EPT
A saturation-based discussion on workers' inherent intelli…
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green2000
Peru79 Posts
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tedster
984 Posts
I am fine with changes to worker AI and saturation - it's the completely linear progression that I'm not a fan of. As opposed to "new thinking" that you described, it's really looking to mean "thinking less". | ||
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LF9
United States537 Posts
I do disagree, as I said, with your claim that it would make expanding LESS useful. If both our mains had, say, 10 mineral patches (just for the sake of argument), we could both agree that the ceiling for mineral mining is 20 workers on minerals for each player. If the ceiling were not an absolute 20, I could continue on to 25, even 30 workers from my one base after you expand, and perhaps hit you with some sort of timing push before your second base really kicks in and gives you an insurmountable advantage. But with total saturation at 2 workers per patch, I would have to stop at 20 works and be forced to either attack as soon as you expand, or expand with you, because continuing to make workers beyond the initial 20 would be completely pointless. The upside of this, however, is that we would be seeing MORE expansions (most likely). With a sort of "cap" on the number of workers mining minerals just like there currently is with gas, as soon as you reached that cap, you would be motivated to expand. This could lead to something not often seen in SC, but commonly seen in games like C&C3; fighting over a single expansion, not because of a tactical position it holds, but because both players NEED the resources. In SC, most maps have enough expansions "designated" to either player that the game is decided before any given player has exhausted all of "his" expansions and has to try to kick his opponent off of one of their own just to continue production. Imagine if in SC2, to get comparable production to what you would in SC1, you had to have 5 bases to every 3 you would have in SC1. On a map with only 10 "bases", after your 5th, to keep macroing up, you would have to attack one of your enemy's bases or fight for one he hasn't taken yet, not to kick him off of it, but because you actually NEED it yourself. It would be like playing SC on a map where each player has only a main and a natural, and there is a neutral base in the center. Obviously for SC this wouldn't be balanced, but it is the principle I am trying to get at. Both players would find themselves funneling units into the center in an earnest attempt to secure the base. The fight would not be a fight just for the sake of it, but a fight over the one expansion to tip the scales; whoever is forced to retreat will do so knowing he will be forever at a disadvantage, economically speaking. This would be an interesting mechanic and, I argue, unique to SC because of the large number of bases usually available in the original game. A situation of both players fighting over an expansion, where both players have an equally strong intention of actually taking the expansion and making full use of it after the fight is over, is something somewhat unfamiliar to SC that is seen in many other games, and would add something interesting to SC2. It might add other inherent problems, just as skewing games in the favor of races that have comparably stronger early-game, or making it more difficult for those like Zerg, who simply need more bases than the other, but all of these balance issues could likely be worked out with clever map-making, as was and is the case in SC. | ||
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tedster
984 Posts
On January 16 2010 21:07 LF9 wrote: I do disagree, as I said, with your claim that it would make expanding LESS useful. If both our mains had, say, 10 mineral patches (just for the sake of argument), we could both agree that the ceiling for mineral mining is 20 workers on minerals for each player. If the ceiling were not an absolute 20, I could continue on to 25, even 30 workers from my one base after you expand, and perhaps hit you with some sort of timing push before your second base really kicks in and gives you an insurmountable advantage. But with total saturation at 2 workers per patch, I would have to stop at 20 works and be forced to either attack as soon as you expand, or expand with you, because continuing to make workers beyond the initial 20 would be completely pointless. You're missing the point of why this discourages expansion: expansions would still produce approximately the same "additional" boost to economy over time, but the immediate impact of an expansion would be less. This translates to a larger timing window to punish an expansion and a longer period of time before the expansion gives you a significant econ edge. It's not that expansions will be less valuable (in the mid-lategame, they might be more valuable since it is easier to fully saturate an expo) - it's that expanding is significantly riskier as an early-game prospect (since it has less immediate impact and a larger window of weakness), which encourages fast, early, repeated engagements in the style of Broodwar ZvZ, which a lot of people hate. | ||
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CharlieMurphy
United States22895 Posts
On January 10 2010 09:22 ProoM wrote: Yes there is, it's 3. 24 workers on 8 mineral patches is considered the best/most efficient saturation :}. wrong, it depends a lot on the mineral formation, distance from HQ, and also positioning in relation to HQ because the sides are larger on some sides. So it varies from map to map and location to location on each map. Hell even race and upgrades(lair/hive) play a minor role. I've always used 2.5 workers but I still overproduce in order to maynard. (good example is the side minerals on bloodbath , you can put 9 on them if you want but 8 is optimal 2.5x3 = 7.5 (round to 8). | ||
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LF9
United States537 Posts
Anyway, just because there would be somewhat of a ceiling, if you are planning on a fast expand, you can still make the extra workers and let them mine anyway while you wait for the expansion to finish. I don't think this change would really punish expanding like you say, and it certainly wouldn't turn all the matchups into ZvZ. | ||
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tedster
984 Posts
Furthermore, with macro mechanics online at the main base, this % figures to be even smaller than what we're discussing at the moment. The math is there - if both the first and second set of workers are equally efficient, adding an expo before reaching oversaturation won't have as big an economic impact unless you can build an abundance of idle SCVs to quickly transfer over. | ||
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Infie
Netherlands59 Posts
also i think the nonliniear mining in BW is overestimated by most In this topic. as this picture shows the mining proces in BW is also liniear up to 2 workers per patch ![[image loading]](http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/7841/picture2ok6.png) you can find the whole tread here the pathfinding issues in BW kick In if you keep adding workers beyond 2 workers per patch. it will still change the gameplay somewhat. because if your base gets satured faster it becomes less viable to use one base strategies. another change is that if your FE is destroyed it will be harder to come back because the workers you have build from your expo are less useful because you can't keep adding workers to your main. If your opponent is able to contain you and get an expension running he will soon be able to outproduce you. but wasn't that the case in BW anyways? | ||
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tedster
984 Posts
That second set is 50% less productive than the first and thus should be transferred. Check out the statistics at http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=93343 for more info on the productivity spike. Also your main being saturated faster actually makes 1-base strategies more viable, since you have more money faster to bust any sort of quick expo attempt, even after they get their expo up and are making back the money they spent. Furthermore, the macro mechanics give you an additional boost to your main base economy that have to be replicated at your expo in some way to gain the same level of returns. | ||
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ix
United Kingdom184 Posts
Yes there is, it's 3. 24 workers on 8 mineral patches is considered the best/most efficient saturation :}. No, 3 workers per patch will completely saturate it once wander settles down, which happens quite quickly on 8 and 7 mineral bases as far as I've seen. In theory fewer workers will work but it depends on the exact dynamics of the minerals in a way I don't understand, you can rarely remove more than 1 and removing a builder in this state would destabilise the workers into wander mode, costing you a lot of minerals. 2 workers per patch only generates 70% of the minerals generated by 3 workers per patch and the magic 2.5 per patch people refer to is important on 9 mineral patches at least because this is a strange point where bad wander sets in. 22 workers usually generates MORE than 23 due to wander. Round your 2.5 down if you want to use this rule of thumb. If you're Protoss with a stable 27 worker main saturation it might be worth having a builder probe or to take probes to build from the natural as on bad spawns (9 o'clock Python) it can take up to 5 minutes for the wandering caused by removing and returning probes to settle down, costing you 200 minerals per minute. | ||
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Shiladie
Canada1631 Posts
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Zack1900
United States211 Posts
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flag
United States228 Posts
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phyvo
United States5635 Posts
On January 27 2010 12:29 Zack1900 wrote: Maybe the danger of harass will scare people into either keeping a small amount of resources in reserve for remaking workers or making extra workers so they can transfer them back when they have dealt with the harass(assuming of course there is an expo). Harass never scared SC1 players into doing either of those things, because if you did those things you would fall behind. I'm not convinced that a stronger SC2 harass will affect that either. For one, extra workers are nigh useless unless you're counting on some of your workers dying. So, in other words, you're spending 150 minerals or more for extra workers that you could have used on, say, a photon cannon. The workers can't defend themselves and so by skimping on defense (unit or building-wise) you're only opening yourself to harass more, while building more defenses prevents harass now and in the future. So people still won't be building extra workers. As for holding onto a resource stockpile, people will not be doing that either. Think about it: it's like the worker option only you're most likely delaying your tech or your production while at the same time skimping on defense. If he drops hellions behind your probe line your minerals in the bank certainly aren't going to help you defend your probes, and in the meantime you've weakened your army and made it more vulnerable to a push. Might as well spend them on some defenses so that he can't harass you. Basically, the principle is: the best strategy is nearly always to reduce worker loss rather than count on just replacing them. And the best stratagy is always to use your resources quickly so that you can capitalize on any resources you have as soon as possible, otherwise that resource difference will set you behind from the other player. | ||
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Lovin
Denmark812 Posts
On January 01 2010 11:10 Catch]22 wrote: worker raids are about more than just killing workers, its alot about just stopping mining for a while aswell And also a hell of a lot about forcing your opponent to pull forces back to deal with the harassment | ||
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BanZu
United States3329 Posts
On January 18 2010 18:51 LF9 wrote: Saying "maynard" instead of transfer is so annoying. Imagine if every time someone made a dropship they called it a "Boxer" and so on and so forth. Cept a lot of people call it maynarding and no one called that "boxering"? LOL? It's an accepted term, get used to it. | ||
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Mohdoo
United States15743 Posts
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Craton
United States17281 Posts
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Tfact_rats
175 Posts
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Zack1900
United States211 Posts
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