6:00, I'm pretty wowed :D
Also that extractor trick was probably the coolest one I've ever seen. Really nice work, Skrag.
I had to add the overlord/zergling stuff just to draw it out past 6 minutes. 9 minutes in and all the builds are pretty much hitting 100 supply on zerglings.
And yeah, I wish I could execute the extractor trick (or anything else for that matter) anywhere even remotely close to as cleanly. lol. You have to do like 4 things at pretty much exactly the same time, which is easy for a script that thinks in increments of 1/16 of a second, and that can do a lot of shit in that time increment, but I'm pretty sure it's not actually humanly possible.
Were you able to watch the replays or did you download the map?
CONCLUSIONS (added first as a tl;dr version of what's going to be a very long post):
Three builds (14h15p, 13p15h, and 11p18h) were put through AI-run tests that did more than just build drones. Each build was required to get gas at a reasonable time, one set of lings, ling speed, a creep tumor to connect the bases, and a spine crawler, with timings based on a replay that was posted in the thread where Idra executes a 14h14p build.
Obviously 14h15p is still the economic leader overall, but not by nearly as large a margin as expected.
11p18h seems to be a pretty big winner here compared to previous testing. Surprisingly, it seems to have actually absorbed the "reality injection" *better* than both 14h15p and 13p15h did, which didn't allow it to catch up completely, but closed the gap by quite a bit, and put it ahead of 13p15h, which was shown by previous testing to have the best economy of all the pool-first builds that were tested.
Specific notes about 13p15h:
13p15h seems to have a very awkward period from around 4:25 to 6:20 where it seems to be more resource-starved than the other 2 builds. During this time, it is forced to let significant numbers of larvae go unused, which probably accounts for a lot of the economic fallout, and might explain why a lot of people had never even heard of it as a reasonable opening until the whole "Economic 11pool" discussion started a few weeks ago, and 13p15h was offered as an economically superior pool-first build.
The larva advantage 13p15h has is interesting, but it's fairly small (probably somewhere between 1 and 2 larvae), and doesn't kick in until about 4:20, and frankly, the build doesn't gather enough resources to actually spend the extra larvae once you start doing things other than just building drones, so thes advantage doesn't seem to really be worth much.
I had started using 13p15h based on previous testing, but after this last set of tests, I'll definitely be switching back to 11p18h whenever I'm not going hatch-first, which IMO should still be preferred wherever you can pull it off.
Some graphs:
Resources collected:
Total Larvae:
Resource difference from 14h15p
Larva difference from 14h15p
The spreadsheet I'm using (in .ods format, which is the default format for OpenOffice Calc), containing all the collected data, higher res graphs, and a few more graphs:
13h15p ends up being about 235 minerals behind, while 11p18h is only about 120 behind. Gas counts are practically identical for all 3 builds, given that I tried to construct the extractor at the same time in each one. There's never more than a difference of 4 gas, which is one drone trip worth.
The larva graphs are a lot more difficult to read usefully, but the total larva graph shows windows where one build can be ahead of the others due to inject timings. For example, 14h has a couple larva advantage between about 3:40 to 4:00, at which point 11p takes a small advantage until 4:20, when 13p takes the lead until about 4:50. Unfortunately, because these builds were executed by the AI at maximum possible speed, with perfect micro and accuracy, you can't just take times from the graph and say "at this time, I'll have a larva advantage". You'd have to get real replays of your own game, and see where the injects come in, because I guarantee the AI played more perfect than you.
14h and 13p seem to stay mostly in sync, with 13p having a small advantage on average, but the timing on injects for 11p give some pretty big swings back and forth, although appearing to be approximately equivalent overall to 14h, just with different timed surges from injects.
The larva difference graph is damn near impossible to draw useful conclusions from, because it spikes all over the place with larva injects. I tried to smooth it out by doing partial larvae from injects (counting an inject that was 20/40 done as 4 larva, for example), but there's a point where the inject is complete, but the larvae haven't appeared yet, that caused the same sort of spikes, and I didn't really come up with a good way of accounting for that, so I scratched that and just went back to calculations based on available larvae.
I'm going to try to add 16h15p next, and given how long it takes to tune each build, that will probably be the last one I add, even though I'm pretty curious now to see if 14p16h outperforms 13p in a "real" test. I'm pretty convinced it will do worse than 14h15p, but the results from 11p18h were extremely surprising and not what I expected to see, so I still think it's worth doing.
Some notes about how the tests were run:
I used the build orders that were posted in the original post of this thread, and modified them to add gas, a pair of lings, ling speed, a creep tumor, and a spine crawler, trying to time all of those things based on a posted replay where Idra performed a 14h14p.
Only 39 mineral mining drones were build, 19 for the main, 20 for the expansion. The main could only possibly support 20, but in one case where I accidentally mis-rallied one drone to the main giving it 20, the game ran past the 10 minute mark and there was *still* a bouncing drone at the main (over 4 minutes after the drone was actually added to the patch), so mining was only happening at 19 workers worth anyway. The expansion can technically support 22 workers, but there are 4 patches that are far enough away to support 3 workers, but close enough that it's actually pretty hard for 3 workers to settle into a routine. Putting 20 drones at the expansion seemed to be the "right" amount, where they would settle in relatively quickly most of the time (but I still saw cases where over 2 minutes went by before they settled in).
Drones from the main base were rallied to the main minerals until there were 16 drones there, and drones made at the expansion were always rallied to the expansion. After the main had 16 drones, any drones created there were sent to the expansion, except for the last 3, which were sent to the main giving it the full 19 workers, but delaying the settle-in penalties as long as possible.
Drones were microed as perfectly as possible, being sent to whichever mineral patch would cause the least amount of bouncing delays before they started actively working. Most of the time, there were no delays at all, but in some cases, especially as the number got closer to 16, I had to bounce a drone off a patch that had 2 workers on it already, so that it could bounce to a patch with only one worker and get into a routine on that patch.
So the final target was 39 workers mining minerals, 3 workers mining gas, 2 queens, scouting at about 3:00, ling speed, a tumor, and a crawler. Once that target was reached, zerglings were built to 52 supply, then 6 overlords were built, followed by 48 supply worth of zerglings. This was done just to give some time for all the workers to settle in, and see where things fell out, while also using all available larvae so that accurate larva counts could be generated.
13p and 14h both sent a scout drone at around the 3:00 mark, but 11p was allowed to build its lings earlier for scouting rather than pulling a drone, with the reasoning that a slight delay in the scouting was compensated for by having 2 ling scouts instead, which are faster and more generally useful.
11p was also allowed to delay the creep tumor by about 20 seconds in favor of a third inject, with the reasoning being that it has a lot more flexibility due to the earlier pool, and is actually less likely to be attacked early because the pool goes down so early.
Amazing job, Skrag! I downloaded the map and made it do 11p18h. Pretty neat to watch. The extractor trick, and the perfectly timed injects... a thing of beauty. Some things I noticed, though:
1) At 3:40 there are 154 minerals and 20/26 supply, so the second Queen could easily be started. However, the script waits 10 more seconds to start an Overlord at 3:50 (224 minerals), and then a Queen at 3:52. Surely that's not intentional? (Although I doubt the difference will be big.)
2) There are only 2 drones mining gas, is that intentional?
3) After the main has 17 drones mining minerals, all new drones are rallied to the expansion. Shouldn't that be done at 16 instead? (Maybe the 17th mineral-drone should have been the 3rd gas-drone?)
Hi there i love the ending of this many threads, finally the "testers" went thinking right for the 11pool, or pools first which favors the safe base build up.
i think they are just needed by the timings of the hatch-first defends..
i begin with sc2 late and the pressure of harrassment is simply annoying, but in fact the eco is not worth when the opponent gets more gas invested, and the zerg is everytime one or more steps behind.
something between hatch and pool first is difficult but only having no practise with it at all is not a true testing result..
when i practised with the 11pool, the way of saturating the main was totally different in some games, so i tested inbase hatching in some games, rushing for 2 worker on the near minerals and flood drones to thirty, adding a defendforce on the scouting information at 24 supply and going for a window to attack at 8-11 minutes, while expanding u perform an army trade, contain or a fast expansion punish, lairtech or what is really needed by scouting informations..
Building 6-12?drones with the 2 mainhatch larvae injects shortly before the expansion finishes and the drones off the distanced minerals will give you a quick gg or a dream macrogame..
a Clue was a hatchery trick on the lower choke to generate a forward creep Tumor, and instantly building a spinecrawler with the "trick" drone, scouting will make sure you can unroot him to position it before an attack come close
Please please read this statement not of the view, that this are noob or unexperienced rts mindgames, honestly
On December 23 2010 19:19 Nolari wrote: Amazing job, Skrag! I downloaded the map and made it do 11p18h. Pretty neat to watch. The extractor trick, and the perfectly timed injects... a thing of beauty. Some things I noticed, though:
1) At 3:40 there are 154 minerals and 20/26 supply, so the second Queen could easily be started. However, the script waits 10 more seconds to start an Overlord at 3:50 (224 minerals), and then a Queen at 3:52. Surely that's not intentional? (Although I doubt the difference will be big.)
2) There are only 2 drones mining gas, is that intentional?
3) After the main has 17 drones mining minerals, all new drones are rallied to the expansion. Shouldn't that be done at 16 instead? (Maybe the 17th mineral-drone should have been the 3rd gas-drone?)
You forgot to check the fixed random seed box, didn't you.
On December 24 2010 04:46 Skrag wrote: You forgot to check the fixed random seed box, didn't you.
Aww crap, you're right! Checking that fixed the gas mining.
However, the issue with making the second Queen remains. Just look at your own 11p18h spreadsheet: 3:40 - 154 minerals - 20/26 supply ... 3:49 - 229 minerals - 20/26 supply (Overlord is started) 3:50 - 139 minerals - 20/26 supply 3:51 - 149 minerals - 20/26 supply (2nd Queen is started) 3:52 - 4 minerals - 22/26 supply
It doesn't matter. That queen is ready in time for the 3rd inject, and it couldn't possibly be ready in time to do the second inject instead of the first queen.
I tried to optimize the builds the best I could, but I don't think it's really possible to explain what a ridiculous amount of work that is to actually do, so I'm sure there are small imperfections here and there.
For example, although that readjustment wouldn't get the third inject any faster, it *might* allow the second queen to put out the tumor rather than the first one, which would result in skipping an inject at the main rather than one at the expansion, and would get the tumor down a little bit sooner. To be perfectly honest, though, at this point I'm not particularly interested in readjusting the drone micro from that point on, although if that timing does work, it would bring 11p18h even closer to 14h15p. It's already *more* than close enough to show its validity though IMO.
On December 24 2010 16:40 Skrag wrote: It doesn't matter. That queen is ready in time for the 3rd inject, and it couldn't possibly be ready in time to do the second inject instead of the first queen.
The early money wouldn't have to be spent on the Queen, per se. At that point there are only 14 drones mining minerals. That could be upped a bit earlier, without delaying the Queen.
On December 24 2010 16:40 Skrag wrote: For example, although that readjustment wouldn't get the third inject any faster, it *might* allow the second queen to put out the tumor rather than the first one, which would result in skipping an inject at the main rather than one at the expansion, and would get the tumor down a little bit sooner.
It seems that that is indeed possible. The current script makes the Creep Tumor at 4:52, but the earlier second Queen would finish at 4:30.
On December 24 2010 16:40 Skrag wrote: To be perfectly honest, though, at this point I'm not particularly interested in readjusting the drone micro from that point on, although if that timing does work, it would bring 11p18h even closer to 14h15p. It's already *more* than close enough to show its validity though IMO.
Oh totally agreed. But you asked for people to poke holes at the replays, so I did. The "holes" here only work in 11p18h's favor, though.
On December 24 2010 16:40 Skrag wrote: It doesn't matter. That queen is ready in time for the 3rd inject, and it couldn't possibly be ready in time to do the second inject instead of the first queen.
The early money wouldn't have to be spent on the Queen, per se. At that point there are only 14 drones mining minerals. That could be upped a bit earlier, without delaying the Queen.
There are no larvae, which is why its waiting to build an overlord.
It seems that that is indeed possible. The current script makes the Creep Tumor at 4:52, but the earlier second Queen would finish at 4:30.
Yeah, maybe, like I said, they're not all perfect at every single point
Oh totally agreed. But you asked for people to poke holes at the replays, so I did. The "holes" here only work in 11p18h's favor, though.
Yeah, I was really more looking for holes that would overturn the very surprising results with 11p.
On December 24 2010 17:44 Skrag wrote: There are no larvae, which is why its waiting to build an overlord.
Ah whoops. So then the earlier Queen is the only thing that can be done to not float so many minerals. I wonder if I can figure out enough of the Galaxy Editor to make that change. Probably will take a while.
Hmm, making the Queen changes was pretty easy. But without updating the Drone micro, it actually makes the build worse by a couple minerals. And getting it perfect again is quite a pain. Deep respect for all the work you put into this.
Would it be possible to make the script spam right click on a mineral patch to force a group of 2-3 workers into a routine on that patch, the way some pros do?
That would make updating the drones a lot easier after editing a build. Then it might be feasible after all to test a larger number of builds. I doubt any will offer significant benefit over 14h15p and 11p18h, but perhaps that may change after a future balance change.
On December 24 2010 20:00 Nolari wrote: Would it be possible to make the script spam right click on a mineral patch to force a group of 2-3 workers into a routine on that patch, the way some pros do?
I actually realized this would be possible and was working on it when I read this. It took a lot of digging into the sequence of events that happen while drones are harvesting, but I just about have it working so that drones will automatically pick the best spot to go to, and force themselves to stay on that spot.
Which will make it a *LOT* easier to add new builds and modify the ones that are already there.
God, I wish I would have thought of this sooner. It makes things so much easier.
So after adding the auto-drone micro, and doing some small adjustments to the builds mostly to pull the best drones to build stuff in the new configuration, adding complete saturation (which I can do now with the drone forcing) and including the earlier queen on 11p18h to use the second queen for a faster tumor (but slightly slower third inject), the results are pretty similar.
11p18h is still way ahead of 13p15h, ending up about 95 minerals behind 14h, compared to 13p being 250 behind.
Now that I can add builds much more easily, I'm going to finish off 16h15p, add at *least* 14p16h, and maybe add one or two of the other hatch-first builds that were pretty comparable to 14h15p.
Between 2:30 and 4:30, it is ahead of 14h15p by about 25 minerals. From 4:30-5:30 it is ahead by about 15 minerals. From there it steadily drops to being behind 40 by 3:30.
It also has a very sizable larva disadvantage. It's *never* ahead on larvae, and after about 5:00 it's behind by what looks to be start out at being 3 larvae behind and then drop to being 5 behind.
During the period where 13p15h has more larvae than it can spend, making it a pretty awkward build, 16h15p has more minerals than larvae, so it seems just as awkward, only in reverse.
The 5 larvae disadvantage is *huge* IMO. 16h might be ok if you have the intention of building a fast 3rd hatchery, which I think is where I've seen it in use by Dimaga, but in pretty much every other situation, it would seem to be strictly worse than 14h. And even then, if the third hatch doesn't come before 5:30 or so, you're probably better off with 14h anyway.
On December 25 2010 04:28 Skrag wrote: Data on 16h15p:
Between 2:30 and 4:30, it is ahead of 14h15p by about 25 minerals. From 4:30-5:30 it is ahead by about 15 minerals. From there it steadily drops to being behind 40 by 3:30.
It also has a very sizable larva disadvantage. It's *never* ahead on larvae, and after about 5:00 it's behind by what looks to be start out at being 3 larvae behind and then drop to being 5 behind.
During the period where 13p15h has more larvae than it can spend, making it a pretty awkward build, 16h15p has more minerals than larvae, so it seems just as awkward, only in reverse.
The 5 larvae disadvantage is *huge* IMO. 16h might be ok if you have the intention of building a fast 3rd hatchery, which I think is where I've seen it in use by Dimaga, but in pretty much every other situation, it would seem to be strictly worse than 14h. And even then, if the third hatch doesn't come before 5:30 or so, you're probably better off with 14h anyway.
This data looks suspicious -- it would mean that the 16 Hatch was delayed a full 30 seconds relative to the 14 Hatch (A HatchQueen averages just over 6 seconds per larvae), which in turn means that you are building the 14 Hatchery immediately after the larvae pops for the 14th Drone (and similarly for the 16 Hatchery)
Could it be that you are just sending the drone for the 16 Hatch very late? Your result seems plausible if you don't send the Drone until you actually have 16 supply, rather than having the Drone arrive at the natural just as you get the 300 minerals needed.
On December 25 2010 04:28 Skrag wrote: Data on 16h15p:
Between 2:30 and 4:30, it is ahead of 14h15p by about 25 minerals. From 4:30-5:30 it is ahead by about 15 minerals. From there it steadily drops to being behind 40 by 3:30.
It also has a very sizable larva disadvantage. It's *never* ahead on larvae, and after about 5:00 it's behind by what looks to be start out at being 3 larvae behind and then drop to being 5 behind.
During the period where 13p15h has more larvae than it can spend, making it a pretty awkward build, 16h15p has more minerals than larvae, so it seems just as awkward, only in reverse.
The 5 larvae disadvantage is *huge* IMO. 16h might be ok if you have the intention of building a fast 3rd hatchery, which I think is where I've seen it in use by Dimaga, but in pretty much every other situation, it would seem to be strictly worse than 14h. And even then, if the third hatch doesn't come before 5:30 or so, you're probably better off with 14h anyway.
This data looks suspicious -- it would mean that the 16 Hatch was delayed a full 30 seconds relative to the 14 Hatch (A HatchQueen averages just over 6 seconds per larvae), which in turn means that you are building the 14 Hatchery immediately after the larvae pops for the 14th Drone (and similarly for the 16 Hatchery)
Could it be that you are just sending the drone for the 16 Hatch very late? Your result seems plausible if you don't send the Drone until you actually have 16 supply, rather than having the Drone arrive at the natural just as you get the 300 minerals needed.
The drone to build the 14 hatch doesn't get sent until 14 supply is reached. The drone to build the 16hatch gets sent on 15 supply (it has to in order to get there in time to build the hatchery). I'm absolutely positive I'm building the hatch as soon as possible, because it took me about 30 minutes to get that one thing right, and I had to add a new bit of support logic in order to be able to do it correctly.
16h starts the hatch at 2:05, and 14h starts it at 1:57.
16h starts the pool at 2:26, and 14h starts it at 2:28.
So you're right, that does look a little strange, and I can't explain it. But I'm pretty sure the result is correct, and that 16h is somewhere between 3-5 larvae behind, although I have absolutely no explanation as to why that could possibly be.
In fact, given that they both tumor the same way (with the first queen's first 25 energy), I don't see how it *can* be possible. The hatch and pool timings are so close, and that's the main thing that's going to affect larvae counts.
But I also made sure 16h built queens as soon as it could, and I've double-checked the data. I'm sort of at a loss here.
The only thing I can think is that maybe the 16h build missed an inject somehow, although the logic for injects is the same for all the builds, so that would be weird.
I'll pore over the replay when I get a chance, but it's not gonna happen tonight.
A missing inject also sounds like it gives the right number. I haven't followed the thread closely so I don't know how you are measuring things. If you are just taking a sample rather than averaging, could it be that you sampled during the 8 seconds between when the 14 Hatch gets an inject and when the 16 Hatch does?
I just re-watched 16h, and it looks like its doing everything it should be. Injects are all on time, etc. Obviously the graphs are difficult to interpret, and when I say 5 I'm just taking the approximate average of the spikes. Although looking again I'd probably want to say 2 or 3 just because that looks more consistent
But even that doesn't make sense. 14h has an 8 second advantage on the second hatch, and only like a 4 second advantage on injects. (I also verified that the 14p was putting down a creep tumor when it should)
Which should work out to be less than 1 larva on average.
Maybe my larva calculation is forgetting something.
The total larva count comes from:
Number of drones (in progress and completed) + Number of available larvae + Number of overlords (in progress and completed) + Number of zerglings + Number of buildings
And after typing that out, I think I know what's going on. Zergling count should be halved. :/
So that explains why it seemed the advantage increased at a weird time. Because that's when the builds start generating a shitload of zerglings. Here's the new difference graph:
I'd still want to call that an average of at least 1.5 after 6:45 though. There's a pretty clear shift there that I still have no explanation for.
Wow Skrag, awesome sauce! Now it's not just an investigation into a couple of builds, but a framework to investigate any conceivable build with fairly little effort.
From the timings on the Hatch, I would expect the difference to be one and a third larvae. Since you have the raw data, can't you just compute an average over, say, the last 2 minutes, rather than trying to guesstimate from the graph?
(2 minutes because that's an integer multiple of both 15 and 40 seconds)
The problem with trying to get averages is that the result depends purely on what you decide to calculate. A 2 minute average is going to be different than a 3 minute average, etc, and the reality of the way larvae work means that there are clear periods where the differences can be large. And 2 minutes is a *really* long time game-wise anyway.
I'd rather just guesstimate for my own conclusions, since any sort of fixed number you try to give is just going to be a very rough approximation anyway, and provide the graphs and raw data so that people can draw their own conclusions if they want.
On December 26 2010 00:39 Nolari wrote: Wow Skrag, awesome sauce! Now it's not just an investigation into a couple of builds, but a framework to investigate any conceivable build with fairly little effort.
Well, it's still a fair amount of work to add builds, because I do have to go through and get the right timings, figure out which workers to pull to try to build stuff optimally, etc, which still involves a decent amount of trial and error.
But that's *way* easier than getting a few timings, adjusting drone micro, getting more timings, adjusting the drone micro, etc.
On December 26 2010 00:48 Hurkyl wrote: (2 minutes because that's an integer multiple of both 15 and 40 seconds)
Energy regenerates at a rate of 9/16 energy per game seconds, so injects happen every 25 / (9/16) = 400 / 9 = 44.444... game seconds, not every 40 game seconds.
On December 26 2010 01:20 Skrag wrote: The problem with trying to get averages is that the result depends purely on what you decide to calculate. A 2 minute average is going to be different than a 3 minute average, etc, and the reality of the way larvae work means that there are clear periods where the differences can be large. And 2 minutes is a *really* long time game-wise anyway.
I'd rather just guesstimate for my own conclusions, since any sort of fixed number you try to give is just going to be a very rough approximation anyway, and provide the graphs and raw data so that people can draw their own conclusions if they want.
A numerically computed average is surely going to be better than one formed by eyeballing the data.
Larvae production is eventually periodic, and so averaging over one period captures the most significant statistic.
You could always average over a sliding window if you're worried about it -- e.g. at time T, plot the larvae average over the interval [T, T+W) for some suitable window width W. Or maybe convolve the data with some other smoothing function.
On December 26 2010 01:32 Skrag wrote: How do you get 1 and a third though?
8 seconds of hatchery time is worth .533 larva, 4 seconds of queen time is worth .4, for a total of .933.
I hadn't noticed that you weren't starting a Queen immediately upon Hatchery completion.
Oh, yeah, I'll have to go look at why that is. Pretty sure I've tried to get queens started ASAP though, so there's probably a good reason, as opposed to just being sloppy.
Ok, the second queen is *slightly* delayed in 14h15p because I put the first pair of zerglings before the queen, because that's what Idra did in the replay that I'm trying to match timings from. The delay is less than 2 seconds though.
One more shot at sharing replays. I switched things around so that the map is playable on battle.net, and let this game run *on* battle.net rather than in the map editor.
*EDIT* I just republished the map after adding a few more builds, so this replay may stop working.
On December 26 2010 04:23 Skrag wrote: One more shot at sharing replays. I switched things around so that the map is playable on battle.net, and let this game run *on* battle.net rather than in the map editor.
The results of this latest round of tests are slightly different than the last round. I changed the map so that I could publish it on battle.net and let the game run while actually playing there, so that replays could be posted. One thing that shows is that very simple random differences can have a pretty significant impact, so the absolute numbers can't really be taken as gospel. For example, before reconfiguring the map, 11p18h was only about 95 resources behind 14p15h, but now it's closer to 130.
The larvae graph unfortunately got really difficult to read as I added builds to it. The easiest way to see what's going on there is going to be to download the spreadsheet (you'll need openoffice, which is a free download), and modify the graph to just show one at a time.
Imprecise commentary on the larva graph:
16h15p is slightly behind the entire time, while 13h15p is slightly ahead.
The other 4 builds are all slightly behind until a certain point, and then pull slightly ahead in larva count.
11p18h catches up at about 4:00 13p15h catches up at about 4:15 14p16h catches up at about 4:20, and ends up further ahead than any other builds 15p16h catches up at about 4:30
Here's a graph showing the 2 minute average of the larva difference. Obviously it's really difficult to be precise when there are instantaneous jumps of 4 at a time, but this seems to give a decent picture of which builds are ahead in what approximate timeframe. The catch-up times I listed above are fairly accurate, but the average gives a way of displaying all the builds on a single graph without a ton of overlap.
This graph would seem to indicate that 14p16h is ahead of 13p15h even though I said 13p15h was the larvae leader. In that respect, I'd be more inclined to believe the average graph, since I was just eyeballing and guessing.
Commentary on each of the builds measured:
POOL-FIRST BUILDS: 13p15h: despite being economically ahead of all the other pool-first builds in the drone race, I honestly don't see any reason to ever use this build at all. It does have a pretty significant larva advantage over most other builds measured, but it never has enough resources, and gets stuck unable to use larvae a *lot*.
11p18h: This build held up to the reality injection very well, better than I expected, and probably far better than any of the people claiming that it would fall apart economically once you started trying to actually do anything would have thought possible.
14p16h: Somewhat unsurprisingly, since a 14pool was commonly quoted as a build that would be beating 11p economically, this one held up pretty well. It has a 20-50 resource advantage on 11p early, and ends up in pretty much the same spot as 11p after max saturation, being around 130 resources behind 11p. This build also appears the be the larva leader, and was actually able to take advantage of the extra larvae, so that might be a consideration.
15p16h: This build plays out pretty similar to 14p16h, except that it falls further behind as max saturation is approached. A big part of that is that this build had a *really* hard time matching the timings I was going for (especially the spine crawler), so this might be a little bit unfair. But without doing testing under different circumstances (which I probably won't have the patience to do), it seems there won't really ever be a reason to use 15p instead of 14. I'm pretty sure 14p is far more common, and the problems 15p had in executing the things I wanted to execute probably explains that quite a bit.
HATCH-FIRST BUILDS: 13h15p: This build gains a slight larva advantage over 14h15p (somewhere in the neighborhood of one larva) at the cost of lagging behind in resources by 30-40. It *might* be less susceptible to hatch blocking, although the hatch times are close enough that I'd be surprised if there was really that much of a difference.
16h15p: This build trades a small larva disadvantage for a small early resource advantage. Where 13p15h didn't have enough resources to use it's available larvae, this one doesn't seem to have enough larvae to spend its resources. If you were planning a very early 3rd hatchery, or expected to need to build a bunch of spine crawlers, this one might do ok, but you'd have to be planning on doing that in the first 5 minutes for it to be worthwhile, because the early advantage is only 25-ish resources, but the later disadvantage is 65-ish.
15h14p: The data for this build is not posted in the graphs, but it appears to take a late larvae advantage over 14h15p, at the cost of a slight early larva disadvantage and a resource disadvantage that is larger than 13h15p. So if you're wanting to trade resources for larva, it seems 13h15p would be the better choice.
I edited 13h15p into the script a while ago and showed similar results to yours in an earlier post (lost by 160 minerals at 9 minutes for me, which was behind the 11/18 build). But, from the stats your replay generated, I had 13h15p beating 14h15p -- and any other build -- in resources at every point after 5:50. Did I manage to do something wrong here, or have I misread the graph/results or something?
On December 27 2010 07:07 alepov wrote: so as it stands now, 14h15p is the "best" ?
Was that ever a question?
The economic tests showed 14h15p and 15h14p being *extremely* close economically (which makes perfect sense, because the only real difference is a tradeoff of a few seconds between hatch and pool times). I might add 15h14p just out of curiousity, but mainly I wanted to compare vs an earlier and a later hatch.
I edited 13h15p into the script a while ago and showed similar results to yours in an earlier post (lost by 160 minerals at 9 minutes for me, which was behind the 11/18 build). But, from the stats your replay generated, I had 13h15p beating 14h15p -- and any other build -- in resources at every point after 5:50. Did I manage to do something wrong here, or have I misread the graph/results or something?
(BTW, great work Skrag, you're the man.)
The readjustments I had to do in order to make it playable on battle.net improved the performance of 14h15p by 15-20 minerals for some reason. In the graph I just posted, 14h15p's resource count under the new configuration (apparently forcing a fixed random seed via trigger ends up using a different fixed seed than forcing a fixed seed in the map editor, so I had to rearrange some stuff to make them work properly again) was used as the baseline, so what's actually graphed for each build is its resource count minus 14h15p's resource count.
So if you were comparing the replay I posted against old data, it could be quite a bit closer, and 13h15p might even seem slightly ahead.
But I also ran 13h15p before I had to adjust everything, and the results were practically identical, a slight larva advantage and a slight resource disadvantage.
Also, if you put 13h15p into the script and ever showed it being behind 11p18h at the 9 minute mark, then I would have to say the script you added was extremely sub-optimal, because every incarnation of 13h15p I've done was significantly ahead of 11p, but slightly behind 14h.
Also just added a 2 minute larvae difference average graph to the earlier post. It's less precise than the instantaneous larvae measure obviously, but allows all 6 builds to be shown on the same graph.
On December 27 2010 07:07 alepov wrote: so as it stands now, 14h15p is the "best" ?
Was that ever a question?
Seems like a decent enough question -- remember that the OP concludes with "So far for the economic analysis the best Hatch first build is the 13H/15P. The best pool first build is the 13P/15H. The 11P/18H also may deserve to be added because it gets the pool earlier."
Of course, those conclusions were shorter-term and didn't involve any creep tumors, spine crawlers, or lings -- I'm interested in seeing what the results turn up, to see how well the 13h15p can hold up while still getting the hatchery down about 5+ seconds earlier than 14/15.
Or, 5 seconds earlier if you split drones perfectly and send out the drone to the natural at exactly the right time, it isn't blocked, etc.
On December 27 2010 07:35 Skrag wrote: The readjustments I had to do in order to make it playable on battle.net improved the performance of 14h15p by 15-20 minerals for some reason. In the graph I just posted, 14h15p's resource count under the new configuration (apparently forcing a fixed random seed via trigger ends up using a different fixed seed than forcing a fixed seed in the map editor, so I had to rearrange some stuff to make them work properly again) was used as the baseline, so what's actually graphed for each build is its resource count minus 14h15p's resource count.
So if you were comparing the replay I posted against old data, it could be quite a bit closer, and 13h15p might even seem slightly ahead.
Expected this might be a "for some reason" kind of thing -- just going through the first few seconds (before the first OL, even) I saw advantages I couldn't explain.
On December 27 2010 07:35 Skrag wrote: Also, if you put 13h15p into the script and ever showed it being behind 11p18h at the 9 minute mark, then I would have to say the script you added was extremely sub-optimal, because every incarnation of 13h15p I've done was significantly ahead of 11p, but slightly behind 14h.
Problem identified -- will leave the testing to the pros =D
On December 27 2010 07:44 Skrag wrote: I just updated the spreadsheet and map in mediafire.
The old links should still work, here they are again:
Also just added a 2 minute larvae difference average graph to the earlier post. It's less precise than the instantaneous larvae measure obviously, but allows all 6 builds to be shown on the same graph.
You are amazing. Also, I think MS Office ('07, anyway) supports the OpenOffice formats pretty well now, so folks who already have Excel shouldn't have to install anything extra. That, or I forgot about the extra stuff I installed...
On December 27 2010 08:53 MinusPlus wrote: Seems like a decent enough question -- remember that the OP concludes with "So far for the economic analysis the best Hatch first build is the 13H/15P. The best pool first build is the 13P/15H. The 11P/18H also may deserve to be added because it gets the pool earlier."
The OP was based on a pure drone race, and even then, the advantage of 13h15p was in question to begin with, since he had one data point that looked like an outlier, being significantly higher than all the other runs and dragging the average up.
Also, the OP did show 13p15h being the best pool-first build economically, but that build fell flat on its face when trying to inject bits of reality. Of all the builds I've entered, it performed the worst by far, and by a significant margin. It simply doesn't have the resources to use available larvae once you start building things other than drones to mine more minerals. Which would explain why nobody had even really heard of it before the whole 11p18h thing started, and people were doing drone races. It turns out 13p15h is really good at a drone race, but pretty horrible at anything else.
11p18h held up *much* better, and is fairly close to 14p16h. If you want to go pool first, 11 overpool and 14 pool both seem like decent alternatives, with 11pool having some additional psychological advantages, as well as the ability to more easily adjust into one-base play if necessary, and 14pool being the slightly more economic choice, both in resources and larvae.
One of the biggest complaints in all the 11p18h threads is that the build simply wouldn't hold up economically once you started actually trying to do things other than build drones. I believe the data puts that claim pretty solidly to rest, though, with only 14p performing better, and only slightly better at that.
Just out of curiosity, I ran 15h14p to see how it compared, and it appears to gain a (very) late small larva advantage at the cost of a smaller early larva disadvantage and a resource disadvantage. 13h15p seems better in every possible way, with a bigger and earlier larva advantage, and a smaller resource disadvantage.
I was wondering if it would be a good idea to make "safety" of a build slightly less abstract so this can also be tested. There are a few values that add to a build's safety in my opinion;
- The time when a player is able to make his first set of zerglings (eg. the time when the spawning pool is finished) - The time when a player can have a spinecrawler at his expension (either by building it in the main and moving it, or by building it at the expansion)
A list of timings like these could then be compared to the timings on popular builds to determine how safe a build really is.
In this last round of testing, all the builds tried to do the same things at approximately the same time as a 14h14p replay of Idra. Most of the timings are within a few seconds of each other for the first set of zerglings, zergling speed, a creep tumor, and a spine crawler.
So they all have pretty much the exact same "safety" level.
And besides, the entire point of this thread is to measure and compare economic differences between builds.
The implementation is not perfect by any means, because different builds will be better at doing different things, and builds that appear to sacrifice a lot of economy might be better if the timing requirements were relaxed, but it's a much more accurate test (IMO anyway) of the actual economics of a build than a pure drone race is, since you're never actually going to be building up to 42 drones without building anything else.
Most certainly not! This has been my most read thread lately, and I watched all the bo on the map you released. Lately I have been wondering about a build with faster gas: with a protoss 4 gate push, the warpagates finish at 5:40. With a 14 gas 14 pool, speed is done at 5:20 which is too soon. With the gas timings of 14h15p and 11p18h, speed is done at around 6:30, which may be a tad too late on some map. I was wondering on the impact of switching hatch and gas in the 11p18h bo, someting like 18extractor 17ling 18ov 17hatch for a quicker scout+gas. It should get the speed a bit faster, while having better economy than 14gas14pool21hatch. What do you think?
My gut says that anything you add to 11p18h before the hatch will hurt it pretty significantly economically.
Then again, my gut said that 13p was going to still be better than all the other pool-first builds in the economic tests after the "reality injection" of doing real stuff other than just building drones, when the reality of the situation is that 13p15h apparently falls apart completely for anything other than a drone race.
A lot of the reason that 11p holds up so well is that it gets the queen so fast, because its hatch is already pretty significantly delayed (almost a full minute behind 14h15p), so maybe an additional slight delay wouldn't make that huge of a difference, I dunno.
I do agree that speed on 14g14p seems unnecessarily fast. It was basically required in ZvT before the reaper speed nerf, but seems a lot less necessary to get really fast now.
Another thing I've been considering is trying to do a comparison between 14h15p, 11p18h, and maybe 14p16h in situations where your hatchery gets blocked and a 14h has to put down a pool first, and both builds have to wait until the expansion can be cleared to put down a hatchery.
I put an absolute *shitton* of work into this, to end up feeling like only two or three people actually saw the final results or cared.
lol
hey Skrag, I've actually been following this thread for awhile now. I don't ever post tho, but I registered just to give you a shout out and a big thanks for all your hard work!!
On December 30 2010 03:07 ChickenLips wrote: 33373 views and you feel like noone has seen this? O__o (FYI for a thread that concerns only ~25% of the player base that is a lot)
Just because a lot of people just lurk (especially in threads as technical as this one) doesn't mean they don't appreciate it.
Lol. Yeah, that's a lot of views. I stand corrected. The action in the thread just died off a lot after I started posting results, where it was almost always staying near the front page before. :/
Ok Skrag, this is officially my first post. I registered an account just to let you know that your hard work is definitely appreciated. Please keep testing these builds. You do the swarm proud.
not quite the first post but almost and with the others a deffinate im interested and following (you were avid xmass reading much more than my friends and family would have liked. I didn't want to intrude with please inculde X in your tests as it's clearly a lot of work to run and i was happy to look at what you felt you had time to do. BTW totaly kicked the other faux scientific analysis threads ass. I would also be very interested in hatch after clearing if you do want to carry on the good work. Live for the swarm
On December 30 2010 02:48 Skrag wrote: Another thing I've been considering is trying to do a comparison between 14h15p, 11p18h, and maybe 14p16h in situations where your hatchery gets blocked and a 14h has to put down a pool first, and both builds have to wait until the expansion can be cleared to put down a hatchery.
That would be awesome. Expansion blocks are soooo annoying, but unfortunately also pretty common. What you said about 11p18h's fast Queen and delayed Hatchery may mean that it is also less disadvantaged when there's a Pylon or Engineering Bay to be killed before being able to expand. Would love to see if that is true.
On December 30 2010 02:48 Skrag wrote: My gut says that anything you add to 11p18h before the hatch will hurt it pretty significantly economically. [Snip] I do agree that speed on 14g14p seems unnecessarily fast. It was basically required in ZvT before the reaper speed nerf, but seems a lot less necessary to get really fast now.
Yeah, I would agree with you that gas before hatch in 11p18h will hurt the economy quite a bit, but as you said, the strong point of 11p18h is the very fast queen, which allow it to be quite flexible. My feeling is that fast gas will hurt it less than a fast gas in 14h15p. And we only need the economy to be better than 14g14p21h, which should not be too hard. 14g14p21h is the recommended buil by ZergLegend in ZvP, but I have the feeling the speed comes too fast, and we could improve the economy a lot by delaying it by 10-20 sec, and it looks like 11p18h would be the best build for that.
When I have time, I'll try to do some human test in yabot, and then work on your map to get more precise tests with your script.
On December 30 2010 03:07 ChickenLips wrote: 33373 views and you feel like noone has seen this? O__o (FYI for a thread that concerns only ~25% of the player base that is a lot)
Just because a lot of people just lurk (especially in threads as technical as this one) doesn't mean they don't appreciate it.
Lol. Yeah, that's a lot of views. I stand corrected. The action in the thread just died off a lot after I started posting results, where it was almost always staying near the front page before. :/
Just want to say, the thread is really appreciated. Also, it'll simply become really, really important information going forward. This type of analysis will be useful for years (unless they change something about the opening of Zerg in a patch/expansion), so it's very, very much appreciated.
Someone wrote that the 14 pool is ahead of the 11 pool in larvae? Maybe its just that I always make a queen asap, which puts the 11 pool 30 seconds ahead on the queen, but that makes my 11 pool come ahead of the 14 pool larvae wise. When I 18 pool, its with the queen included. Not just 18 drones.
Whether its economic, I do not know, but it has certainly made countering cheese seem easy. There was a thread about the 11 overpool vs the 14 pool where we went into the economics of it. And that went into the economics of 11 pool FE and 14 pool FE, but the earlier queen with the 11 pool makes it have more drones after 4:30 in the game if I remember correctly.
Here is a replay of the economic 11 overpool 18 hatch I did. 4150 economy 200 tech spent 694 minerals 768 gas At the 7:00 mark in that replay. Its an old replay, and I had to go for gas, because otherwise you just reach saturation so fast that the 11 pool larvae advantage would be very small. Also I never made that 2nd queen, because it does not make much sense economically in that timeframe.
As for real games, I have faced platinum players making proxy barracks against me doing the 11 pool 18 expand, where I just got spine crawlers and roaches, and he was destroyed. It was Jungle Basin and he flew them in over the debris at the back entrance to the natural.
I also faced a diamond protoss player who tried to make an early cannon attack, which my early queen and a few lings took out without a scratch. He lost 450 minerals trying and later lost to my Nydus lings because I found a hole where he did not expect I could get an overlord to unseen
I live by the 11 pool, but I must admit it usually ends up in a 1 basing tactic. I like leaving my options open though, and I often win against Zerg players who think that its always best to fast expand. It can be if that expansion is first used to make lings or something else as defense, but I have only faced one who scouted me well enough to do that.
My point being, the delayed pool can cost you the game.
On December 31 2010 06:56 gondolin wrote: Yeah, I would agree with you that gas before hatch in 11p18h will hurt the economy quite a bit, but as you said, the strong point of 11p18h is the very fast queen, which allow it to be quite flexible.
My feeling is that fast gas will hurt it less than a fast gas in 14h15p. And we only need the economy to be better than 14g14p21h, which should not be too hard. 14g14p21h is the recommended buil by ZergLegend in ZvP, but I have the feeling the speed comes too fast, and we could improve the economy a lot by delaying it by 10-20 sec, and it looks like 11p18h would be the best build for that.
So I have played a bit with this build in ZvP: 11 overpool 16 gas 15 queen + ling 18 hatch 17 ov 20 speed (take drone off gas) 20 queen 22 ov
I don't really know if I like it or not. At 20 pop, you want to have speed, a second queen, an ov at the same time, and the first inject arrives. You don't have enough money to afford it all at the same time, so you have to waste larva a bit. The speed finish at 5:45, in time for a 4 gate, but you need a spine crawler against early stalker poke.
I think in the end it all depends if you'd rather would like map control, which a 14gas14pool would grant you, or a passive style, then I think 11pool18hatch is better than 14pool16hatch because protoss can't block your natural since you have lings before hatch.
So in the end, i really prefer 14 pool 15 gas 18 hatch (you build a queen and ling before hatch if it is blocked) the gas is a bit earlier, and it feels more economic (of course I would need to test that rigorously).
Sorry for bumping an old thread but I feel like 11pool and 18 hatch is the best opener in ZvP right now. - You can not be cannon rushed - You get the hatch up at the time you want - You loose like 2.3% mining time compared to 13 hatch 15 pool
The question remains, why are no progamers doing this vs protoss?
Well looking through all the builds - 13hatch 15pool gives the most money - and apparently it gives more money than Spanishiwa's opening of 16hatch15pool - so I'd say that its probably better for a passive/macro style zerg.
You really have to read through the entire thread to get any benefits out of this. I would point you to specific pages but I can't remember them. It's been a few weeks since I read through it all. Also the OP seems to abandon the thread at some point but the work was carried on by Skrag. So the OP is not up to date with the final results.
All that said. From what I remember 13 hatch 15pool ends up being a terrible build if you have to build anything other than drones. I do remember the standard for the builds were something along the lines of getting 2 lings(1 larva worth) 1 spine crawler and gas at a point similar to when you'd get gas in a 14gas 14pool build. The point of this thread was to find the most realistic economy build. I'm pretty sure the final results were that 14 Hatch 16 pool won hatch first and 11 pool 18 hatch won pool first. With 15 hatch 16 pool being almost identical to 14 hatch 16 pool.
Also the work Skrag did gave us a way to predict how builds would turn out. Basically any very early pool must compensate for the loss of early drones by "catching up" with queen injects to make more drones than a later pool would allow. This is why most of those builds are terrible in "real world scenarios". Because you won't be able to just makes drones. You'll have to build lings and get gas and build crawlers, etc. For some reason the 11pool 18 Hatch strikes a fine balance and doesn't suffer from this like other early pool builds. Also there is a point where you start to lose economy by delaying your pool. Because Queen injects are so powerful. So I don't think a 17 pool is more economical that a 14 pool. At least not for very long. And finally some builds actually gave more larva but less minerals or more minerals for a certain time before dropping off etc. So some of those builds could be viable for certain builds. Mostly notable some allins or something. But most people won't need nor care for those.
Thats all I can remember. Really good thread. Just needs the OP to return and update with all the new info.
On April 25 2011 12:57 nodestar wrote: You really have to read through the entire thread to get any benefits out of this. I would point you to specific pages but I can't remember them. It's been a few weeks since I read through it all. Also the OP seems to abandon the thread at some point but the work was carried on by Skrag. So the OP is not up to date with the final results.
All that said. From what I remember 13 hatch 15pool ends up being a terrible build if you have to build anything other than drones. I do remember the standard for the builds were something along the lines of getting 2 lings(1 larva worth) 1 spine crawler and gas at a point similar to when you'd get gas in a 14gas 14pool build. The point of this thread was to find the most realistic economy build. I'm pretty sure the final results were that 14 Hatch 16 pool won hatch first and 11 pool 18 hatch won pool first. With 15 hatch 16 pool being almost identical to 14 hatch 16 pool.
Also the work Skrag did gave us a way to predict how builds would turn out. Basically any very early pool must compensate for the loss of early drones by "catching up" with queen injects to make more drones than a later pool would allow. This is why most of those builds are terrible in "real world scenarios". Because you won't be able to just makes drones. You'll have to build lings and get gas and build crawlers, etc. For some reason the 11pool 18 Hatch strikes a fine balance and doesn't suffer from this like other early pool builds. Also there is a point where you start to lose economy by delaying your pool. Because Queen injects are so powerful. So I don't think a 17 pool is more economical that a 14 pool. At least not for very long. And finally some builds actually gave more larva but less minerals or more minerals for a certain time before dropping off etc. So some of those builds could be viable for certain builds. Mostly notable some allins or something. But most people won't need nor care for those.
Thats all I can remember. Really good thread. Just needs the OP to return and update with all the new info.
With that being said, has the 11 pool 18 hatch build order been tweaked within this thread since the OP? I'm not sure if I have the mental strength to find it through all these pages.
The reason I ask is because of the 17+18 overlord; the queen spit would be popping around that time anyway, I feel like the extra overlord should be 2 drones instead. Does this make the 28/36 overlords more economically smoother?
I'm new to this thread so I haven't been up to date as to why this is more economical/larva efficient etc.
In other threads 11 pool has been suggested for ZvZ.
It gives over 100 less minerals but gives 2 extra larva, which is the critical resource in early ZvZ games allowing for an extra 4 lings in your standard bling bust.
The problem is your gas, and therefore the whole bust comes about 5 seconds later than normal as well.
Either way, 11 pool doesn't seem to benefit ZvP much at all as you are trying to get ahead of the protoss player in econ, and if you are just going for drones, 11 pool is effectively making your drones more expensive.
On April 25 2011 12:57 nodestar wrote: You really have to read through the entire thread to get any benefits out of this. I would point you to specific pages but I can't remember them. It's been a few weeks since I read through it all. Also the OP seems to abandon the thread at some point but the work was carried on by Skrag. So the OP is not up to date with the final results.
You should read page 19, there are lots of graphs and analysis by Skrag. From what I remember: hatch first are the most economical build, and 14h14p, 14h15p and 15h15p are virtualy identical. 16h15p has slighty more ressource, but less larva to spend it on, so it is only usefull for a double hatch expand.
Pool first are a bit behind economically (around 130 minerals) than hatch first. The best pool first build is 14p16h (and this is the build that has the most larva), while 11p18h is almost as good.
There were also discussions about earlier gaz for against protoss, and from playing I have found that 14p15g18h feels better economically than 11p15g18h, but I did not test it as rigourously as Skrag did.
it's not that simple, it also depends on gas timing and what you plan to build early on .. if you need an early warren/bling nest/evo/3rd hatch or like to defend spine heavy, you'd like to trade larvae against more minerals (e.g. 16h or 16 pool). If you'd like to open ling heavy you'll probably need mor larvae ..
On April 25 2011 13:17 SC.Shifty wrote: With that being said, has the 11 pool 18 hatch build order been tweaked within this thread since the OP? I'm not sure if I have the mental strength to find it through all these pages.
I was a little off from what I wrote earlier. Basically 14h 15p is the "best". Other builds can have more larva and no minerals to spend them or more minerals but no larva. So 14h 15p ends up being the all around "best". Where "best" is subjective.
14p 16h is the "best" pool first build. 11p 18 hatch is slightly behind it but it could be more useful in certain situations.
On April 25 2011 14:17 Jermstuddog wrote: In other threads 11 pool has been suggested for ZvZ.
It gives over 100 less minerals but gives 2 extra larva, which is the critical resource in early ZvZ games allowing for an extra 4 lings in your standard bling bust.
The problem is your gas, and therefore the whole bust comes about 5 seconds later than normal as well.
Here is Skrag's post on page 19 that gondolin recommended.
On December 27 2010 06:50 Skrag wrote: Graph of the resource difference between 14h15p and the following 6 builds:
The results of this latest round of tests are slightly different than the last round. I changed the map so that I could publish it on battle.net and let the game run while actually playing there, so that replays could be posted. One thing that shows is that very simple random differences can have a pretty significant impact, so the absolute numbers can't really be taken as gospel. For example, before reconfiguring the map, 11p18h was only about 95 resources behind 14p15h, but now it's closer to 130.
The larvae graph unfortunately got really difficult to read as I added builds to it. The easiest way to see what's going on there is going to be to download the spreadsheet (you'll need openoffice, which is a free download), and modify the graph to just show one at a time.
Imprecise commentary on the larva graph:
16h15p is slightly behind the entire time, while 13h15p is slightly ahead.
The other 4 builds are all slightly behind until a certain point, and then pull slightly ahead in larva count.
11p18h catches up at about 4:00 13p15h catches up at about 4:15 14p16h catches up at about 4:20, and ends up further ahead than any other builds 15p16h catches up at about 4:30
Here's a graph showing the 2 minute average of the larva difference. Obviously it's really difficult to be precise when there are instantaneous jumps of 4 at a time, but this seems to give a decent picture of which builds are ahead in what approximate timeframe. The catch-up times I listed above are fairly accurate, but the average gives a way of displaying all the builds on a single graph without a ton of overlap.
This graph would seem to indicate that 14p16h is ahead of 13p15h even though I said 13p15h was the larvae leader. In that respect, I'd be more inclined to believe the average graph, since I was just eyeballing and guessing.
Commentary on each of the builds measured:
POOL-FIRST BUILDS: 13p15h: despite being economically ahead of all the other pool-first builds in the drone race, I honestly don't see any reason to ever use this build at all. It does have a pretty significant larva advantage over most other builds measured, but it never has enough resources, and gets stuck unable to use larvae a *lot*.
11p18h: This build held up to the reality injection very well, better than I expected, and probably far better than any of the people claiming that it would fall apart economically once you started trying to actually do anything would have thought possible.
14p16h: Somewhat unsurprisingly, since a 14pool was commonly quoted as a build that would be beating 11p economically, this one held up pretty well. It has a 20-50 resource advantage on 11p early, and ends up in pretty much the same spot as 11p after max saturation, being around 130 resources behind 11p. This build also appears the be the larva leader, and was actually able to take advantage of the extra larvae, so that might be a consideration.
15p16h: This build plays out pretty similar to 14p16h, except that it falls further behind as max saturation is approached. A big part of that is that this build had a *really* hard time matching the timings I was going for (especially the spine crawler), so this might be a little bit unfair. But without doing testing under different circumstances (which I probably won't have the patience to do), it seems there won't really ever be a reason to use 15p instead of 14. I'm pretty sure 14p is far more common, and the problems 15p had in executing the things I wanted to execute probably explains that quite a bit.
HATCH-FIRST BUILDS: 13h15p: This build gains a slight larva advantage over 14h15p (somewhere in the neighborhood of one larva) at the cost of lagging behind in resources by 30-40. It *might* be less susceptible to hatch blocking, although the hatch times are close enough that I'd be surprised if there was really that much of a difference.
16h15p: This build trades a small larva disadvantage for a small early resource advantage. Where 13p15h didn't have enough resources to use it's available larvae, this one doesn't seem to have enough larvae to spend its resources. If you were planning a very early 3rd hatchery, or expected to need to build a bunch of spine crawlers, this one might do ok, but you'd have to be planning on doing that in the first 5 minutes for it to be worthwhile, because the early advantage is only 25-ish resources, but the later disadvantage is 65-ish.
15h14p: The data for this build is not posted in the graphs, but it appears to take a late larvae advantage over 14h15p, at the cost of a slight early larva disadvantage and a resource disadvantage that is larger than 13h15p. So if you're wanting to trade resources for larva, it seems 13h15p would be the better choice.
On April 25 2011 13:17 SC.Shifty wrote: With that being said, has the 11 pool 18 hatch build order been tweaked within this thread since the OP? I'm not sure if I have the mental strength to find it through all these pages.
I was a little off from what I wrote earlier. Basically 14h 15p is the "best". Other builds can have more larva and no minerals to spend them or more minerals but no larva. So 14h 15p ends up being the all around "best". Where "best" is subjective.
14p 16h is the "best" pool first build. 11p 18 hatch is slightly behind it but it could be more useful in certain situations.
On April 25 2011 14:17 Jermstuddog wrote: In other threads 11 pool has been suggested for ZvZ.
It gives over 100 less minerals but gives 2 extra larva, which is the critical resource in early ZvZ games allowing for an extra 4 lings in your standard bling bust.
The problem is your gas, and therefore the whole bust comes about 5 seconds later than normal as well.
Here is Skrag's post on page 19 that gondolin recommended.
The results of this latest round of tests are slightly different than the last round. I changed the map so that I could publish it on battle.net and let the game run while actually playing there, so that replays could be posted. One thing that shows is that very simple random differences can have a pretty significant impact, so the absolute numbers can't really be taken as gospel. For example, before reconfiguring the map, 11p18h was only about 95 resources behind 14p15h, but now it's closer to 130.
The larvae graph unfortunately got really difficult to read as I added builds to it. The easiest way to see what's going on there is going to be to download the spreadsheet (you'll need openoffice, which is a free download), and modify the graph to just show one at a time.
Imprecise commentary on the larva graph:
16h15p is slightly behind the entire time, while 13h15p is slightly ahead.
The other 4 builds are all slightly behind until a certain point, and then pull slightly ahead in larva count.
11p18h catches up at about 4:00 13p15h catches up at about 4:15 14p16h catches up at about 4:20, and ends up further ahead than any other builds 15p16h catches up at about 4:30
Here's a graph showing the 2 minute average of the larva difference. Obviously it's really difficult to be precise when there are instantaneous jumps of 4 at a time, but this seems to give a decent picture of which builds are ahead in what approximate timeframe. The catch-up times I listed above are fairly accurate, but the average gives a way of displaying all the builds on a single graph without a ton of overlap.
This graph would seem to indicate that 14p16h is ahead of 13p15h even though I said 13p15h was the larvae leader. In that respect, I'd be more inclined to believe the average graph, since I was just eyeballing and guessing.
Commentary on each of the builds measured:
POOL-FIRST BUILDS: 13p15h: despite being economically ahead of all the other pool-first builds in the drone race, I honestly don't see any reason to ever use this build at all. It does have a pretty significant larva advantage over most other builds measured, but it never has enough resources, and gets stuck unable to use larvae a *lot*.
11p18h: This build held up to the reality injection very well, better than I expected, and probably far better than any of the people claiming that it would fall apart economically once you started trying to actually do anything would have thought possible.
14p16h: Somewhat unsurprisingly, since a 14pool was commonly quoted as a build that would be beating 11p economically, this one held up pretty well. It has a 20-50 resource advantage on 11p early, and ends up in pretty much the same spot as 11p after max saturation, being around 130 resources behind 11p. This build also appears the be the larva leader, and was actually able to take advantage of the extra larvae, so that might be a consideration.
15p16h: This build plays out pretty similar to 14p16h, except that it falls further behind as max saturation is approached. A big part of that is that this build had a *really* hard time matching the timings I was going for (especially the spine crawler), so this might be a little bit unfair. But without doing testing under different circumstances (which I probably won't have the patience to do), it seems there won't really ever be a reason to use 15p instead of 14. I'm pretty sure 14p is far more common, and the problems 15p had in executing the things I wanted to execute probably explains that quite a bit.
HATCH-FIRST BUILDS: 13h15p: This build gains a slight larva advantage over 14h15p (somewhere in the neighborhood of one larva) at the cost of lagging behind in resources by 30-40. It *might* be less susceptible to hatch blocking, although the hatch times are close enough that I'd be surprised if there was really that much of a difference.
16h15p: This build trades a small larva disadvantage for a small early resource advantage. Where 13p15h didn't have enough resources to use it's available larvae, this one doesn't seem to have enough larvae to spend its resources. If you were planning a very early 3rd hatchery, or expected to need to build a bunch of spine crawlers, this one might do ok, but you'd have to be planning on doing that in the first 5 minutes for it to be worthwhile, because the early advantage is only 25-ish resources, but the later disadvantage is 65-ish.
15h14p: The data for this build is not posted in the graphs, but it appears to take a late larvae advantage over 14h15p, at the cost of a slight early larva disadvantage and a resource disadvantage that is larger than 13h15p. So if you're wanting to trade resources for larva, it seems 13h15p would be the better choice.
That's simplistic. "Best" meant in those tests: the build created most income+larvae at the 6'20 minute mark (building drones+queens+ovies only). However "best" in real world depends on your game style and your (and opponents) opening (e.g. queen, spine heavy, early pressure etc.). What you can get from those stats is, that delaying pool/queen/hatch trades income against larvae, earlier pool/queen/hatch gets more larvae but slightly less income early on. Early (4..6 minute mark) income/larvae is important as it defines your tech timing and your defensive/offensive options.
That's simplistic. "Best" meant in those tests: the build created most income+larvae at the 6'20 minute mark (building drones+queens+ovies only). However "best" in real world depends on your game style and your (and opponents) opening (e.g. queen, spine heavy, early pressure etc.). What you can get from those stats is, that delaying pool/queen/hatch trades income against larvae, earlier pool/queen/hatch gets more larvae but slightly less income early on. Early (4..6 minute mark) income/larvae is important as it defines your tech timing and your defensive/offensive options.
EDIT: In reply to the part of your quote I bolded. I do think all the builds tested were subject to certain conditions in order to make the test more akin to a real game. Those were getting 1 set of lings, 1 spine, 1 creep tumor and gas at a similar time to when Idra got gas in a 14p 14h build they took from a replay way back when that was more standard. I say that just to clarify that these builds were tested to be viable in a real game. If I'm wrong then someone correct me.
Well said. So unless you plan on doing something game changing or defending against something game changing in the 4-6 minute mark then 14h 15p, 14p 16h, and 11p 18h are going to be your go to builds for now. The word "best" will always be relative or subject depending on what your goals are. But most people that want to improve have goals that revolve around "standard play" and getting a strong economy. And all 3 of these builds are as of right now, according to the information provided in this thread, considered the best at doing that. That may change in the future. But if your just popping into this thread then reading the last page(page 21) should get you caught up on what you need to know.
So if 14p 16h is your standard but you are getting pylon blocked then you can try out 11p 18h and know exactly what your giving up and what your gaining. Just a random made up example.
I've been playing with 11pool 18 hatch for some time in zvp and to me it seems to be a really solid build. My Gas timing is on 16 giving me speed on 5:50 just before wargates finish. After getting speed i leave on 1 drone on Gas and then get the lair on 100. Also necessary is on 28 a roach warren to finish before a 4 gate would hit, you can get spines but I prefer roaches for defence. I would really like to see how 11/18 fares when putting it under those restrictions. I can't consider hatch first seriously in zvp unless protoss doesn't know what to do. 14/16 again just isn't possible you won't have lings to stop the probe from putting the pylon down and then you are delayed until 19/20? I hope this wasn't talked about before if so just ignore it. I haven't seen informations on 14/14 pool/gas with hatch on 19 i saw in a different thread 14/14/22, obviously 14/14/19 isnt the most economical but it is the standard and just for comparison it would be interesting to see, does anybody have mineral count/larva count on this?
Great thread btw, it would be a shame to let it die down again.
because no gas is build in the test scenario, oversaturation is reached pretty fast, therefore only builds getting their nat up extremely early seem to be "economic". However this holds true only if you play the "spanishiwa" style.
if you get early gas, oversaturation is reached ~4 drones later, if you choose to build an early roach warren its even 5, this means it does not hurt income-wise to set the nat later (18..20). Anyway the larvae disadvantage of later hatch still may be present. This fact should make overpool or 14g14p stronger as they appear here when getting early gas.
how about 14gas 14pool 21 hatch? if you ask me thats a pretty viable build. you get to scout the enemy with speed and its more difficult to go shark mode since you can run lings away.
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![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-172843.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/DE44Y.png)
Maybe I should have made it a thread to discuss what the most precise and accurate method of testing build orders relative to one another is. 
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/Kxjl6.png)
![[image loading]](http://img805.imageshack.us/i/resourcegraph.png/)
(but played 11h13p) )![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-173308.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.gamereplays.org/community/uploads/repimgs/repimg-33-173396.jpg)
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![[image loading]](http://img696.imageshack.us/img696/9297/resourcegraph.png)
![[image loading]](http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/7852/larvagraph.png)
![[image loading]](http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/4183/resourcediffgraph.png)
![[image loading]](http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/5219/larvadiffgraph.png)
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