In Starcraft, there is no clear 'optimal' number of miners per mineral patch. More miners gets you more minerals, even if there is a diminishing returns. However, you can theoretically get the maximum possible minerals out of just two workers per mineral patch. The time it takes to mine a mineral patch is generally greater than or equal to the time it takes to do a round trip to/from the nex/hat/CC (this varies depending on mineral distance, etc.) Hence, you can theoretically max your mineral gain with two workers per mineral. The 'problem' is that the AI will immediately try to find another patch if it is in use, and this results in less than optimal mining (and why more workers will mine faster).
How would gameplay be different if you knew you didn't ever need more than 2 workers per mineral patch. In Starcraft 2, the mining AI seems to be much smarter. It looks like close to two workers/patch will max out mining, as the workers seem to go looking for new patches a lot less than in starcraft..
Particularly, look at the bottom mineral of the center clump of minerals in the below video.
It also feels to me like when workers are added in SC2, they quickly and efficiently find a patch that doesn't already have two workers on it.
If I'm not mistaken, it seems like this could significantly change the game. Less clumped workers would mean less incentive to raid workers. If workers are just as clumped, there is still less incentive to do so because if you don't knock them below 2 workers/patch, you don't really do anything to their income.
I guess you could be right on this, I dont agree that harass will be less useful though. A storm or tankdrop can easily destroy all your mining within seconds and although less time needed to resaturate the income drain will still seriously hamper your production capacity.
I felt exactly that when I played SC2 the last two times. Harass just isn't as effective anymore. Also the units you have are way worse at it than in BW.
harrasement is still worth it. Remember, maynarding. Even if you dont damage their economy directly at the moment, they will still have to replace those workers for a future expansion. An expansion, even in starcraft 2, SHOULD have an over abundance of workers, because of the maynard process.
Harassment is still going to do something, but my concern lies more in how much more precise the game becomes. Like it will be very easy to figure out what the optimal strategy for any of the resource stuff is.
I'm not sure how valid of a concern that is.
ed: for example, you make more workers than the maximum you need, so that you can have your next expansion saturated immediately. So let's say you have all the extra workers automine at the nearest expansion, and when the new expo is about to come up, you just take any above the max you need at that expansion and send them to the new expo. Is that a problem?
I don't feel like it will affect things *that* much, as the general rule for SC for Toss/Terran was 2 workers per patch, and Zerg was 1.5. Not that I'm a good player, but did higher saturations really have *that* much of an effect?
Moreover, if what you say about SC2 is true no good player will have more than 2 workers per patch. More is pointless since they aren't mining faster, unless you're saving workers to transfer to an expo. Doing otherwise would sacrifice minerals that you could be spending on your army. Therefore something akin to a vult drop will always have some effect if you kill a few workers since the player will at least have been planning to use them at another expo.
On January 01 2010 12:45 errol1001 wrote: Harassment is still going to do something, but my concern lies more in how much more precise the game becomes. Like it will be very easy to figure out what the optimal strategy for any of the resource stuff is.
I'm not sure how valid of a concern that is.
ed: for example, you make more workers than the maximum you need, so that you can have your next expansion saturated immediately. So let's say you have all the extra workers automine at the nearest expansion, and when the new expo is about to come up, you just take any above the max you need at that expansion and send them to the new expo. Is that a problem?
Can you elaborate a little? How will this change from SC1 to SC2 to create a concern?
He means there will be no fuzzyness to the economy. In SC1, there is doubt as to how much you get per scv. Obviously after 1 per patch it decreases efficiency slightly due to worker confusion.
But in SC2 your mineral count should be almost exactly # of scvs times amount an scv can harvest per unit of time. The only wild card is the distance to the patch. From the videos we've seen it doesn't look like that plays a very major role. At least I think that's what he means.
However I don't see how this lowers the utility of worker raids. Is it because each worker mines less so each worker you kill is less important?
Rather because each worker mines more, you need to have less workers. And lots of worker raids use splash damage.. so maybe in sc2 the same raid with psi storm would kill 10 workers rather than 20. Maybe, anyway...
I think the idea is that once your economy gets established, its easier to replace losses from harras and get your economy fully fuctional again compared to sc1. In sc1 a fully saturated base, well, I dont really know, say 20 something workers? 20 x 50= 1000 minerals. In sc2, if a fully saturated base is 12 workers, it costs 400 dollars less [and a lot less time, so its even easier to replace than you would immediately think] to replace the damaged economy. I think thats what hes trying to get at. I guess early game, losing workers would have a more substantial effect than in sc1, but later game it would have less of a substantial effect. So running around the map with a shuttle and storm dropping bases can still be useful, but it might not give back the same returns.
It's similar to MBS, I don't think I need to point out how much resistance that met. It makes total sense for them to improve on things like that, but it changes the gameplay. With MBS, that was considered bad enough that effort has been put in to counteract that change (macro mechanics). Anything needed here? Don't know. I can't say, but I can bring up the difference.
I might be missing the subject but Im playing a David Kim card. Tap David Kim to show him killing workers and how it hurts in various replays.
Regarding economy...not a clue, we barely know how the game plays let alone economy. Not to say there cant be pages about possible worker effects on it mind you. Just saying I wouldn't venture a guess down that road.
I read somewhere ages ago that one of the reasons dual gas was implemented was to keep a similar number of workers in each base after the saturation changes took place. The repercussions of this on worker raiding are quite interesting. Killing each worker on gas only causes half as much gas mining damage, but replacing workers on gas (transfer from minerals) impacts more heavily on your minerals than before. The layout of gas geysers will also impact heavily on how defence and raids play out. If the geysers are on opposite sides of the CC like in many BRs we've seen then it is harder to destroy all workers on gas in a single attack, but it is also harder to defend both paths as they are so far apart. Placement of static defence will be very different. If they are together then it is easier to defend them but aoe will be more effective against them. I can't wait to see the sim city (I hate that term) for defending both gas plus the minerals and how the choices of which to guard first in early game impact on the harassment game.
On January 01 2010 17:23 errol1001 wrote: It's similar to MBS, I don't think I need to point out how much resistance that met. It makes total sense for them to improve on things like that, but it changes the gameplay. With MBS, that was considered bad enough that effort has been put in to counteract that change (macro mechanics). Anything needed here? Don't know. I can't say, but I can bring up the difference.
The thing is with MBS is you'll still have to seperate what you're building from because say for example you are going M&M. Marine/Marauder you won't want every single barracks building one or the other you'll still want a split. Kind of like how rax work now with Medic Marine.
EPT
