I had a thought a few hours ago and so I decided to investigate, and I found something, while not very surprising, quite interesting, I'll let you follow my chain of thought below.
Some well known facts about creep:
1. zerg units get a speed bonus. (this won't be important in the remainder of this post) 2. Hatcheries produce creep. (range 12) 3. Creep tumors produce creep. (range 9) 4. Overlords can produce creep once you have lair tech. (range 6) edit: 4.5 nydus worms produce creep. (range unknown, guessing range 9) 5. Creep receeds if the creep is not sustained. 6. Areas where creep is naturally spawned (by hatcheries, creep tumors and overlords) are sustained. 7. Creep receeds from the edges (of the creep) towards the middle.
Given these well known facts I started thinking: "How is the creep programmed to make point 7?"
The most natural answer is a hidden point 8: 8. Creep surrounded by other creep is sustained.
And you quickly realize a practically unknown point 9: 9. Creep does not need to be in range of a hatchery, creep tumor or overlord to be permanently sustained.
And so I started experimenting: making a frame, no creeptumors are used, only overlords
filling the frame with creep
the frame is filled, and the creep is not receeding!
Heureka! Indeed if it is surrounded by sustained creep an infinitely big area of creep can be sustained without being actively sustained itself.
Excellent. We have found a way to use creep which almost noone knows about.
What now?
I can think of the following: in ZvT early game when hellion pressure is denying creep spread, you can use overlords to spread creep in the place of creep tumors, since hellions cannot kill overlords. the normal problem with overlord creep spread is the fact that the small creep spread range of overlords forces you to commit a large amount of overlords to it, which is not always possible to do because this early in the game the overlords are being spread around the map for scouting purposes, also, a lot of overlords in the same place means a massive supplyblock if surprise marines arrive. this trick however lets you minimize the amount of overlords required and committed to such a creep spread (from 4-5 ovies to 3-4). if you are lucky, the hellions may be afraid of entering the creep (as they should be) which allows you to safely put down those creep tumors you wanted. so in short, the only way I can think of to use this is to negate denied creep spread, but can only be done after your lair finishes... like so: before filling
after filling, 3 overlords covering slightly more than they should be able to
so practically useless unless the terrain is very open outside your natural.
I don't actually know in what way this can be abused and it is for this reason I added the [D] tag in the title. I reach to our wonderful community: any ideas at all?
The polls below refers to creep not receeding when surrounded by sustained creep.
Poll: Usefulness?
This might be useful (130)
55%
This won't be useful, but its good for the community to know (49)
21%
This will be useful (47)
20%
This won't be useful and there is no point for this thread to exist. (9)
4%
Other: explain in a post (3)
1%
238 total votes
Your vote: Usefulness?
(Vote): This will be useful (Vote): This might be useful (Vote): This won't be useful, but its good for the community to know (Vote): This won't be useful and there is no point for this thread to exist. (Vote): Other: explain in a post
if you vote <this will be useful> please describe what use you are referring to in a post.
Poll: Awareness
I had no idea about this (167)
75%
I suspected this, but never researched further (36)
16%
I knew about this already (21)
9%
224 total votes
Your vote: Awareness
(Vote): I knew about this already (Vote): I suspected this, but never researched further (Vote): I had no idea about this
This isn't game breaking, but it actually seems to be rather useful if used to it's greatest potential. Make a ring of overlords to sustain a HUGE creep field in the middle? Sounds sick to me
but imho this can only be useful when used on the zergs own half of the map, perhaps to replace denied creep spread from killed tumors near the own base...
i dont think this will be usable in the middle of the map - a huge ring of ovies in the middle of the map is too big of a target to sustain unless the zerg is already so far ahead that he can effortlessly control the middle - a situation in which saving 3-4 ovie-spread-radiuses (whats the plural of radius? XD ) is probably not worth it.
Pretty intresting, but I dont see this beinbg so useful against early helions as creep spreading overlords would tell the lair timing for terran with out really scouting.
On November 26 2011 07:37 mahi29 wrote: Sounds pretty interesting. Do you know what the maximum radius of the creep ring can be and still fill in with creep?
infinite, given that you have enough creepsources (hatcheries, tumors and ovies) to be able to surround the area.
to fill the space you need enough creepsources to fill the entire area at any one time.
however, if you section the area up into smaller pieces you can fill that one up first and then progressively fill the rest, this requires less creepsources.
On November 26 2011 07:37 mahi29 wrote: Sounds pretty interesting. Do you know what the maximum radius of the creep ring can be and still fill in with creep?
infinite, given that you have enough creepsources (hatcheries, tumors and ovies) to be able to surround the area.
to fill the space you need enough creepsources to fill the entire area at any one time.
however, if you section the area up into smaller pieces you can fill that one up first and then progressively fill the rest, this requires less creepsources.
Wait I'm confused.
If I make a giant circle of Overlords, the middle will just fill in automatically, even if its out of range? Or if I have a creep tumor in the middle, and that is killed, the middle will stay alive?
On November 26 2011 07:37 mahi29 wrote: Sounds pretty interesting. Do you know what the maximum radius of the creep ring can be and still fill in with creep?
infinite, given that you have enough creepsources (hatcheries, tumors and ovies) to be able to surround the area.
WHAT, infinite? O.O
Gotta try that out asap!
Imagine Xel Naga, where you have a ring of overlords around the whole map, and the inside of that ring (which basically is the whole map then :D) is filled with creep, and the opponent can't really do anything, cause there are no tumors to kill.
O.O
Edit:
HOLY SHIT! IT SEEMS TO ACTUALLY WORK!!! O.O
As long as the ring is closed, the inner creep won't disappear!!!
On November 26 2011 07:37 mahi29 wrote: Sounds pretty interesting. Do you know what the maximum radius of the creep ring can be and still fill in with creep?
infinite, given that you have enough creepsources (hatcheries, tumors and ovies) to be able to surround the area.
to fill the space you need enough creepsources to fill the entire area at any one time.
however, if you section the area up into smaller pieces you can fill that one up first and then progressively fill the rest, this requires less creepsources.
Wait I'm confused.
If I make a giant circle of Overlords, the middle will just fill in automatically, even if its out of range? Or if I have a creep tumor in the middle, and that is killed, the middle will stay alive?
The second case. Rule 8 is about sustainability, not generation.
On November 26 2011 07:37 mahi29 wrote: Sounds pretty interesting. Do you know what the maximum radius of the creep ring can be and still fill in with creep?
infinite, given that you have enough creepsources (hatcheries, tumors and ovies) to be able to surround the area.
to fill the space you need enough creepsources to fill the entire area at any one time.
however, if you section the area up into smaller pieces you can fill that one up first and then progressively fill the rest, this requires less creepsources.
Wait I'm confused.
If I make a giant circle of Overlords, the middle will just fill in automatically, even if its out of range? Or if I have a creep tumor in the middle, and that is killed, the middle will stay alive?
On November 26 2011 07:37 mahi29 wrote: Sounds pretty interesting. Do you know what the maximum radius of the creep ring can be and still fill in with creep?
infinite, given that you have enough creepsources (hatcheries, tumors and ovies) to be able to surround the area.
WHAT, infinite? O.O
Gotta try that out asap!
Imagine Xel Naga, where you have a ring of overlords around the whole map, and the inside of that ring (which basically is the whole map then :D) is filled with creep, and the opponent can't really do anything, cause there are no tumors to kill.
O.O
to both of you: yes and no.
I'll split this up into parts to clarify.
If I make a giant circle of Overlords, the middle will just fill in automatically, even if its out of range?
no. it will not.
Or if I have a creep tumor in the middle, and that is killed, the middle will stay alive?
yes, given that the entire area within the ring is filled with creep. If even 1 hex of space is not filled with creep, that one hex can cause the creep to receed as that hex counts as "the end of the creep"
however, in my tests a single hex never caused the creep to receed, so you might need 2 hexes together to cause the creep to receed.
point the same.
Imagine Xel Naga, where you have a ring of overlords around the whole map, and the inside of that ring (which basically is the whole map then :D) is filled with creep, and the opponent can't really do anything, cause there are no tumors to kill.
well, yes. if you have filled the map with creep then all you need to sustain that creep is a ring of overlords around all edges of the creep. however, this is not "around the whole map".
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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: The first two creep tumors have been made
One goes one way, the other goes the other way
start to hook towards eachother
They are connected
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?
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.
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.
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"
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.
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?
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.
First post here, thought I'd contribute to this finding. I've been doing something similar to this in all my games as zerg for quite some time. It's a little bit different. We all know that creep tumors have cooldowns, correct? Now, since the creep spreads from the tumor much slower than cooldown of making another tumor, what I do to by pass this is spread creep JUST INFRONT of your tumor creep(?) with overlords, and then when the cooldown is done you can basically jump the gap inbetween the tumor and the overlord and creep spreads in all directions again. Rinse and repeat, it literally takes half the time to spread creep to opponents base and you only risk one overlord in doing so. AND you always have vision a little ways past the edge of your creep, with more creep! Genius!
On November 26 2011 10:27 CluEleSs_UK wrote: If you plant creep tumours and they are killed, will the creep still recede?
think of it like this: creep receeds if and only if the following 2 conditions are met: 1. it is not in range of a hatchery, a creep tumor or an overlord. 2. it is adjacent to a non-creep hex.
thus, if it is surrounded by creep, it doesn't matter if it's out of range of a source (I will refer to hatcheries, creeptumors and overlords as sources) however, normally all creep not in range of a source would receed eventually, since the "layer of creep" furthest out would receed and allow the next layer to receed, repeat.
so what we do, is we make a "wall" of creep which have sources, and thus will never receed, and put a bunch of creep on the inside of this wall.
since the "wall" will never crumble (unless the source is removed), neither will the inside, since it is surrounded by creep.
so yes and no.
if you plant a creep tumor inside an area such that that creep never receeds, and the creeptumor is killed, then yes, the creep will stay, as it is surrounded by other creep. however, if the "wall" is killed before the creeptumor, then the creep supported by that creeptumor may come in contact with non-creep, and that creep will receed if the creeptumor is killed.
On November 26 2011 10:44 jesseclaytonjames wrote: First post here, thought I'd contribute to this finding. I've been doing something similar to this in all my games as zerg for quite some time. It's a little bit different. We all know that creep tumors have cooldowns, correct? Now, since the creep spreads from the tumor much slower than cooldown of making another tumor, what I do to by pass this is spread creep JUST INFRONT of your tumor creep(?) with overlords, and then when the cooldown is done you can basically jump the gap inbetween the tumor and the overlord and creep spreads in all directions again. Rinse and repeat, it literally takes half the time to spread creep to opponents base and you only risk one overlord in doing so. AND you always have vision a little ways past the edge of your creep, with more creep! Genius!
what you say is known since beta, but it is heavily underused, mainly because having 2 creeptumors side by side causes the creep to spread fast enough to use both of their maximum range "travel" as soon as they can, however, that requires using 2 creeptumors side by side. the reason this is preferred over what you say is simply because it is more micro intensive to have an overlord in front than it is to have 2 creeptumors, which are easily acquirable by getting an additional queen. but theoretically speaking the method you use is better in every way except for micro intensity (assuming the overlord won't be in danger).
On November 26 2011 10:46 nihoh wrote: That is pretty cool.
How does a CONCAVE of overlords fare?
they fare well until you leave a cliff which can cause the creep to receed, easily fixed by leaving an extra overlord at the cliff though.
This is really awesome. Practical applications seem a little difficult to manifest, but in the hands of the most adept players I'm sure something interesting will pop up somewhere. Great find. 10/10
This is interesting, but I think it has more application for terran/protoss than it might for zerg. Specifically, it has more uses in how to destroy creep rather than how to sustain creep:
Say you're a terran looking to use a scan to destroy a few creep tumours. Knowing this, you would scan at the edge of the creep field, rather than in the middle.
(You would do this anyway just due to map positioning, and because that's where the active tumours are, but it helps to have another reason)
It will prob not change anything as you (if I've read it correctly) need to keep it 100% solid. Meaning that if an overloard die and you get a "leak" the whole effect will be lost?
the way i see this working isn't by having a lot of overlords cover an area, and moving the inner ones, but by starting with a dense group of overlords in a space, and moving them out in different directions.
This is really cool and good to know even if not useful.
9
On November 26 2011 12:08 JoeAWESOME wrote: It will prob not change anything as you (if I've read it correctly) need to keep it 100% solid. Meaning that if an overloard die and you get a "leak" the whole effect will be lost?
Yes and this is a major factor in killing any potential usefulness.
On November 26 2011 12:08 JoeAWESOME wrote: It will prob not change anything as you (if I've read it correctly) need to keep it 100% solid. Meaning that if an overloard die and you get a "leak" the whole effect will be lost?
how much time you have to fix the leak is reliant upon how big the hole is, if its just 1 hex or so it takes almost a minute for the creep to recede into the inside (plenty of time), if half the arc is gone it will take much less time. besides, if this were to be used it'd probably be to fix a hole in your normal creepspread (a quickfix to minimize the receding, if you will) instead of a method to spread the creep in the first place.
On November 26 2011 11:54 gabapenteado wrote: This is in the 1000 tips thread, there's some alsso other cool tricks there.
Also, i don't think this will change the game too much...
really? it must have been updated since I looked at it last, that thread seemed dead when it floated at 447 tips for like 3 months, and this wasn't there then.
and yes, the general consensous is that unless something really weird happens, this has little practical use.
On November 26 2011 12:36 Childplay wrote: i wounder if bliz fixes this by the next patch or is it intended...
neither.
its not intended, and in that way its a bug, but its too hard-coded to easily fix, they would basicly have to rewrite the entire creep code from scratch to fix it, and if they did then the creep receeding would work completely different from what we are used to, and that might very well be worse than keeping this.
in short: its not intended, but they won't fix it, I highly doubt I'm wrong.
I voted 'I already knew this' by mistake, Misclick, I meant to vote 'I did not know about this'.
What would be interesting to see, is some zergs players drawing pictures and making art with their creep spreading skills. I see Elvis reappearing in the near future.
This can be used as an emergency solution fo creep tumor loss, which is likely the most practical use. consider a situation where a creep tumor is killed at the edge of your creep. you can use a single overlord to cover the same amount of area as a creep tumor until the tumor is replaced, by plugging the hole opened up by the loss of a tumor (think of creep as an ever expanding balloon)
it's a bit hard to apply it in an actual game. but really good find, it might be incredibly useful if you are doing a doom drop and then spread these kind of creep in his base @@
Hmm...while I don't see a ton of usage here, it is a cool and interesting find. I have often used the ovies to spread forward, but normally it is just to increase my tumor range faster and so after moving them the tumor is now in place, so I never found this before.
The real important thing to me is that if you kill off an internal creep tumor, in theory, it shouldn't recede as long as all of the tumors around it overlap, or there are other sources of creep, etc. So if you carefully align those sources, you can create areas of creep that are almost impossible to kill unless you systematically remove all of the surrounding sources. That is, indestructible creep. This explains why sometimes creep doesn't go away when you expect it to.
So, Xel'naga, a player puts 3 creep tumors down Tasteless' Secret Halway, 3 down going towards the side base on the other side, and links them up at the opponents gold. Creep spread to your entire side in 5 mins with only 6 tumors.
On November 27 2011 23:17 xTrim wrote: so you are saying u can have overlords in each corner of the map and have creep everywhere in between???????????????? -.-
You need to create creep in between, but after that move creep away and it will not be disapeared. It disapears, if there are borders without "creep generators"
its more something you have to remember about when fighting a zerg. killing creep tumors in the middle is useless heh. But against an pure ground focused army, which will nver happen in sc2 since air units are so damn good, the ovis could indeed prevent creep from going away.
Now in this hellion scenario you would do the terran a favor, viking moving in ^.^ .
Its a nice writeup though, but i like tumors because of their vision hehe. Especially terrans moving on creep then sieging and killing the tumors, you know the position of their tanks :3 big mistake.
your example is pretty useless since you dont have lair up yet when hellions deny the creep but good find nonetheless since it can be quite useful for zerg lategame
On November 26 2011 12:36 Childplay wrote: i wounder if bliz fixes this by the next patch or is it intended...
neither.
its not intended, and in that way its a bug, but its too hard-coded to easily fix, they would basicly have to rewrite the entire creep code from scratch to fix it, and if they did then the creep receeding would work completely different from what we are used to, and that might very well be worse than keeping this.
in short: its not intended, but they won't fix it, I highly doubt I'm wrong.
The thing is this will work to keep the creep in place, however if you just made a huge ring, and then tumours in the middle and then he kills the tumours, sure the creep is still there and thats good. But you dont have vision of it anymore because its the creep tumours themselves that give the vision. Which is probably the best apart about having creep all over the map. Forcing you to have to go and replace the tumours anyway.
EPT![[image loading]](http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Roblin92/creepringnon-filled.png)
![[image loading]](http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Roblin92/creepringbeingfilled.png)
![[image loading]](http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Roblin92/creepringfilled.png)
![[image loading]](http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Roblin92/potentialuse1.png)
![[image loading]](http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Roblin92/potentialuse2.png)
) is probably not worth it. 
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZU4bR.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MHRPy.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i1233.photobucket.com/albums/ff384/Roblin92/possibleuse3.png)
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