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Hi everyone. I'm a rookie, and looking for rookie level advice. I've been finding that I'm unsure about how to effectively manage multiple bases. Here are some things I'm struggling with:
Should I build a barracks/Factory/Starport at each base and produce units locally for each base? It seems much simpler than rallying/devising units to cover everything from my initial base, but then I don't have one main army everywhere, and I'm worried I'm going to get stomped by a big force. I feel like if I DO produce everything from my main base and keep the one main army, if I lose that, I'm screwed.
When I expand into my natural, should I make it into a orbital command or leave it? If I have an Orbital Command in my main base, is there a reason to have two of them? I'm guessing having maximum Mules and scans doesn't have a downside? I like the planetary fortress for defense at the gold expo, but it seems like it really doesn't do much unless the opponent is doing a small poke.
I'm having a hard time knowing how many unit producing structures I should have any any given point in the game, and where they should go. For example, lets say I want to do MMM. Should I think "2 barracks and 2 star ports for each base I control"
I'm guessing many of the answers here will be "It totally depends" which is totally fine, but any advise would be welcome. Cheers, and Happy New Year.
W.
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In my opinion its better to have all your unit producing structures at your main unless you are trying to block with the buildings or proxy them elsewhere. Your natural cc should also ALWAYS be an orbital command since it is so easy to defend. When you start branching off into multiple bases you might want to have them as planetary fortresses depending on the situation (its safer to have orbital commands if you are in a commanding lead or have a very strong contain on your opponent). As for how many unit producing structures you should have, it pretty much depends on your build and how many MINING bases you are currently on. Also note that the more orbital commands you have, the more income you have, and thus you can have more unit producing structures.
Another thing, i probably wouldnt have 2 starports if you're going purely MMM. A reactor on the starport would be more efficient and cost effective. If you're going MMM off 1 base i'd probably have 2-3 rax and 1 starport. With each mining base you aquire i would throw down 3 rax to support it. Hope this helped
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Thanks man, that does help.
I know for me one of my biggest problems is once I get onto 3 bases I end up with 2K minerals bc I struggle to keep up with my macro.
I haven't looked through any tutorial stuff, is there somewhere that tells you "A SCV gathers XXX minerals per minute, while a MULE will gather XXX" and "Each Supply Depot will allow for XXX units to be produced." and noob stuff like that?
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Once I get to the point where I’m using all my gas but am left with a lot of extra minerals, I throw down a bunch of extra Barracks. That way I can quickly resupply my Marine army if I need to.
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Ideally, you only want to make a PF if you have to. But if you find you can't defend a natural, just make it.
You can build bunkers, seige tanks, turrets, whatever. If you're turtling as terran there's pretty much nothing that will break you.
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if you're ever struggling with macro, like ur minerals is over 2k, just go on a spending spree. dont think about it, just build 5 barracks, 2 factories and 1 starport. have all your barracks hotkeyed to 5, facts, to 6, and ports to 7, and keep pressing buttons. (if your in game, flustered, and dont know what to make, make anything, its better than keeping the minerals in the bank). soon enough your resources will be drained, and you'll have a nice army rallied up by your natural or whereever your rally point is.
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First, You generally want to have either a orbital command or a plantary fortress one of the other depending on the likelyhood of it getting attacked or harassed.
Next Off 1 base you can build off 3 barracks with 1 reactor x2 tech labs and be constantly producing scv's and supply depots But you won't save up enough for an expansion anytime soon so you would have to stop production in order to plop your expo. Once you start your expo you can start up 3 or so more production building and start clipping down a tech path at 3 bases you should be relatively able to produce large numbers of almost any mid/low tier units. Assuming perfect macro you can have 9-10 unit producing structures fulltime maybe 12-13 depending on what your making if its strickly barracks. Next you ask if its best to spread out your unit producing structures or have them clustered. Well What I like to do is have 75% of it in my main base and spread the other 25% or so in my natural expansion kinda building a defensive wall for tanks etc.
As for planatery fortress use. They work very well at defending harassment and if you have all the scv's nearby repair it while you send your army to stop a major advance it can be the differnce between rebuilding a new command center and having a lovely addition to your army should they decide to push in on it and try to engage your army near the command center. If you have any more questions I play alot and will be happy to do some coaching games with you. Send me a PM on here  Cheers happy holidays! Oh if your wondering im 2400 diamond terran, So I should be qualified to teach you something.
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"I haven't looked through any tutorial stuff, is there somewhere that tells you "A SCV gathers XXX minerals per minute, while a MULE will gather XXX" and "Each Supply Depot will allow for XXX units to be produced." and noob stuff like that?"
http://www.sc2calc.org/unit_production/terran.php
You can feed it how many bases you are mining from (that's different from how many you *have*, since unless you are expanding quickly you will probably be close to mining out your main by the time you hit your third), and how many SCVs are at each base, and it will tell you what percentage of resources you will consume *if you are producing constantly*.
Of course, you have to be producing constantly  . As the game wears on, you may want to do a little bit of queuing with your unit construction. There are threads where people argue for and against queuing, but in the late game it's a bit more common, since once you are in a high food count it's more important to reinforce your army than know you can build a hojillion new structures.
Also as the game starts really dragging, don't forget upgrades/high-tech structures/covering your base with missile turrets.
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Regarding what you can afford per mining base use this tool:
http://www.sc2calc.org/unit_production/terran.php
I use a rule of thumb of 4-5 unit producing structures per saturated base, but that is a very very very loose rule. Reactored building counts as two buildings for this rule of thumb.
With expos, natural always a orbital since it is easy to defend. If you are having issues defending this then your general game mechanics need some work.
If you are expanding in the direction you are attacking then it is easier to keep putting up orbitals and take the extra econ. If your expo is more remote then planetary helps it avoid harass.
My rule of thumb timings on expos is:
Natural 7min ish
Third 13-15 min ish
Fourth 20-23 min ish
I think it takes about 16 minutes for a fully saturated base to mine out, so this will always keep you on 2-base income.
There will be a great amount of variance in actual play, other peoples strategies, more optimized ideas. This is just meant to get you started. Expanding every 7ish-mins feels pretty good to me and keeps my macro crisp.
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@tehemperorer that picture is great
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By now, you should have a basic idea of what one base can support. If you have two bases, it's basically twice that number, of production facilities, plus a little more, or less, taking into account of saturation. As you take more bases, the number of production facilities will increase somewhat exponentially, because you have cleaner saturation, and better SCV count. For example, if you have one base, you can support two Barracks and one Starport. On two bases, you can support another 3 Barracks, plus a dash of upgrades. On three bases, about one more Starport and 3 more Barracks.
That's pretty much it, if also depends on what your producing, units with different costs will require different number of production facilities. For example, you can support 5 Barracks and one Starport on two bases, but if you decide to only produce Thors, you will only need 4 Factories, and most of your excess minerals will go to Supply Depots.
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On December 31 2010 09:46 twstdletz wrote:
@tehemperorer that picture is great
Thanks man put some thought into it
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EPT
