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Please note that all time noted will be in-game-time, and does not account for gas mining (which is largely build specific). Also I accidentally titled this as [G] when I meant [D]
Introduction
+ Show Spoiler +I have often seen questions referring to how one should transfer workers. Common arguments are:
#1: Transfer half of your workers
#2: Transfer all but 16 of your workers (so there is 2 workers per patch) and then send all new workers to your new base until you reach maximum saturation
#3: Leave maximum saturation on one base (24 workers) and only send new workers to the new expansion.
Most pros follow case #1 or #2 nearly exclusively and only follow #3 under rare circumstance.
Analysis
+ Show Spoiler +One thing to consider is different maps have different mineral field placements and orientations. I will be basing my study on common mineral field placements (such that can be found on Xel Naga for example).
First off, lets define the amount of minerals one gains from various worker numbers on 1 base. One worker will bring in 40-45 minerals per minute depending on which patch it is mining. It takes 5 seconds (slightly more time actually, however, for simplicity’s sake, we will say 5 seconds) for it to bring in a batch of minerals (5 minerals). A base with 6 workers brings in about 260 minerals per minute, approximately 43 per worker. A base 16 workers will bring in 660 minerals every minute, 41 per worker. A base with 24 workers will bring about 800 minerals per minute, 33 minerals per worker. There are also some multibase numbers that I’ll talk about later.
One of the major things to consider about worker transfers is the amount of mining time lost during the transfer. In the long run of the game, the total mining time lost will be equal no matter if you follow 1, 2 or 3. If you send half of your workers (we’ll presume that is 12) at the same time, the mining loss time will be (T÷5) * 5 or just T * A (where T represents the time it takes to transfer and A represents the number of workers you are transferring).
This means that presuming a 25 second transfer time, if we send 8 workers, the lost mining time is worth about 200 minerals. We lose 8 minerals per second. On the other hand if we use method 3 and only send new workers, presuming we send 8 workers over the course of say 2 minutes, the total mining time lost is still worth 200 minerals, however, we aren’t losing those 200 minerals at once, we are losing those 200 minerals over the course of 2 minutes (or 1.6 minerals per second).
If we follow case #2 we will lose 200 minerals of mining time over the course of 25 seconds. However, once those probes have transferred, we are mining 960 minerals per minute (8 workers on the natural, 16 in the main) as opposed to 800 minerals per minute. It will take 1.25 minutes after the transfer to make up for the transfer.
If we build 24 workers and then follow case #1 we will lose 300 minerals of mining time over the course of 25 seconds (12 minerals per second). However, 2 bases operating with 12 workers each will receive an average of 1020 minerals per minute. It will take 1.36 minutes to make up for lost mining time (.11 minutes [6 seconds] longer recovery than case #2). However, once we have recovered, we receive a greater income (we receive 60 more minerals in case #1 than in case #2).
Conclusion
+ Show Spoiler +
So, what does all of this mean? There are only two types of transfer that you should make. Case #3, transferring no workers initially and rallying both bases to your natural (although I do recommend transferring workers eventually) and case #1 (transferring half of your workers).
The advantages to case #3 would be in a intense position or matchup in which you are not sure if you are safe. By not transferring your workers initially, you are making more money for 1.25 to 1.36 minutes until you lose money. That means 3 more zealots, 6 more pairs of lings or marines.
The advantages to case #1 is that you will make the most money in the long term. However, it will take 81 seconds to gain an advantage. After those 81 seconds you make 220 more minerals in the next minute than you would in case #3. EDIT: Make sure to see michaelhasanalias's argument, as he debates case #1 and suggests that case #2 is a more safe way to transfer workers.
Case #2 provides a 6 second short term advantage to #1 and a smaller long term advantage than #1 making it essentially useless. Since it still takes 1.25 minutes to recover, it isn’t good for very intense positions, and because it isn’t as good in the long run, there is no reason to use it in place of case #1. EDIT: Make sure to see michaelhasanalias's argument, as he debates case #1 and suggests that case #2 is a more safe way to transfer workers.
Late expansions
The later the expansion is, the less faults case #1 has. Since you don't gain an economic advantage from having more than 24 workers on a base due to exessive bouncing, and the more workers you have on a base increases how often worker bouncing occurs, the more workers you have, the less money you lose during the transfer under case #1. One of the things that this means, is if you are in a situation where you must follow case #3, you can transfer all but 24 workers without any economic damage to you.
Fast expansions
In fast expansions transferring is extremely strategic. There are different goals with transferring, and because of this I can't give you a true recommendation of which case to follow if you are fast expanding. Some things to remember though are:
a) Sometimes you transfer workers in an fe build to help defend early pressure
b) Earlier in the game minerals are more important, so the loss of transferring will hit you harder
c) There is less worker bouncing if there are less workers, so the incentive to transfer large amounts of workers is less than with normal or later expansions.
Vespene gas
ISTime pointed out some variations with gas that should be mentioned. Gas is highly build dependent and the way you need it changes the best worker transfer. Optimum reactions change if you expand without gas, expand with 1 gas at your main, expand with both gas, expand because you need more gas, etc, etc, etc.
Unfortunately I am unable to get as many hard numbers because it is so build dependent, however, here are some considerations with gas. If you take all of your gasses in your main and you also need to take the gasses at your natural while you transfer, it is better to transfer half of your workers + 6 so that you can instantaneously occupy your gas.
On the other hand, if you want to take a moderately timed third gas, then it is better to transfer half of your workers and then rally both bases to your natural for one production cycle, and then rally both bases back to their own mineral patches. You can then proceed to do that again if/when you need another gas.
The time that you need gas and expand greatly change how the optimum transfer for gas mining works as well.
Anyways, this isn't the *most* important issue, however I have seen different people say different things, I have seen different arguments for different worker transfers, however, I hadn’t seen any arguments with evidence to back it up. Hopefully this provides some insight, helps some people out, and provides you a slight macro edge.
Further thoughts
+ Show Spoiler +
This is just some more concepts and my own personal thoughts.
Which case I suggest
In my opinion #1 is the best way to transfer workers, there is no instance where you should be using #2, and #3 should be used rarely if you think you are going to die soon. EDIT: I may suggest #2 for now, I am going to run more tests later on, please see michaelhasanalias's posts.
[b]Worker bouncing/b]
If 2 workers are mining the same patch, there is a slight offset in mining times. As they both mine this offset grows (due to varying distances from the mineral patch to the base). A very over exaggerated example: Suppose it takes 4 seconds for a probe to collect minerals. The travel time from the patch to the base and back to the patch is 6 seconds. There is a 1 second offset that causes the probe mining time difference to become greater over time until both probes accidentally try to mine at the same time. Eventually one of the probes will mine that patch, and the other probe will go to a different mineral patch. This causes you to lose a small bit of mining time.
Notes
I have tested each case mentioned in this post in game to make sure the numbers align correctly. For me they have lined up, theoretically michaelhasanalias's numbers (which he does have more accurate constants than the ones I used [I must admit I may have over simplified several points]
Long term thoughts
There is also one other thing to consider. By transfering half of your workers instead of a smaller amount, then you will be able to mine out of your main base longer (meaning you will need to take a faster fourth, but you will be getting minerals from your main longer).
Zerg
The issue of transfering becomes much more complex with zerg. As a zerg player you will expand sooner (often times the expansion will be considered a fe of sorts) and you have the ability to make multiple workers at once (which will change the way you want to transfer a bit). I suggest reading the Fast expansion section of the conclusion which is the closest I come to a definitive answer for zerg.
I might do another post on zerg transferring and droning sometime if I get the chance and some thoughts of interest occur to me.
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have you tested this ingame or is it just mathematical calculation
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I have done tests in game and done the calculations for it.
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Dominican Republic913 Posts
so i short term is better to transfer half of your workers, in case u dont sense any danger?
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No, in short term it is better to not transfer any workers, however, in long term (although better put, longer term as 1.36 minutes isn't very far off) it is better to transfer half of your workers
The advantages to case #1 is that you will make the most money in the long term. However, it will take 81 seconds to gain an advantage. After those 81 seconds you make 220 more minerals in the next case than you would in case #3.
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This is great, thanks<3!
One of the things that's been on my mind for awhile is how many workers I should transfer ^^
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Are you sure? I was pretty sure #2 was optimal, but you rally new workers from main to new base only till there's 16 workers on minerals, then rally main back to own minerals.
1k master toss here.
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On September 19 2011 07:37 Nostrada wrote:
Are you sure? I was pretty sure #2 was optimal, but you rally new workers from main to new base only till there's 16 workers on minerals, then rally main back to own minerals.
1k master toss here.
I was under that opinion also, however, because workers will eventually behave stupidly and bounce off a mineral patch due to mining inconsistencies, if you have equal probes on both bases instead of more on one and less on the other, you wind up making more money. (which is why its better to send half to nat and leave half in main).
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i m a master zerg one eu server and normaly i use #2, because u get more money for more drones. but i never made the calculation
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i always do #3, i hate not having money for even 2 seconds
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Zerg becomes a complex issue due to the diference in droning mechanics compared to terran/toss worker production. While the analysis holds true, the conclusion may not depending on your play style. It's very heavily dependent on your play style with zerg (although at some point I may do some droning calculations also).
Also @ radiantshadow92, I recommend #1. #3 will leave you with a large macro disadvantage in longer term games.
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This just doesn't make any sense to me. You lose more mining time earlier if you send half of your workers right away and don't gain anything compared to #2. 16 workers still mine at the optimal rate.
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#1 should be optimal. The reduced rally times after transfer make it so that the mining gets achieved earlier. However estimating a correct saturation point and siphoning off oversaturation of workers to transfer to the next further base should prove to be the flaw in application of this method.
That being said #2 is the better ingame application of worker transfer, because Oversaturation is not optimal; Some builds cut workers (better for this build) at certain points in the game and this style of rally better prepares you for it. Also, the natural's workers should be closer to the next base's minerals because you've been rallying them out (and oversaturating that line).
Also, maximum saturation has never been 24 workers. It's always been a number between 16-24 depending on the number of long and middle patches in that particular mineral field. I understand though that your testing cannot show this considering the randomness of crappy mineral patch designing by Blizzard; however if you can ideally identify perfect diminishing saturation levels (i.e. how many workers can fully saturate a mineral line, over the efficient mining number of 16, and transfer the rest) then you shouldn't be losing mining whenever you transfer (+ double rally to next mineral line).
Is my understanding wrong?
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You noted that as a base fills up with works, their individual efficiencies decrease. When you transfer all at once, you bump up each worker's efficiency, which you did not take into account. You need some experimental data if you're going to make any conclusions from this.
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I used to do #2 until I saw HuK do #1 consistently on stream
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On September 19 2011 07:47 Nostrada wrote:
This just doesn't make any sense to me. You lose more mining time earlier if you send half of your workers right away and don't gain anything compared to #2. 16 workers still mine at the optimal rate.
This is explained in my conclusion. You make 60 workers more in case 1 than case 2.
In theory you wouldn't make any more money since both bases have (<=16) workers. In practice though, workers don't mine perfectly. Eventually an inconsistancy occurs which causes a worker to 'bounce' to a different mineral patch (due to another probe mining). The number of bounces that occur will change depending on how many workers are operating per patch.
If there are 8 workers and each one is mining one patch, there will be no bouncing. If there are 12 workers there will be a *small* amount of bouncing. If there are 16 workers, there is still a relatively small amount of bouncing, but a larger amount than if there was 12 workers. As it turns out, the bouncing in a base with 16 workers is great enough to make it so if you have 2 bases, 16 workers in one and 8 in the other, you will make less money than if you put 12 workers at both bases.
On September 19 2011 07:51 kiero wrote:
You noted that as a base fills up with works, their individual efficiencies decrease. When you transfer all at once, you bump up each worker's efficiency, which you did not take into account. You need some experimental data if you're going to make any conclusions from this.
I did take that into account (as you will note I state that transferring half of your workers is more efficient than transferring less workers [and I give numbers too]. I will add in a section explaining this a little bit more though and giving a couple more numbers.
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I was actually wondering about this today, it looks like case #1 is the best way to go, thanks for the information.
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It all depends on how many workers you have at your main when your expo done and a bunch of other factors. It is good practice to maintain sufficient saturation without wasting probes so rallying to the next base after 16 workers is good. But, if you don't take a 3rd for a while, this will end up having over saturation at the nat which means you will have to arbitrarily check the saturation there and divide workers later, or stop production of workers once both ahave 16 on mins and you aren't planning on expanding.
On the other hand, if you have low worker count when the expansion finishes, like an ffe or hatch first, it obviously doesn't make sense to have diminishing returns on workers in your main while you can add workers to the nat without diminishing returns so simply sending half would be fine. This, however, could lead to random saturation at both and when you are maynarding to your 3rd, you will have to arbitrarily check the saturations of the lines at the main and natural and then transfer accordingly instead of taking all of the excess at your nat and simply sending them over.
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I haven't had time to double check your calculations, I will when I get home but I think you'll find that number #2 is optimal.
At the end of it all, drones 0-16 earn 40 mins / min, drones 17 - 24 earn 20 mins / min due to saturation issues. You need a combination of earning the optimal amount of minerals per worker as soon as possible. If you transfer workers, you loose some efficiency in the transfer time, so you shouldn't transfer unless there is a benefit.
Let's say we have 24 drones mining at a base, it's worth transferring 8 as your changing 8 drones @ 20/min to 8 drones @ 40/min. If move half your drones you're simply changing the extra 4 from 40/min to 40/min with lost time due to transfer.
Any future drones rallied to your natural (or base you transferred to) will still suffer a loss in transfer time, which will be equal to the loss suffered in originally transferring those extra 4 drones in #1 true, however you've had drones mining for a longer time via method #2, so you have more minerals sooner than you would with option #1, which is the primary goal of transfer.
Therefore, option #2 is optimal.
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I have updated with further thoughts, this should explain why case #1 is optimal in nearly all cases (there may be an exception if you expand really late [which I will check for]).
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As a zerg, it's nice to have some drones at your expansion as soon as it goes up in ZvT and ZvP. Sometimes you need 5-6 drones there to help fight off bunker pressure by harassing marines/SCVs or dropping your own spine crawler. 1 part economics, 1 part early game army positioning = a strong case for #1 or a slight modification IMO.
Another consideration is close patch vs. far patch mining. If you pay attention to things like doubling up on close patches you can gain a slight mineral income advantage on one base over an opponent who doesn't. Similarly, immediately splitting your available workers over the 8 close patches (main + nat) gives an advantage over a slower saturation at the natural.
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I do option #2 alot because I feel its the easiest to do in a game. But if you're doing #1, should you transfer half your workers + 6 for the gas you'll eventually get? Cause that has always been the reason why I hated doing #1. You have to do some math during a game, and its not as easy as visually looking at for example, 23 workers, and shaving off the bottom 7.
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This sounds really weird to me. I saw so sure #2 was the most efficient way of transferring : / Shouldn't #1 and #2 be about equal if you can reduce the bouncing? It's pretty easy to micro your workers to the close minerals so you should be able to do it with the far ones as well. What I can see as an advantage is that you could saturate the close mineral patches on both bases asap. Having 16 workers on close mineral patches and 8 workers on far mineral patches on 2 bases would be better than having 12 on close/far.
My own conclusion: Transfer 8 workers to the new base and micro them. Then rally the main to get first 16 workers in the main and then 16 workers at the new base, rally an extra three workers if you plan on taking the gas there early.
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your Country52797 Posts
Thanks for the info!
I usually do option 1 unless I feel unsafe.
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Updated with information for later expansions (found in the conclusion section), and if you are unsure why #1 is better than #2 I recommend you read the further thoughts section. I'm going to be adding a section for fe's also soon.
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What about the fact that a 3d worker on a mineral patch is really inefficient, wouldn't that effect this?
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The real reason to drone transfer, in my own opinion, is to spread the "liability" of your workers evenly across all your bases.
For example, imagine a 3 base scenario where you do not drone transfer, but rather saturate your first base before you drone at your second, and your second base before your third base. In the late mid-game, the main base will be nearly mined out, thus making the third base that much more important to maintain. If the enemy pressures/kills the third base, you are in a much more difficult situation resource-wise than with an evenly spread economy. More spread out from harass too (this is a bit of a double-edged sword...)
Other advantages too, of course, more income/time per worker, using workers to defend fast expo, etc.
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Updated with a little bit on FEs, I am sorry I couldn't give a better answer with FEs.
Yes, that causes more worker 'bouncing' (which I go into a little bit in the further thoughts section). The 3D makes bouncing slightly more complex. and common.
I'm not going to add a section on zerg transferring as thats much more complex because of how the mechanisms work, although I might make another thread about that later if the demand is high enough.
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Great work on this post... luv <3
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Umm...for a different conclusion, how bout doing number 2 but isntead of just grabbing a corner, move them in 2-3s as they finish mining a patch and the mins are returned. Thats how i generally do mine. it's easy to grab 3 and move then another 3 and move.
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@CgLeV <3
@darklight54321 The total loss of mining time is still going to be T*A (the time it takes to transfer the workers, and the total amount of workers you transfer). That method is closer to case #3 and is something that isn't a bad idea if you are in a semi-tense situation. It won't quite give you the eco advantage of #1, but it is more economically friendly than #3.
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Method 2 is better than Method 1 on Xel'Naga Caverns.
Method: Starting with 24 workers, send 12 to main minerals and 12 to natural, then build 4 more workers sent to corresponding mineral patches, then 6 sent to the natural (to simulate saturating the gases there assuming the gases in the main are already saturated)
Alternatively, send 16 to main minerals and 8 to natural, then rally 8+6 to natural, 6 going to gas geysers.
Results: Using method 1, after 2 minutes I had mined 1390, 1400, 1365 minerals in 3 trials. (plus probes built)
1385 +- 18.03
Using method 2, after 2 minutes I had mined 1425, 1415, 1410 minerals in 3 trials (plus probes built)
1416.7 +- 7.78
EDIT: No micro on the probes tested here.
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On September 19 2011 08:46 Dulcimer wrote:
@CgLeV <3
@darklight54321 The total loss of mining time is still going to be T*A (the time it takes to transfer the workers, and the total amount of workers you transfer). That method is closer to case #3 and is something that isn't a bad idea if you are in a semi-tense situation. It won't quite give you the eco advantage of #1, but it is more economically friendly than #3.
kk, thanks for the info. Good job on the calculations i might add. Lots of Applied mathematics been appearing on TL recently.
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On September 19 2011 08:47 iSTime wrote:
Method 2 is better than Method 1 on Xel'Naga Caverns.
Method: Starting with 24 workers, send 12 to main minerals and 12 to natural, then build 4 more workers sent to corresponding mineral patches, then 6 sent to the natural (to simulate saturating the gases there assuming the gases in the main are already saturated)
Alternatively, send 16 to main minerals and 8 to natural, then rally 8+6 to natural, 6 going to gas geysers.
Results: Using method 1, after 2 minutes I had mined 1390, 1400, 1365 minerals in 3 trials. (plus probes built)
Using method 2, after 2 minutes I had mined 1425, 1415, 1410 minerals in 3 trials (plus probes built)
Please do this more than at one time period. If you read the OP, he says that the 2nd method will be ahead for 6 seconds initially. those 6 seconds correspond to the extra 4 works or.... 20-24 extra minerals! Exactly what you found! Oh my gosh, his study is well done and you proved it!
He is stating that over time, meaning as the game progresses, that the efficiency is more obvious in 1 than 2. If it doesn't start improving until EIGHTY ONE seconds after the transfer, you probably want to go out further than 120 seconds.
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On September 19 2011 08:52 Sleight wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2011 08:47 iSTime wrote:
Method 2 is better than Method 1 on Xel'Naga Caverns.
Method: Starting with 24 workers, send 12 to main minerals and 12 to natural, then build 4 more workers sent to corresponding mineral patches, then 6 sent to the natural (to simulate saturating the gases there assuming the gases in the main are already saturated)
Alternatively, send 16 to main minerals and 8 to natural, then rally 8+6 to natural, 6 going to gas geysers.
Results: Using method 1, after 2 minutes I had mined 1390, 1400, 1365 minerals in 3 trials. (plus probes built)
Using method 2, after 2 minutes I had mined 1425, 1415, 1410 minerals in 3 trials (plus probes built) Please do this more than at one time period. If you read the OP, he says that the 2nd method will be ahead for 6 seconds initially. those 6 seconds correspond to the extra 4 works or.... 20-24 extra minerals! Exactly what you found! Oh my gosh, his study is well done and you proved it! He is stating that over time, meaning as the game progresses, that the efficiency is more obvious in 1 than 2. If it doesn't start improving until EIGHTY ONE seconds after the transfer, you probably want to go out further than 120 seconds.
At the end of my trials both methods are in the same position, so there will be no further differences.
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I think your scope is too narrow. There are plenty of reasons not to do a 50/50 split.
1) my natural may be more exposed (BFH, blings).
2) as a zerg, building buildings costs drones, I may want to leave a few extra drones in my main if I anticipate that I will be putting up 2-4 tech buildings shortly.
3) gas, assuming you have~30 SCVs in a PvZ. You just took your expo and already have both gasses on your main and plan on taking both gasses at your nat immediately, you'll want to transfer ~16 workers off your mineral line, only leaving ~8 in your main.
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I do need to write a section on gas planning/mining, however, for the time being my post only accounts for minerals and mineral mining.
With gas considerations, you obviously don't want to transfer gas workers, and depending on the build, you don't even want to consider workers who's purpose is gas mining to have a transfer loss. Also, it may be benificial if you are going gas to mix #2 and #1 and transfer half of your mineral workers to your second base but then re-rally both bases to your natural so that you can build your base's gas progressively and with maximum mineral efficiency.
I will do some tests and calculations later to write up a better section on transferring with consideration to gas.
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On September 19 2011 08:57 Dulcimer wrote:
Also, it may be benificial if you are going gas to mix #2 and #1 and transfer half of your mineral workers to your second base but then re-rally both bases to your natural so that you can build your base's gas progressively and with maximum mineral efficiency.
This is exactly what I tested, and method 2 is better than method 1, at least on xel'naga.
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I believe perhaps I should have clarified method 2 more, but the main diference between #1 and #2 isn't just their rally points, but also that in method #2 you leave 16 mineral mining workers. It is better to have an equal (and lower) number of mineral mining workers on both bases after a transfer instead of having more mineral mining workers on one base than the other base. I am going to edit the post to include some considerations with gas and how it cooperates with various builds.
edit: added in the section on transferring with consideration to gas mining.
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On September 19 2011 09:33 Dulcimer wrote:
I believe perhaps I should have clarified method 2 more, but the main diference between #1 and #2 isn't just their rally points, but also that in method #2 you leave 16 mineral mining workers. It is better to have an equal (and lower) number of mineral mining workers on both bases after a transfer instead of having more mineral mining workers on one base than the other base. I am going to edit the post to include some considerations with gas and how it cooperates with various builds.
edit: added in the section on transferring with consideration to gas mining.
That's exactly what I did still lol.
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Did you consider the fact that in most cases you keep producing probes during recovery-time? You said it takes 75-81 sec to recover, thats 4+ probes for each nexus, which means that by the time you recover, the benefit of less bouncing is used up due to 16 Mineral-Probes on each base now. This again would mean that you gain an overall benefit of ~50 Minerals (due to already diminishing advantage by additional probes during recovery time) for the cost of managing your rally points and calculating your probe-numbers ingame for a "long time" instead of just using #2 fire-and-forget including varying gas timings. Do I see that correct?
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OP, I disagree with your conclusions and you haven't provided any data to support yourself other than "i've tested it." I don't think you've provided enough information to qualify your post as a guide either. We're simply asked to take your word for it. Not only that, but the math you do mention is suspect.
Allow me to offer a quantitative rebuttal:
On a map with corner mineral placement (a mineral line wrapping around two edges of your base), you'll have four close mineral patches and four far ones. In maps where the minerals are in a line, you'll have two or three close patches (Shakuras is the only line mineral setup I can think of with three patches). A close patch mines at 45/minute for single or doubled workers (12 for triple), and a far patch mines at 39/minute for single or doubled workers (24 for triple).
For simplicity's sake, let's assume the most optimal situation conducive to drone transfer, which would be four close patches at both the main and natural.
The issue here is that if you transfer half of your workers, you take no consideration for saturation of your main. Let me give a few examples:
- You saturate to 16 workers on minerals, then your expansion finishes. Note the following facts:
a) Every patch is doubled. The resultant income is 45/minute times the number of workers doubled on close patches (8), and 39/minute times the number of workers doubled on far patches (8). (income: 672)
b) If you transferred half of those workers, you would be left again with 45/minute times the number of workers on close patches, and 39/minute on the number of workers on far patches. The issue though is that at this point in time (when you're taking your natural with almost full 1-base saturation), you don't have time to micro your workers such that each one doubles up on the close patches. This means you're going to have one worker at each patch in all likelihood, giving you exactly the same income (672) as you had before, except for the mining loss due to travel time and increased risk for worker harassment.
- You saturate to 20 workers on minerals, then your expansion finishes. Note the following facts:
a) Every patch is doubled, and four patches are tripled (or there could be some bouncing). The resultant income is 45/minute times the number of workers doubled on close patches (8), 39/minute times the number of workers doubled on far patches (8), and between 12/minute and 24/minute for the workers tripled on patches (4). Let's assume the worst case scenario to support your claim at 12/minute. (income: 720)
b) If you transferred half of those workers, you would be left again with 45/minute times the number of workers on close patches, and 39/minute on the number of workers on far patches. You have one worker per patch plus two that are doubled up, with a 50% probability that they are doubled at close patches (since it's too low on your priority list to double them at this point in the game). You now have 8 workers on close patches, 8 workers on far patches, and 4 workers (2 at each base) mining between 39 and 45 (avg 42)/min, giving you greater income (840/min).
HOWEVER, and this is important, if you had only transferred those four tripled workers from your main (leaving 16), you would be able to individually rally them to each close patch at the natural (I do this all the time and you can see pro gamers like idra and july doing this as well). This means you would have 12 workers on close patches and 8 workers on far patches, giving you a resultant income of 852/min. Not only is this better, but you didn't lose the travel time.
As you note, you must factor in travel time, because for some time T, the workers you transferred will be providing you less overall minerals than you would have had keeping them at your base. I question your 25 second transfer time and would instead go with something closer to 15 or 18 seconds (I tested crossfire (18), shattered(17) and shakuras(15) while writing this).
Now, in order to break even from worker transfer, you need to solve the following equation:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/RLiB9.gif)
I(i) = Income (initial)
I(f) = Income (final)
t = time to break even
d = distance travel time (range is generally ~15-18 seconds)
* make sure you convert everything to either minutes or seconds
So, let's solve t for some possible scenarios (all suppose 15 second travel time):
- from 12/min to 45/min - 20.45 seconds.
- from 24/min to 45/min - 32.14 seconds
- from 39/min to 45/min - 112.50 seconds
- from 45/min to 45/min - (permanent loss of 11.25 minerals)
- from 12/min to 39/min - 21.67 seconds
- from 24/min to 39/min - 39.00 seconds
- from 39/min to 39/min - (permanent loss of 9.75 minerals)
- from 45/min to 39/min - (loss of 11.25 minerals, then 6/min)
What does all this mean?
Transferring half your workers is a bad general rule. Transferring all but 16 is easily the best general, if over-simplified rule.
What you want to do is maximize the number of workers at higher income (obviously). This means you need to count the number of close patches at your natural, and then transfer that many workers at minimum. If you still have over 16 workers after transferring those 2 to 4 workers, transfer as many as you have until you reach 16. If you honestly feel like you have the spare APM at that point in time (and you shouldn't), transfer 2 to 4 workers (one for each close patch) then transfer 2 to 4 additional workers 2 seconds later and double them on each patch.
Through all this, it's important to note that although you want to maximize your income, you also should factor in things like mining your main out too quickly while being unable to secure a third. In such a situation, it might be better to take the economic hit just to ensure you mine out your minerals more evenly (although this isn't the point of your write-up or my rebuttal).
TL;DR - As a general rule, transfer all but 16 unless you have the spare APM to sit there and determine (then execute) what might be more efficient. If you opened hatch first as zerg, you should transfer drones equal to the number of close mineral patches at the natural and rally them to each close patch individually as you do.
edit: added some of this to the liquipedia page on mining minerals because I didn't realize how skimpy it was. I really thought this was pretty cut and dry and didn't realize there were still such divergent opinions on something that always has an optimal solution (harassment risk notwithstanding).
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/index.php?title=Mining_Minerals&stable=0&shownotice=1&fromsection=Transferring_Workers#Transferring_Workers
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On September 19 2011 09:33 Dulcimer wrote:
I believe perhaps I should have clarified method 2 more, but the main diference between #1 and #2 isn't just their rally points, but also that in method #2 you leave 16 mineral mining workers. It is better to have an equal (and lower) number of mineral mining workers on both bases after a transfer instead of having more mineral mining workers on one base than the other base. I am going to edit the post to include some considerations with gas and how it cooperates with various builds.
edit: added in the section on transferring with consideration to gas mining.
You don't need to give any consideration to gas. You always transfer workers based on mineral income.
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If they're so close, isn't transferring 1/2 more APM-efficient? Technically, how do you guys transfer efficiently (with whatever method)?
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You make some good points Michaelhasanalias in your first post, however, generally past 24 you won't see people microing their workers, even at a pro level. As for my math, I posted absolutely no complex math. It's very easy to check. As for your math, your syntax is highly debatable. You do make a good point that it is map specific, however, I believe I already said that.
If you are FEing I agree you shouldn't follow #1 (which I said in the FE section). If however, you have 24 or more workers mining upon expanding (quite possibly less, I am going to run more tests on that) then it is best to use method 1.
I'm going to do more tests and post the results (feel free to do your own tests as well)
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On September 19 2011 10:29 galzohar wrote:
If they're so close, isn't transferring 1/2 more APM-efficient? Technically, how do you guys transfer efficiently (with whatever method)?
If you are doing the exact same build order over and over you will know exactly how many probes you have on minerals when your nexus finishes, so you can transfer all but 16 every time.
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On September 19 2011 10:58 Dulcimer wrote:
You make some good points Michaelhasanalias in your first post, however, generally past 24 you won't see people microing their workers, even at a pro level. As for my math, I posted absolutely no complex math. It's very easy to check. As for your math, your syntax is highly debatable. You do make a good point that it is map specific, however, I believe I already said that.
If you are FEing I agree you shouldn't follow #1 (which I said in the FE section). If however, you have 24 or more workers mining upon expanding (quite possibly less, I am going to run more tests on that) then it is best to use method 1.
I am going to post some replays later of various tests.
The problem with your math is that you round, and then make specific deductions based off that. This is a cardinal error in mathematics (rounding or truncation error) and you need to make sure that you never let this happen when doing analysis like this where you round inputs. Only round answers, never inputs.
This leads you to some invalid deductions:
Actually I'm just going to quote this passage because there are too many inaccuracies, both logical and mathematical:
A base with 24 workers will bring about 800 minerals per minute, 33 minerals per worker. There are also some multibase numbers that I’ll talk about later.
.....
If we follow case #2 we will lose 200 minerals of mining time over the course of 25 seconds. However, once those probes have transferred, we are mining 960 minerals per minute (8 workers on the natural, 16 in the main) as opposed to 800 minerals per minute. It will take 1.25 minutes after the transfer to make up for the transfer.
If we build 24 workers and then follow case #1 we will lose 300 minerals of mining time over the course of 25 seconds (12 minerals per second). However, 2 bases operating with 12 workers each will receive an average of 1020 minerals per minute. It will take 1.36 minutes to make up for lost mining time (.11 minutes [6 seconds] longer recovery than case #2). However, once we have recovered, we receive a greater income (we receive 60 more minerals in case #1 than in case #2).
A base with 24 workers will net exactly 816 minerals per minute. 3 workers per patch (except in extreme circumstances such as a few 4v4 maps with awful mineral placement) fully saturate a patch, which yields exactly 102 minerals per minute.
In case #2, you transfer 8 workers, leaving 16. The mining rates of those workers from before would be 12/minute for each close patch and 24/minute for each close patch. The new mining rates would be 45/minute for each close patch and 39/minute for each far patch.
The travel time on most 1v1 maps from main to natural is about 15 seconds, not 25. Just for the sake of argument, I tested three, and got 15, 17, 18 (shakuras, shattered, crossfire), crossfire being the longest I could think of.
The old mining rate is 816/minute and the new mining rate would be 1008/minute (4 close 4 far) and 984/minute (2 close 6 far). You lose .3 minerals per second per worker, or 2.4 minerals per second per 8 workers. So even at 25 seconds, you're losing only 60 minerals, not 200, by following case #2 (transfer N-16). At 15 seconds, you're losing 36 minerals, extremely far from the 200 you mention. It takes only between 20-40 seconds for each of the workers to individually break even, depending from which to which patch they are coming from and going to.
Following case #1, the workers are mining between 12 and 39 minerals per minute. Some of the workers you transfer (four, in fact) will never recover the minerals lost due to transfer time (about 10 minerals). The new mining rates are ~1008/min (assuming 50% probability of close or far patch doubling since you can't realistically micro at this point) for 4 close/4 far, and 984/min for 2 close/6 far.
Note that these numbers are exactly the same as in case #1, except there is one notable difference: you permanently lost mining time on every worker mining at 39/min (four), or about 40 minerals. This is an immediate sunk cost realized in full over the travel time and minerals you will only get back if you mine out both the main and natural (30 minutes into the game).
You claim that loss is 300 minerals, but even at 25 second travel time the loss is only 125 minerals (8 at .3/sec plus 4 at .65/sec). To realize the loss you mention, you would have to run your workers to your opponent's natural and back. Again, the economic recovery time is only about 30 seconds, not 80 seconds, with the lone difference being you have forever lost minerals per worker you transferred that ends up mining at the same rate.
The only time you would ever consider maximizing the mining-out time for main and natural is when you don't plan to or can't take a third (or more) base(s).
You rely on these critical errors in math and reasoning to conclude that it's better to transfer half your workers. Whenever you use quantitative analysis to qualify a position, there will be people who take you at your word, regardless of the accuracy of those numbers. Some people aren't good at math. As a person forwarding this quantitative analysis, the onus is on you to ensure the integrity of the data you're gathering and the conclusions you're making based off it.
Please consider using more accurate data and adjusting your conclusion based on your new analysis.
tl;dr - your math leads you to inaccurate deductions when in fact case #2 (transferring all but 16) is generally the best (albeit oversimplified) rule to follow.
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Okay, so after a large amount of testing I am getting 50-50 results (half the time being in favor of #1 and half the time being in favor of #2). After going through a large amount of the replays, it seems that #1 has more potential, and #2 is easier to use. If you use #1 and probe micro a few times (or just get lucky) then you make back your money fairly quickly. If you use #1 and you don't probe micro and get unlucky then you will still *eventually* make more money (if not due to anything but due to mining preservation of main), however it will take a much longer time to pay off. If you use #2 you will get a pretty consistent result each time, but it doesn't have as much absolute potential as #1. The original test was to measure total income (and I did probe micro in both cases because I'd get bored during the test). The second tests I did what Time did and didn't micro the probes (although I excluded the addition of gas to make it as simple as possible).
@michaelhasanalias
I might have not made it clear enough that that was example/theory with the 25 seconds giving an extreme case of recovery.
As for your comments on my constants, I must admit I have not researched my mining constants as much as you. However, the numbers of income for various probe differences on bases is taken from my in-game-tests (which I suggest you do as well). I am going to experiment with both in actual games and if I remember analyze and post the results
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On September 19 2011 11:52 Dulcimer wrote:
Okay, so after a large amount of testing I am getting 50-50 results (half the time being in favor of #1 and half the time being in favor of #2). After going through a large amount of the replays, it seems that #1 has more potential, and #2 is easier to use. If you use #1 and probe micro a few times (or just get lucky) then you make back your money fairly quickly. If you use #1 and you don't probe micro and get unlucky then you will still *eventually* make more money (if not due to anything but due to mining preservation of main), however it will take a much longer time to pay off. If you use #2 you will get a pretty consistent result each time, but it doesn't have as much absolute potential as #1. The original test was to measure total income (and I did probe micro in both cases because I'd get bored during the test). The second tests I did what Time did and didn't micro the probes (although I excluded the addition of gas to make it as simple as possible).
I'm sorry but this is false. This isn't a question of theorycrafting, it's a question of mathematics and optimization.
By definition case #1 can only ever equal case #2, and never exceed it. There are no realistic circumstances blindly transferring half your workers to your natural will result in more benefit than transferring all but 16, equal worker micro withstanding.
(There are, however, situations where leaving fewer than 16 workers is optimal, but the workers transferred doesn't approach half. For example, if you have 16 workers and a new base, you could transfer four of 16 workers, breaking #2 rule, and having more optimal income. In theory, if you have 16 workers and an expansion, transferring half with perfect micro would result in maximum income, but in practice this isn't possible or applicable to any real game situation.)
On September 19 2011 07:21 Dulcimer wrote:
Why I don't suggest #2
The reason why #1 is more efficient than #2 is because of an effect generally called worker 'bouncing'. If 2 workers are mining the same patch, there is a slight offset in mining times. As they both mine this offset grows (due to varying distances from the mineral patch to the base). a very over exaggerated example: Suppose it takes 4 seconds for a probe to collect minerals. The travel time from the patch to the base and back to the patch is 6 seconds. There is a 1 second offset that causes the probe mining time difference to become greater over time until both probes accidentally try to mine at the same time. Eventually one of the probes will mine that patch, and the other probe will go to a different mineral patch. This causes you to lose a small bit of mining time.
The less workers you have, the less times it occurs. The more workers you have the more times this occurs. Because of this, having a base with 12 workers and another base with 12 workers is better than having a base with 16 workers and another with 8 workers.
Notes
I have tested each case mentioned in this post in game to make sure the numbers align correctly.
Zerg
The issue of transfering becomes much more complex with zerg. As a zerg player you will expand sooner (often times the expansion will be considered a fe of sorts) and you have the ability to make multiple workers at once (which will change the way you want to transfer a bit). I suggest reading the Fast expansion section of the conclusion which is the closest I come to a definitive answer for zerg.
I might do another post on zerg transferring and droning sometime if I get the chance and some thoughts of interest occur to me.
Just a few extra notes on flaws in reasoning:
Each worker already mining at the same rate he would mine when he is transferred would need to bounce at least 3 times to make it worth transferring. Bouncing only really occurs once you get more than 16 workers (or have between 9 and 16). But another problem is that you'd have to transfer before the bouncing occurs. If you let them bounce around before transferring, and then pull off all but 16, they won't bounce anymore once they stabilize (a maximum of 1 or 2 bounces each, usually less).
Zerg also is much simpler, not more complex. Without consideration to risk of harassment, when you hatch first, you transfer drones equal to the number of close patches you have. In the case where you may try to cheese your opponent with only a finite number of drones, you can transfer double that amount. Here's a great video of july zerg doing exactly this in the GSL when he went for a hatch first 6:00 baneling bust off just 16(15) drones.
http://www.gomtv.net/2011gslsponsors2/vod/61321 (set 5 on metalopolis)
Also, with zerg, ideally you only want 2 per patch anyway because you will be expanding more often, so rule #2 simply doesn't apply. However, under no circumstances would you ever just transfer half your drones. Instead, you hatch a new round of drones and rally them to the new bases, or from main to nat what I mention above.
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Ah, you posted too fast for my edit, but okay, I will run more tests in game and if I remember analyze. I'll also look back through my replays again and see if there is another reason why my results were so positive in favor of #1 earlier.
As it is, I am getting tired and you have more evidence. So I will edit the post to contain your opinion and run more tests some other time and make sure that all the evidence still holds true and what have you.
Thank you for your contribution
Ah now you have edited your post after I posted : P
Bouncing seems to happen more to me, but I may very well be mistaken, I will do more tests on that at a later point (or look for more research on it).
Zerg hatchery droning is very complex because of early pressure generally it seems to me.
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This is interesting. It seems like it all depends on whether one expects immediate aggression, or can macro safely.
I've always transferred half of my workers after a 14h, so does this mean that this might not be so good anymore against a terran doing 2rax pressure?
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This is a really cool study. Thanks for this ^_^
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In Theory, leaving 16 is optimal.
Maybe bouncing is a much bigger factor in it than I realized yet, so cloning with spare apm might be the answer.
Other than that I sometimes send half just because I need them at my natural to help defend. 
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On September 19 2011 07:31 Dulcimer wrote:
No, in short term it is better to not transfer any workers
Do you possess evidence that quicker use of the 18th-~25th larvae outweighs an increase in the marginal efficiency of the workers transferred?
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On September 19 2011 13:03 HaRuHi wrote:
In Theory, leaving 16 is optimal.
You have not provided any basis for this claim. You haven't accounted for the fact that transferring leads to a short-term income reduction, which delays the transformation of the 18th-23rd (maybe more) larvae into drones.
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Terran specific:
you often need at least 6 SCVs at your natural to repair bunkers in case protoss or zerg do a push up your ramp
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shorten your conclusion and dont introduce new information and examples in it if you want a lot more people to read it
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Thanks for this, good to be able to put somel numbers on the differences. I personally transfer half my workers as all races. I feel differences in long term and short term income as calculated here are less important than the fact that by saturating your main first, you will mine it out faster, forcing you to take extra bases more quickly.
I would consider not transfering half as zerg because zerg seems to have the highest time preference for minerals. More minerals early in the game may mean more drones.
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On September 19 2011 11:36 iSTime wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2011 10:29 galzohar wrote:
If they're so close, isn't transferring 1/2 more APM-efficient? Technically, how do you guys transfer efficiently (with whatever method)? If you are doing the exact same build order over and over you will know exactly how many probes you have on minerals when your nexus finishes, so you can transfer all but 16 every time.
True, but even if you don't or you maybe lost some workers due to harassment etc earlier before your expo is up and running, just ctrl+leftclick on your workerline the main or box them, if you have both gases taken by then all workersthat are more than 2 and a half line are too much and need to be transfered (2 less if you only took one gas, again 2 less if you didn't take any gases, since you will only see two workers for each gas).
So with some practice you will just box quickly, see lets say 1 less than 3 rows (and knowing you have 2 gas), you select 3 workers and send them over knowing you have the right amount of workers. I really recommend trying this out, it's a very efficient method in my opinion. I've been doing this for a long while already.
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Russian Federation164 Posts
TheHardSix, there are many good threads regarding optimal saturation, liquipedia can't reflect all details.
From what I read, your numbers suggest that having three workers on a patch produces different productivity depending on the distance of the patch. - correct
More strikingly, your numbers also suggest that having three workers on a patch makes the patch itself less productive than when it is being mined by two workers -correct, but in terms of efficiency (if you have more than 16 workers, total income per minute will increase, of course!)
Can't find these numbers in OP, and bet they are incorrect.
Look at the table:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=197826
Marginal income after 16th workes is pretty low. Even though 3x at far patches is profitable, IMO it's pretty difficult to have 20 perfectly placed probes, at least for me o_O
P.S. Lol russians are just math nerds, just trust me ^_^
Also regarding OP: #1 #2 #3 well OBVIOUSLY, #3 sucks,
#1 is the most rewarding long-term, #2 is pretty efficient and economically safe
it's all about risk/reward ratio, which is hard to estimate
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When I play Zerg and fast expand, I think #2 is strictly better than #1, as (differently from the other races) you can make spawn all (or most of) your drones at the expansion, limiting the travel time for new drones (some may need to anyway, of course, if you are droning heavily).
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On January 17 2012 18:15 Malhavoc wrote:
When I play Zerg and fast expand, I think #2 is strictly better than #1, as (differently from the other races) you can make spawn all (or most of) your drones at the expansion, limiting the travel time for new drones (some may need to anyway, of course, if you are droning heavily).
You should always drone heavily. Sounds like a bad idea to me, you'll be making a ton of your drones from the main, especially since you'll generally already be at 16+ drones when your nat goes up. Another reason to quickly get some drones to the nat is to be able to throw up spines quickly.
I mean sure, in ZvZ for example, you'll be building lings etc constantly, so you can definitely make sure to make drones at nat and army from main, but that requires quite a lot of extra APM just to slightly increase efficiency.
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Elefes,
Thanks for the reply. What didn't become clear to me until I referenced the table you mentioned is that when a third worker is introduced to, say, a close patch, it adds a value of 12 minerals/minute, without lessening the theoretical higher mining rates (45/min) of the other two workers. The language used in the post I quoted was rather ambiguous, and this being my first read on the subject it was easily misinterpreted, as I was thinking in averages of all three workers on a patch.
Apparantly that misunderstanding merited a warning rather than an explanation. Pity.
Practicality notwithstanding, this is pretty insightful, and I thank OP and michaelhasanalias for the contributions.
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I prefer case #2. It allows me to mine off my main for longer, since I only get 16 there.
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Wow, so much math behind something I just took for granted.
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On January 28 2012 06:42 Barrin wrote:
Has anyone brought up mind games?
Like,
(1) I make an expansion at my natural...
(2) Expansion finishes; I have about 16-18 mineral workers in the main
(3) here I can either (a) transfer workers or (b) rally everything to natural
but,
(4) he scouts my expansion like 15 seconds later; the first time in several in-game minutes
now here's the deal:
if I chose to leave workers in the main and only rally workers, then it's safe for him to assume that the expansion is brand new
HOWEVER, if I chose to maynard a bunch of workers, he has to either scout my main and count the workers there (totally deniable), or he has to rely on his game sense to GUESS (a) how many workers I have and (b) how long ago I planted the expansion down.
Cant he just click on a mineral patch and see how much of the inititial 1500 minerals are gone? That is at least what I use to do 
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On January 17 2012 18:15 Malhavoc wrote:
When I play Zerg and fast expand, I think #2 is strictly better than #1, as (differently from the other races) you can make spawn all (or most of) your drones at the expansion, limiting the travel time for new drones (some may need to anyway, of course, if you are droning heavily).
its just a trade, new drones then have a shorter travel time, however the transfer itself makes drones travel instead of mining. In fact from a pure economy pov, transfer does pay off only if one base is oversaturated. Early minerals are more worth than later minerals, so a drone transfer is worse compared to rallying new drones to the nat, because the lost mining time hits you earlier (and at once) then.
However there are other strategical aspects (mineout, early defense) which make drone transfers viable. Depends also on build order.
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On January 28 2012 20:42 Schnullerbacke13 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 17 2012 18:15 Malhavoc wrote:
When I play Zerg and fast expand, I think #2 is strictly better than #1, as (differently from the other races) you can make spawn all (or most of) your drones at the expansion, limiting the travel time for new drones (some may need to anyway, of course, if you are droning heavily). its just a trade, new drones then have a shorter travel time, however the transfer itself makes drones travel instead of mining. In fact from a pure economy pov, transfer does pay off only if one base is oversaturated. Early minerals are more worth than later minerals, so a drone transfer is worse compared to rallying new drones to the nat, because the lost mining time hits you earlier (and at once) then. However there are other strategical aspects (mineout, early defense) which make drone transfers viable. Depends also on build order.
didn't knew that thxs man
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there is another benefit from transfering half of your workers right away.. though you may lose mineral due to lost mining time immediatly.. by transfering these workers right away.. you will mine your main out slower.. in the event that your 3rd base gets sniped and you need to send your excess workers back to mining from main/natural.. it would suck if your main was already mined out and u gotta send 60 workers to 1 base.. this is why sending half of your workers (or atleast a good ammount) should always be done when your natural finishes.. (you want your main and natural to run out of minerals at the same time)
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Can we get the incorrect information in the OP either corrected or removed?
The analysis is based on a silly notion that splitting half/half gets you 1020 minerals per minute while splitting 16/rest gets you 800 minerals per minute. It isn't true and it screws up the results.
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you should always transfer as many as possible.
The reason is very simple, it extends the time when your main is mined out, which can be importent in 2 base vs. 2 base situations.
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Doesn't (T÷5) * 5 simplify to just T?
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EPT
