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[G]Worker Splitting & Improving Mining efficiency - Page 6

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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bashalisk
Profile Joined September 2010
102 Posts
April 16 2011 05:59 GMT
#101
Excellent & informative post. Contrary to the 2-sentence F1-split evangelists, right?
Dommk
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia4865 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-16 06:30:13
April 16 2011 06:25 GMT
#102
Due to chronoboost, this makes a big difference for Protoss compared to other races. If you do it well, you can do chrono boosts as if you were 12scouting with a 9scout, as well being able to chrono your nexus quicker if your 12/13 scouting.
Zerg-Master
Profile Joined January 2011
United States38 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-16 06:31:29
April 16 2011 06:30 GMT
#103
I'm gonna kind of be the negative one here. I do this every game, and when I am doing something like a 7 pool, I make sure that all my workers are mining efficiently. In that scenario, it seems like this technique would have the most effect, since there aren't as many workers, but to be totally honest I never notice a difference.

I have been slacking off recently at the beginning of games, and I never notice having less minerals. Going back to the 7 pool, I almost always have the exact same amount of minerals when the pool pops, regardless of whether I forced my drones to the close patches.

I would love to see some data on this though. From my personal, subjective experience, though, it seems negligible at best.

Also, worker splitting has been proven to be worthless for a long time (unless there's some new developments or something): http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=129010
Dommk
Profile Joined May 2010
Australia4865 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-16 06:54:54
April 16 2011 06:54 GMT
#104
On April 16 2011 15:30 Zerg-Master wrote:
I'm gonna kind of be the negative one here. I do this every game, and when I am doing something like a 7 pool, I make sure that all my workers are mining efficiently. In that scenario, it seems like this technique would have the most effect, since there aren't as many workers, but to be totally honest I never notice a difference.

I have been slacking off recently at the beginning of games, and I never notice having less minerals. Going back to the 7 pool, I almost always have the exact same amount of minerals when the pool pops, regardless of whether I forced my drones to the close patches.

I would love to see some data on this though. From my personal, subjective experience, though, it seems negligible at best.

Also, worker splitting has been proven to be worthless for a long time (unless there's some new developments or something): http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=129010

I don't think it actually matters if you aren't Protoss TBH, Protoss gain a lot from this as they can use their Chronoboost much earlier than normally, thus there is a noticeable effect on economy and timings.
Terranist
Profile Blog Joined March 2009
United States2496 Posts
April 16 2011 06:57 GMT
#105
not trying to debunk your thread but many facets of whitera's early game macro is really suspect compared to MC.

quite a lot of people do mineral stack on ladder. i started practicing using scout probe to screw up their stack and make workers bounce.
The Show of a Lifetime
TrANCE,
Profile Joined December 2010
301 Posts
April 16 2011 08:34 GMT
#106
And don't forget to start your probe first...
askTeivospy
Profile Blog Joined March 2011
1525 Posts
April 16 2011 08:52 GMT
#107
Like I said before, does the OP want to supply actual proof via replays with resource scores from doing a build up to like 6 minutes with both stacking and not stacking? I've been doing this and there are no differences when I try it.

Otherwise doing this has as much value as spamming solely to increase your game apm
hihihi
DarKFoRcE
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
Germany1215 Posts
April 16 2011 10:12 GMT
#108
Nice guide. I was actually thinking about writing similar to this a few days ago :D. This is exactly how i've been doing it for some time, but it is so hard to really pull it off, as workers randomly run away from double cloned patches quite often :/.

If you watch for example MCs PvPs, you will notice that he is very good at stack mining, which makes his build like 1-2 seconds faster (for example MC vs san (or anypro.. not sure) on tal darim)
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/PinDarKFoRcE
TigerKarl
Profile Joined November 2010
1757 Posts
April 16 2011 10:50 GMT
#109
It is absolutely true that these techniques are a small improvement in a phase, where there is no crucial need for apm anyways. But what would make your post even better would be a calculation like 10 tries without these techniques and 10 tries with them, so we have average numbers how much of an effect this really has.
Mazer
Profile Joined April 2008
Canada1086 Posts
April 16 2011 18:14 GMT
#110
On April 16 2011 17:34 TrANCE, wrote:
And don't forget to start your probe first...


Wouldn't sending 6 guys to mine a fraction of a second sooner be better than getting that first probe out to mine a fraction of a second faster?

That's always been my train of thought.
Markwerf
Profile Joined March 2010
Netherlands3728 Posts
April 16 2011 23:21 GMT
#111
I don't think there is a big benefit to 'stack mining' before you get 8 workers. The random pulling away from patches being double mined leads to more loss in mining time sometimes then gain from doubling up gets you at times.

The most stable way to micro your workers imo that is quite effective is imo:
- do some worker split first, 3 by 3 or 5 by 1 whatever
- make sure to mine from the close patches right away, then fill up the rest
- double up on the close patches after the first 8 patches.

Doubling up too early hardly has any extra benefits over this method, is way more random and you shouldn't prioritize probe micro over some more important things, such as starting your pylon exactly at 100 minerals (way more important then doubling up).
michaelhasanalias
Profile Joined May 2010
Korea (South)1231 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-17 10:06:42
April 17 2011 10:04 GMT
#112
to OP:

I'd like to add a further (minimal) tip to your post...

When you split as you recommend, the first worker carrying minerals back will be the one mining from the furthest patch. As such, you can click that one from each set of 3 and rally him to the middle patches. After 2 carries you can stack him without income loss on the closest patches.

It's not efficient to force close stacking from your original six until after the 3rd carries of your far-mining drones, but if you mine one far-carry and two med-carries, it will be that much faster.

Granted this is not game-changing, but it is 100% an improvement over the standard of either not moving it at all, splitting differently (way worse), or forcing earlier close stacks. Also, the APM requirement during this time is at 6 supply, so you literally have absolutely nothing to do with your APM.


Thanks for posting this. I was going to write something like this but never had the desire to do so, and I think you did a better job than I could have done.
KR NsPMichael.805 | AM Michael.2640 | SEA Michael.523 | 엔에스피 New Star Players
PanzerPony
Profile Joined April 2011
85 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-04-17 14:01:39
April 17 2011 13:52 GMT
#113
I have been trying to do this for awhile after I noticed pros do it I struggled to find much info though, so big kudos to OP!

One problem which I encountered is that "vigorously right-clicking" the mineral patch on some maps (Metalopolis 3rd and 6th patches e.g.) results in worker bouncing eventually. I use a different method described by Zelniq: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=188721#15 which i call stop-trick for those patches. I would like to ask those who figured out how to pair up workers: does it always work for you if you do it like OP suggests, or do you use some other tricks for some maps and patches? Any suggestions are appreciated!

My first post on TL
BigJoe
Profile Joined January 2011
United States210 Posts
April 17 2011 14:35 GMT
#114
this is very useful as i miss being able to do the "sock folding" method. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=156578
azn_dude1
Profile Joined October 2010
162 Posts
April 17 2011 15:13 GMT
#115
Does anybody have some actual numbers to how much more this gives? I understand that it's something to do in the early game and it's a small edge over your opponent, but I'd be interested to know how much.

Side note, once you get to 16 workers, this doesn't matter, but this could get you to 16 workers faster.
michaelhasanalias
Profile Joined May 2010
Korea (South)1231 Posts
April 18 2011 00:17 GMT
#116
On April 18 2011 00:13 azn_dude1 wrote:
Does anybody have some actual numbers to how much more this gives? I understand that it's something to do in the early game and it's a small edge over your opponent, but I'd be interested to know how much.

Side note, once you get to 16 workers, this doesn't matter, but this could get you to 16 workers faster.


Once you get to 12 workers it doesn't matter (assuming you doubled up efficiently).

Otherwise you can get to 18 without doubling the all close patches if you leave it to the worker AI.


My advice is go to a map like XNC (bottom if you're zerg) which has the prototype layout, then run "no micro" versus "full perfect worker micro" and do some basic opener.

You'll find you can gain upwards of 8-10 seconds over split, and upwards of 15 seconds over box+rally and herpderpAPMspam.

This isn't 8-10 seconds that dissolves over time, it's 8-10 seconds that stays with you the entire game.

If you're doing a 6:00 push and you've done the build 100 times and it's perfect, but you always boxed your workers and rallied them to the middle patch and never micro'd them, you can easily do that exact same push at ~5:50.

The mineral advantage suffers exponential decay as you approach 16-18 workers, but the time advantage stays with you throughout the entire game.
KR NsPMichael.805 | AM Michael.2640 | SEA Michael.523 | 엔에스피 New Star Players
ZeromuS
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
Canada13389 Posts
April 18 2011 00:32 GMT
#117
On April 16 2011 19:12 DarKFoRcE wrote:
Nice guide. I was actually thinking about writing similar to this a few days ago :D. This is exactly how i've been doing it for some time, but it is so hard to really pull it off, as workers randomly run away from double cloned patches quite often :/.

If you watch for example MCs PvPs, you will notice that he is very good at stack mining, which makes his build like 1-2 seconds faster (for example MC vs san (or anypro.. not sure) on tal darim)


There's a way to use the rally points to hit timings where the spawned probe will double up on a patch and not bounce away. Though the rally point method only begins to be useful at probe number 9 iirc. I'll need to actually post here the rally orders and timings but it is specific to protoss as chronoboost allows the timings to let you hit auto mineral patch doubling on the closer patches. Wont have time until wednesday though to actually write down properly what I am trying to explain.
StrategyRTS forever | @ZeromuS_plays | www.twitch.tv/Zeromus_
shadowboxer
Profile Joined November 2010
United States224 Posts
April 18 2011 09:10 GMT
#118
On April 13 2011 07:09 Rhyme wrote:

+ Show Spoiler +
On April 13 2011 07:04 Badfatpanda wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 13 2011 05:42 tehemperorer wrote:
It really only matters in PvP in my opinion, and even then, it factors in to about .01% of the whole game. It has been discussed to death, however. Here's an example of my split that I believe is the best way to do it, but isn't optimal on ST, TDAltar, or SPlateau because of the mineral patch locations:

http://www.justin.tv/tehemperorer/b/282593761 jump to 40 seconds, split is at 45

My opinion is that it is better to occupy all mineral patches before doubling up, since if you make a mistake you have drifting probes which equal no mining at all. I prefer in this case to play it safe and not lose mining time from the beginning of the game.


I find that it is equally useful in Terran MUs because of the need for workers to be away from mining to build, it gives a bit of an edge when you can squeeze a bit more out of your early game.



it's not just PvP; for Zerg (as someone mentioned) the faster you can hit 50 minerals in the early game, the faster you can make drones. with proper stacking i can make 2 drones at the same time after my 9 ovie spawns, with too much bouncing i have to wait a second or two between the drones. it's not a big deal, but as cecile mentioned, it's best to practice good habits!


Just curious but you should be able to do this anyway unless you're 9 drone scouting. Perhaps this allows you to get the 2 drones simultaneously with the 9 drone scout, but without it you should be getting this benefit anyway.
"Hear that? That's God laughing at your plans."
Albrithe
Profile Joined February 2011
Canada187 Posts
April 18 2011 12:34 GMT
#119
The time that this removes from my openings is amazing. All of my builds feel incredibly more fluid with no weird pauses where I throw down a building and can't QUITE afford a worker (most notably 15th probe after 13gate/14assimilator with chronoboosts at 11 and 13).
"You don't need a condom... to get up on 'dem..." -Zach Weiner
Shmonzi
Profile Joined September 2010
Israel45 Posts
April 18 2011 15:46 GMT
#120
imo, the best way to split is like this: if you're familiar with the F1 key and it's functions, you know that with each click you move to a different probe that is idle, a probe that is doing nothing.

The actual method to split:

so, if you would like to split faster, as any race, you will hold the S/E/S+D key to make a worker, and after that you will click CTRL+F1, and what this will do is box all your probes, because they are doing nothing, and you will be free to split as explained in this thread.
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