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On February 25 2011 21:27 Lucius22 wrote:
yes its maybe cool to have such a simcity, but what happens if he drops BEHIND the wall off?
its quite possible on most maps and if he sees you went for the simcity hes just gonna drop directly into the mineral line and all your scvs will get toasted and your units cant even reach the hellions.
Covered. Lower the depots and run or build turrets.
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It should be pointed out that the purpose of this sim city is NOT to keep hellions away forever and ever. Rather, its purpose is to limit the viable approaches for a hellion drop.
In a standard base, a hellion drop can happen anywhere. Medivacs can approach from any direction, drop inside your fog of war (or even in plain sight!), and be dealing damage before you can do anything.
In a simcity base, there is only one place to drop hellions- right in the middle of SCV lines. There are only TWO ways to do this. One, you do a suicide run across the main base, leaving the medivacs fully exposed. Two, you come in from behind the mineral line. Not only is this the slowest approach, it is also the most easily spotted thanks to your building vision, and the most easily covered with missile turrets.
You can take this even further by incorporating a sensor tower to the build. Remember that the medivac has to go ALL the way around before it can do damage to your SCVs. A sensor tower lets you spot its lumbering progress, giving an almost inexcusable length of time to respond.
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Just have a small gap that allows SCVs to run away in 2 directions. In that case, if he drops the mineral line, the hellions will be trapped inside. IMO, you should use depots to completely fill the holes in the mineral line so hellions can't go inside and escape.
But of course, there's always a way around (using D on the Medivacs to drop 2 inside and 2 outside the mineral line). You shouldn't only rely on simcities, sensort towers are required against heavy drop action if you want to go to 2+ bases.
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Ok, here's what i suggest as a terran player:
-do a sim city with a narrow point, which blocks Hellions but not SCVs
Lets consider different cases:
-He drops Hellions outside of your city -> The Hellions can't get to the mineral line and you won't lose a single worker
-He drops Hellions inside your city -> Watch the minimap and see the dropship in time. If it flies to your mineral line: Select all workers and click on a mineral patch of your Natural (no collision).
-He drops MM into your mineral line -> Select all workers and click on a mineral patch of your Natural, kill the drop with a siegetank outside the city or/and lower Depots in order to let your own MM come into the city.
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On February 25 2011 21:51 Kukaracha wrote:
Just have a small gap that allows SCVs to run away in 2 directions. In that case, if he drops the mineral line, the hellions will be trapped inside. IMO, you should use depots to completely fill the holes in the mineral line so hellions can't go inside and escape.
But of course, there's always a way around (using D on the Medivacs to drop 2 inside and 2 outside the mineral line). You shouldn't only rely on simcities, sensort towers are required against heavy drop action if you want to go to 2+ bases.
Yes there's always a way around. Just like doing the dropping 2 either side could result in your medivac getting destroyed by turrets. But of course would you ever do this? 2 hellions are less effective than 4 hellions, plus you are battling against time.
Notice that all my games are with 2 bases, either 1 barrack double or 1 fact double builds. Can you guess why hellion harass doesn't happen there? Its because I have tanks and marauders defending my natural.
In the case of the example he does drop hellions at my natural after picking them up at my main and the hellions get completely obliterated before they even land. No sensor towers needed. The reason people harass in the main because your army is not there, notice that the iEchoic build waits for the army to move out before doing the hellion drop. Its pretty suicidal to try it while the army is situated in the main.
Of course I did already specifically mention building turrets, sensor towers and vikings in the FAQ.
sluggaslamoo wrote:
What if the opponent drops behind your mineral line?
Exactly the same as if you don't sim city, you have two choices, mine and die, or run away and die. This shouldn't happen unless it happened like in the first example. Basically don't neglect turrets or sensor towers, or have vikings ready.
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On February 25 2011 20:11 Ripzone wrote:
Good job, but i have to correct one thing: Touching corners often block Hellions but SCVs can get through. This is very useful if your opponent unloads the hellions directly at the mineral line.
I did some testing and here is what i found out:
Touching corners block Hellions but not SCVs in all cases but not if there is a Command Center or a Refinery included.
However you can have the same effect with a Command Center included if there is 1 matrix touching side by side.
The effect can't be achieved with a Refinery included.
I have updated the "things to look out for" section with your example.
Thanks for testing, its a very nice find!
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Ironically Zerg players needs to pay attention to simcity more as Hellions are getting more popular in TvZ, but so many of them don't and just end up whining about imbalance. Protoss players in BW are used to walling off as well vs vulture harass and in my experience Protoss players in SC2 seem to be more aware of the concept of simcity.
A single turret is needed at the center of the area behind the mineral line walloff to help kill of the dropship while the hellions get stuck, the turret can also plug in any hole in between the mineral lines so the hellions cant get out.
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On February 25 2011 22:28 bubblegumbo wrote:
Ironically Zerg players needs to pay attention to simcity more as Hellions are getting more popular in TvZ, but so many of them don't and just end up whining about imbalance. Protoss players in BW are used to walling off as well vs vulture harass and in my experience Protoss players in SC2 seem to be more aware of the concept of simcity.
A single turret is needed at the center of the area behind the mineral line walloff to help kill of the dropship while the hellions get stuck, the turret can also plug in any hole in between the mineral lines so the hellions cant get out.
Yeah I was going to mention the point that protosses and zergs in BW do that every single game to stop vulture harass. I was thinking of a way to not sound nostalgic and move too far off the point, then I ended up just forgetting to mention it. 
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Im seriously have a tear in my eyes.
Such posts make TL.net so brilliant. This is so well written, funny and informativ. Very good work. <3
As a Zerg player I will start to pay more attention to my building placement in ZvT and mb give spores a chance again. I really appreciate your work.
God dammit I love this community, especially if u were just browsing bnet forums for fun to laugh about the people there.
Again Thanks.
greetings
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Wow! This is a VERY well written OP. Very nice organization, use of plentiful pictures, use of feedback, and a link to a VOD. I wish every thread in the strategy forum was like this. It would be like Liquidpedia, but better.
Anyways, I'm now highly interested with experimenting with Simcities. I usually am quite haphazard with my building placement against Terrans and Protoss, though having a SimCity really seems like a potential game-changer when dealing with harassment. I really hope to see more pros adopt a similar SimCity mentality with their building placement.
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I'm aware of simcity but find that my simcity against hellions is very poor as a protoss player, especially compared to my simcity defense against baneling busts or the roach ling all ins, i appreciate that you're not a protoss player, but if you could create a guide about how to do it effectively without preventing your units from protecting if he decides to just drop on your mineral line itself
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On February 25 2011 22:17 sluggaslamoo wrote:
Yes there's always a way around. Just like doing the dropping 2 either side could result in your medivac getting destroyed by turrets. But of course would you ever do this? 2 hellions are less effective than 4 hellions, plus you are battling against time.
I agree, I was only pointing out the fact that such a defense does not guarantee your safety, and that given the possible economic damage, one should always remain on their guards. If a player relies heavily on Hellion drops, he'll try to be creative and commit to it. Sacrificing 500 minerals and 100 gas is not that much if you manage to kill 20 SCVs in the end!
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Anti-Drop Turret Testing
I have done some testing on how many turrets you need to prevent/damage his drop if he flies over your wall with a medivac loaded with 4 hellions and drop directly in your mineral line.
The number of turrets describes the number of turrets that are actually hitting the medivac, not the total number of turrets in your base. It is also assumed that he tries to cross your wall where it is thin, i.e. only one supply depot thick.
1 Turret inside your wall = 4 Hellions survive the drop
2 Turrets inside your wall = 2 Hellions survive
3 Turrets inside your wall = 1-0 Hellions survive
1 Turret outside your wall = 3-4 Hellions survive
2 Turrets outside your wall = 0 Hellions survive
Since it is possible to do the drop from several directions you will need at least 4-5 turrets to be safe. That is quite a large investment for something that may not happen.
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I don't see why he would fly over the wall with his medivac if he sees a turret. Turrets do so much dps, they wouldn't suicide a medivac just to get 1 or 2 hellions in your base. On most maps it is possible to navigate around the base to the back of the mineral line then come forward and drop - in this scenario only the turret in your min line would get a few shots off at the medivac. The number of hits your turret gets off depends on where it is placed? That testing is kinda vague and what's this about 4-5 turrets to be safe? Rarely will anyone build 5 turrets in one base in a tvt... if you spot it you can run marines + viking over there and clean up easily.
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On March 06 2011 18:57 MockHamill wrote:
Anti-Drop Turret Testing
I have done some testing on how many turrets you need to prevent/damage his drop if he flies over your wall with a medivac loaded with 4 hellions and drop directly in your mineral line.
The number of turrets describes the number of turrets that are actually hitting the medivac, not the total number of turrets in your base. It is also assumed that he tries to cross your wall where it is thin, i.e. only one supply depot thick.
1 Turret inside your wall = 4 Hellions survive the drop
2 Turrets inside your wall = 2 Hellions survive
3 Turrets inside your wall = 1-0 Hellions survive
1 Turret outside your wall = 3-4 Hellions survive
2 Turrets outside your wall = 0 Hellions survive
Since it is possible to do the drop from several directions you will need at least 4-5 turrets to be safe. That is quite a large investment for something that may not happen.
Nicely done! I think 2 turrets is optimal, because it fends banshees off and deters medivac drops heavily. You don't want to over invest in turrets, just a couple is completely normal.
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Would you do this as protoss? Terran Simcities can let scvs out if the hellions drop inside the wall, but with protoss u either block everything or nothing.
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For Protoss I think you would just want an opening that points toward your ramp, nobody is going to drop hellions at the ramp, although some bases are big enough that they may sneak in there before you can react. Still, it's much better than letting them cruise in from some dark corner of your base. I think hellion drops are pretty damn common in all matchups, even in tvt long before iechoic wrote his guide. A solid sim city helps a lot against both hellions and banshees (add-ons and supply depots aren't so spread out and exposed), although I wouldn't chalk it up to "ok problem solved" it goes a long way toward mitigating the potential of catastrophic damage at a low opportunity cost.
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For Protoss, make a wall that allows room for 1 stalker to warp in. When you spot the drop, either run the probes away and warp a stalker in to close the gap, or let your probes keep mining and use the warped in stalker to fend off the hellions.
This is somewhat situational, as you don't always have warpgates ready or the money to warp units in, but seems like a somewhat logical solution. Spotting the drop early is always going to be better than reacting late, anyway, and stalkers are faster than medivacs.
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I would like to bump this thread because of the massive influx of BFH in TvT. This thread is much better now than before since there weren't many hellion centric plays back in the days.
People who struggle with hellions in TvT should really read this guide, it's so good.
GL HF guys!
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What about a drop inside the mineral line? :<
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EPT
