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[G] [D] Zerg Mineral Saturation - Page 9

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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SYNC_qx
Profile Joined October 2010
Germany197 Posts
May 07 2011 13:53 GMT
#161
Thanks Sheth really cool guide!
Shucks!
Profile Joined November 2010
United States118 Posts
May 07 2011 13:57 GMT
#162
What an incredibly useful tool.

I can't wait for people to complain "wall-of-text, tl;dr," because I really don't want zergs to have a better idea of what I'm doing = )
"Do not look into the eyes of a horse, for the void there will swallow your soul" - LiquidTyler on SotG 12.14.10
Spaceboy
Profile Joined February 2011
United Kingdom220 Posts
May 07 2011 15:09 GMT
#163
Thanks Sheth, this guide should really help me out :D
I am terrible at this game!
BombaySensei
Profile Joined March 2011
United States282 Posts
May 07 2011 15:23 GMT
#164
Wow, I really enjoyed reading that writeup, and the mule math got me thinking a bit more about gold bases and mule supersaturation. This is a bit of rambling at the start, but I hope I make my point by the end. Now, not including mule supersaturation, if we go by the 42-43 minerals/min for 1 worker per blue mineral patch, then the income should be 1.4x (7 min/trip vs 5) that per patch for gold, however, there are only 0.75x the number of gold vs. blue mineral patches, so, just using scvs, fully saturated blue vs fully saturated gold is only:

42-43 min/min x 1.4 x 0.75 = 44.1-45.1 (5% increase)

So when Sheth writes: "Its 36 mining on 1 2/5 bases. So let’s do a little bit of math here. 36 x 1 2/5 is 36 + (3.6x4) 14.4 so its 50.4 workers."

Lets say the terran has the gold fully saturated (18 scv and... 4 mules? 5? 36 worker equivalents here would be 4.5 mules average, which i don't think the terran can constantly mine from that many mules in most cases). If you compare that to a fully saturated blue with same number of mules, though:
24 scv + 4.5x4 = 42 (so taking the gold is a 20% boost at this level of mule mining (4.5))
With only 2 mule average though, it becomes [18 + (2x4)]x1.4 = 36.4 worker equivalent on the gold, vs [24 + (2x4)] = 32 on the fully saturated blue, or a 14% increase.
With only one mule, the worker equivalents are 30.8/28 for gold/blue (10% increase exactly).

So, to summarize that, fully saturated gold vs. blue with:

0 mule: 5% boost vs. blue base (so this is the level that Z and P would mine at on a gold)
1 mule: +10%
2 mule: +14%
4.5 mule: +20%

I think most terran will be able to average 2+ mules mining from a gold, which is usually a third base or even later. So, if you are not terran, even if you take your own gold base, you will be behind on mineral income, by around 10%, maybe more depending on exactly how many mules the terran is mining off of.

For P and Z, with gold bases generally being harder to defend, is the 5% increase really worth it? Yes a gold takes less workers to saturate, but mid-game to late-game, unless you've lost a lot of workers, you should be able to saturate a blue base anyway. As Sheth said, gold isn't all that enticing for protoss anyway, because of how gas thirsty they are. I suppose it's fine for zerg, if it can be defended, although zergs are pretty gas-loving themselves. But it seems like gold base benefits terran more, not only because they can mine the gold faster than Z/P, but also because their armies are so mineral intensive.
EE-God, our Dono and Savior (also our sensei)
keeperton
Profile Joined December 2010
United States233 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-08 09:56:29
May 08 2011 06:30 GMT
#165
I made these awhile back. I have the tables if people me to put them on a drop
Sorry if there's any ambiguity, I got annoyed with Excel slowing my laptop down so much and kind of just gave up. The x-axis is number of workers and the y-axis is minerals mined in a minute. I did this on Steppes of War's expansion location and the gold was done on the same map's gold expansion.
[image loading]
[image loading]
I used a logarithmic trendline because I figured there's an upper limit where eventually the number of workers no longer matters, but I didn't really feel it was necessary to figure out the number.
CakeOrI)eath
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States327 Posts
May 08 2011 10:32 GMT
#166
On May 05 2011 03:11 kawaiiryuko wrote:
Sheth,

Thanks for the great post! Does your strategy change for Terrans if your calculations assume fewer gold mineral patches (AFAIK, most gold bases have 6 mineral patches, not 8)? How does that adjust your drone-count for bases?

I usually stick to mining 3 bases (approximately 66 drones) vs. any 2-base play. I'm having a slightly hard time reading your scale but I think you mean something like:

      If your opponent has:      Then you should have:

      12-16 (1 base)                   16-24 (1 base)
      16-20 (1 base)                   24 (1 base) or 8-12 (2 base)
      24 (1 base)                        8-16 (2 base)
      8-12 (2 base)                     12-20 (2 base)
      12-16 (2 base)                   16-24 (2 base) or 8-12 (3 base)
      24 (2 base)                        8-16 (3 base)

and so on.

Is that accurate? (I like tables. :D)


Here is my interpretation of a table for this:
[image loading]

Hopefully that's not too hard to read.

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
shinarit
Profile Joined May 2010
Hungary900 Posts
May 08 2011 17:21 GMT
#167
"These expansion are GOLD, and as we know Terrans like shiny things. Our goal is to keep them away from shiny things."

Loled at this.
Also, nice write, didnt find error yet, but im noob, so whatever. Will try to look out for these
T for BoxeR, Z for IdrA, P because i have no self-respect
jazzbassmatt
Profile Joined August 2010
United States566 Posts
May 08 2011 17:37 GMT
#168
On May 08 2011 19:32 CakeOrI)eath wrote:
Show nested quote +
On May 05 2011 03:11 kawaiiryuko wrote:
Sheth,

Thanks for the great post! Does your strategy change for Terrans if your calculations assume fewer gold mineral patches (AFAIK, most gold bases have 6 mineral patches, not 8)? How does that adjust your drone-count for bases?

I usually stick to mining 3 bases (approximately 66 drones) vs. any 2-base play. I'm having a slightly hard time reading your scale but I think you mean something like:

      If your opponent has:      Then you should have:

      12-16 (1 base)                   16-24 (1 base)
      16-20 (1 base)                   24 (1 base) or 8-12 (2 base)
      24 (1 base)                        8-16 (2 base)
      8-12 (2 base)                     12-20 (2 base)
      12-16 (2 base)                   16-24 (2 base) or 8-12 (3 base)
      24 (2 base)                        8-16 (3 base)

and so on.

Is that accurate? (I like tables. :D)


Here is my interpretation of a table for this:
[image loading]

Hopefully that's not too hard to read.



That table makes a lot more visual sense!
Ender79
Profile Joined December 2010
United States8 Posts
May 08 2011 17:48 GMT
#169
Sheth, just want to add to the list of people thanking you for posting this! As a gold zerg, it has definitely honed my skills on judging when to power-drone and when to pump units, and by doing so, has already won me a few games I would have certainly lost before reading this post.

Between your safe, solid play, your instructive posts, your MrBitters appearances, and your exceedingly professional manners (which I *very* highly value), you are my new favorite zerg pro!
lorestarcraft
Profile Joined April 2011
United States1049 Posts
May 08 2011 18:02 GMT
#170
(As I’m writing this something hilarious is happening next to me. There is this little old lady with her hair dyed orange and a regular library worker trying to help her. She is having problems on the library computer she can’t get on her mail ID. It is a yahoo mail account. She is telling the worker that the library computers are not allowing her onto her mail ID. She expects this worker to know HER password and to know her ACCOUNT. She KEEPS telling him “nono I have it all written down here”. She thinks it’s HIS fault that she doesn’t remember her password correctly. It is rather hilarious lol (Also upon re-reading somewhat mean). This has been going on for like 3 minutes in that lovely recorder sort of setting. She says the same thing and he replies No I do not know how to get on this, it is your personal account not the libraries and she simply states “see I have the password written down right here, but I can’t get on. LOL its great!)


I work in a library and I have to deal with this constantly, is SO FRUSTRATING!!!

As a protoss I can attest as to what Sheth is saying here. Much of my deception when I play vs. zerg has to do with sentries, whether I show them are not, and denying scouting. If the zerg makes the wrong decision they are usually toast.
SC2 Mapmaker
hugman
Profile Joined June 2009
Sweden4644 Posts
May 08 2011 22:47 GMT
#171
"2-16 saturation < 16-20 saturation < 24 saturation 8-12 saturation on 2 bases< 12-16 saturation on 2 bases < 16-20 saturation on 2 bases < 24 saturation on 2 bases < 14-16 saturation on 3 bases and so forth…"

Such a long sentence.. hard to read
Did you forget a "<" between "24 saturation" and "8-12 saturation"?
CakeOrI)eath
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
United States327 Posts
May 09 2011 03:48 GMT
#172
On May 09 2011 07:47 hugman wrote:
"2-16 saturation < 16-20 saturation < 24 saturation 8-12 saturation on 2 bases< 12-16 saturation on 2 bases < 16-20 saturation on 2 bases < 24 saturation on 2 bases < 14-16 saturation on 3 bases and so forth…"

Such a long sentence.. hard to read
Did you forget a "<" between "24 saturation" and "8-12 saturation"?


No, he didn't forget a "<". What that means is that 1base with 24 drones is equal to 2bases with 8-12 drones each. 8-12 + 8-12 is 16-24 but since they are more spread out they will mine a little bit faster than they would off 1 base so its on a similar income level with one base 20-24 drones.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
AT_Tack
Profile Joined February 2010
Germany435 Posts
Last Edited: 2011-05-09 10:11:22
May 09 2011 10:00 GMT
#173
i really appreciate the effort sheth but this definetly needs better structure. having to read a sentence for 2-3 times to actually understand it, doesnt make a very interesting read.


Edit:
Another thing that struck my mind while reading through some replies:
how the fuck am i to count / estimate the opponents workers?
while scouting i get like 1 second to look at his mineral lines before my scout dies. I know i cant box his workers to count them so i only can anticipate.

So only thing i can work with in a game is:

vespene geysers
low saturation or high saturation
ZedraC
Profile Joined February 2011
South Africa109 Posts
May 09 2011 12:50 GMT
#174
I am not sure I understand this whole concept correctly.

Maybe it is since I am a low level player, and mostly play vs people also low level, who are not too concerned about timings, worker counts and "how many sentries" he needs to do "X", but rather basic macro macro macro. A move. Win/Lose. Bleh.

So the reason for me posting here is purely to "bookmark" this for myself for a later stage when i may start to understand this and grasp it better. I need to walk first before running.

If one day I understand it better I will edit the post saying how it helped me if it ever does.
"What am I supposed to build to kill the things that look like giant dung beetles that eventually show up?" - beginner on battlenet forums. LMAO
willidynamit
Profile Joined April 2011
United States2 Posts
May 09 2011 13:57 GMT
#175
Great read thanks Sheth!
Balls out!
a176
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Canada6688 Posts
May 09 2011 19:02 GMT
#176
dear zerg experts,

why not attempt saturation based on larva production rate of 6 larva every 40seconds (2 hatch spawn'd + queen inject)?
starleague forever
lowsian
Profile Joined February 2011
Malaysia10 Posts
May 10 2011 06:17 GMT
#177
This is an awesome guide for new zerg players, gonna recommend this to my bronze zergys =)
Zerg is fun and cute XD
Kaminoan
Profile Joined August 2010
Chile25 Posts
May 11 2011 02:57 GMT
#178
Thx Sheth, great guide. I was poking at the article before I heard it on Mr. Bitter's next 12 weeks ZvT (only just started to watch it today on youtube). Thx again!
Macro, macro, macro macro, micro, macro, macro, macro, macro, micro, macro...
theMiNUS
Profile Joined January 2011
United States333 Posts
May 11 2011 13:25 GMT
#179
i've lost so many games because of overdroning... and then i started to cut back on drones, but lost because of a worse economy... i've never known, before now, when to cut drones based on my opponents economy, but now i do... thanks Sheth
not idly do the leaves of lorien fall...
nanoscorp
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
United States1237 Posts
May 11 2011 16:23 GMT
#180
Is there any value in estimating the duration of mining any given level of saturation can support? 12000 / (minerals/minute) is a rough estimate, but at different worker counts we'll see different patches dry up first. At 16 workers over 8 standard patches, the close ones will go first. At around 20, with 3 settling on far patches, I think those will disappear. (Sorry this is pure theorycraft, don't have SC2 on this machine to check replays etc.)

I ask, because it feels like some players cut their expo timings really close. I've seen T especially, oversaturating 1 or 2 bases, dropping to 0 income for a minute, then getting back in a game with a CC that isn't scouted immediately. I think pros understand the need to keep expanding, and keep tabs on their opponent's econ, but would it help to *know* that an opponent is going to lose half his income in a 2-3 minute window based on initial scouting and expo timing? 2x(12-16) vs 24+2 OCs worth of MULEs is close in terms of mineral income, but the 2 base player has significantly longer before patches start getting mined out.
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