You have, lets say, 20 overlords spilling creep.

You use 10 of them to create a ring of creep, which is perfectly connected (no gaps).

You use the other 10 to spill creep in the inside of this ring, spill it all over, there must be no gaps as well.

Now, when you remove the 10 overlords from the inside, the creep will stay. Forever.

Roblin

Sweden948 Posts

November 25 2011 23:21 GMT

#23

On November 26 2011 08:12 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
wow nice find this is indeed quite huge! every little thing in sc2 is quite useful

Thanks for sharing so much ahah, i wonder if pros knew this.

i wonder if this was intended by blizz?

intended?

the only reason I found this is because I'm a programmer myself and got curious about something that probably will work because it would be the easiest method to give the creep the "receeding from edges" behaviour.

it was programmed that way and I'm 100% sure that blizz knows about the exploit, but it wasn't intended in the way "we wan't it work this way".

its simply difficult to avoid, that's all.

but its very minor in context and I'm also 100% sure that they will not patch it out the game, simply because that would force them to rewrite the entire creep code.

Warble

137 Posts

November 25 2011 23:21 GMT

#24

You sir are a genius. I love this thread. Very nice deductive reasoning.

I can't wait to see this used in the GSL.

Although I think by the time zerg gets a lair up for overlord creep, terran would have transitioned out of hellions.

enemy2010

Germany1972 Posts

November 25 2011 23:23 GMT

#25

Holy. Creep.

[image loading]

Warmonger

United States69 Posts

November 25 2011 23:23 GMT

#26

On November 26 2011 08:06 Roblin wrote:
...remember that cliffs also count as "the end of the creep" so your overlords would also have to surround every cliff on the map for this to work.

Ahh so cliffs will cause the creep to recede; that is what I immediately wondered after reading this. I guess someone would have found this a lot sooner if that wasn't the case. Thanks for the work, the topic is fascinating even if it has very limited use in game.

Soulish

Canada1403 Posts

November 25 2011 23:30 GMT

#27

this COULD be huge

Krede

Denmark139 Posts

November 25 2011 23:47 GMT

#28

Well, this is a very cool find. I didn't know about it. But i must say that creep is not just about speed (obviously it is a very big part of it), it is also about vision and since it is the creep tumors/ovis suppling the vision this is not the best way to have creep spreed.

Clbull

United Kingdom1439 Posts

November 25 2011 23:53 GMT

#29

It won't be useful until a build exists where it's executed properly. And due to the sheer magnitude of Overlords and creep spread required, that would be unlikely.

lorkac

United States2297 Posts

November 26 2011 00:03 GMT

#30

Could you leap frog overlords to spread your creep?

Ender985

Spain910 Posts

November 26 2011 00:07 GMT

#31

Essentially you only need to keep overlords/tumors at the edge of the creep for it to keep in place.

Neat find. I'm waiting to see the whole Taldarim Altar completely filled with creep and only a handful of overlords around the edges to sustain it xD

Rice

United States1332 Posts

November 26 2011 00:13 GMT

#32

this is actually really cool, good job.

DrSuit

Netherlands33 Posts

November 26 2011 00:17 GMT

#33

but you dont have vision where you don't have ovies/tumors.. I already see ppl spreading creep like this while they're floating 3k thinking their brilliant

completely useless

Sporadic44

United States533 Posts

November 26 2011 00:28 GMT

#34

dude this is sick. this is definitely useful

Roblin

Sweden948 Posts

November 26 2011 00:30 GMT

#35

On November 26 2011 09:03 lorkac wrote:
Could you leap frog overlords to spread your creep?

yes you can, the creeps receeds too slow to "receed away" from your overlords, so if you do it methodically enough, you can.
very micro intensive though, and you must make sure to not leave any edge anywhere connected to a cliff or something which will cause your creep to receed.

On another note, I believe I have found an actually practical way to use this, but there are more downsides than upsides.

Ill show it as a series of pictures:
[image loading]

The first two creep tumors have been made

[image loading]

One goes one way, the other goes the other way

[image loading]

start to hook towards eachother

[image loading]

They are connected

[image loading]

Filled in

Downsides:
Takes a long time to get the creep in the middle, and that's where you want it first.
Has no advantage that wouldn't be had by simply building a third creep tumor.
Doesn't give vision in that tiny spot (this is a minor issue compared to the others)

Upsides:
covers creep equivalent to 16 creep tumors out of which 3 should be active while only using 14 creep tumors where 2 need to be active. or is this a downside because forcing a third creeptumor makes you able to spread creep faster?

so as I said, a lot more downsides than upsides.

Vecix

9 Posts

November 26 2011 00:33 GMT

#36

It seems that this in and of itself is very useless but it's good to know because when people come to kill off your creep you can take any active tumors they missed (happens often to me in plat because I'm usually on my creep spread and have 10 or so tumors) and cover the edges of the creep before it recedes to keep the speed bonus with the odd hellion push/harass right before siege timing push is gonna be coming.

Yoshi Kirishima

United States10363 Posts

November 26 2011 00:46 GMT

#37

On November 26 2011 08:21 Roblin wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yeah, intended like you said "we want the creep to not recede" rather than "oops, the programming causes it to not recede, but we'll just keep it like that"

Roblin

Sweden948 Posts

November 26 2011 00:56 GMT

#38

On November 26 2011 09:46 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:

Show nested quote +

Yeah, intended like you said "we want the creep to not recede" rather than "oops, the programming causes it to not recede, but we'll just keep it like that"

I'ts most certainly: "oops, the programming causes it to not recede, but we'll just keep it like that"

On November 26 2011 09:33 Vecix wrote:
It seems that this in and of itself is very useless but it's good to know because when people come to kill off your creep you can take any active tumors they missed (happens often to me in plat because I'm usually on my creep spread and have 10 or so tumors) and cover the edges of the creep before it recedes to keep the speed bonus with the odd hellion push/harass right before siege timing push is gonna be coming.

I am of the same opinion, the only possible real application is probably where the opponent tries to deny creepspread (by killing a bunch of creeptumors) but you "save it" by going there with a bunch of overlords to keep the edge covered before it receeds to far, which buys you time to put down replacement creeptumors later to quickly resume the same creepspread.

but even this seems situational since the opponent should not have anti-air in the vicinity for this to work.

possibly to counter hellions trying to make the creep receed in obscure places on the map perhaps?

FallDownMarigold

United States3710 Posts

November 26 2011 01:02 GMT

#39

This seems to be one of those things that would be published in PLoS ONE rather than Nature. It's a very cool and academic find (the way you used logical reasoning to uncover something new!), but it's not directly applicable to anything useful or game-influencing (or clinical/practical to continue the analogy). Of course, that could change and someone could use it to some huge advantage -- in which case the find will go from "neat thinking" to practical application.