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+ Show Spoiler +On February 23 2011 17:46 freetgy wrote:
understanding this actually makes seem Chronoboost a pretty weak ability.
The strengh of CB is the reduction in buildtime thus (using ressources faster)
i.e. a Chronoboost on Probes is usually more "worth" it as a chronoboost Upgrades
upgrades get faster 160->150 thats not even 10% faster
while Probes get ofcourse alot faster build (i.e 2 probes take 34s, with CB its 24s)
thats nearly 1/3 reduction.
Same for Chronoboosting units if we take a Warpgate Zealot
takes 28s cooldown
with chronoboost it takes 18,666s
effectivly you would need 3 Chronocycles to make the Macromechanic "worth" an additional Zealot. (for longer buildtimes this gets even worse)
Now compare this to Mules:
1 Mule gets you ~270 thats nearly 2 Gateways/Rax
2 mules are 1 additional Nexus/CC
which boost you production capacity alot faster than chronoboost ever could
and it is ofcourse more forgiving cause it gives you minerals which makes you a hell of more flexible in what you want to spend it too.
This also shows why Protoss is hit hardest by Economic Harass, beeing able to boost production doesn't mean shit if you don't have the income to do that.
weakest Macromechanic (= on Economic side)
just to make a comparison:
a Terran who builds an CC in his base can produces (has the additional mules)
2 SCV in 17s
a Protoss who boosts his Probes gets:
2 Probes in 24s
This also shows how bad CB Scales when the counts of bases get higher.
How often do we see Progamers still having much much energy on their Nexuses during mid/late game.
Conclusion:
Using Chronoboost on things that have small buildtimes more effective than cause the Speedup in % is alot higher, than on slower buildtimes.
We will see Terrans do inbase CCs because of macromechanic
We will see Zergs do inbase Hatches because of macromechanic
We will never see Protoss do inbase Nexuses, because of macromechanic
totally agree. Also late game it is the hardest (imo) to pull off constant chrono like how ALL the casters bitch about. Since it saves you 10 seconds across the board I wonder if i should every chrono gateways ever unless it is a rush. Not a balance whine though as i think protoss is strong.
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On February 23 2011 17:46 freetgy wrote:
[...]
This also shows how bad CB Scales when the counts of bases get higher.
How often do we see Progamers still having much much energy on their Nexuses during mid/late game.
Conclusion:
Using Chronoboost on things that have small buildtimes more effective than cause the Speedup in % is alot higher, than on slower buildtimes.
We will see Terrans do inbase CCs because of macromechanic
We will see Zergs do inbase Hatches because of macromechanic
We will never see Protoss do inbase Nexuses, because of macromechanic
Your conclusion is right. CB rapidly loses Value as Macromechanic during the later Stages of the Game, especially when all your Tech is done and its easier (and affordable) to build another Gate instead of constantly boosting 2 of them to create a virtual 3rd.
But nevertheless it really shines during the early Stages, as you can speed up Tech Research to several key timings (which have yet to be figured out and formulated into Builds) on the one hand and simulate additional Production Structures during key periods of time on the other.
For example, considering an Immortal equal to 2 Stalkers (which is true in Cost/Supply and even better in Terms of DPS(to Ground)/Cost and EHP/Cost) a constantly chronoboosted Robo producing Immortals is almost as good as 2 Gateways constantly producing Stalkers but with an Investment-Substitute of 100 Gas for 100 Minerals and the Opportunity of unlocking Robo-Tech.
This is the basis of the 1Gate/1Robo Opening (Gate-Gas-Core-Robo-Gas), allowing you to get a fast Observer but still be safe in case of early agression by simulating a 3 WG for some time until you actually have 3 WG.
CB is great aswell in FE-Scenarios because you are strapped on Ressources for quite some time until Expo-Probes create Profit but again the additional CB from 2nd Nexus allows to simulate a portion of the deficit of producing Structures you would have had compared to an one Base scenario at that point in Time and due to that lower the opportunity cost of Expo-Nexus even more (in addition to the supply you got at finish).
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Good post, I've often wondered about Chrono Boost. If all it does is get you 10 seconds it really doesn't seem quite as good as larvae inject or mule. This may change in the future, but at the moment I don't think SC2 is nearly as timing intensive as SC1.
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On February 23 2011 18:32 Xanatoss wrote:
Your conclusion is right. CB rapidly loses Value as Macromechanic during the later Stages of the Game, especially when all your Tech is done and its easier (and affordable) to build another Gate instead of constantly boosting 2 of them to create a virtual 3rd.
i disagree with your robo argument a little
One Immortal takes 55s to build
constantly boosting an Immortal would reduce its buildtime: 36s (2 chronoboosts)
2 Immortals would take fully boosted 72s (while taking around 4 Chronoboosts to do so)
now compare that to non boosted 110s, doesn't seem much off a gain (in the long run)
and 4 Chronoboosts take atleast 200s to gather.
And we are disregarding the fact that usually Gas is our limiting ressource which can nullify this advantage.
The reason why 1 Gate Robo can work is especially this, we don't boost the Robo, we boost the Gateway to get fast building units alot faster.
And the reason is, boosting Units with less Buildtime (Zealot/Stalker) is alot more efficient.
Also Gateunits usually are less ressource intensive,, thus making boosting them makes the Min/Gas Usage Ratio alot more balanced.
only advantage beside that is it can create a timing attack (4-WG that is)
Same with Phoenix / Voidrays, boosting Phoenix alot of more efficient (productionswise) than boosting Voidrays.
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Very good post overall, but this part confused me because you are misusing units:In normal circumstances, a building builds/researches at a speed of 1 (30 seconds to complete a 30 "units of time" unit/research).
The acceleration factor (50%) tells us that, during a CB's duration, the speed at which it builds/reseaches is 1.5 (20 seconds to complete a 30 "units of time" unit/research).
That of "units of time" is confusing. This is what I mean:
If you leave your mouse cursor over a construction bar, you'll see as your chrono that the speed at which the numbers go up increases. So the building is doing more "units of time" by game second.
The name of the ability is chronoboost, so you're actually speeding up time locally, but a different view will clear up the section above. If you see it as speeding up time, you get the confusing wording you used above, since the building is doing 1.5 local time units per 1.0 game time unit. Conceptually this is hard to imagine and it's not intuitive to think with.
An easier interpretation is that chronoboost increases the rate of production (i.e. the amount of production units per time unit) from 1.0 to 1.5.You're already touching on that, what you call "units of time" are actually production units. If you change the section to be consistent with the increased production rate interpretation, it would be more comprehensible.
Thx for the informative post nonetheless  .
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I thought that this is really simple math and common knowledge for anyone who has actually taken math lessons in school...
It's also not 33% faster, it's 50% faster, 33% is the time you save, i.e. if a car is moving at 100 mph it will travel 100 miles in 1 hour(duh!), if another car is moving 50% faster - at 150 mph, it will take 40 minutes to travel 100 miles, which is 2/3 of an hour or 33% time saved.
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the main problem is that chronoboost basically does nothing and here is why:
they artificially gave protoss a macro mechanic and at the same time raised all units and upgrades building/reseach time to balance it out. the game would not be much different if you just removed chronooboost and removed like 5s for gateway units, 10-20 for robo/stargate units and even more with carrier and mothership. do the same with most of the upgrades. the only real advantage chronoboost is that you can upgrade stuff like +1 faster, because its the same for all races.
i mean just look at some numbers (these are so obvious imo):
tank 45 - immortal 55
thor 60 - collosus 75
battlecruiser 90 - carrier 120
same goes for t1:
marauder 30 - roach 27 - stalker 42 (38 incl 5s warping)
marine 25 - ling 24 - zealot 38 (33 incl 5s warping)
aswell as critical upgades for protoss like charge, collo range, blink, storm+energy all have somewhat higher research times than their "corresponding" upgrades of the other races.
chronoboost does not ADD anyhting to the game, it just smoothens the disadvantages problems of buildtimes protoss have.
imo stuff which would make it definitely more interesting:
- CB on a cannon to let it shoot faster
- CB on constructing buildings to speed it up
- CB on pylons to make warp ins faster
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On February 23 2011 09:42 Sek-Kuar wrote:
I wouldnt call it simple unless you have some sort of math Ph.D. - imo its really complicated way to "explain" quite simple thing.
But whatever, some ppl might like, but you are missing one thing:
Nexus regenerate 25 ene in roughly 45 sec (45*0,5625= ~25), so using energy from single nexus you can boost something by 50% for 20 seconds every 45 sec, so one nexus is capable of boosting something by 22% in total using constant chrono boost (50%*20/45) if no energy was saved.
This means that when you have only one Nexus and with no energy saved, if you start CB something you can reduce build/research time to ~82% of original.
or you know, the basic knowledge of maths a 16 year old has.
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EDIT: Made a slight error in understanding something.
Good post
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If you think about it, 10 seconds saved on production every 25 seconds (gametime) per nexxus is huge. comparable to queen inject imo... 25 energy, extra production...
SWEET now i know i can at least carry SOMETHING over with me if i decide to switch to protoss
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Honestly there are a lot of misconceptions in this topic about efficiency and how the numbers work.
A CB saves you 10 seconds of build time over 20 seconds. If you are building something this is all it saves you per uses. It doesn't becomes more efficient when used on unit A vs unit B. You save the same time per usage.
The max build time reduction is correct with 33.3333% which is based off the math a couple posts up.
Since it is a macro mechanic which many people have trouble with (watch some replays and see by the 20 minute mark how many nexus you have at 100 energy) Add a trigger into your game play.
Something like every time I press 6 or 7 I CB, assuming you use 6 for Robo, and 7 for Stargate or forge or something. This type of trigger will get you 100% efficiency out of your CB due to the energy of your nexi never getting to that 100 mark.
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Grml i made a mistake please delete this post
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Assuming you have a 4 gate build. That you have 4 CB available. Build 4 stalkers. After that you have 0 minerals 0 gas. Then CB the gateways. Can you gather sufficient minerals and gas during that time to build 4 new stalkers at the end of the CB?
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nice! way to put all this info together. I always wondered if there was so cool things you could figure out using chrono.
+ Show Spoiler +also it's spelled 'conclusion' not conclussion (not trying to be insulting you just said english wasn't your first language so I thought you might like to know) cheers!
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Very useful information not widely known, gj OP
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The topic-start can be summarized as:
- CB reduces build/research time by 10 seconds per use assuming no CB time is wasted.
- You can CB a production building without wasting CB time once for every 30 seconds of base production time. Example: Immortal has 55 second base prod. time. You can do a maximum of 1 CB without wasted CB-time. The second CB is almost fully used (25 seconds into the second 30 second period: 5/6th of the CB is used), but some of it is wasted if you don't chain-produce.
- Back-to-back CBing on a single structure with constant production increases the rate of production by that building by 50%. So constant Nexus-CBing gives you 50% more probes than a regular Nexus would produce in the same timeframe.
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On February 24 2011 00:52 neo_rtr wrote:
Assuming you have a 4 gate build. That you have 4 CB available. Build 4 stalkers. After that you have 0 minerals 0 gas. Then CB the gateways. Can you gather sufficient minerals and gas during that time to build 4 new stalkers at the end of the CB?
No. You would need an Income of ~ 1400 Minerals / 550 Gas per Minute, even more if you include Supply Cost. Even 2 Geysiers give around 240 Gas per Minute.
On February 23 2011 19:44 freetgy wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2011 18:32 Xanatoss wrote:
Your conclusion is right. CB rapidly loses Value as Macromechanic during the later Stages of the Game, especially when all your Tech is done and its easier (and affordable) to build another Gate instead of constantly boosting 2 of them to create a virtual 3rd.
i disagree with your robo argument a little One Immortal takes 55s to build constantly boosting an Immortal would reduce its buildtime: 36s (2 chronoboosts) 2 Immortals would take fully boosted 72s (while taking around 4 Chronoboosts to do so) now compare that to non boosted 110s, doesn't seem much off a gain (in the long run) and 4 Chronoboosts take atleast 200s to gather. And we are disregarding the fact that usually Gas is our limiting ressource which can nullify this advantage. The reason why 1 Gate Robo can work is especially this, we don't boost the Robo, we boost the Gateway to get fast building units alot faster. And the reason is, boosting Units with less Buildtime (Zealot/Stalker) is alot more efficient. Also Gateunits usually are less ressource intensive,, thus making boosting them makes the Min/Gas Usage Ratio alot more balanced. only advantage beside that is it can create a timing attack (4-WG that is) Same with Phoenix / Voidrays, boosting Phoenix alot of more efficient (productionswise) than boosting Voidrays.
Whats the difference to chronoboosting 110sec worth of Zealots (~4) instead? Answer: Nothing
You save 36sec aswell, you need 4 CB aswell. You could argue with "But I get an additional Zealot during that time!" Yeah, but double the production time and you get another additional Zealot but now aswell an additional Immortal. The Production/Time - Relations between Units stay the same due to Linearity of CB.
The Phrase "Gas is the limiting Factor" does not apply in the Early Game. If that would be the case there would be no openings which Delay the 2nd Geysier, but obviously there are a lot of them.
Of course you can CB the Gate aswell. I have chosen the Stalker/Immortal Example because they are very good to subtitute in the early Stages due to the lack of Air-Units.
If its just about production speed and "efficiency" you would have to build only Zealots because they are super fast built and super cheap. But obviously you dont.
Actualy the increase of Ressources/Time coefficient increases faster for Units that have less Base-Buildtime, if you just boost once each Unit.
And even if you boost more than once, burning more Money with less Infrastructure has not to be a bad thing necessarily.
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If you apply more than one CB, then of course you get linear results:
Two chronos= 20 seconds.
Three chronos = 30 seconds.
And so on.
For a second i thought he was suggesting CB could stack.
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Interesting post, good to know these things
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EPT
