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On July 23 2012 07:46 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2012 06:51 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 05:55 RampancyTW wrote: You will be losing mining time REGARDLESS of whether your transfer or rally, it's just a matter of when you lose it. In fact, being able to double up on more close mineral patches sooner would be an example of a direct economic benefit to transferring. There is also the (not negligible if your expansions are being contested) advantage of keeping minerals in your main for slightly longer.
Your assertion that it is always better to rally instead of transfer is factually incorrect, and misleading. It may be your preference because it's easier, which is completely fine. But it is objectively inferior, albeit not by much, in some situations. Like I said, I just want you to be giving accurate information, or at least a balanced opinion.
Stop letting your ego get in the way of your reason. I simply disagree with your logic, and I believe the rally method is the more practical and economical choice. It has absolutely nothing to do with ego and there's no need to escalate this argument with personal attacks. Well, my logic has factual basis, and this is a specific thing that has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with facts. I just think the earlier income is more beneficial, similar to double-mining the closer patches earlier on. Double-mining them may not let you use larva immediately, but it's a small edge.
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On July 13 2012 06:30 TangSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 13 2012 06:25 EnE wrote: One issue with the guide in my opinion, is that double clicking to check saturation can be fine, you just add two more drones to the total needed to account for the two drones with gas on the way back to your hatchery. I think you guys are right, and I've updated the paragraph on boxing vs double-clicking. While I still prefer the box technique, there's nothing wrong at all with double-clicking or control-clicking - in some ways, it is actually faster/easier because you can avoid accidently boxing your gas-drones, your queen, or any units that spawn. I think its faster to box also queen and gas drones than boxing only mineraldrones. You just have to know that it's 2rows + 4 and queen when you do that.
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On July 24 2012 23:21 TangSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2012 07:46 RampancyTW wrote:On July 23 2012 06:51 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 05:55 RampancyTW wrote: You will be losing mining time REGARDLESS of whether your transfer or rally, it's just a matter of when you lose it. In fact, being able to double up on more close mineral patches sooner would be an example of a direct economic benefit to transferring. There is also the (not negligible if your expansions are being contested) advantage of keeping minerals in your main for slightly longer.
Your assertion that it is always better to rally instead of transfer is factually incorrect, and misleading. It may be your preference because it's easier, which is completely fine. But it is objectively inferior, albeit not by much, in some situations. Like I said, I just want you to be giving accurate information, or at least a balanced opinion.
Stop letting your ego get in the way of your reason. I simply disagree with your logic, and I believe the rally method is the more practical and economical choice. It has absolutely nothing to do with ego and there's no need to escalate this argument with personal attacks. Well, my logic has factual basis, and this is a specific thing that has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with facts. I just think the earlier income is more beneficial, similar to double-mining the closer patches earlier on. Double-mining them may not let you use larva immediately, but it's a small edge. Transferring allows you to double-mine close patches at the natural earlier. By the time the 2nd injects pop, there is zero difference between transferring and rallying, other than that your main will last slightly longer and you can mine a little more money from doubling up on the expo close patches sooner.
If you can spend your first injects without idling any larvae, there is no benefit to mining the earlier minerals as opposed to transferring. If you thrown down an early gas or anticipate the need to build spines before that first round of injects pops, I recommend against transferring, because you need the earlier money. There's a slight economic benefit to transferring otherwise, though.
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On July 25 2012 00:17 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 23:21 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 07:46 RampancyTW wrote:On July 23 2012 06:51 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 05:55 RampancyTW wrote: You will be losing mining time REGARDLESS of whether your transfer or rally, it's just a matter of when you lose it. In fact, being able to double up on more close mineral patches sooner would be an example of a direct economic benefit to transferring. There is also the (not negligible if your expansions are being contested) advantage of keeping minerals in your main for slightly longer.
Your assertion that it is always better to rally instead of transfer is factually incorrect, and misleading. It may be your preference because it's easier, which is completely fine. But it is objectively inferior, albeit not by much, in some situations. Like I said, I just want you to be giving accurate information, or at least a balanced opinion.
Stop letting your ego get in the way of your reason. I simply disagree with your logic, and I believe the rally method is the more practical and economical choice. It has absolutely nothing to do with ego and there's no need to escalate this argument with personal attacks. Well, my logic has factual basis, and this is a specific thing that has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with facts. I just think the earlier income is more beneficial, similar to double-mining the closer patches earlier on. Double-mining them may not let you use larva immediately, but it's a small edge. Transferring allows you to double-mine close patches at the natural earlier. By the time the 2nd injects pop, there is zero difference between transferring and rallying, other than that your main will last slightly longer and you can mine a little more money from doubling up on the expo close patches sooner. If you can spend your first injects without idling any larvae, there is no benefit to mining the earlier minerals as opposed to transferring. If you thrown down an early gas or anticipate the need to build spines before that first round of injects pops, I recommend against transferring, because you need the earlier money. There's a slight economic benefit to transferring otherwise, though. I wouldn't go as far as to say there is any economic benefit to transferring, unless you're considering a slower-mining main an economic advantage. I don't really think it is though...what you're doing if you're transferring is double-mining the closer patches and single-mining the far patches. That means the closer mining patches are still going to mine out very early. I think it's best to mine out all the patches in the main quickly, that way you can transfer to your 4th at once when you mine out the main instead of keeping 4-5 drones mining in the main.
Also, even if you don't "anticipate the need", there are builds that produce extra queens and spines early on. The extra minerals saved from not transferring allow you to build these spines/queens and still afford to use larva immediately.
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I notice in your video where you demonstrate 4base saturation you move one drone from the natural to the main gas geyser, which I feel is a little excessive in terms of demanding that perfect efficiency. Taking a drone in the main and putting it in that gas, and just building a drone and rallying it to the patch with one worker should be fine (even if that larva comes from the natural). Mineral efficiency is nice but gas efficiency is more important.
Small thing. Probably doesn't matter much either way. But it kind of bugged me.
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On July 26 2012 02:06 cresse wrote: I notice in your video where you demonstrate 4base saturation you move one drone from the natural to the main gas geyser, which I feel is a little excessive in terms of demanding that perfect efficiency. Taking a drone in the main and putting it in that gas, and just building a drone and rallying it to the patch with one worker should be fine (even if that larva comes from the natural). Mineral efficiency is nice but gas efficiency is more important.
Small thing. Probably doesn't matter much either way. But it kind of bugged me. I agree it's probably better to take from the main and just replace it, but I was just trying to emphasize the 16-drone, 2-per-patch as much as humanly possible. Gas efficiency is also very key, and in no way less important than mineral saturation.
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I have one question for you tang, I hope this is good enough for warranting a bump tho. But wouldn't it be much better income wise if you triple mined the far patches and double mined the close ones? I mean wouldn't more income per base would be better as opposed to "optimal" saturation ?
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On September 30 2012 02:32 TheOnlyRedViper wrote: I have one question for you tang, I hope this is good enough for warranting a bump tho. But wouldn't it be much better income wise if you triple mined the far patches and double mined the close ones? I mean wouldn't more income per base would be better as opposed to "optimal" saturation ? It largely depends: it's more efficient to double-mine patches, because it takes less time for the drone to pay for itself than if it's triple mining. However, a triple-mining patch does net you more income than a single-mining patch.
So if you're on two bases, there's no excuse to have 8 drones mining at one base and 24 mining at the other - it's much better to have 16-drone saturation at both. Also if you're expanding to a third or fourth base later in the game, it follows that you should aim to hit 16 saturation at each base rather than oversaturate / undersaturate bases. BUT if you have enough drones, it's important to recognize that there is some benefit to triple mining patches. An example of a time this may come into play is if you're stuck on two bases for a long time, then it may not be a bad idea to triple-mine some patches for a while to gain that extra income, then transfer later once you do take additional bases.
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On July 25 2012 00:17 RampancyTW wrote:Show nested quote +On July 24 2012 23:21 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 07:46 RampancyTW wrote:On July 23 2012 06:51 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 05:55 RampancyTW wrote: You will be losing mining time REGARDLESS of whether your transfer or rally, it's just a matter of when you lose it. In fact, being able to double up on more close mineral patches sooner would be an example of a direct economic benefit to transferring. There is also the (not negligible if your expansions are being contested) advantage of keeping minerals in your main for slightly longer.
Your assertion that it is always better to rally instead of transfer is factually incorrect, and misleading. It may be your preference because it's easier, which is completely fine. But it is objectively inferior, albeit not by much, in some situations. Like I said, I just want you to be giving accurate information, or at least a balanced opinion.
Stop letting your ego get in the way of your reason. I simply disagree with your logic, and I believe the rally method is the more practical and economical choice. It has absolutely nothing to do with ego and there's no need to escalate this argument with personal attacks. Well, my logic has factual basis, and this is a specific thing that has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with facts. I just think the earlier income is more beneficial, similar to double-mining the closer patches earlier on. Double-mining them may not let you use larva immediately, but it's a small edge. Transferring allows you to double-mine close patches at the natural earlier. By the time the 2nd injects pop, there is zero difference between transferring and rallying, other than that your main will last slightly longer and you can mine a little more money from doubling up on the expo close patches sooner. If you can spend your first injects without idling any larvae, there is no benefit to mining the earlier minerals as opposed to transferring. If you thrown down an early gas or anticipate the need to build spines before that first round of injects pops, I recommend against transferring, because you need the earlier money. There's a slight economic benefit to transferring otherwise, though.
In theory you would be able to double-mine on natural faster, however realistically I think you would not be able to use larva/inject/scout/look at minimap etc as good if you're going to try to babysit workers at 2 bases (which in turn would require sick APM since you have to put every drone that comes out from both hatches at the correct mineral patch or it might cause the others to move). I find it hard enough to put them correctly on one base when you have several drones coming out at the same time, like the 11th and 12th drone.
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On October 22 2012 05:54 Zheryn wrote:Show nested quote +On July 25 2012 00:17 RampancyTW wrote:On July 24 2012 23:21 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 07:46 RampancyTW wrote:On July 23 2012 06:51 TangSC wrote:On July 23 2012 05:55 RampancyTW wrote: You will be losing mining time REGARDLESS of whether your transfer or rally, it's just a matter of when you lose it. In fact, being able to double up on more close mineral patches sooner would be an example of a direct economic benefit to transferring. There is also the (not negligible if your expansions are being contested) advantage of keeping minerals in your main for slightly longer.
Your assertion that it is always better to rally instead of transfer is factually incorrect, and misleading. It may be your preference because it's easier, which is completely fine. But it is objectively inferior, albeit not by much, in some situations. Like I said, I just want you to be giving accurate information, or at least a balanced opinion.
Stop letting your ego get in the way of your reason. I simply disagree with your logic, and I believe the rally method is the more practical and economical choice. It has absolutely nothing to do with ego and there's no need to escalate this argument with personal attacks. Well, my logic has factual basis, and this is a specific thing that has nothing to do with belief and everything to do with facts. I just think the earlier income is more beneficial, similar to double-mining the closer patches earlier on. Double-mining them may not let you use larva immediately, but it's a small edge. Transferring allows you to double-mine close patches at the natural earlier. By the time the 2nd injects pop, there is zero difference between transferring and rallying, other than that your main will last slightly longer and you can mine a little more money from doubling up on the expo close patches sooner. If you can spend your first injects without idling any larvae, there is no benefit to mining the earlier minerals as opposed to transferring. If you thrown down an early gas or anticipate the need to build spines before that first round of injects pops, I recommend against transferring, because you need the earlier money. There's a slight economic benefit to transferring otherwise, though. In theory you would be able to double-mine on natural faster, however realistically I think you would not be able to use larva/inject/scout/look at minimap etc as good if you're going to try to babysit workers at 2 bases (which in turn would require sick APM since you have to put every drone that comes out from both hatches at the correct mineral patch or it might cause the others to move). I find it hard enough to put them correctly on one base when you have several drones coming out at the same time, like the 11th and 12th drone. Now this brings up some interesting questions, like what skill level should you be before incorporating these types of drone-micro? Because if it's taking away from your injects and whatnot, then it's actually detrimental to focus too hard on saturation. I think all players should know the basic function of drone-mining as well as the basic statistics (which is why the drills are so helpful), but maybe not focus too hard on them in most games (especially 2+ bases).
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Seems like HotS will make a lot of this information irrelevant (ie counting drones) but I still stand by the 16 worker/2 per patch instead of 24/24.
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To check my saturation I have always control clicked my drones. It's extremely fast and as long as you don't have any extra rallied elsewhere on the screen you'll get a quick reading (compensate for one gas by subtracting 2, 2 gas will be two rows and 4).
I dunno out of all the options listed I have always preferred control clicking.
And I'm also for rallying drones over maynarding (really does not seem like it's worth it).
HotS makes a lot of this stuff irrelevant (it's all part of Blizzard's plan to make the game noob friendly )...like pairing workers AND counting, lol. I'm fairly certain drone AI auto pairs perfectly for you now (which is what results in much higher income for most players)...
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Nothing new, but this guide absolutely helps zergs in a lower league.
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On January 22 2013 08:55 Qwyn wrote:HotS makes a lot of this stuff irrelevant (it's all part of Blizzard's plan to make the game noob friendly ![](/mirror/smilies/coool.gif) )...like pairing workers AND counting, lol. I'm fairly certain drone AI auto pairs perfectly for you now (which is what results in much higher income for most players)... Haha yeah I know, I feel like an old man saying "In my day, we have to COUNT all the workers to know how many were mining." I have definitely noticed triple/single mining patches in HotS though.
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United Kingdom20274 Posts
On January 22 2013 08:30 TangSC wrote: Seems like HotS will make a lot of this information irrelevant (ie counting drones) but I still stand by the 16 worker/2 per patch instead of 24/24.
I think of them more as steps, you have to consider that if you have 16 workers and two bases, you'd get notably more income with them split 8/8 on the close patches rather than 16/0 two on each patch on the first base, and also adding a third worker to a patch, while giving you nothing at all on many close patches, actually works at almost 100% uptime on many of the far ones
In the end your income drop offs happen more like: Most income per worker at 2 per close patch, less income per worker when you start to use far patches, a tiny bit to quite a bit less when you add a third worker to far patches, and almost zero once you go from 20 to 24 workers because the rest were already close patches with 2 workers on them mining at what can often be 100% efficiency aside from the stupid mining AI that i wish you could disable in this game
Ty for the guide, btw, if i didnt already thank you, i read it when you posted it and was glad to see this kind of information being brought up
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On January 22 2013 11:19 TangSC wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2013 08:55 Qwyn wrote:HotS makes a lot of this stuff irrelevant (it's all part of Blizzard's plan to make the game noob friendly ![](/mirror/smilies/coool.gif) )...like pairing workers AND counting, lol. I'm fairly certain drone AI auto pairs perfectly for you now (which is what results in much higher income for most players)... Haha yeah I know, I feel like an old man saying "In my day, we have to COUNT all the workers to know how many were mining." I have definitely noticed triple/single mining patches in HotS though.
Hmm, well I guess it doesn't pair them all perfectly then, if that's the case.
I do notice a significant burst of mineral income in the early/mid-game compared to WoL though. I wonder why?
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I have to say that I really like the idea of getting the best out of your economy, even by doing tiny improvement like "use the closest larva to build a drone". As you said it becomes 2nd nature and you don't have to do any other stuff at that time anyway. BUT I also have to criticize. It's really weird that you choose the closest larva to get small advantages but at the same time don't split your drones or start double mining the close patches from the very beginning on cause you like every patch to be mined. Like this your choosing smaller advantages over larger. And when you're even focusing on the smallest advantages you should also go for the bigger ones. Otherwise what you're doing seems kinda foolish, coz its not like get the best economy possible but rather get the best economy when you like the style of getting it... Keep up the great work though!
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On January 22 2013 14:22 Benz0 wrote: I have to say that I really like the idea of getting the best out of your economy, even by doing tiny improvement like "use the closest larva to build a drone". As you said it becomes 2nd nature and you don't have to do any other stuff at that time anyway. BUT I also have to criticize. It's really weird that you choose the closest larva to get small advantages but at the same time don't split your drones or start double mining the close patches from the very beginning on cause you like every patch to be mined. Like this your choosing smaller advantages over larger. And when you're even focusing on the smallest advantages you should also go for the bigger ones. Otherwise what you're doing seems kinda foolish, coz its not like get the best economy possible but rather get the best economy when you like the style of getting it... Keep up the great work though! I see what you're saying, but I do recommend splitting the drones at the beginning, and it's not that I think double-mining every patch with your initial 6 drones is bad - as far as I know it does yield a small economic advantage - but often when players try to double-mine before 1 drone is mining from each patch, the double-mining drones often "bounce" and you end up losing mining time. Many of the suggestions in the guide are based on techniques that I personally use, so naturally I am a bit biased in what I choose to include / not include, though I'll make a note your suggestion in the OP.
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On July 13 2012 05:31 TangSC wrote:To keep track of the number of drones mining at each base, I personally recommend using the "BOX TECHNIQUE" to count only the drones harvesting minerals. To use the "BOX TECHNIQUE", simply make a rectangular box between your main hatchery and your minerals, then count all the drones. While you could double-click or control-click to count drones, I prefer the box style to avoid factoring in the drones mining gas. Also, it improves the speed and precision of your boxing, which is a helpful skill in micro engagements. That being said, there's nothing wrong with double-clicking the drones and factoring out the drones that mine gas (minus 2 drones per geyser). Courtesy of www.TangStarcraft.com
I always wondered why players took the time to box instead of control clicking a drone, particularly because it's easy to accidently include drones on gas or exclude drones on minerals. I suppose if you're "practicing boxing" that's a reason, but personally, I strive to use my APM in the most efficeint way possible.
If there are others out there like me, this may be a helpful tip to check for optimum saturation (including both gas).
1) Ctrl click a drone 2) Make sure you have two and a half rows of drones (20 drones in total)
16 on minerals, 4 on gas, and 2 are not counted because they're inside the gas geysers.
If you're only mining one gas, you should see 2 rows + 2 drones (18 drones total, with one drone in the geyser).
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Thanks for the guide. I didn't learn anything new but could be helpful for new players. Perhaps you could've made your guide a more general one for all races because it is pretty easy to apply a large majority of the concepts within your guide to all of the other races.
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