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After reading these,
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=223282
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=210874
I wanted to talk about getting building armor over Infantry armor early game versus zerg and even other races, but I mainly talk about zerg in this.
+1 armor vs +2 building armor
I been doing some thinking about these upgrades. I am sure
that everyone knows about both of these upgrades for terran.
1 gets used all the time, the other...never? I have been doing
some experiments on which upgrade is better for early/mid/late
game and here is what I came up with. +1 armor is 100/100/160
+2 building armor is 150/150/140. Both help you stay alive
longer, but one of them gives you 1, the other 2 armor. So
why have we been so fouced on +1 armor vs +2 with shorter
build time...
The simple answer is we build units to attack, they need to be
the strongest they can be and not die as fast. Plus, these
units can move and run away or kill things, buildings cannot.
What do buildings do early/mid/late for a Terran??? They protect
us from mass runs in, they allow us to deny scouting from the
opponent, they form a wall for our units to stand behind and get some
free shots in, and they protect us from certain units when we cannot
be in 3 places at once(missile turrets). So why are they so
un loved they don't get a buff to help them survive??? Short answer
they don't help us win the game. What if we had it all wrong,
what if these buildings were the only reason why we win and
lose some games. Think about it, you put down a PF or a bunker
at the front and then it gets overrun by ling, roach, muta,
banes and you say man I need to build more units vs that
build or you complain that zerg is op...(which they are lol).
So without writing more I want to just get into the details of
+1 armor vs +2 builing armor
Marines:
HP: 45
Armor: 0
Cost: 50
Attack: 6
Speed: 0.8608
Bunker:
HP: 400
Armor: 1
Cost: 100
There are the basic units we will be taking about, now lets see
some zerg units.
Zerling:
HP: 35
Armor: 0
Cost: 25
Attack: 5
Speed: 0.696
Roach:
HP: 125
Armor: 1
Cost: 75/25
Attack: 16
Speed: 2
Muta;
HP: 120
Armor: 0
Cost: 100/100
Attack: 9/6/3
Speed: 1.5246
Ling vs Marine
M dies in 9 hits
Ling vs +1 armor Marine
M dies in 12 hits
+4 extra hits, pretty nice that is an extra 2.784 seconds of time
alive. That is an extra 3 shots or 18 damage, Then once upgrades hit, its back to even. Now lets look
at Lings vs bunkers.
Ling vs Bunker
B dies in 100 hits
Ling vs +2 armor Bunker
B dies in 200 hits
+100 hits, a 100% upgrade versus a 33% upgrade that is an extra 70 seconds of life. Now I get it, bunkers
don't move, they just sit there, but how often do you play verus
a zerg and the just go in and surround your bunker and then
they kill it off and your marines are left to defend them selves
if the bunker can stay up extra time, then they can defend from
the safety of the bunker. Now I know that 1 ling is never going to
be attacking at a time. So I did the math on if 20 lings were attack your
bunker.
20 lings vs Bunker
B will last 3.48 seconds, marines will fire ~16 times
16 shots will effectivly kill 2-3 lings
20 lings vs +2 armor Bunker
B will last 6.96 seconds, marines will fire ~32 times
32 shots will effectivly kill 5-6 lings
20 lings vs 10 Marines
10 marines die in 3.132 seconds
20 lings vs +1 armor Marines
10 marines die in 3.915 seconds
Now bunkers get double the amount of time verus the marine which get an extra 0.8 seconds.
So verus lings armor upgrades to either units or buildings is good, but the building
armor upgrade will help you defend yourself better early on since you can use buildings to your
atvantage. +1 armor is very essential but, I feel early on armor upgrades are the way to get your
tech up and not have to invest in such a huge army.
Let's look at armor upgrades verus roachs and mutas.
Roach vs Marine
M dies in 3 shots
Roach vs +1 Marine
M dies in 3 shots
So no difference verus Roach.
Roach vs Bunker
B dies in 27 shots
Roach vs +2 Bunker
B dies in 31 shots
That is an extra 4 shots. 4 shots may not seem like a lot, but when you can have some scvs repairing
it will take an extra volly from a 5 roach push to kill your bunker, giving you a little
more time to repair and keep it alive. Not to mention if you have a supply depo wall off,
it will take that much longer to kill of your depo wall.
Muta vs Marine
M dies in 5 hits
Muta vs +1 Marine
M dies in 6 hits
This is a nice bouns for marines getting to take another hit.
Muta vs Bunker
B dies in 50 hits
Muta vs +2 Bunker
B dies in 67 hits
Wow an extra 17 hits from mutas. That is a huge bouns. You figure 15 muta coming into your mineral
line with a bunker in place, it would take...
15 Muta vs Bunker
B dies in 5.07-6.09 seconds
15 Muta vs +2 Bunker
B dies in 6.76-7.62 seconds, giving your marines an extra two or three shots(48-72 damage) on the mutas.
Just for fun,
15 muta vs Missile Turret
T dies in 3.04 seconds
15 muta vs +2 Missile Turret
T dies in 4.57 seconds, 1-2 extra shots(24-48 damage)
So by upgrading your building armor you are effectivly double the amount of damage you get from
that builing weather it is a bunker, turret or even supply depo that is walling you
off. You are getting more time to shoot at the target while remaining safe. You can get this upgrade
faster in time, depending on your income if you have 3 on gas you can get
the extra 50 in just under 30 seconds, so the timing isn't any different. I would say if you
are going for quick expos and defeding, I would use armor defense, since they give you a nice
bouns to PF and Orbital armor and help those from being taken down as well.
Thanks for the read, kind of long but wanted to share.
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Forgot to mention, scouting raxs will also living longer so you can see more of the base,
5 queens vs floating rax
R dies in 25 shots, which is 25 seconds
5 queens vs +2 floating rax
R dies in in 34 shots, which is 34 seconds for an extra 9 seconds of scouting
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Interesting, highly interesting. Lets wait for SCV s coming with attack to built bunkers.
Hell, neosteel frame, +2 infantry and building armor combined to make a massive defense at the Zergs front, even with rax in there, and depots, to contain Zerg like he's never been contained before!
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You're overthinking this imo, you want to attack Zerg, not turtle up behind armor upgraded buildings. The scenario's where you don't die to a Zerg push because you have building armor are so scarce compared to your use of marines offensively and defensively. It's not worth getting building armor over infantry armor unless you're already on +3.
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Any sort of common combo of roach ling baneling will come far before either of the upgrades finishes. I feel that after 3-3 is done, it is very good to get it but as for staying alive, it won't be done in time. In the 3 base muta ling bane all-in style that is commonly seen on Antiga typically destroys the bunkers with banes, and 80-2 (or even more than 80 with upgrades as the zerg could have up to 2-2) is not a huge reduction in damage.
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I like building armor but principally because it helps vs muta run-ins on turrets.
Also Banelings are not affected by building armour upgrades AFAIK.
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Getting building armor delays you from getting +3 bio armor which means that later in the game so if you want to push with 3/3 bio then that push is going to come even later.
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On July 22 2012 02:16 rebotfc wrote:
I like building armor but principally because it helps vs muta run-ins on turrets.
Also Banelings are not affected by building armour upgrades AFAIK.
I don't know why that would be true, I think it would be more that -2 damage on 80 (+5) damage would be hard to notice.
As for the topic, I think it's very hard to just do the math like this and let it stand for what it is... a lot of the scenarios are just plain unrealistic (one zergling vs one marine... bio armour upgrade shouldn't matter) and aren't perhaps true unless the whole scenario is fleshed out. For example, in a situation where the zerg is opting for some sort of non-baneling all-in and you have the time to scout it and get building armour beforehand, it would be more beneficial than a bio upgrade because not only would it effectively increase the value of repair on that bunker, it would also increase the duration of the wall itself, allowing your ranged units more time to kill stuff.
However, if the zerg is just pressuring, the building armour upgrade directly hurts any pressure you plan to do afterwards while helping you more readily defend a pressure you probably had no problem defending anyways. It would take some pretty strong (yet somehow not all-in) pressure for a zerg to attempt to break a normal bunker, much less an armoured one.
Overall, I think adding building armor late game is smart, because why not. Adding it earlier at the sacrifice of something else? Unless you've got some 2 base or 3 base strange all in planned, I don't see the point of locking yourself in your base and hurting your ability to do stuff to his base.
Oh, and math-wise... if you have 25 marines and a bunker, bio armor will give you just as many more "zergling hits" as a bunker with armor upgrade. The positives for armor is that it unlocks the option to go to +2 armour (no follow up upgrade on building armour) and still functions on the offensive, where creep prevents a bunker/building armor from being useful (again while benefitting from repair more, and allowing your units more time to attack).
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i tend to get +2 buildings before +1 armor, mostly against toss though, because bunkers take 4 damage less from zealots. Against Zerg its nice as well if they stay ling heavy, with it you can basically go 4 base on alot of maps, involving not to much risk. And the upgrade negates muta harassment pretty effective unless they commit heavily into mutas.
Was thinking about going tripple ebay for a while, but right now going air is so much better.
But right now with all those ling runbys +2 armor and nothing is to fear, when you move out with your whole army. And have noticed that very few check for the upgrade and suddenly the things don't die as fast as they are supposed to. Best example was xel naga cavern times, when Zerg baneling bombed your pf with the perfect amount of banelings, well on a pf without armor.
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I have a question.. Why does terran even have this upgrade?
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On July 22 2012 01:45 Saechiis wrote:
You're overthinking this imo, you want to attack Zerg, not turtle up behind armor upgraded buildings. The scenario's where you don't die to a Zerg push because you have building armor are so scarce compared to your use of marines offensively and defensively. It's not worth getting building armor over infantry armor unless you're already on +3.
This, unless you're bronze, this is a stupid strategy--if you turtle like this, Zerg will out macro you; period. Worst strategy post in a while.
edit- grammar
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Not sure what OP is trying to promote here.
Going for early + building armor is unthinkable. Resources are extremely tight and having that extra +1 armor (weapons if you are good at microing dem marines) makes your early aggression against zerg stronger. +armor for building wont finish in time against any 1-2 base rushes, and the gas is so tight that if you went building armor you'd have no tanks to defend, and since the upgrade wont finish in time, you'll just die.
You did NOT include calculations for banelings either, which is THE main bunker killer early on.
Going for late game High Sec Track (whatever the fuck you call it, increase range for turret and PF)+building armor is quite common I think?
So now its the mid game
Going for early-mid game +building armor is rather pointless too. At worse you are still on 2 base, and if you are turtling on two base because you got hit pretty badly, tanks are all you need. At best you are fucking up the zerg so bad that its better to get faster upgrades for units so you can further pull in your advantage.
Now you are looking for the middle ground - 3 - 4, bases are a bit far apart to protect properly therefore usage of PF, even ground. A zerg already needs to commit a shit ton of units to take down a PF, and if it is even ground it would be a complete waste and bad move on the zergs part. So now we are down to turret vs muta. The upgrade is 100/100 i think? Building another turret is only 100 minerals, and personally I prefer the +range upgrade first if it really comes down to it.
But really, leave 4-6 well upgraded marines with the turret and the mutas will leave you alone.
In TvP, its a macro race matchup already. Fast upgrades for units is so essential many builds have a bunch of timings revolving around them. Not much needed to say about late game.
TvT - I can see this working in a mech vs bio situation, as +2 armor screws marines over really badly and PFs become unkillable with mm alone, but its pretty common knowledge for good players to fit in the two upgrades for PFs once the 4th is getting secured.
Appreciate the numbers you have given but at the end of the day unit upgrades always come first unless you are doing some really cute strategy, in which I prefer +1 armor thor rushes.
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On July 22 2012 04:14 a176 wrote:
I have a question.. Why does terran even have this upgrade?
I find it quite useful sometimes, along with turret range, when muta play is afoot. Really helps cut down on the harassment if you have good turret lines, allowing you to focus on making a strong push army that a muta ball won't be able to handle.
I generally only get it when I see MASS muta, though. Like, when the Zerg's overcommitting to it as they're sometimes wont to do to keep you from ever pushing out.
Good to note that the +2 armour effectively brings building armour up to 3. In short, that means mutas without attack upgrades do zero ricochet damage vs. buildings, on top of their initial attack being reduced down to 6. That's equivalent to marine base damage, but with a ~1.5 second cooldown. Really helps out turrets that are close by each other, as the lack of ricochet damage makes it a lot harder for mutas to take down successive turrets. Add in the turret range like I mentioned, and you have mutas taking a tonne more damage than they normally would in order to destroy the same amount of turrets -- to the point that sometimes they won't even be able to break through a decent turret line. That's not even considering SCV repair.
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when going pure mech vs zerg i think building armor is essential for turrets vs early muta timings.
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The_Sanjuro you seem to be focused on the building armor upgrade mainly vs zerg. Now mass repair a bunker will practically negate any ling attacks - the problem is banelings, and baneling dmg ignores armor completely. In the same fashion I´d like to point out that repairing a bunker vs mutas or roaches is preferable to investing in early building armor as well - this is because either you want an addition ebay to upgrade building armor, or delay your unit armor upgrade. An extra ebay+ extra upgrade during early game is too expensive early on. If you delay armor unit upgrade, you have to take into consideration that it also impacts the medivac combination. Not only will medivacs deplete their energy faster, but the units will be more fragile and more easily die before healed. So if you want a more full picture, try to include armor bonuses vs various unit with medivac support.
Another thing to take into consideration is taht during an entire game you may have made maybe 3 bunkers and 8 turrets - so your building armor is effective on a total of 11 buildings (rest doesnt really matter except any planetaries you may have built) - however in that same game you may have made 200 marines, a huge difference of cost effective upgrade. While i like the building armor upgrade vs smaller amount of mutas - big stack of mutas will still 1 shot a turret regardless of armor upgrade, and the real difference is practically non existant, vs a mass muta play i´d rather have turret range than armor or invested in another thor.
There are other things to take into consideration, most have been mentioned, but i think it´s clear why nobody opts for a fast building armor upgrade among progamers
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good for mech bad for bio imo
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+ Show Spoiler +On July 22 2012 04:14 a176 wrote:
I have a question.. Why does terran even have this upgrade?
I think the upgrade itself is a quite usefull one as well as turret range, which inreases your defence while you are out on the map with your units. However for terran the "aggresive" part is way more important than the "defensive" part in the midgame. So it´s only normal that the upgrades for units are preferred to make your aggresion stronger. It just don´t makes sense at all to research those upgrades, because when you are "defensive" all your units are at home to help with the defense. Unless you use them to tech like crazy for example fast 3 base bc and skip your unit production really hard. But the problem here is that bcs aren´t scary at all.
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I get buidling armor every game, and agree with your assesment.
It is ALWAYS good for your bunkers/turrets to take a stronger beating, for your wall to survive that extra hit, and for your Planetaries to lob a few more shots.
The fact that it ALSO works on PDD and auto turrets is a huge plus.
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turret range is aswome, building armor meh not so much.
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OP - there are so many spelling errors and typos in your original post... 
I feel that there are a lot of cool strategies available from the three under-used ebay upgrades. Of course, you talk about the Building Armour upgrade. This is an upgrade I always get after 3-3 finishes. At this stage, I am normally on three base, probably taking a fourth and can easily afford it. Against a zerg player going Muta, I have been experimenting with getting Hi-Sec Auto Tracking quite early as it gives turrets more range in fending them off.
I also distinctly remember a game on Calm Before The Storm where a terran player rushed to Neosteel Frame and did a wonky late upgraded bunker rush. It was really cool at the time, but was crushed.
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EPT
