| Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
|
MamiyaOtaru
United States1687 Posts
On December 17 2010 18:35 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: It's about building a buffer for myself to keep unit production going when I'm tied up. And on what should I spend that 400 anyway? A couple of extra gateways I can't fund? If you have money to queue units, odds are you could in fact fund those extra gateways | ||
|
Silmakuoppaanikinko
799 Posts
On December 17 2010 19:52 MamiyaOtaru wrote: Not really, I have 400 extra minerals in mid-late game (which is really not that bad) because my production has slipped before. I have all the facilities I can afford with constant production, and probably a bit more too, by putting that in a queue I establish that I won't slip again.If you have money to queue units, odds are you could in fact fund those extra gateways If I make another gateway from it, that gives me two extra zealots, and after that I can't fund the thing anymore. And this is really the point in the game where two extra zealots are basically insignificant next to always having your production facilities up and constantly making probes. In fact, I'd say that constantly making probes is such a high priority that if you found that it sometimes lapses in early game, it's definitely worth it to have two less zealots to guarantee constant probe production by queuing it up to five. It's an investment that will definitely pay back later. | ||
|
Island
Sweden22 Posts
Now, if your income is higher than what you can spend, you should be making more structures to spend with. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this. The point being made seems to be that when fighting, we may mess up that 25-second pop-back and mess up unit production, which causes a surplus in resources. Making extra structures to reduce this surplus seems like a bad idea then, since after reducing the temporary surplus, there will be no extra resources to fund further production from the new structure. So, back to the 4 rax (completely arbitrary number). Each rax produces 2.4 marines per minute, which is 120 minerals. So we're consuming 480 minerals/minute if we keep on top of the macro. We assume that we have the income to do this and nothing except this, so if we macro well we'll always have 0 minerals left over. Now magine there's a fight, we slip up by 25 seconds and our raxes don't do anything for those 25 seconds. We now have 200 minerals left over. We should have had 0 minerals left and 4 more marines, but we got attacked by reapers. This never happens in real games, so we were duly shocked and forgot production for 25 seconds. The question is then; do we use these 200 minerals to queue 1 marine in each barracks, to prevent this from happening again, or do we make a barracks and produce one marine (that's all we can afford, assuming we're back on our macro now)? Well, if we queue, the next time we mess up for 25 seconds, we'll have 4 marines more than we would have if we did nothing. If we make a rax and produce a marine, we'll have 1 marine more than if we did nothing. This guy will be available even if we don't mess up again, however. So, the queue method will give us 3 more marines than the extra structure after the second mess-up, but the extra structure method gives us a guaranteed return, which is better if the mess-up is a one-time incident. Also worth noting is that after the second mess-up, we again have 200 minerals extra. The queue method has protected production, and we've made 4 marines in this time, more or less putting us back to where we started, with another 200 minerals left over and unit production now "in sync" again. In order to continue being safe, we'll have to invest these 200 minerals into the queue again, or risk messing up and having 400 minerals left over an less marines than we should have (unless you want to queue even more, but that would only protect us from messing up macro for 50 seconds, something that just doesn't happen unless you're unconscious). The extra rax can spend this 200 on 4 more marines over 2 minutes, or get one marine and another rax, if this problem is going to be reoccurring and you want to spend the surplus faster. From this, I would like to conclude that if you mess up once, you'll have 1 more marine if you build a rax instead of queuing. If you mess up twice, you're going to have 1 more marine than the queue player. If you mess up three times, still 1 more marine. This is a very small example, so don't dismiss the 1 marine. Many small things add up... The aim is to have more units, and more raxes gets more units in the end than queueing. Even if you mess up over and over again. Queuing is of course better than not doing anything at all with your extra money! Finally, note that while getting more raxes eventually comes out on top in number of units, there's a time-delay involved. This is a big plus for the queue-method. More raxes, however, is way more useful in the lategame, when army re-production as fast as possible becomes an issue. So, for early game, when having units RIGHT NOW is important, queue. For late game, when remaking units FAST is important, extra rax(es). For highest total amount of units somewhere in the midgame, extra rax(es). I don't care which one you do, but now you know the pros and cons of both and can make up your mind yourself.  | ||
|
Silmakuoppaanikinko
799 Posts
On December 17 2010 20:33 Island wrote: I laik this post, nice mathematical breakdown of it.Consider producing marines out of 4 raxes. Every 25 seconds you need to pop back and put another marine in production. Marines are one of the fastest units, and they produce out of a lot of structures, so it's about as bad as it's going to get (bad = demanding). Now, if your income is higher than what you can spend, you should be making more structures to spend with. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this. The point being made seems to be that when fighting, we may mess up that 25-second pop-back and mess up unit production, which causes a surplus in resources. Making extra structures to reduce this surplus seems like a bad idea then, since after reducing the temporary surplus, there will be no extra resources to fund further production from the new structure. So, back to the 4 rax (completely arbitrary number). Each rax produces 2.4 marines per minute, which is 120 minerals. So we're consuming 480 minerals/minute if we keep on top of the macro. We assume that we have the income to do this and nothing except this, so if we macro well we'll always have 0 minerals left over. Now magine there's a fight, we slip up by 25 seconds and our raxes don't do anything for those 25 seconds. We now have 200 minerals left over. We should have had 0 minerals left and 4 more marines, but we got attacked by reapers. This never happens in real games, so we were duly shocked and forgot production for 25 seconds. The question is then; do we use these 200 minerals to queue 1 marine in each barracks, to prevent this from happening again, or do we make a barracks and produce one marine (that's all we can afford, assuming we're back on our macro now)? Well, if we queue, the next time we mess up for 25 seconds, we'll have 4 marines more than we would have if we did nothing. If we make a rax and produce a marine, we'll have 1 marine more than if we did nothing. This guy will be available even if we don't mess up again, however. So, the queue method will give us 3 more marines than the extra structure after the second mess-up, but the extra structure method gives us a guaranteed return, which is better if the mess-up is a one-time incident. Also worth noting is that after the second mess-up, we again have 200 minerals extra. The queue method has protected production, and we've made 4 marines in this time, more or less putting us back to where we started, with another 200 minerals left over and unit production now "in sync" again. In order to continue being safe, we'll have to invest these 200 minerals into the queue again, or risk messing up and having 400 minerals left over an less marines than we should have (unless you want to queue even more, but that would only protect us from messing up macro for 50 seconds, something that just doesn't happen unless you're unconscious). The extra rax can spend this 200 on 4 more marines over 2 minutes, or get one marine and another rax, if this problem is going to be reoccurring and you want to spend the surplus faster. From this, I would like to conclude that if you mess up once, you'll have 1 more marine if you build a rax instead of queuing. If you mess up twice, you're going to have 1 more marine than the queue player. If you mess up three times, still 1 more marine. This is a very small example, so don't dismiss the 1 marine. Many small things add up... The aim is to have more units, and more raxes gets more units in the end than queueing. Even if you mess up over and over again. Queuing is of course better than not doing anything at all with your extra money! Finally, note that while getting more raxes eventually comes out on top in number of units, there's a time-delay involved. This is a big plus for the queue-method. More raxes, however, is way more useful in the lategame, when army re-production as fast as possible becomes an issue. So, for early game, when having units RIGHT NOW is important, queue. For late game, when remaking units FAST is important, extra rax(es). For highest total amount of units somewhere in the midgame, extra rax(es). I don't care which one you do, but now you know the pros and cons of both and can make up your mind yourself. I choose the queue, because as I said, I expect that I'll mess up again. That's basically my take on this an a lot of issues, many people plan strategies on the assumption that they, or their opponents, aren't going to make mistake. We're only human, I plan on the assumption that both I, and my opponent, are going to make mistakes. | ||
|
malthias
25 Posts
On December 17 2010 19:18 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: But that's the point, it doesn't give me that buffer. I know that in the future I will lag once again on keeping with my production, and then again. Those 400 minerals give me 5 extra marines one time. Always having 400 minerals stuck in my queue gives me infallible production capabilities for the rest of the match. It's a one-time deposit that you make (and that you can reclaim if you really need to) to always have continual production, and I know that I will not have it without it. And I doubt many here have it without it if even people like Idra don't have it 100%. Yes it does give you that buffer. Next time you slip, you can just use the additional production facilities you built before to spend your excess money on units. Grant you, they are out later than they would if you had continuous production, but once they are out, you are even and you are again only 150 minerals behind, not 400. Yes, that's clear, but I happily pay that investment to have guaranteed continuous marine production for the rest of the match. Also, 400 isn't that much at the state of the game that you're doing this. Random target acquisition in A-move will cost you five marines or more. But yeah, when I'm saving for a FE, I'm saving that money in my queue, I know how much I've queued up so it's simple maths to know when I have it. I'm saving it in my queue for the simple reason that say that he suddenly attacks and I'm completely tied up in microing around in my base. I can devote all my attention to my micro because I know that unit production will go on as usual. Yes, engaging in a fight in a suboptimal way is also an error that can cost you money, but it is not an argument to make more errors that cost you even more money. To win you want to minimise the amount of money you waste - this is the whole idea behind the game. But hey, nobody forces you to get better - do play your suboptimal way, but do not give advice to others to do the same and argue it is a good thing to do when all the evidence shows that it is not. | ||
|
Silmakuoppaanikinko
799 Posts
On December 17 2010 20:51 malthias wrote: No I'm not, because if I slip, I slip on all of my production facilities of course, all, let's say 6 barracks slipped one production round, I would need substantial rounds of extra facilities to get that back.Yes it does give you that buffer. Next time you slip, you can just use the additional production facilities you built before to spend your excess money on units. Grant you, they are out later than they would if you had continuous production, but once they are out, you are even and you are again only 150 minerals behind, not 400. It takes me 6 rounds to get that back, now, it's at all not unlikely that I'll slip again before those 6 rounds are over if the micro gets pretty distractive. Yes, engaging in a fight in a suboptimal way is also an error that can cost you money, but it is not an argument to make more errors that cost you even more money. To win you want to minimise the amount of money you waste - this is the whole idea behind the game. But hey, nobody forces you to get better - do play your suboptimal way, Ehhr, maybe if you ever could realistically get to that level.Even pros still slip (and also queue up in late game, mind you) production round, no one will feasibly get to that level that they will never slip. To assume you will ever get there, no matter how many practice, is just delusion of grandeur. You will never, ever, get to the level that your mechanics are so infallible that you never slip production, you're basing your strategies and training regime on the assumption that you will some day and call this 'trying to improve', I set my goals more reasonably and realistically and am actually improving rather than people who already start to train some skill that will only become an advantage at the point that their mechanics strides above mortal limits.. but do not give advice to others to do the same and argue it is a good thing to do when all the evidence shows that it is not. All the evidence is people saying 'I can't believe you defend queuing!' with no real argument while the people who defend it have solid mathematics to back the idea up. | ||
|
DrTrunks
Netherlands2 Posts
If you are going to micro in a battle, I would even say its better to set up a qeue of units because you'll have "no time" producing units while battling. | ||
|
malthias
25 Posts
On December 17 2010 21:32 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: No I'm not, because if I slip, I slip on all of my production facilities of course, all, let's say 6 barracks slipped one production round, I would need substantial rounds of extra facilities to get that back. It takes me 6 rounds to get that back, now, it's at all not unlikely that I'll slip again before those 6 rounds are over if the micro gets pretty distractive. This only says that you may need more than one additional production facility depending of how bad your play is. If you slip by a few seconds max, one will be enough, if you slip more, you will need more - wow, what a surprise. As I mentioned after you catch up you are still ahead on your army count compared to where you would be if you just queued. Yes there may be a situation where you lose while you are trying to catch up, but there will be many more situations where you lose because your army is too small because your money is tied up in the queue instead of being spent. Ehhr, maybe if you ever could realistically get to that level. Even pros still slip (and also queue up in late game, mind you) production round, no one will feasibly get to that level that they will never slip. To assume you will ever get there, no matter how many practice, is just delusion of grandeur. You will never, ever, get to the level that your mechanics are so infallible that you never slip production, you're basing your strategies and training regime on the assumption that you will some day and call this 'trying to improve', I set my goals more reasonably and realistically and am actually improving rather than people who already start to train some skill that will only become an advantage at the point that their mechanics strides above mortal limits.. You certainly can realistically get to a level where you do not slip by more than a few seconds. Many pros are at that level (I would say most of them). And not only pros. Many diamond players are at that level. If you slip by a few seconds every so often, one or two additional production facilities will be enough to be able to catch up and it is a much smaller investment than a queue. As previously mentioned by a lot of people in this thread, but you keep ignoring it with your stubborn argument. All the evidence is people saying 'I can't believe you defend queuing!' with no real argument while the people who defend it have solid mathematics to back the idea up. No dude, now you are being delusional. You are trying to argue against mathematically proven fact without bringing any new evidence to the table, you are being presented with the old mathematical evidence proving your approach to be suboptimal, but you keep arguing for the sake of it and just ignoring the evidence. Really, this discussion is pointless. | ||
|
Silmakuoppaanikinko
799 Posts
On December 17 2010 21:53 malthias wrote: Maybe if you're not being pressured...You certainly can realistically get to a level where you do not slip by more than a few seconds. Many pros are at that level (I would say most of them). And not only pros. Many diamond players are at that level. If you slip by a few seconds every so often, one or two additional production facilities will be enough to be able to catch up and it is a much smaller investment than a queue. Dude, pros make mistakes of the magnitude of giving away 6 free roaches due to a misrally in the middle of a battle (HuK vs Ret), accidentally queuing up hallucination after warpgate and not realizing that they have 100/100 less than they should have (HuK vs KiWiKaKi). Accidentally planting down two twilight councils (Hasu vs HasHe). Letting buildings burn down instead of repairing them with ample time to spare. Don't be deluded about how perfect people are, people make mistakes, even the best people in this game make these mistakes all the time, they let rally points slip, they forget to put probes back on gas after muta harass. These slips simply happen. Download a replay file of a pro, you'll see that when they are being pressured there is idle time on production facilities. As previously mentioned by a lot of people in this thread, but you keep ignoring it with your stubborn argument. The maths done by the user some posts above indicates otherwise.Not having queued up and then slipping is inferior to having queued up, but not slipping. No dude, now you are being delusional. You are trying to argue against mathematically proven fact without bringing any new evidence to the table, you are being presented with the old mathematical evidence proving your approach to be suboptimal, but you keep arguing for the sake of it and just ignoring the evidence. Really, this discussion is pointless. What mathematical?The only maths I had seen showed that queueing + small slip is superior to not queuing + small slips. Of course, not queueing + no slips is the best, but that's not realistic. | ||
|
malthias
25 Posts
On December 17 2010 22:23 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: Maybe if you're not being pressured... If you are not being pressured then you can easily have a perfect macro. Dude, pros make mistakes of the magnitude of giving away 6 free roaches due to a misrally in the middle of a battle (HuK vs Ret), accidentally queuing up hallucination after warpgate and not realizing that they have 100/100 less than they should have (HuK vs KiWiKaKi). Accidentally planting down two twilight councils (Hasu vs HasHe). Letting buildings burn down instead of repairing them with ample time to spare. Of course people are making big mistakes, that is what is losing them the games. It is not an argument to not to try to avoid these mistakes. Don't be deluded about how perfect people are, people make mistakes, even the best people in this game make these mistakes all the time, they let rally points slip, they forget to put probes back on gas after muta harass. These slips simply happen. Download a replay file of a pro, you'll see that when they are being pressured there is idle time on production facilities. I have watched hundreds of pro replays. If they make macro mistakes, they are usually small. If they make a bigger mistake, it usually costs them a game. All of them try to avoid these mistakes, and the one doing it better usually wins (obviously macro is not all that matters, but it is one of the most important factors). The maths done by the user some posts above indicates otherwise. Not having queued up and then slipping is inferior to having queued up, but not slipping. The maths done by the user some posts above indicates the same. The queue is not going to give you 3 extra marines after the second mess up. It is going to give you 3 extra marines for the time it takes your extra barracks to make these 3 marines (a little bit more than one minute total, after 25 seconds you will be 2 marines behind, after 50 seconds 1 marine, after 75 seconds you will be even, after 100 seconds you will be one marine ahead again), that's all. And the cost of it is one marine less during all that time between your first and second mess up. This is also a very limited example on a very small economy and the cheapest unit in game, in most instances the amount of units less on the field if you queue while you are not making macro errors would be much bigger than the one marine. What mathematical? The only maths I had seen showed that queueing + small slip is superior to not queuing + small slips. Of course, not queueing + no slips is the best, but that's not realistic. There is plenty of posts in this thread, including mine, showing you mathematical advantage of extra production buildings, expansions or new tech over the queue, if you can't be bothered reading them, I will not waste time repeating it. | ||
|
Blazinghand
United States25551 Posts
You have 4 rax and miss a cycle and have 200 extra mins. You make a rax and an extra marine, and now you're back to normal. You now have 4 rax constantly making marines, and 1 rax doing nothing. Let's say you miss a quarter of a cycle and have 50 extra minerals: you can now spend this in your extra rax, so it's not a pure loss like queuing up a bunch of marines is. Even better, let's say you expo or whatever and need more rax... well you've already built one and are partway there! Good work! It would seem that laying down an extra prod fac, in addition to helping you recover from later errors, actually SETS UP for an increased economy down the road. The ideal situation, of course, is to stop missing production cycles. But that's beside the point. Here's another argument against Queuing: Queuing promotes bad habits. Let's say I have forgotten a prod cycle during a game, and I either make another prod fac, or I make a queue. If I make another prod fac, and later I forget to keep on making marines during a battle and I die, then my heart is full of tears as my opponent rips through my base, typing "rofl noob" in all chat. I curse my mediocre APM and promise to build every prod cycle next time. I hate forgetting that prod cycle! I REMEMBER it. I LEARN FROM it. If I forget marines and am saved by the queue, I maybe hang on and win a game I shouldn't have. Next time, I will be more likely to forget marines, since it didn't bite me last game. I DON'T learn from it. I become complacent, fat and lazy and become a worse player. So in a way, maybe it IS the case the queuing will help you be more effective - this game. But if I want to learn a lesson, maybe get my butt kicked in the process, but emerge from the fire a better player, maybe it's better to not deal well with missing entire prod cycles, and to hate myself for it, and stop missing them in the future. If I'm a 2k+ Diamond League player and I miss a prod cycle, sure, I'll slap down another prod fac and deal with it. But maybe I'm not, and maybe I DESERVE to lose games for this, and become stronger in the process. But hey, you can have your crutch if you want it. I'm just saying that nobody ever grew huge bulging muscles by avoiding the "pain" in "no pain no gain" | ||
|
Kryptix
United States138 Posts
| ||
|
Eeryck
United States184 Posts
Optimized play is pretty much (from the very start of the game): 1. Are units producing from every structure, if yes goto 2; else make units 2. Do I have enough supply, if yes goto 3; else make supply 3. Do I still have extra money, if yes build a building/get an upgrade; else goto 1 By switching to a mentality that at some point queuing is ok moves away from this concept of optimized play. I breaks the simple structure that guarantees the most units out at any given time for your given ability. It creates a new mentality, that it is "optimal" to invest in things that are delayed in order to allow for a human error element. This breaks the mindset of optimal play. In this new mindset you will start to micro longer and longer and need to que more and more. For the time it works for you it will set up this huge bad habit, since it will work in the short term. Then when you advance behind it and hit a wall because your opponents will have stuck with optimized play what will you do? Where optimized play already allows for the human error element. It tells you if you have extra minerals after units are producing and supply is met then you build a building. Done! No new thinking involved. The simple pattern remains simple and you will learn to do it more quickly over time. | ||
|
Eeryck
United States184 Posts
On December 18 2010 00:25 Kryptix wrote: There are times where you shouldn't queue, but also times where its not that bad... If you have your 200/200 army, and 10k in the bank but the fighting is going back and forth, there's no reason not to queue. You can drop another 10 barracks at that point, and you would still be able to queue on all of them. This situation doesn't come up all that often, but it does occasionally, and if there is nothing else to do with your money, why not micro that 200 army better and let the reinforcements come from your 20 production buildings queued up? I know this happens, but there should be a lesson here too. Missing 10k income worth of opportunity seems like a pretty bad basis for an argument for queuing. It seems to suggest you should be putting your army at greater risk to press for advantage. | ||
|
adius
United States249 Posts
On December 17 2010 17:23 Silmakuoppaanikinko wrote: It's quite acceptable to have 400 minerals and 300 gas floating in mid to late game anyway, you lose it after the next warpgate cooldown. While many people store that money simply in their bank, I store it in my queues and dequeue it when I need it because if I store it in my queue it provides a buffer in unit production when I'm tied up. If this happens, you need to adjust your playstyle such that you don't get that tied up, because not being able to spend your money consistently is going to be a hard cieling to your ability to move up. You can actually do quite a lot to work AROUND the problem of needing to finely control your units in battle. Also, making pylons takes a LOT more attention than pressing 3s*clickclickclick* or whatever, and you have to do that whether you queue or not! It'd actually be better to just make pylons sooner than you really need them so you can spam units really quick in an incoming hectic situation | ||
|
Kammalleri
Canada613 Posts
| ||
|
adius
United States249 Posts
On December 18 2010 00:58 Kammalleri wrote: Every bad habit is bad... I started with Nexus as 2 and I try to get myself to key it as 4 and it's freakin tough and I regret not setting it to 4 right from the start. Yeah, I guess nexus on 2 might not be optimal but I feel that it's orders of magnitude less important than not queueing things. If you're already used to having it on 2, you can probably just leave it there and be OK unless you're aware of specific problems it's causing. It's good to know the relative importance of the various holes in your play. Something like getting upgrades at a suboptimal timing isn't even going to matter if you consistently have units queued and are forgetting to make workers in the midgame. | ||
|
ReNhoSoft
Mexico69 Posts
On December 17 2010 20:33 Island wrote: Consider producing marines out of 4 raxes. Every 25 seconds you need to pop back and put another marine in production. Marines are one of the fastest units, and they produce out of a lot of structures, so it's about as bad as it's going to get (bad = demanding). Now, if your income is higher than what you can spend, you should be making more structures to spend with. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this. The point being made seems to be that when fighting, we may mess up that 25-second pop-back and mess up unit production, which causes a surplus in resources. Making extra structures to reduce this surplus seems like a bad idea then, since after reducing the temporary surplus, there will be no extra resources to fund further production from the new structure. So, back to the 4 rax (completely arbitrary number). Each rax produces 2.4 marines per minute, which is 120 minerals. So we're consuming 480 minerals/minute if we keep on top of the macro. We assume that we have the income to do this and nothing except this, so if we macro well we'll always have 0 minerals left over. Now magine there's a fight, we slip up by 25 seconds and our raxes don't do anything for those 25 seconds. We now have 200 minerals left over. We should have had 0 minerals left and 4 more marines, but we got attacked by reapers. This never happens in real games, so we were duly shocked and forgot production for 25 seconds. The question is then; do we use these 200 minerals to queue 1 marine in each barracks, to prevent this from happening again, or do we make a barracks and produce one marine (that's all we can afford, assuming we're back on our macro now)? Well, if we queue, the next time we mess up for 25 seconds, we'll have 4 marines more than we would have if we did nothing. If we make a rax and produce a marine, we'll have 1 marine more than if we did nothing. This guy will be available even if we don't mess up again, however. So, the queue method will give us 3 more marines than the extra structure after the second mess-up, but the extra structure method gives us a guaranteed return, which is better if the mess-up is a one-time incident. Also worth noting is that after the second mess-up, we again have 200 minerals extra. The queue method has protected production, and we've made 4 marines in this time, more or less putting us back to where we started, with another 200 minerals left over and unit production now "in sync" again. In order to continue being safe, we'll have to invest these 200 minerals into the queue again, or risk messing up and having 400 minerals left over an less marines than we should have (unless you want to queue even more, but that would only protect us from messing up macro for 50 seconds, something that just doesn't happen unless you're unconscious). The extra rax can spend this 200 on 4 more marines over 2 minutes, or get one marine and another rax, if this problem is going to be reoccurring and you want to spend the surplus faster. From this, I would like to conclude that if you mess up once, you'll have 1 more marine if you build a rax instead of queuing. If you mess up twice, you're going to have 1 more marine than the queue player. If you mess up three times, still 1 more marine. This is a very small example, so don't dismiss the 1 marine. Many small things add up... The aim is to have more units, and more raxes gets more units in the end than queueing. Even if you mess up over and over again. Queuing is of course better than not doing anything at all with your extra money! Finally, note that while getting more raxes eventually comes out on top in number of units, there's a time-delay involved. This is a big plus for the queue-method. More raxes, however, is way more useful in the lategame, when army re-production as fast as possible becomes an issue. So, for early game, when having units RIGHT NOW is important, queue. For late game, when remaking units FAST is important, extra rax(es). For highest total amount of units somewhere in the midgame, extra rax(es). I don't care which one you do, but now you know the pros and cons of both and can make up your mind yourself. Nice post, really nice explanation of why people prefer to queue units. Yet, there's something that I think is missing in your analysis and is really important to have in mind. What happens when you don't have enough money to queue your units? I play protoss, so queueing isn't really an option for me (except for probes), but as far as I have seen 90% of the time you have just enough money to keep your buildings busy with a leftover of 50~100 minerals unless you intend to tech/expand, in which case those leftover resources already have a purpose. I suppose this should be the case for terran too as I don't think having money just hanging around is such a great idea. So by the time you move to defend/attack, you shouldn't be able to queue because you lack the resources to do so and, if you do have the resources, it's likely because your macro slipped before engaging. I agree with you on the queueing vs building additional structures though, as everybody falls behind in their macro and having those units can make a lot of difference | ||
|
Clamps
66 Posts
On December 17 2010 20:33 Island wrote: Consider producing marines out of 4 raxes. Every 25 seconds you need to pop back and put another marine in production. Marines are one of the fastest units, and they produce out of a lot of structures, so it's about as bad as it's going to get (bad = demanding). + Show Spoiler + Now, if your income is higher than what you can spend, you should be making more structures to spend with. I don't think anyone is disagreeing with this. The point being made seems to be that when fighting, we may mess up that 25-second pop-back and mess up unit production, which causes a surplus in resources. Making extra structures to reduce this surplus seems like a bad idea then, since after reducing the temporary surplus, there will be no extra resources to fund further production from the new structure. So, back to the 4 rax (completely arbitrary number). Each rax produces 2.4 marines per minute, which is 120 minerals. So we're consuming 480 minerals/minute if we keep on top of the macro. We assume that we have the income to do this and nothing except this, so if we macro well we'll always have 0 minerals left over. Now magine there's a fight, we slip up by 25 seconds and our raxes don't do anything for those 25 seconds. We now have 200 minerals left over. We should have had 0 minerals left and 4 more marines, but we got attacked by reapers. This never happens in real games, so we were duly shocked and forgot production for 25 seconds. The question is then; do we use these 200 minerals to queue 1 marine in each barracks, to prevent this from happening again, or do we make a barracks and produce one marine (that's all we can afford, assuming we're back on our macro now)? Well, if we queue, the next time we mess up for 25 seconds, we'll have 4 marines more than we would have if we did nothing. If we make a rax and produce a marine, we'll have 1 marine more than if we did nothing. This guy will be available even if we don't mess up again, however. So, the queue method will give us 3 more marines than the extra structure after the second mess-up, but the extra structure method gives us a guaranteed return, which is better if the mess-up is a one-time incident. Also worth noting is that after the second mess-up, we again have 200 minerals extra. The queue method has protected production, and we've made 4 marines in this time, more or less putting us back to where we started, with another 200 minerals left over and unit production now "in sync" again. In order to continue being safe, we'll have to invest these 200 minerals into the queue again, or risk messing up and having 400 minerals left over an less marines than we should have (unless you want to queue even more, but that would only protect us from messing up macro for 50 seconds, something that just doesn't happen unless you're unconscious). The extra rax can spend this 200 on 4 more marines over 2 minutes, or get one marine and another rax, if this problem is going to be reoccurring and you want to spend the surplus faster. From this, I would like to conclude that if you mess up once, you'll have 1 more marine if you build a rax instead of queuing. If you mess up twice, you're going to have 1 more marine than the queue player. If you mess up three times, still 1 more marine. This is a very small example, so don't dismiss the 1 marine. Many small things add up... The aim is to have more units, and more raxes gets more units in the end than queueing. Even if you mess up over and over again. Queuing is of course better than not doing anything at all with your extra money! Finally, note that while getting more raxes eventually comes out on top in number of units, there's a time-delay involved. This is a big plus for the queue-method. More raxes, however, is way more useful in the lategame, when army re-production as fast as possible becomes an issue. So, for early game, when having units RIGHT NOW is important, queue. For late game, when remaking units FAST is important, extra rax(es). For highest total amount of units somewhere in the midgame, extra rax(es). I don't care which one you do, but now you know the pros and cons of both and can make up your mind yourself. This is just plain wrong and demonstrably inferior. Consider two players player Q and layer X. Player Q queues units, player X doesn't, and builds extra buildings with excess money. Let N be the ideal number of marines, if no mistakes made. After first slip up Q queues 4 marines and X builds a baracks and a marine. PlayerQ: N-4 Marines (since he now has 4 in queue) PlayerX: N-3 Marines (1 more marine and now has an extra baracks) After they slip up again Q continued to make extra marines and has money to replenish his queue, so he's still down 4. X can use the extra barracks to catch up. Q: N-4 X: N-3 after he catches up. So at a constant income of 200 mins per marine cycle, X is always ahead by 1 marine. But in the real world, your economy is expanding, so lets see what happens if your income goes up by 25% and you continue to slip up. Player Q can use the extra money from three cycles to build a barracks. (So would the ideal case) so he's still at N-4. Player X can immediately start making extra marines three cycles earlier. and is actually able to catch up to the ideal case and now has N marines. In a more realistic world, player X could choose to also stay 4 marines down after the first slip-up, and rather than buying "slip up insurance" for 200 minerals. Could buy two bunkers at his ramp or for an offensive push and suffer fewer losses. He could start his expansion earlier, or get an ebay and start an upgrade earlier. There are so many things those 200 minerals could be doing now to help right away rather than chilling in a queue just in case you screw up again later. If player X and player Q clash, player X has two bunkers and player Q has 4 marines queued, who's going to have more marines in the end? Queuing is worse than not spending your money, because at least not spending is above board, you can see and correct that problem. Queuing makes it looks like you're using your money when you actually aren't. When you queue, you lose and say "Why did I lose? I macro'ed perfectly and kept my money down". Well you lost because you had 800 minerals stuck in queue while your opponent had the same 800 minerals in real units that shoot real bullets right now, and kill off the few units you did make. | ||
|
gwombat
Singapore40 Posts
although i would say that for someone in bronze league who kept forgetting to make stuff, queueing units might actually be better than stubbornly saying "queueing is bad! no queueing!" | ||
| ||
|
|
Wardi Open
Sparkling Tuna Cup
WardiTV European League
Online Event
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
The PondCast
Replay Cast
Korean StarCraft League
CranKy Ducklings
Sparkling Tuna Cup
|
|
|
EPT
