Lately I have been torn between the options of transferring drones immidiately after a fast expansion as zerg, Transferring to 50,50 drone ratio at the main and natural despite not even being at 16 drones yet (a common situation for zerg, less common for terran obviously) does somewhat in the long term increase overall income because by sending only 7 or so drones from main to nat you dramaticlly reduce the number of drones you will produce later which have to travel to the natural from the main (if you don't maynard early you end up at a point where you need to rally all drones from the main to natural usually more than 7 unless you are playing amazingly optimally) This raises the question

What the the exact mineral gain from saving the travel time later on assuming one of two situations, either you transfer 7 drones when the natural completes and then always send all drones directly from their town hall to their mineral patch OR, transfer none initially and then rally all drones from both town halls, to the natural after the main reaches 16 OR transfer none initially and rally all drones from both town halls to the natural once the main reaches 24

It is important to note that In the period of transferring the 7 or so drones to the expo you have a brief period of dramatically reduced income sometimes this can correlate to a time where you are under pretty serious pressure, this brief period of disadvantage may in many cases outweigh any benefit of an early transfer

SO, the question is has anyone done the math (or is anyone capable of doing it), to figure out the benefit/cost of early transfers specifically considering fast expand situations where the main is not even at 2 drone/patch saturation when the natural completes

eth3n

718 Posts

January 11 2011 07:25 GMT

I banish those who don't eat minerals fast enough to the blue-flame smorgasbord that is my natural on XNC

numLoCK

Canada1416 Posts

January 11 2011 07:36 GMT

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155609
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=178704

Here are a couple of previous threads.
I believe the jist of it is that 2 workers per patch is the maximum without losing mining efficiency, so sending workers before this point is unnecessary (unless dealing with a gold expo, of course). So to avoid the big lost mining time cost all at one time you should send one by one after you've reached 2 workers per patch.

kNightLite

United States408 Posts

January 11 2011 07:40 GMT

In terms of raw economic value, you're right, its more efficient to rally new workers to the expo instead of doing it in one big gulp. First of all you save worker travel time because your workers will have a shorter distance to run compared to starting in your mineral patch. The second reason it is good is because 1 mineral *now* is worth more than 1 mineral in the future.

HOWEVER, there is much more to SC2 than raw economic analysis. Maynarding provides two main advantages: First, it more evenly distributes minerals remaining on your patches. If you don't maynard early, your main will run out of patches while your expo still has an excess. That's bad, because it means you lose half your effective income if you don't have an extra base yet. Ideally you want to keep the mineral patches on both bases alive for as long as possible with the 2-3 optimal mining workers per patch. And at least by maynarding you get to *choose* your period of economic weakness, rather than it getting chosen for you by your mineral patches suddenly depleting.

The second advantage it provides is security. If you rally new workers, then you need to guard the rally constantly. A smart enemy will intercept or block off the rally point, thus crushing your hopes of keeping your economy growing while under early pressure. This is especially important when you're fast expanding. I know that that there's been tons of times where I was able to hold off aggression at an expo with a PF, and a choke with siege/turrets/bunkers, however the enemy army was able to block the path between the two with their more mobile army. Maynarding early eliminates that threat.

Economic optimization is very important to any strategy game...but you also need to look carefully for costs&benefits that are not easily quantified.

zDUST

Finland165 Posts

January 11 2011 07:45 GMT

(from what i've read in other threads) having extra drones at your natural can also help defend against early pushes (especially intercepting bunker construction)

Lmui

Canada6219 Posts

January 11 2011 07:51 GMT

As zerg I personally maynard 6 drones when I 15 hatch, the reason behind that being that a large portion of the drones in my main are going to be used to build tech e.g. spire/evo chambers later so I want a few extra drones at my main vs natural. Afterwards, I rally the respective hatches to their respective minerals.

Neivler

Norway911 Posts

January 11 2011 08:00 GMT

Dont send to many drones. The reason I transfer is to have drones ready to put down spines and help in a small early attack. I usually send 4 drones when the hatch pops when I go hatch first.

hun13

55 Posts

January 11 2011 08:05 GMT

On January 11 2011 16:40 kNightLite wrote:
HOWEVER, there is much more to SC2 than raw economic analysis. Maynarding provides two main advantages: First, it more evenly distributes minerals remaining on your patches. If you don't maynard early, your main will run out of patches while your expo still has an excess. That's bad, because it means you lose half your effective income if you don't have an extra base yet. Ideally you want to keep the mineral patches on both bases alive for as long as possible with the 2-3 optimal mining workers per patch. And at least by maynarding you get to *choose* your period of economic weakness, rather than it getting chosen for you by your mineral patches suddenly depleting.

The second advantage it provides is security. If you rally new workers, then you need to guard the rally constantly. A smart enemy will intercept or block off the rally point, thus crushing your hopes of keeping your economy growing while under early pressure. This is especially important when you're fast expanding. I know that that there's been tons of times where I was able to hold off aggression at an expo with a PF, and a choke with siege/turrets/bunkers, however the enemy army was able to block the path between the two with their more mobile army. Maynarding early eliminates that threat.

Economic optimization is very important to any strategy game...but you also need to look carefully for costs&benefits that are not easily quantified.

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