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[G] Seizing Every Edge: Zerg Economy Management - Page 4
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TangSC
Canada1866 Posts
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=352609 | ||
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Mahtasooma
Germany475 Posts
another idea would probably be to build excess drones on a base when you know you will build something SOON, and then take those drones that are wandering about in that base? | ||
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Poffel
471 Posts
On July 13 2012 05:31 TangSC wrote: To avoid taking drones off of a base with optimal saturation... 1) construct new drones and rally the eggs into the geyser. 2) take three drones off mining, but rally three new drone eggs to the patches you took from. 3) take drones from a base that doesn't have full saturation. Overall, I like the guide. However, the part quoted above strikes me as odd. Maybe I'm wrong, but especially option 2 sounds like a recommendation to build ad hoc-drones in order to avoid deviating from "optimal saturation". As the calculations in the OP show, 4 "oversaturated" drones need to mine 2min 30sec just to break even with their direct cost (i.e. not even accounting for the cost of 1/2 of an overlord). However, lesser benefits are still benefits, and even if a drone has mined just 5 minerals before it gets used to morph a structure, that's still 5 minerals that go into my bank. If I build drones ad hoc, i.e. as currently needed to reach or maintain the most efficient saturation, the drones I use to morph structures (or their replacement drones), mine gas, etc. will effectively not have mined anything prior to their designated use. Hence, if you're looking at a base that has unused vespin geysirs, or if you're planning to build any structures during the game, it's better to build a surplus of drones now rather than to "restock" efficient saturation later. In other words, the earlier you build a drone, the more useful it will be - regardless of its anticipated use. Of course, there is a point of actual oversaturation, i.e. a moment of saturation where additional drones don't add any benefit at all - obviously at this point, additional drones are just dead supply. However, before that, it seems more sensible to me to build enough drones for mineral patches, geysirs, and anticipated structures whenever your opponent lets you get away with it, as early as possible, even at the "risk" of triple-mining a mineral patch for some time. | ||
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GleaM
United States207 Posts
On July 13 2012 05:32 TangSC wrote: It would really mean a lot to me if you all would upvote this post on reddit: Reddit Link Thanks! Really...? | ||
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TangSC
Canada1866 Posts
On July 14 2012 09:09 Poffel wrote: Hence, if you're looking at a base that has unused vespin geysirs, or if you're planning to build any structures during the game, it's better to build a surplus of drones now rather than to "restock" efficient saturation later. In other words, the earlier you build a drone, the more useful it will be - regardless of its anticipated use. Of course, there is a point of actual oversaturation, i.e. a moment of saturation where additional drones don't add any benefit at all - obviously at this point, additional drones are just dead supply. However, before that, it seems more sensible to me to build enough drones for mineral patches, geysirs, and anticipated structures whenever your opponent lets you get away with it, as early as possible, even at the "risk" of triple-mining a mineral patch for some time. Absolutely true, as long as after you build those extra structures and get back to 16-drone saturation, you double-check for single/triple mining patches again. My thought process is "once I reach 16 drones mining minerals per base, I never touch that mineral field" and it helps me keep track, though it is technically better to triple-mine a patch and gain that slight extra income. | ||
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Zheryn
Sweden3653 Posts
On July 13 2012 06:33 BoggieMan wrote: the title is kinda missleading since alot of this can be used by all races, great advice for the players that don't know all this already, i however think you should write that people in the lower leagues should not focus on this at all, cause its kinda silly wasting time practicing stuff like this when its your general gameplay that has huge flaws. This is like the MOST important thing to learn to get out of the lower leagues. If you can mine effiecent in the lower leagues it really doesn't matter what else you're doing, you'll win most of your games by just having more stuff. | ||
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Belial88
United States5217 Posts
On July 14 2012 04:05 TangSC wrote: Actually it's 66 drones for 3 bases with all the gas: (16x3) + (6x3) = 66 Having more drones than that is inefficient, as you'll end up with triple mining patches or drones just bouncing around. 70+ is beneficial on 4base. You can have up to 24 workers with increasing returns (albeit marginally diminishing returns after 16, its still more income per additional worker up to 24). With 6 for gas, that's 30 drones per base. That's a little high, so instead of 90 drones on 3 base, people usually aim for about 70-75 on 3 base. Obviously, spreading 70-75 on 4 bases is better, but I would recommend that Zergs aim to drone up to about 72 drones on 3 bases, probably before taking a fourth too. There are many times going up to 100 drones is very beneficial for zerg as well - in any match-up, if you want to start throwing down mass spines, Zerg has the ability to make 100 drones, and then make 30 spines essentially for free (the only cost is about 1-2 minutes of slight vulnerability if the opponent pushes, but that's why this is best done when you know the opponent isn't about to push, but will have a deathpush eventually, or to mass spines to deal with drops, or before the 200/200 supply cap is an issue and it doesn't matter if you have 100 supply tied up in drones, ie ZvP vs toss just taking his third, stephano does this a lot). It may be 'inefficient', but what you are asking for is just less income. Zerg really needs at least 70+ drones to really operate into mid to later game. Stopping at 66 drones just is too short. I believe the SQ thread talked about how masters+ players were going 70+ drones, and you were seeing pros go up to 90 often in their games. It's not like T/P where going past 80 drones really hurts, for Zerg you just make 100 drones, then turn them all into mass spines if it's a problem, and all 3 races really want 70-75 drones. I get what you are saying, but I think this only really applies to maynarding drones or rallying workers, where you don't want to oversaturate one base over another before you have 70+ drones on 3 base. If you stop at less than 70 drones in a macro game, you are really going to shoot yourself into the foot. I get the whole efficiency thing, but I don't think there's any practical use of it besides maynarding/rallying/keeping workers even on each base. | ||
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TangSC
Canada1866 Posts
On July 14 2012 16:20 Belial88 wrote: I get what you are saying, but I think this only really applies to maynarding drones or rallying workers, where you don't want to oversaturate one base over another before you have 70+ drones on 3 base. If you stop at less than 70 drones in a macro game, you are really going to shoot yourself into the foot. I get the whole efficiency thing, but I don't think there's any practical use of it besides maynarding/rallying/keeping workers even on each base. I see what you mean, but I think it depends on what your goal is for the late game. On 3 bases + macro h atch I'd aim for exactly 66 drones then start unit production with the goal of being aggressive, I'd only produce more drones when the 4th is almost done. An optimal 3-base economy with all the gas is sufficient to max out very early with high tech, though I do generally add 16 more drones when taking a 4th. (8 to take and saturate the gas, 8 for minerals, then transfer 8 from main so I have 16 drones optimally saturating the 4th). I do agree with you that it's completely reasonable to oversaturate the 4th or 3rd if you intend to mass spine in the late game. It's my personal preference not to make spinecrawlers, and instead try to play an aggressive infestor/ling/ultralisk or broodlord/roach/ling style off 3-4 base: http://drop.sc/221846 (zvt) http://drop.sc/221847 (zvp) | ||
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Poffel
471 Posts
On July 14 2012 21:18 TangSC wrote: I see what you mean, but I think it depends on what your goal is for the late game. On 3 bases + macro h atch I'd aim for exactly 66 drones then start unit production with the goal of being aggressive, I'd only produce more drones when the 4th is almost done. An optimal 3-base economy with all the gas is sufficient to max out very early with high tech, though I do generally add 16 more drones when taking a 4th. (8 to take and saturate the gas, 8 for minerals, then transfer 8 from main so I have 16 drones optimally saturating the 4th). I do agree with you that it's completely reasonable to oversaturate the 4th or 3rd if you intend to mass spine in the late game. It's my personal preference to try to hit aggressive infestor/ling/ultralisk or broodlord/roach/ling timing attacks off 3-4 base: http://drop.sc/221846 (zvt) http://drop.sc/221847 (zvp) Please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't understand what these replays are supposed to tell us, so I'd appreciate if you could give me some hints what to look out for in these replays. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, neither game showcases what you're writing about particularly well, since apart from your main base, I don't see much of this "optimal" saturation (for example, in the first game you have 29 workers at your natural (including geysirs) for most of the game, and less than 16 drones mining minerals at your later expansions). I also wouldn't call defending until 200/200 a "timing attack", and you don't get to that point off a 3-base economy with under 70 drones in either game. In other words, what I've taken from these replays so far is that "optimal saturation" is a "do-as-I-say" recommendation rather than a "do-as-I-do". But maybe I'm overlooking important stuff - in which case I'd welcome some advice on what to look out for in those replays -, or maybe these two cases were chosen poorly - in which case you might want to replace those replays with others that are better suited for the task. | ||
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StatixEx
United Kingdom779 Posts
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quarkral
58 Posts
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Nimbl3
Australia49 Posts
As a fellow zerg (gold league) Ive found myself getting into the habit of 2 full lines + 2 drones per base even when moving droned to my expo and 3rd.. is that seemingly correct or is it better for 2 full lines instead. in saying that once i make something i always remake that drone. My question is even with 70 drones at 3 bases say for eg.. when moving out to the 4th.. do u just transfer over or is it better to make a new full line of drones (8) then transfer from the main?? Thanks Nimble | ||
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SmuZ
Romania45 Posts
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TangSC
Canada1866 Posts
On July 14 2012 23:06 Poffel wrote: Please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't understand what these replays are supposed to tell us, so I'd appreciate if you could give me some hints what to look out for in these replays. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, neither game showcases what you're writing about particularly well, since apart from your main base, I don't see much of this "optimal" saturation (for example, in the first game you have 29 workers at your natural (including geysirs) for most of the game, and less than 16 drones mining minerals at your later expansions). I also wouldn't call defending until 200/200 a "timing attack", and you don't get to that point off a 3-base economy with under 70 drones in either game. In other words, what I've taken from these replays so far is that "optimal saturation" is a "do-as-I-say" recommendation rather than a "do-as-I-do". But maybe I'm overlooking important stuff - in which case I'd welcome some advice on what to look out for in those replays -, or maybe these two cases were chosen poorly - in which case you might want to replace those replays with others that are better suited for the task. Sorry Poffel, I should have been more clear. I was attempting to show that instead of massing spines in the late game and aiming for 5+ bases, I prefer to start attacking as soon as I have hive tech off 3-4 bases. I took another look at the replays and the saturation is pretty optimal in the ZvP, but I do oversaturate the natural in the ZvT by about 4-5 drones. Not the end of the world, but could certainly be improved by transferring the excess to the third. I believe the ZvT/ZvP that I analyse in this stream video better show the attention to saturation: http://www.twitch.tv/tangsc/b/324687905 | ||
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pozzezzed
United States3 Posts
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Smartwater
United States35 Posts
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FlilFlam
Canada109 Posts
The concept that up to 16 drones per base makes you roughly 42 minerals per minute is excellent, but how much money will the extra drones each make? (and not overall). Well, 750 minerals per minute for 20 drones means that if 16 drones makes you 670 then the 4 additional drones have only made you 80 minerals... Spread over the 4 remaining drones that means that drones above 16 (at least on close patches) make you 20 minerals each as opposed to the 42 that they normally make if not on a triple mining patch (i suspect that this number might be even lower than that, sopmewhere around 16-17) So the point of all this is being able to say that you can more than double the effectiveness of a drone/probe/scv by transferring it to a new expansion instead of leaving it at a base with 16+ miners already | ||
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TangSC
Canada1866 Posts
On July 18 2012 08:26 FlilFlam wrote: So the point of all this is being able to say that you can more than double the effectiveness of a drone/probe/scv by transferring it to a new expansion instead of leaving it at a base with 16+ miners already That's a good way of putting it, will update the OP. | ||
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X3GoldDot
Malaysia3840 Posts
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JDub
United States976 Posts
On July 18 2012 23:36 X3GoldDot wrote: for example if i have 16 drones in 1 base, is it good to transfer 8 to my natural, while leaving 8 in the main, this is something ive really never understood. 8 drones in each base is more minerals/minute than 16 drones in 1 base right? surely it would eventually overcome the mining time lost on transfer?? No. 8 drones in each base is equivalent to 16 drones on 1 base. The only reason you'd want to transfer when you have 16 in your main and your natural finishes is if you are going to need them to defend bunker pressure or, theoretically, if you are concerned about mining your main out faster than your natural (but I don't think that could possibly justify the transfer since the minerals lost during the transfer wouldn't justify the slight difference in when your main and naturals mine out 15 minutes later). | ||
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