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wow, really cool job with the math.
personally the easy solution to this is to enable hold fire and target firing commands to the widow mines.
To most "normal" ladder players, both sides control will be such that widowmines will do decent amounts of damage, without target firing.
But when it is Life vs Flash, both players have the control to both punish un-targeted mines, and to target them correctly.
Adding target firing would simply add effectiveness to the unit for those with great micro.
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Not bad son, your thread that you made with only your third post got spotlighted
Great research btw!
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On March 20 2013 02:29 Ryndika wrote: Does the mine take closest target or random target in range? The mine takes the first target to enter the range. If the target exits the range before the mine fires, it will then reacquire another target. If more than one target is in range, it will acquire the closest target within range.
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In terms of gameplay, this roughly translate by the following rules
- Dont place mines on creep unless the Z is using roaches or unless you lead with a sacrificial little pack of marines that will bait the whole ling army and hold position on top of mines (so that everything dies)
- if you want to place mines alone on the field (as opposed to use them with your bio), you should not place a mine on its own but create a field with mines within 3-4 range of each others (so that there is no safe path to run trough it without triggering anything)
- finally the best use of widow mines offensively seems to burrow them just in front of your bio with a good split from your part (so they're guaranteed to trigger to a good pack of lings because one ling would die to your bio before the mine actually firing)
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Now that's some cool information.
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Good job! If the assumptions are accurate, the implications seem stunning.
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Awesome research, can't wait to try it out myself! Thank you very much
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United States33033 Posts
in non-math : http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=403618¤tpage=3#49
On March 18 2013 14:15 MorroW wrote:how widow mine worksthey lock onto a target. first one who enter within 5 range OR best unit (which is basically the closest unit to the widow mine) once they lock into a target it begins channeling for 1.5 seconds (ingame) if the unit leaves the 5 range, dies or player manually switches target during the channeling period - the widow mine repeats the process so this is why mines sometimes dont attack, sometimes kill terran and sometimes kill zergso lets say you run in with zerglings against marines and a widow mine. the widow mine locks onto the first zergling who enters. if the zergling dies to marines, it changes target and has to wait another 1.5 sek, if that ling dies to marines it changes target etc. so it appears not to be attacking at all. if the zergling runs past the widow mine, behind the marines for example it switches target as well (the target has to be within 5 range the entire lockdown process) as terranso in a fight, you basically as terran ideally want to switch targets between the zerglings until the banelings enter range and then you target the bane and let the mines be. second option is to stay with the marines, burst down as many lings as you can, and hopefully (and probably) you will kill all zerglings which were targetted automatically by the widow mines before they finish channeling and then banelings enter and you target the mines onto the banes as zergas a zerg player, you know that your first zerglings will be targetted, so use your frontal line in move command behind the terran army and attack with the rest of your zerglings normally. if you do this just right (and terran doesnt) the mines will all fire on your lings that are behind his bio army and kill everything he got widow mines appear random at the first glance of it. but the more you play around with them the more you realize how much you (as terran or zerg) can manipulate them and make them do exactly what you want them to. its not a user friendly unit at all because of how it can completely backfire using widow mines where as a siege tank you know will do a certain amount of damage. things like this is really beautiful and what is making bw a very different game from sc2. in bw there were tons of "OP" units that crushed your opponent or did close to nothing or killed yourself where as in sc2 its much more predictable whats expected of a unit because the complexity of it its not very deep i think the widow mines are slightly too strong right now. but if your a zerg reading this i hope it helped abit how to make the widow mines turn against the terran instead of raping everything you got
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Should note that the Terran can counter this trick by manually targeting the larger pack of zerglings.
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This significantly increases the skill-cap of counter-mine control. Excellent (albeit, I don't think I'd be able to pull it off regularly)
+ Show Spoiler +Record for spotlighted thread with smallest OP post-count?
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Nice analysis! Having an exact equation is helpful. It might be worth mentioning in the OP that you have to right click, not a left click, different units to change targets with a widow mine. I think a lot of terrans don't realize that yet.
Edit: Please, please, please Blizzard don't change the mine mechanics. They make the unit harder to use, but they allow for so much micro potential, which makes widow mines much more interesting to watch and play with and against. If the widow mine is deemed too weak because of this, just buff the damage of the widow mine or something.
It's possible to countermicro versus this kind of ling positioning, for example by retargeting other zerglings than the one that initially entered the widow mine radius. This does not make the widow mines useless, it just adds the ability to micro against them and countermicro that micro, and so on.
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This is a great post. I hope as the game develops we see lots of interesting mine related micro to take advantage of it's AI.
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Widow mines - the reavers of SC2: they blow up your mineral line and in battle are quite unpredictable. Maybe we should start calling them reaver mines.
Yes, I know this post proves they're totally predictable, but when watching Life vs Flash they totally felt like reavers.
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United Arab Emirates439 Posts
Curious what this means for Terran micro. Conc Shell (halfs the units speed!) Marauder micro? Walls to stop units from running past the mines? Or just closer positioned mines?
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Really love stuff like this. It's these things that made BW so awesome sometimes.
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On March 20 2013 03:32 nidhogg11 wrote: Widow mines - the reavers of SC2: they blow up your mineral line and in battle are quite unpredictable. Maybe we should start calling them reaver mines.
Yes, I know this post proves they're totally predictable, but when watching Life vs Flash they totally felt like reavers.
Reavers were also deterministic Kinda same deal
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I'm so glad that that's how it worked. I watched life vs flash and thought the whole thing boiled down to luck.
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On March 20 2013 03:07 atarianimo wrote:Should note that the Terran can counter this trick by manually targeting the larger pack of zerglings.
You can't manually target anything with Widow Mines. Their attack is automatic and there's nothing you can do as a Terran player to alter what it fires at other than unburrowing the mine to reset its lock on protocol.
Personally I think this mechanic is beautiful and exactly the sort of thing this game needs.
Widow Mines just like Spider Mines are units with great potential but the fact they are automated machines makes them a liability if the opponent is good enough, that raises the skill cap of other races playing against Terrans but it also means that higher echelons of play Terrans have to figure out other tactics and strategies to use if their Widow Mines are not going to be as effective.
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On March 20 2013 03:44 Vindicare605 wrote: You can't manually target anything with Widow Mines. Their attack is automatic and there's nothing you can do as a Terran player to alter what it fires at other than unburrowing the mine to reset its lock on protocol. Yes you can, during the 1.5 second window after the time bomb triggers you can focus something else within the Mine's range; the time bomb will reset and the Mine will shoot if the new target is still in range.
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