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This surely comes as no surprise to anyone, but the current standart Terran openings are not pleasing to our autistic nature.
We prioritize getting a super fast reaper out on the map, have a quick factory and so forth and there is plenty of good reason to do so, but for some reason all these openings just leave a bad taste, like overdue milk in your morning coffee.
The reason behind this feeling of travesty that you couldn't quite get a grasp on is, you guessed it; mule timing!
Having exactly the same amount of energy on all your Orbitals at all times is a rather underrated quality of life perk. Instead of having to drop mules at 2 different timings for optimal efficiency, we can combine that into 1 action. It reduces the apm burden, and makes planning your mule drops easier! It takes 62 to 63ish seconds for an orbital to generate the required 50 energy to drop a mule. Your main OC has its first mule available at exactly 2 minutes into the game (maybe 1:59 because I'm a twat and you are not). That means that every minute and 3 seconds, you get to drop a mule. 2:00 - 3:03 - 4:06 - 5:09 - 6:12 ... and so on. Now if we can time our other CCs to line up their energy with our main OC, we get this incredibly neat timetable that we can rely on entirely to hit our mule timings with minimal effort! This is very helpful because when you add two or more OCs to a control group, you cannot tell what their individual energy counters are at via the HUD. What happens is that we check, and check and check again for when that mule button comes available. And obviously, many people have gotten very good at the specific mule timings of their builds, but from an attention and apm standpoint this is still rather suboptimal and will remain suboptimal for the entirety of your game (unless you do the bronze trick of just not using your energy at all until you have 400 on all your OCs ofc.)
Without further ado, here are the timings to line up your energy perfectly (obviously this assumes that you start your OC upgrades asap and have not delayed your main OC for whatever reason)
A natural started @ 1:20 will finish its upgrade perfectly synced for the 3:03 mule drop. Obviously this is not possible with a Reaper fe and is NOT! the fastest possible CC for a gasless Rax expand (it's off by about 6 seconds)
however, if you take this OC timing and get your 3rd at one of the following timestamps, you will have the benefit of 3 perfectly synced Muledrops!
1:20 - 2:23 - 3:26 - 4:29 - 5:32 and so on, are all points in the game where the sun, the moon, jupiter, saturn, and your momma, perfectly line up with the standard OC timing.
Enjoy!
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instead of doing this, you can simply bind your first few orbitals to a dedicated key like every other terran does
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I never did figure out how to use smart command for fast mule drop.
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you run into all sorts of problems low APM dropping mules from a single control group. say you have 4 orbitals in a control group. orbitals #1, #2 and #3 are at 200/200 energy. orbital #4 is only at 50/200 energy. now imagine you want to drop a mule where orbital #4 is stationed. when you click mule from the control group, it will prioritize draining energy from the orbital that is closest to your cursor: in this example, orbital #4 (50/200), instead of the other orbitals that are maxed. it's better to micro-manage orbital energy because the effort is rewarded. I'm sure it's the same with nexus energy but I haven't bothered to test it
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On August 11 2022 13:11 SHODAN wrote:
you run into all sorts of problems low APM dropping mules from a single control group. say you have 4 orbitals in a control group. orbitals #1, #2 and #3 are at 200/200 energy. orbital #4 is only at 50/200 energy. now imagine you want to drop a mule where orbital #4 is stationed. when you click mule from the control group, it will prioritize draining energy from the orbital that is closest to your cursor: in this example, orbital #4 (50/200), instead of the other orbitals that are maxed. it's better to micro-manage orbital energy because the effort is rewarded. I'm sure it's the same with nexus energy but I haven't bothered to test it
Honestly never felt the need to select which orbital I'm muling. They're all on the same key in my case so I view them as one big pool of energy that I manage if I want to keep energy for scans based on the game I'm playing. I just rapid fire hotkey muling so I can literaly be braindead and mule without real APM. I just don't understand why you'd want to do what you describe in a real/competitive scenario.
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On August 11 2022 13:11 SHODAN wrote:
you run into all sorts of problems low APM dropping mules from a single control group. say you have 4 orbitals in a control group. orbitals #1, #2 and #3 are at 200/200 energy. orbital #4 is only at 50/200 energy. now imagine you want to drop a mule where orbital #4 is stationed. when you click mule from the control group, it will prioritize draining energy from the orbital that is closest to your cursor: in this example, orbital #4 (50/200), instead of the other orbitals that are maxed. it's better to micro-manage orbital energy because the effort is rewarded. I'm sure it's the same with nexus energy but I haven't bothered to test it
What's the actual benefit? A mule is a mule, doesn't matter which orbital it came from ? Afaik the only difference is that the mule spawns on the side of the mineral patch that is facing the CC it was called from. Maybe that can in some cases cause it to not deliver its 9th load? (Mules run up to 9 trips with 25 minerals each and when dropped on the far patches they usually run out of time right before delivering their last payload, which is why one drops on the close patches only) I doubt that is a problem though, at least if you drop it on a close patch.
On August 11 2022 12:44 SHODAN wrote:
instead of doing this, you can simply bind your first few orbitals to a dedicated key like every other terran does
Who does this? You would need 1 extra hotkey per CC and still have one with all CCs in it, for scans.
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On August 11 2022 22:12 alpenrahm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2022 12:44 SHODAN wrote:
instead of doing this, you can simply bind your first few orbitals to a dedicated key like every other terran does Who does this? You would need 1 extra hotkey per CC and still have one with all CCs in it, for scans.
GuMiho, HeroMarine, SpeCial, and many other pro terrans bind their CCs individually, at least in the early game. they've been doing it this way since Wings of Liberty.
GuMiho binds his first and second orbitals each to a dedicated key, and all command centers together on another key. at a certain point, he unbinds the first orbital and uses only one dedicated key to control an active expansion. HeroMarine simply keeps his first few orbitals binded all game long and saves his camera hotkeys for something else. SoS did the same with nexuses, always having 2 dedicated bindings to keep track of energy.
Byun and Clem use only one dedicated key, which they successively rebind to their newest command center (whichever CC they are building on location or floating to the 3rd... 4th... etc) and another key for all command centers together.
and on top of that, pro terrans use camera hotkeys to check orbital energy at a glance throughout the game. usually they have a camera hotkey for their main CC and the nearest 3 or 4 expansions.
On August 11 2022 22:12 alpenrahm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 11 2022 13:11 SHODAN wrote:
you run into all sorts of problems low APM dropping mules from a single control group. say you have 4 orbitals in a control group. orbitals #1, #2 and #3 are at 200/200 energy. orbital #4 is only at 50/200 energy. now imagine you want to drop a mule where orbital #4 is stationed. when you click mule from the control group, it will prioritize draining energy from the orbital that is closest to your cursor: in this example, orbital #4 (50/200), instead of the other orbitals that are maxed. it's better to micro-manage orbital energy because the effort is rewarded. I'm sure it's the same with nexus energy but I haven't bothered to test it What's the actual benefit? A mule is a mule, doesn't matter which orbital it came from ? Afaik the only difference is that the mule spawns on the side of the mineral patch that is facing the CC it was called from. Maybe that can in some cases cause it to not deliver its 9th load? (Mules run up to 9 trips with 25 minerals each and when dropped on the far patches they usually run out of time right before delivering their last payload, which is why one drops on the close patches only) I doubt that is a problem though, at least if you drop it on a close patch.
nope, it's the other way around. MULEs dropped on far-away patches (usually these are 900 mineral patches) will return 9 trips without loss. MULEs dropped on close patches (1800 minerals) will attempt an additional trip but will expire before delivering the 10th payload. you want to pull those MULEs off your mineral line before they make the final trip back.
the reason why we drop MULEs on close mineral patches is because they tend to be rich mineral patches (1800 minerals). dropping MULEs on weak patches will deplete your mineral field too fast and you'll end up with inefficient SCV saturation.
busy orbitals regenerate over time, that's the benefit. it's no good having one orbital stuck on 200/200 because you're only burning energy from the others. it comes into play when you're banking scans or banking MULEs to drop at a far-away, vulnerable expansion (think lategame vZ, where you want to suck up those minerals quickly). it is a good macro skill to avoid maxing energy on a particular orbital. better to burn it down to 150/200 so that you are always regenerating, even when you need to bank energy overall.
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Perfectly lined up MULE drops also means you have a longer period of time with no scan available. So having desynchronized MULE drops can be a good thing.
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On August 13 2022 00:54 meadbert wrote:
Perfectly lined up MULE drops also means you have a longer period of time with no scan available. So having desynchronized MULE drops can be a good thing.
Yep. CC first in HotS had perfectly synchronized MULE drops. In pro games, terrans going CC first regularly straight up died to 2 DTs, because they had 0 energy for scan on both ccs which meant they would lose literally all their scvs before scan was available.
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On August 19 2022 08:24 TheLordofAwesome wrote:Show nested quote +On August 13 2022 00:54 meadbert wrote:
Perfectly lined up MULE drops also means you have a longer period of time with no scan available. So having desynchronized MULE drops can be a good thing. Yep. CC first in HotS had perfectly synchronized MULE drops. In pro games, terrans going CC first regularly straight up died to 2 DTs, because they had 0 energy for scan on both ccs which meant they would lose literally all their scvs before scan was available.
The mistake there isn't the build, it is not saving up a scan for an important timing. Back in WoL TvT it was very common to safe a scan for the earliest possible banshee timing, and keep it for about 30 seconds. I specifically remember training this.
Anyway, i've been making a lot progress with a nice TvZ 2 base all in/timing using the 1:20 CC opening.
Here is a replay of it if you are interested. This is Dia 3.7MMR
Replay
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i read it all, whats the actual problem?
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I honestly prefer my orbitals to be on slightly different ranges of energy, particularly helps to prevent overmuling and having scans available when critically needed more often. Purposefully creating QOL build orders usually end up being slightly worse and hamstring you as you improve, you should just go for optimal build orders, not purposefully lining up your orbital energy and flow with the meta. This is a pretty cool idea, but just seems suboptimal from actually pushing MMR once you hit mid-high masters.
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On August 11 2022 02:09 alpenrahm wrote:This surely comes as no surprise to anyone, but the current standart Terran openings are not pleasing to our autistic nature. We prioritize getting a super fast reaper out on the map, have a quick factory and so forth and there is plenty of good reason to do so, but for some reason all these openings just leave a bad taste, like overdue milk in your morning coffee. The reason behind this feeling of travesty that you couldn't quite get a grasp on is, you guessed it; mule timing! Having exactly the same amount of energy on all your Orbitals at all times is a rather underrated quality of life perk. Instead of having to drop mules at 2 different timings for optimal efficiency, we can combine that into 1 action. It reduces the apm burden, and makes planning your mule drops easier! It takes 62 to 63ish seconds for an orbital to generate the required 50 energy to drop a mule. Your main OC has its first mule available at exactly 2 minutes into the game (maybe 1:59 because I'm a twat and you are not). That means that every minute and 3 seconds, you get to drop a mule. 2:00 - 3:03 - 4:06 - 5:09 - 6:12 ... and so on. Now if we can time our other CCs to line up their energy with our main OC, we get this incredibly neat timetable that we can rely on entirely to hit our mule timings with minimal effort! This is very helpful because when you add two or more OCs to a control group, you cannot tell what their individual energy counters are at via the HUD. What happens is that we check, and check and check again for when that mule button comes available. And obviously, many people have gotten very good at the specific mule timings of their builds, but from an attention and apm standpoint this is still rather suboptimal and will remain suboptimal for the entirety of your game (unless you do the bronze trick of just not using your energy at all until you have 400 on all your OCs ofc.) Without further ado, here are the timings to line up your energy perfectly (obviously this assumes that you start your OC upgrades asap and have not delayed your main OC for whatever reason) A natural started @ 1:20 will finish its upgrade perfectly synced for the 3:03 mule drop. Obviously this is not possible with a Reaper fe and is NOT! the fastest possible CC for a gasless Rax expand (it's off by about 6 seconds) however, if you take this OC timing and get your 3rd at one of the following timestamps, you will have the benefit of 3 perfectly synced Muledrops! 1:20 - 2:23 - 3:26 - 4:29 - 5:32 and so on, are all points in the game where the sun, the moon, jupiter, saturn, and your momma, perfectly line up with the standard OC timing. Enjoy!
I agree with you.
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On August 29 2022 20:43 112StaminaX wrote:
i read it all, whats the actual problem?
"...getting a super fast reaper out on the map, have a quick factory (...) these openings just leave a bad taste (...)
The reason (...) ; mule timing!
Having exactly the same amount of energy on all your Orbitals at all times is a rather underrated quality of life perk. Instead of having to drop mules at 2 different timings for optimal efficiency, we can combine that into 1 action."
The problem is current builds end up with having to drop mules at different times, rather than being able to do both at the same time (arriving at 50 energy all at the same time) ... that's why he provided the CC build timings 
There are WAY too many unneeded words in the writing, that is for SURE. I don't know why so many people think this post had something to do with hotkeys ... probably the same reason of super cumbersome writing.
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To me, there's no reason to try to time the mules other than fix an OCD issue. Especially considering as the game goes on we want to keep scans availble whilst muling certain bases. I think the playability impacts when mules should be dropped rather than timing the mules dictating my build timing.
Not meant as disrespect, but this is trying to solve an unexisting problem.
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On October 05 2022 02:55 iMECH_KolosS wrote:
To me, there's no reason to try to time the mules other than fix an OCD issue. Especially considering as the game goes on we want to keep scans availble whilst muling certain bases. I think the playability impacts when mules should be dropped rather than timing the mules dictating my build timing.
Not meant as disrespect, but this is trying to solve an unexisting problem.
The opening is an attempt to simplify the terran early game. Obviously, you CAN play a standard opening and drop mules perfectly on time while microing and keeping a tight build, but, and this is a big one, your execution of a simpler build order will always be better than a more demanding one - especially once you come into contact with the enemy.
I can, from my own experimentation with the build, confidently say that my macro efficiency is significantly higher, compared to similar builds that don't make use of timed mules. The ability to just look at the ingame timer and instantly know how much time I have left until all the Mule drop come available, makes the execution of the build cleaner and easier. And it makes my timing attacks stronger (partly because this is a somewhat greedy opening - I do get my CC faster than the typical reaper fe, and delay my gas for it...). The build just flows very nicely when you don't have any ill timed mule drops. Having huge fluctuations in mineral income is quite detrimental to the linear terran economy, and leads to supply blocks and banking. The magical thing here is the screen management; a player looking at his reaper to get another shot or grenade off can't, at the same time, be dropping mules perfectly on time. Thus reducing the number of things you actually have to look at, widens the time window where you can do other things. A normal build has varying time intervals of mule drops and twice (or thrice for 3 CC) the amount of screen flips (shifting the screen to a base to drop a mule), whereas a synced build combines that into one regular interval of 63 seconds.
Honestly, just give it a try, I'm sure you'll be surprised how hard a 2 base 5 Rax MMM push off of this opening hits.
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On September 29 2022 02:51 CursOr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 29 2022 20:43 112StaminaX wrote:
i read it all, whats the actual problem? "...getting a super fast reaper out on the map, have a quick factory (...) these openings just leave a bad taste (...)
The reason (...) ; mule timing!
Having exactly the same amount of energy on all your Orbitals at all times is a rather underrated quality of life perk. Instead of having to drop mules at 2 different timings for optimal efficiency, we can combine that into 1 action."The problem is current builds end up with having to drop mules at different times, rather than being able to do both at the same time (arriving at 50 energy all at the same time) ... that's why he provided the CC build timings There are WAY too many unneeded words in the writing, that is for SURE. I don't know why so many people think this post had something to do with hotkeys ... probably the same reason of super cumbersome writing.
 sorry
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On October 06 2022 21:20 alpenrahm wrote:
Having huge fluctuations in mineral income is quite detrimental to the linear terran economy, and leads to supply blocks and banking.
In this case it would be even more detrimental to line up your Mules, because you have huge mineral spikes for certain times and hard drops quickly after?!
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MULEs are as effective as around 3.45 SCVs on near patches and 3.94 SCVs on far patches, as SCVs average 61.22 minerals per minute on near blue mineral patches and 53.57 minerals per minute on far blue mineral patches (for two or less workers per patch).
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EPT
