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I've made a table that I found myself constantly referring to when planning Build Orders. It is fairly straight-forward and should be of use to people who don't want to do manual look-ups and google math. This is more useful for T given their production mechanics, and less so for Z/P, given their respective larvae and warp-in and chronoboost mechanics .
The table is normalized by time and food, example:
On the surface, a siege tank costs 150 minerals, 125 gas, 45 seconds, and 3 food.
3 Food is equivalent of 3/8th of a supply depot, or 37.5 minerals, meaning that a siege tank consumes 187.5 minerals, 125 gas, in 45 seconds => meaning that siege tank production will cost you 250 minerals, 166 gas per minute (though you are getting 1 and 1/3rd of a siege tank).
Note that this does NOT take into account of lost mining time of the SCV when making the supply depots/factories/etc.
Why is this useful? Because income per base is normalized to per minute, ie. 2 base Terran averages an income of of ~1800 minerals and 456 gas per minute. Suppose there was a unit that costs 1500 minerals and 1500 gas but took an hour to build, is it "expensive"? nah. Same analogy goes for upgrades, they're actually really cheap, but just have a high "up-front" cost.
Unit Mineral Gas
Units
+ Show Spoiler +
SCV 221 0
Marine 150 0
Marauder 250 50
Reaper 83 67
Ghost 263 225
Hellion 250 0
Siege Tank 250 167
Thor 375 200
Viking 250 107
Medivac 179 143
Raven 125 200
Banshee 188 100
BattleCruiser 317 200
Upgrades
+ Show Spoiler +L1 Infantry 38 38
L2 Infantry 55 55
L3 Infantry 68 68
L1 Vehicle 38 38
L2 Vehicle 55 55
L3 Vehicle 68 68
L1 Ship Weapons 38 38
L2 Ship Weapons 55 55
L3 Ship Weapons 68 68
L1 Ship Plating 56 56
L2 Ship Plating 71 71
L3 Ship Plating 82 82
Stimpack 43 43
Combat Shields 55 55
Concussive Shells 50 50
Infernal Pre-igniter 82 82
Siege Tech 75 75
Ghost cloak 150 150
Ghost Energy 75 75
Structures
+ Show Spoiler +Command Center 240 0
Barracks 150 0
Ebay 214 0
Bunker 171 0
Sensor Tower 300 240
Missile Turret 240 0
Factory 150 100
Ghost Academy 225 75
Starport 180 120
Armory 138 92
Fusion Core 138 138
Tech Lab 120 60
Reactor 60 60
Example of calculating a build's production capability, ex, my 1 rax FE TvZ build:
+ Show Spoiler +
Total Minerals/Gas Available per minute: 1800/456
2CC - SCVs (440 / 0)
1 Fact Tanks (250 / 167)
1 Port Medivac (179/143) - Alternate with 1 Raven (125/200)
Infantry Weapons Ups (38/38)
Stimpack (43/43), then switch to Siege Tech (75/75)
Combat Shields (55/55), then switch to Infantry Armor Ups (38/38)
Constant Missile Turrets (240/0)
1,245 Minerals and ~446 Gas consumption per minute -
The remaining (1,800-1,245 = 555 minerals) allow me to produce off 4-5 rax marines (with perfect macro)
Units that are bold can be reactored - meaning their costs can be DOUBLED if you attach a reactor
Some take home messages:
1. Command Centers are fairly cheap, don't be afraid to build them 
2. Ghosts are expensive as hell, requiring the most gas of any unit, structure, or upgrade. But then again, most people will never do constant ghost production.
3. BCs are actually "cheaper" than thors
4. Upgrades are cheaper than units, get them.
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"meaning that in one minute, a siege tank costs 250 minerals, 166 gas. "
wait what?
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It means that when you're a planning a build order and calculating the # of tanks you can make, siege tanks really cost 250 minerals/166 gas per MINUTE, which is what base income is calculated as.
Sorry I meant one and one-third of a siege tanks costs 250 minerals/166 gas per minute
(1 Base income is 800-900 minerals a minute, ~225 gas a minute)
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On March 19 2011 01:10 Griffith` wrote:
It means that when you're a planning a build order and calculating the # of tanks you can make, siege tanks really cost 250 minerals/166 gas per MINUTE, which is what base income is calculated as.
Sorry I meant one and one-third of a siege tanks costs 250 minerals/166 gas per minute
(1 Base income is 800-900 minerals a minute, ~225 gas a minute)
And how did he calculate that tanks costs that much in minute?
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Then you need to also calculate the lost mining time for the SCV building aswell. For example a supply depot costs closer to 125 minerals than 100.
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On March 19 2011 01:12 nakam wrote:
Then you need to also calculate the lost mining time for the SCV building aswell. For example a supply depot costs closer to 125 minerals than 100.
hm I can add that in pretty easily actually -
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I see the point of having this data when planning out what production you want to have on X bases. But I don't think it makes sense to use this reasoning for buildings. You are not constantly producing ccs or turrets, not sure how it's relevant that their cost per minute is high or low.
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I fail to see how an already built siege tank consumes resources per minute other than supply that you've already built.
Or maybe the OP's wording of "per minute" is very misleading.
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On March 19 2011 01:14 jnkw wrote:
I fail to see how an already built siege tank consumes resources per minute other than supply that you've already built.
Or maybe the OP's wording of "per minute" is very misleading.
Sorry I meant production of siege tank from the factory will cost you that much per minute - I will fix wording to be a bit better
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interesting way to look at it
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On March 19 2011 01:16 Griffith` wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 01:14 jnkw wrote:
I fail to see how an already built siege tank consumes resources per minute other than supply that you've already built.
Or maybe the OP's wording of "per minute" is very misleading. Sorry I meant production of siege tank from the factory will cost you that much per minute - I will fix wording to be a bit better
Okay that makes a lot more sense now  Thanks for clarifying.
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On March 19 2011 01:14 jnkw wrote:
I fail to see how an already built siege tank consumes resources per minute other than supply that you've already built.
Or maybe the OP's wording of "per minute" is very misleading.
your income is based per minute. so 2000 minerals per minute
how many factories do you need to make constant siege tanks but not overdo it?
this lets you.
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On March 19 2011 01:10 Griffith` wrote:
It means that when you're a planning a build order and calculating the # of tanks you can make, siege tanks really cost 250 minerals/166 gas per MINUTE, which is what base income is calculated as.
No they dont.
When you calculate, how much one siege tank costs in minute, it is 150minerals and 125 gas and 3 supply. But you get also one third of another siege tanks.
It is about, how much you PAY FOR YOUR TOTAL TANKS per minute. Then you can add up cost of one siege tank and 1/3 of another siege tanks cost.
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On March 19 2011 01:20 Foxcraft wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 01:10 Griffith` wrote:
It means that when you're a planning a build order and calculating the # of tanks you can make, siege tanks really cost 250 minerals/166 gas per MINUTE, which is what base income is calculated as.
No they dont. When you calculate, how much one siege tank costs in minute, it is 150minerals and 125 gas and 3 supply. But you get also one third of another siege tanks.
I already fixed this in OP
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You should also to buildings and lost mining time. You can use each one as a table for 18 and 39minerals/min income. This would be the cost of pulling the worker off and mining. Also factor in some added travel time or give the option.
Anyway stuff like this is always a joy to read, because it's extremely helpful in refining, or at least in understanding why a build order program like carbontwelve's does certain things.
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On March 19 2011 01:22 Griffith` wrote:Show nested quote +On March 19 2011 01:20 Foxcraft wrote:On March 19 2011 01:10 Griffith` wrote:
It means that when you're a planning a build order and calculating the # of tanks you can make, siege tanks really cost 250 minerals/166 gas per MINUTE, which is what base income is calculated as.
No they dont. When you calculate, how much one siege tank costs in minute, it is 150minerals and 125 gas and 3 supply. But you get also one third of another siege tanks. I already fixed this in OP
I know, but it is not correctly said how you wrote it. It is actually about how much you pay for your TOTAL AMOUNT of tanks per minute.
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Griffith's Units™
jk man, interesting topic, glad to see this kind of information laid out in such a presentable fashion.
Never really thought about why upgrades were good early on, i would just get them. Thanks for this valuable information.
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I will update the table to reflect construction costs later on tonight - building times for buildings vary - so I 'll need to do some tweaks to get their mineral cost
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This is a really cool concept, i never really thought about the cost of anything that way.
I always considered depots a secondary cost, that it just always there. Cool idea!
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The wording of this post is a bit vague.
Basically it is just a table of costs per minute for the various units including their supply needs.
The word 'normalized' for example isn't applied properly here.
Also the conclusions you draw from this is are completely WRONG. You can't use this table to considering if units are cheaper or not then others, it only sais how much production capacity you can afford.
In your reasoning a unit would be nerfed if it's buildtime would be decreased because according to you it would get 'more expensive'. That offcourse is idiotic and using this table to argue that upgrades are cheap or BC's are cheaper then thors is stupid.
The level of math or insight with numbers of some of these TL posts is just rediculous... (right, should be ridiculous..)
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Something interesting that I picked up from this post is the comparison between Banshees and Vikings. Per minute, constant Banshee production costs you less than constant Viking production.
With constant production, you can get out 1 Viking and ~42.9% of another Viking. Basically, about one and-a-half Vikings per minute equates to 1 Banshee per minute. Thing is though, 1 Banshee has twice the DPS of a Viking; A Viking's 10 DPS vs. a Banshee's 19.2 DPS.
Overall, if you choose constant Banshee production versus constant Viking production, you get about 30% more DPS per minute- which is relevent since you want as much firepower as possible, in as little time as possible- 15 more HP and all of this at a lower cost per minute, making it more sustainable with a limited amout of bases.
Another pro to choosing Banshees over Vikings is that they are great combatants and do not fall into one role, like Vikings do, they can harass effectively and fight head on in an army on army conflict. The only con would be that they have 3 less range than Vikings. The only reason I decided to voice this observation is because there is a thread that I read earlier promoting the use of Banshees over Vikings to combat Colossus based armies.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=202210
Think what you will, I just found it interesting that +3 range makes so much of a difference that Terran's would choose Vikings over Banshees, when Banshees are all around better. And what with Protoss opting for more powerful Gateway compositions, Terrans need as much Anti-Surface firepower as possible.
Another possiblilty would be to produce one Viking and one Banshee at a time off two Starports rather than just one or the other off their respective Starport configurations ( 1 Reactor versus 2 Tech). Just some food for thought.
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Markwerf, when your insulting someone by calling their post ridiculous, try to spell ridiculous correctly.
Other than that, your comment is right on.
Griffith, you post isn't really looking at the 'cost' of units in a meaningful way. As Markwerf said, it's good for a unit to build quickly because that reduces the infrastructure costs in building that unit. If constant marine production out of 1 barracks drained all of my income off of 3 bases, that would be awesome. I'd make exactly 1 barracks and win every game. Of course, your calculation would make marines look very expensive when, in fact, they're very cost-effective.
What the chart is better for is looking at how good buildings are. Assuming unit strengths are in line with their costs, the more resources per minute I can use with a building, the better. For example, gateways, costing 150 minerals, were too good of a mineral sink when zealots built in 33 seconds, and then 23 after WG research. Using your formula, that's 326 minerals per minute of production from a 150 mineral warpgate. That production was too efficient, so it was nerfed.
Similarly, you'll notice that the factory units are consistently more expensive per minute than the barracks units. A factory has more production capacity than a barracks. This is offset, however, by a factory having roughly double the cost of a barracks.
So if you want a more useful chart, take out the supply costs, and analyze how effective each building is as a resource sink, and then look at the costs of those buildings.
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This is useful for balancing production off a static economy. Not much else.
In fact, there are a number of online calculators that can help you with this. Here's my favorite:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=155279
In SC2, usually economies are growing. So you need to account for the present cost of the unit compared to the future value. For example, 100 minerals at 5:00 is worth less than 100 minerals at 10:00 in a growing economy since it's a smaller percentage of the economy later than at start, so there is less opportunity cost.
All SC2 costs are investments, meaning they are paid up front and the returns come after a delay of building time. The longer the delay, the more the economy grows between start and finish, and so the less ultimate comparative value the units or upgrade has.
We need an economist to write up a real analysis of SC2 economics, including ideas like present value, "inflation", investment ROI, risk/reward.
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Yea kcdc has got it right.
Which presents an incredibly confusing fact that you put "Structures" and figured out their "cost" or whatever. You won't be constantly making command centers. It just doesn't make sense for structures.
This only demonstrates how much production you can support on x bases. For instance, reapers are very low so going 5rax reaper is perfectly viable with additional money leftover for expanding. But 5rax marauder just isn't going to work.
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On March 19 2011 03:54 Thorn Raven wrote:
Think what you will, I just found it interesting that +3 range makes so much of a difference that Terran's would choose Vikings over Banshees, when Banshees are all around better.
Why are you comparing Vikings and Banshees based purely on DPS? I understand when you are talking about just going against colossus armies, but vikings and banshees are inherently different. Vikings shoot only air units, banshees can't shoot air units. I guess make it clear in the beginning of your post that you are talking EXCLUSIVELY about fighting colossus, as they are the only unit that both the viking (not landed) and the banshee can shoot simultaneously.
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I think another problem with this analysis is the assumption that production always occurs near the supply cap. Over the course of a game, army trades may happen, at which point the supply cost is lifted temporarily.
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I like this analysis, and I've always wanted to articulate that economy can not be measured only by the amount of resources you're taking in per minute, but also as a function of your production capacity (infrastructure).
To give an example, I was experimenting with a 1rax ghost FE in TvT. On paper, the build was so, so good. I expanded faster than my opponent. I was able to hold off all openings my opponent could throw at me. I was losing games despite these things, though, and I was baffled as to why. Upon watching replays I realized that the reason I was losing is that I had no infrastructure going into the midgame. My production capacity was simply not there, and required a large investment to get running, so my economy could not be considered 'good'.
With a typical analysis of my economy (i.e. how many resources are you pulling in), I would be way ahead - but that's too simplistic, and turned out to be not true in that situation. Equally important to how many resources you're accumulating is the ability to liquidate that money at the same rate.
That said, this thread was worded confusingly, and it should be less about 'cost' and more about 'production capacity'.
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While production costs per minute may not make much sense for armories/ebay, but they do make sense for factories, and barracks, I often end up with 10+ Factories by late game in my TvPs, and over 10+ barracks in my TvZs, so by that measurement, I definitely need to know the consumption of those two structures.
But you guys are right that its not so much a fixed cost analysis, but more of a cost/minute consumption (hence what I wanted to get across with normalized) analysis.
Terran's mechanics is a lot different from P/Z because we don't have "instant" production. Everything we have is in a continuous flux.
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Oooh that unit chart is gonna be super helpful for planning midgame strategies/builds.
As iechoic said its more about the "real production capacity of bases" vs "real cost" but semantics are lame.
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Eh, the thing is supply depot cost is mostly independent of unit cost. I'm not sure how useful that analysis really is. It's headed in the right direction, but you can't do it on a per-unit basis.
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On March 19 2011 00:58 Griffith` wrote:
I've made a table that I found myself constantly referring to when planning Build Orders. It is fairly straight-forward and should be of use to people who don't want to do manual look-ups and google math. This is more useful for T given their production mechanics, and less so for Z/P, given their respective larvae and warp-in and chronoboost mechanics .
The table is normalized by time and food, example:
On the surface, a siege tank costs 150 minerals, 125 gas, 45 seconds, and 3 food.
3 Food is equivalent of 3/8th of a supply depot, or 37.5 minerals, meaning that a siege tank consumes 187.5 minerals, 125 gas, in 45 seconds => meaning that siege tank production will cost you 250 minerals, 166 gas per minute (though you are getting 1 and 1/3rd of a siege tank).
Note that this does NOT take into account of lost mining time of the SCV when making the supply depots/factories/etc.
Why is this useful? Because income per base is normalized to per minute, ie. 2 base Terran averages an income of of ~1800 minerals and 456 gas per minute. Suppose there was a unit that costs 1500 minerals and 1500 gas but took an hour to build, is it "expensive"? nah. Same analogy goes for upgrades, they're actually really cheap, but just have a high "up-front" cost.
Glad to see I'm not the only crazy numbers person here. I have been working on the same EXACT types of calculations for a terran two base. I have an optimal build against zerg that I am extremely successful with. It involves such:
TvZ
My SOLE mid-game Composition (Marauder Thor Helion):
2 Factory Thor: 600/400 per minute
1 Factory Reactor: 400 per minute
3 Rax teched for Marauder 600/150 per minute
Total ratio: 1600/550.
Analysis: A little gas heavy considering you need the buildings and upgrades, but right around the ball park in terms of that 3:1 ratio of mineral/gas. The build is simply my only working formula for zerg and it works wonders for me.
Now I am looking for an optimal protoss build that does the same. I am thinking:
TvP
My Hypothetical Composition: (Marine, Thor, Tank, Helion with Raven/Banshee/Viking support)
2 Reactored barracks: 480 per minute (note that if you need the marine upgrades, one of your rax will have a lab for extended an time period)
1 Reactored Factory: 400 per minute
1 Factory Tanks: 200/167 per minute
1 Factory Thor 300/200 per minute
1 port (Raven, Banshee, Viking constitutive production) Average min/gas ratio per minute: 155/149
Total ratio: 1535/516
Analysis: An early bio into full blow mech composition with marine support. Also adds ravens and banshees for air support, may include Vikings for any Collosi/Void heavy builds. Haven't implemented the build yet but I think it will work. Ratio is better than the TvZ ratio, as I will need that extra income for a wider range of upgrades.
Now I need to work out a TvT...
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On March 19 2011 04:51 rapier7 wrote:
Eh, the thing is supply depot cost is mostly independent of unit cost. I'm not sure how useful that analysis really is. It's headed in the right direction, but you can't do it on a per-unit basis.
Well it's valid right until you have your first proper engagement, whereupon it stops being entirely useful because you have spare supply due to losing units.
And obviously when you hit 200 supply you don't need to make depots anymore either.
But it gives a useful top limit to how many minerals you will be spending.
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On March 19 2011 04:51 rapier7 wrote:
Eh, the thing is supply depot cost is mostly independent of unit cost. I'm not sure how useful that analysis really is. It's headed in the right direction, but you can't do it on a per-unit basis.
Generally, units tend to be 50 minerals/supply. Obviously this isn't followed strictly or anything (immortals and void rays come to mind...), but that seems to be the general rule. It actually reinforces the idea that you need tech heavy units in the lategame because high gas units are more supply efficient.
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I didn't knew taht, it's really interesting.
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This is a fantastic table of data. I have been searching for this.
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I like the idea of this thread mate, should make it easier to figure out number of production facilities for constant production. Nice one for compiling this
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I like this a lot because it takes time into account. Someone needs to make another thread where time is treated as a resource because it's the most valuable one IMO. Still this is helpfull for planning BOs, but time is more important for planning strategy.
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Basically this is a good tool for calculation of Mid Game economy management and figuring out what you can actually afford.
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Griffith it seems that you have confused your self into believing a poorly constructed set of constructs is insightful.
But for other people here is what he is SAYING.
First he ASSUMES that any production structure that you create is constantly producing a UNIT.
And constant production of SAID unit over a MINUTE is the True cost of that unit.
The Claim that upgrades are cheap stems for the fact that the build time is LONG thus the per upgrade cost is averaged down over a period of time. Thus is the same for the thor and BC comment. No concern is given however to the amount of time it would take to save for this ? as if you were truly calculate in this fashion you would need to know that on 2 BASE your maximum GPM is about 440. And a BC takes 300 gas or 40 seconds of mining time. Similarly for these upgrades.
Perhaps this will someday be a useful line of thinking but upto this point, it is not quite there.
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On March 19 2011 19:42 Shadowcaster wrote:
Griffith it seems that you have confused your self into believing a poorly constructed set of constructs is insightful.
But for other people here is what he is SAYING.
First he ASSUMES that any production structure that you create is constantly producing a UNIT.
And constant production of SAID unit over a MINUTE is the True cost of that unit.
The Claim that upgrades are cheap stems for the fact that the build time is LONG thus the per upgrade cost is averaged down over a period of time. Thus is the same for the thor and BC comment. No concern is given however to the amount of time it would take to save for this ? as if you were truly calculate in this fashion you would need to know that on 2 BASE your maximum GPM is about 440. And a BC takes 300 gas or 40 seconds of mining time. Similarly for these upgrades.
Perhaps this will someday be a useful line of thinking but upto this point, it is not quite there.
lol, yes there is "build up time", that should be obvious. but they are nothing more than spikes if you were to plot your minerals and gas over time. There is no long-term "build-up" if you follow the table, in which you may need to an additional 2 raxes to serve as a "buffer zone". Because immediately after you research upgrades, that costs you an additional 150/150, you will actually find yourself needing to consume minerals "faster").
As for the BC, yes occasionally you may float on 400 minerals and 300 gas to "build" up for a battlecruiser. But who the hell goes 2-base Battlecruisers?
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Howdy all... Long time lurker, first time posting. I have some background and a great deal of interest in game theory concepts.
As several other people have written, the OP could have used more precise language, but addresses some important (and often neglected) concepts. Kcdc and company are correct to assess the real significance of this kind of data as relating to the production efficiency of structures. Clearly, this kind of table is no replacement for the online tools mentioned by several posters, but having some of the rough ratios here at your fingertips is quite useful.
And the data there is quite interesting. It is remarkable how dramatically a structure's efficiency can vary: constant marauder production burns minerals at roughly 3 times the rate of constant reaper production, which complicates any theoretical tech-switch from one to the other, despite the same production facility being used for both, because of the ugly shift in production capacity that would be necessary. (Note the use of “theoretical”... the actual usefulness of units is not the issue at the moment.)
However, for a more useful set of figures, I would recommend actually presenting them in terms of percentage of resource capacity per base, rather than in absolute figures. These figures are most useful as a rough guide for improvisation and concept work, and the step of dividing them by 800 or 440 seems an unnecessary hassle for this application.
Also, I respectfully disagree with the OP's assertion that this is “more useful for T” than Zerg or Protoss. I actually think this kind of table is most useful for Zerg, given the nature of the larva mechanic. A hatchery generates about 9 larva per minute, and each Zerg unit (counting ling pairs as a unit) costs ONE larva. As a result, a Zerg hatchery, macroed properly, will produce 9 units per minute. Build time is irrelevant to Zerg production capacity. This means that a table of production used per minute while building various units is actually a sensible tool for Zergs to have... even if most of us prefer to simply go “by feel.”
Note that it matters quite a bit whether these units are replacing fallen units or are part of the initial build-up; that is, it matters whether the Zerg must also produce overlords because overlords cost both minerals and larva. Replacement means the “9 units” rule is solid; build-up means that 1 supply units are built at 8/minute and 2 supply units at 7.2/minute.
For replacement, the math is extremely simple. Constant drone/zergling production from a saturated base requires two fully injected hatcheries, because they cost so much larvae/minerals. Roaches are fairly close to 1:1, or 1 hatch producing to 2 geysers working. If you know those benchmarks, the rest is obvious, because the ratios are simple inverses of the costs: A hydralisk is 2x the gas cost of a roach, and so a single hatchery can produce hydras to eat gas from 4 geysers. A muta is 2x a hydra, so one hatch can produce mutas to eat up 8 geysers, and so on.
For build-up, the numbers are trickier because of overlords, losing units to combat, structures, etc. However, without going into the numbers at this moment (maybe later...) the trend is for production to slow, and therefore for more capacity to be required to fully spend minerals. Note that the exception is the low cost units, such as the drone and zergling, where the overlord only increases the minerals burned per minute, and no gas is involved.
I am considering doing a more complete write-up with full tables for all races in the future, though I know they are bound to be theoretical rather than iron rules.
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I'd like to slightly revise my Terran two base vs Protoss composition. I find that, being Vikings are more gas intensive than Banshee per time, you need to save gas somewhere. Hence Tank/Viking (common in TvT) could be viable against toss and it would be equivalent in terms of gas to Banshee/Thor. Take the following compositions (note that I am not accounting for supply cost):
1st Composition
Banshees (one port): 150/100 per minute
Thors (Two Fact): 600/400 per minute
Reactored Fact: 400 per minute
Two reactored Rax: 480 per minute
Ratio: 1630/500 (pretty decent)
2nds composition
Tanks (two factory) 400/334 per minute
Vikings (one port no reactor) 222/148 per minute
( remainder from above): 880 per minute
Ratio: 1502/482 (Excellent ratio)
Note that the compositions present hard counters to virtually anything in the protoss mid game, and gives you the flexibility to transition back and forth between Thors/Banshees and Tank/Viking with the click of a button.
I feel composition 1 works with any phoenix/Immortal builds and 2 works with heavy colossi/void builds, so vary your comp. as such. Upgrades might be a little light but two armories and one bay for early upgrades should give you enough balance for the early game. Never deviate from the ratios from above on two base.
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Hi, I am surprised about the cost of the upgrades in your table and why they are so very cheap.
i.e.
L1 Infantry 38 38
I am looking into the viability of a very early Eng Bay +"a critical upgrade" (matchup/BO responsive). Per Guide to critical upgrades
I am confused that another assessment of upgrades highlighted that they don't pay-off until like 20+ marines Forum link. However, based on real cost, does the viability of a very early Eng Bay pay off?
Ebay 214 0
L1 Infantry 38 38
Total 252, 38 for first.
if 1x Marine = 150 0 real cost, then that makes early Ebay (i.e. build @80g for immediate L1 upgrade) very attractive. Maybe I'm looking at this wrong.
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On March 19 2011 00:58 Griffith` wrote:
Why is this useful? Because income per base is normalized to per minute, ie. 2 base Terran averages an income of of ~1800 minerals and 456 gas per minute. Suppose there was a unit that costs 1500 minerals and 1500 gas but took an hour to build, is it "expensive"? nah. Same analogy goes for upgrades, they're actually really cheap, but just have a high "up-front" cost. Honest question here: what's the benefit of this table over something like the Terran Unit Production calculator?
In particular I think a table like this makes it hard to think about opportunity cost incurred by banking resources for expensive things like BCs or +3 upgrades, as well while you wait for those sort of things to build. Upgrades cost very little in terms of income, but they take ages to pay off. Plus, you need to have a certain number of units that benefit from the upgrade on the field for it to be a better investment than just getting more units. For example in terms of DPS, in a pure marine army, Attack+1 isn't a good investment until you have at least 28 marines, if not more. You'd be better off just making more marines.
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I think the data should be normalized to cost per food ratio, at least adding the food consumed per minute consumed. Even so, adding a table normalized with cost per minute per food, meaning we would get fractions of minutes relative to the "food consumed" in that time would actually show what you mean to say.
So a Marine is 2.4/min * 1 food * 50:0 minerals per minute, not accounting for supply depots. Then we just add in the cost of the Supply Depot. We can start comparing this to Marauders at 1.2/min * 2 food * 100:25 normalized for supply and then we can more accurately consider a unit's value.
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An interesting way of looking at the cost of things without a doubt, although you may be overthinking things a tad.
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My favorite part of this list?
With one Barracks, one Factory, one Starport, and one Reactor (on the Starport), you can spend almost the entire production of a saturated base.
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Edit: Actually, I think I'll just work out the rest of the numbers and save it for a post. I'm finding a lot of really interesting things and don't want to keep editing this every 5 minutes.
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On March 22 2011 23:46 Blamajama wrote:
I'd like to slightly revise my Terran two base vs Protoss composition. I find that, being Vikings are more gas intensive than Banshee per time, you need to save gas somewhere. Hence Tank/Viking (common in TvT) could be viable against toss and it would be equivalent in terms of gas to Banshee/Thor. Take the following compositions (note that I am not accounting for supply cost):
1st Composition
Banshees (one port): 150/100 per minute
Thors (Two Fact): 600/400 per minute
Reactored Fact: 400 per minute
Two reactored Rax: 480 per minute
Ratio: 1630/500 (pretty decent)
2nds composition
Tanks (two factory) 400/334 per minute
Vikings (one port no reactor) 222/148 per minute
( remainder from above): 880 per minute
Ratio: 1502/482 (Excellent ratio)
Note that the compositions present hard counters to virtually anything in the protoss mid game, and gives you the flexibility to transition back and forth between Thors/Banshees and Tank/Viking with the click of a button.
I feel composition 1 works with any phoenix/Immortal builds and 2 works with heavy colossi/void builds, so vary your comp. as such. Upgrades might be a little light but two armories and one bay for early upgrades should give you enough balance for the early game. Never deviate from the ratios from above on two base.
I think that your numbers are going to be too high for reality of two base play, at first u arent fully saturated, and you need to take into account all the depots you need to maintain that production and hopefully slip an upgrade or two in there.
May I suggest,
4xdepot
Thorx1
Banshee x2
marine x5 (avg12 marines/min)
total 1600/400
Transitions nicely out of a techlab/reactor opening - get a raven as the first unit out of the starport and do a big push between 15-20mins when appropriate, micro marines to stay behind thors if there are colossus
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Well to add some criticism
-> you explained why the costs are normalized and that is right, but I don't see any of your calculations i just see the results so it leaves me a little skeptical about your findings
-> your normalization is impractical because you base it around constant production in one minute of that unit (e.g. siege tank constant production, scv constant production ( 4x50=212?)
-The cost relative to you IPM (income per minute) of a terran unit actually decreases the more orbital commands you have on the field in the late game as you can call down mules, exchange locations on command centres, and save food and money on keeping worker counts minimal
User was warned for this post
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This is cool but pretty useless.
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Why did you necro this thread from over a year ago?
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im just facepalming at how people are not seeing that this is simply a thread discussing and giving examples of mining income rate vs production spending rate.
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Hello everyone i think the Ghost needs an update:
Min/Gas/Time/Supply
200/100/40s /2
Min/Gas/supply
300/150/3 per minute without supplydepotcosts
338/150/3 per minute with supplydepotcosts
hopefully i didnt mess up the math
Greeting everyone
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If it works for you its great but I think this is really bad, as an economist. Okay I won't be that hard to say its
really bad, I'll just say its very one-dimensional.
If you want to deal with the actual prize, just take the units for what they actually cost.
If you want to predict value as you are trying to do, you need to take into account more variables like for
example opportunity costs and budget constraints.
If you have 3 factories and those are occupied and committed to constant Thor production, what is
the opportunity cost of not producing Siege Tanks as you can't produce any Siege tanks if your
factories only make Thors? What is the opportunity cost of a Zerg committing all his larvae to unit X
instead of unit Y?
Or, even better, you're assuming infinity money. In reality, your budget is constrained
in early/mid game when you're only on 1-2 bases. A siege tank feels more expensive to you, when you
produce it at the 4 minute mark, but if you produce it at the 15 minute mark, a Siege Tank does not feel expensive
since you have a much larger bank then. Thats why Zergs have like 30+ Infestors (which are damn expensive) lategame
because the budget constraint loosens up as the game progresses and you get more bases, more income thus
units feel "cheaper" to you because of increased income + production capacity.
The budget constraint would be calculated in some way of the amount of income you get in from all your different expansions. What economists do is to put max consumption subjected to restricted income (utility maximization problem in microeconomics). What you do is to maximize consumption subjected to nothing. And even if you want to be so fancy to put up a utility-max problem of this, its still not enough because of another factor not considered which I will explain below:
A third factor you have not factored in is probably the most important one: units have values that are not reflected in their price.
Say a Sentry for example, it ridicoleusly expensive. But NOT having a few Sentries early game versus certain build orders particulary baneling busts from Zerg or 4-gates from Protoss, gives Sentry infinity value. They are so valuable that you loose the game if you don't have it. Conclusion: The price of a Sentry does not reflect its value, as it has infinity value if your opponent does a certain build order. Other examples: If you are a Zerg and have a DT in your base, Overseers have infinity value. If you don't have a DT in your base, you have map vision and play against an opponent who never does invis units, Overseer has value = 0. But the price of the Overseer is still the same, how come?
If you play P vs a Zerg who does Roach Hydra, then Colossi have really high value, worth more than they cost. If you play P vs a Zerg who goes Mutalisk, Colossi have value = 0. Yet Colossi always cost 300/200 nomatter what, so the price does not factor in the value of the unit in combat!
Short summary: What youre trying to do (imo) is to narrow down SCII build orders into a very one-dimensional framework, and what I'm trying to show is different examples of many variables that you have to consider, which your calculation ignores.
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EPT
