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So Terran CC's can be upgraded to Orbital Command Centers after you build a barracks. It costs 150 minerals and 50 seconds of not producing SCVs. Your OC has 3 abilities and starts with 50 energy. All 3 abilities cost 50 energy.
First Ability - Calldown: MULE. This little guy is a very efficient SCV and lasts for 90 seconds. In that time, he makes 8 trips carrying 30 minerals each time. He basically gives you 240 minerals.
Second Ability - Calldown: Supplies. This ability targets a Supply Depot and permanently increases your supply count by 8.
Third Ability - Scanner Sweep. This is your traditional ComSat, revealing an area for 12 seconds and detecting.
So far, it seems like Calldown: MULE is hugely important for Terran to keep up with Protoss in the production game. I'll frequently see Terran have fewer harvesters then Protoss but have equivalent Income due to these guys. They seem to make up for the number of SCVs that inevitably wind up running around building, repairing, etc.
What I'm finding interesting is that for scouting purposes, if you can get the information you need for cheaper than 240 minerals (one SCV is 50, a Hellion is 100, etc), then you're often better off using the MULE then Scanner Sweeping. Of course, if any area is blocked off to you or you need detection, you need a Sweep.
I can't really think of any time where the Calldown Supplies would be relevant, unless you just lost several supply depots to a building raid of some sort and you're now over supply cap, and you need to quickly begin remaking units. That's very very specific. The net value of that is 100 minerals and some SCV time (which also has a 'mineral cost' associated with it, probably 20 or 25 that he didn't get to mine in the time that he was building/running around).
I personally love the idea of the MULE for a resource advantage while relying on other means to scout, like aggressive or crafty play. Has anyone found any practical uses for the supply depot buff at this point?
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Haha you beat me by 2 minutes making a thread about this, I'm assuming mine will get locked so I'll move my post in here:
So I have been doing some math on the MULE, it spends around 4.5 seconds mining 30 minerals and it can make a run to the CC and back again in about the same time, this is about 8-10 seconds depending on the distance to the closest mineral patch. This means that with 50 energy from the OC you'll get between ~250-300 minerals in return over 90 seconds.
The problem is that this is just too good for Terrans to use energy on anything else. One scan will cost you 250-300 minerals each time. This tradeoff is far too great at the betas current stage, Dark Templars can force scans and retreat and without even dealing damage they will have struck a blow to the Terran economy.
Compared to the Zerg Queen and the Protoss Proton Charge (not 100% sure about the name), what can be done to balance this to be equally powerful? Is the Mule simply too good and does it need a nerf? If not, what kind of change would you like to see?
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Maybe it's closer to 250-300, but I've counted the number of trips they make and typically it's 8. Maybe putting it on a closer patch can get you to 9?
I also don't necessarily think it means that DT harass forces Terrans to scan instead of MULE. I think you could position a turret at your choke and not worry about the DT harass at your base, and that's still 'cheaper' than a scan by comparison.
Being offensive would be another matter, though. You could also save on to the energy, scout that they aren't going DTs and then spend it on your MULE.
Another good practice may be to hold on to energy until you have 100 before doing a Calldown: MULE, so you keep a reserve of 50 for an emergency Scan just in case, but I think you may give up too much of an advantage getting to that point.
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The reason there are multiple abilities seems to be to make the player make a decision. The charge for protoss can be used on any building, so do you value production time for units or workers or upgrades etc? (depends on the time of the game). Zerg need to choose what they use their extra larvae for. I think both of you make excellent points that it doesn't seem to be a hard decision for terrans. They either need to buff the other two to make them more valuable at certain points of the game, or nerf the MULE. Maybe changing the extra supply spell into a spell that transforms a supply depot into a bunker like structure (extra armor or turret or something) in addition to its normal function. In a clutch situation, you may consider that more valuable than 240 minerals over 90 seconds, i.e. when zealots + stalkers are destroying your front door.
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You guys are thinking about it wrong. You're seeing the MULE as a tool to put yourselves -even- with your enemies.
The MULE is simply part of a swiss-army-knife that puts you -ahead- of your enemies. I'd like to see another race that can simply look into the enemy base, see tech buildings, and start building the appropriate counter. I'd like to see another race that can modify early-game resources to squeeze out more troops without the need for additional (read: expensive) infrastructure.
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England2648 Posts
I hate to correct you all, but seeing as I've had to time this for various reasons, I'd like to point out that on Faster (the default play speed), The MULE is alive for 65 seconds.
Just trying to subtlely make people aware of this.
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On February 23 2010 11:40 Jazriel wrote: You guys are thinking about it wrong. You're seeing the MULE as a tool to put yourselves -even- with your enemies.
The MULE is simply part of a swiss-army-knife that puts you -ahead- of your enemies. I'd like to see another race that can simply look into the enemy base, see tech buildings, and start building the appropriate counter. I'd like to see another race that can modify early-game resources to squeeze out more troops without the need for additional (read: expensive) infrastructure.
Another race that can simply look into the enemy base: Protoss How: Observers
Another race that can modify early-game resources to squeeze out more troops without the need for additional (read: expensive) infrastructure: Zerg How: Queen
The point made here is that MULE is a far superior choice to the others.
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how long does it take to generate 50 energy? because while more resources is always nice, a half minute period in bw can be a huge timing window for rushes/tech
as people start to optimize bo's and tech strategies, an opponent may be able to tech during the between the first and second 50 energy charge. can any zerg/protoss players check what they are usually doing when a terran spends first energy on mule? it would be interesting if that's the same time when tech options open up.
i haven't played or mathcrafted anything yet, but an example would be that 1st scan may see a baneling nest if used, which will allow terran to properly put up a defense.
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On February 23 2010 11:51 Noah wrote:
Another race that can simply look into the enemy base: Protoss How: Observers
pretty sure ob = late tech detectors, while scan comes up way faster in most of the BO's people are using. neither of the other 2 races have an option to see terran tech when comsat is up and will definitely see zerg tech
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On February 23 2010 12:00 Lozzo.cu wrote: how long does it take to generate 50 energy? because while more resources is always nice, a half minute period in bw can be a huge timing window for rushes/tech
as people start to optimize bo's and tech strategies, an opponent may be able to tech during the between the first and second 50 energy charge. can any zerg/protoss players check what they are usually doing when a terran spends first energy on mule? it would be interesting if that's the same time when tech options open up.
i haven't played or mathcrafted anything yet, but an example would be that 1st scan may see a baneling nest if used, which will allow terran to properly put up a defense.
its around 1 energy every 2 game seconds from watching replays on faster
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On February 23 2010 11:50 Flicky wrote: I hate to correct you all, but seeing as I've had to time this for various reasons, I'd like to point out that on Faster (the default play speed), The MULE is alive for 65 seconds.
Just trying to subtlely make people aware of this. It's not really a big issue. He makes 8 trips while he's alive if he's going to a regular distance mineral patch, which is equivalent to 240 minerals.
The big point I'm trying to make is that the MULE can be a huge economic weapon for Terran if we can offset the detection/scouting issue.
If we can get all the info we need for cheaper then 240 minerals, and detection isn't an issue, it's a great thing to do.
I think throwing up a turret at your choke can offset a lot of the early game harassment issues unless you let a toss warp a DT in uphill or something.
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United States47024 Posts
On February 23 2010 11:40 Jazriel wrote: I'd like to see another race that can modify early-game resources to squeeze out more troops without the need for additional (read: expensive) infrastructure. Each supply depot you upgrade is one MULE you can't get, making it's effective cost 240 minerals. That's pretty expensive. In comparison, building a new depot is cheap.
The only time you might want to up supply depots is if you're constrained by time, not resources.
As an opponent's army grows, and tech options become more dangerous, the value of a scanner sweep grows, because it becomes less likely that you ca scout them with 240 minerals, especially in a timely manner (the fact that sweep is immediate and unstoppable is worth a lot--even if you could sneak a unit into the opponent's base, they could block you long enough still). It's probably not worth your first MULE, but I'm pretty sure it reaches the effective cost of a MULE just fine. The supply depot upgrade definitely needs either some fixing, or a complete redo. The times in which it's worth its cost right now are just too narrow.
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As long as you call the mule down directly on a mineral patch, he'll get you 270 minerals. They also mine 42 from the yellow minerals.
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Ahh, very cool. Good to know, thanks Shadow.
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United States4126 Posts
What are the limitations to the mule? Does it have to be within your range of vision or can it be casted into fog of war? Can you manually control it?
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You can control it, but you can only drop it in your vision, and it can't mine gas. It can repair things.
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One change. Keep everything Scanner Sweep and Calldown Supply the same for energy tension with each other.
MULE -Permanent unit produced at CC but can be called down anywhere. -Cost 75 Min 25 Gas 1 Supply. -Mines 3X as fast as SCV and does not need to "drop off" minerals to CC. Mined minerals automatically deposited in your mineral bank.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
I dont really know how much of an issue this really is since every game I've played with terran I've always ended up with tons of minerals and barely any gas. I suspect it gets to a point where calling down a mule is just adding minerals you can't spend on gas units (hence probably don't feel like spending).
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I think it should just launch whatever amount of scvs are in the cc. That'll be useful. maybe after getting the starport or something.
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One thing to keep in mind is that if you use a MULE, you will still need to spend 100 minerals on a supply depot, so you ought to subtract 100 from the minerals it gains you when compared alongside the Supply ability. Maybe 140-200 net minerals per casting cycle, assuming you make only one depot in that cycle.
Also keep in mind that a MULE will help you mine more quickly, but it does not generate resources that did not already exist on the map. It simply saves you time.
Calling down supplies saves you 100 minerals, effectively deepening your mineral patches by another 100 minerals you can mine in the long run. If you use the call down supplies ability at least ten times in a game, you've saved yourself nearly one mineral patch that would have been spent soley on supply depots.
So when people say that the MULE is free money, it's not. Calling down supplies is free money, the MULE just gives a boost to your economy but mines you out more quickly. If not as effective as MULE, calling down supplies is at least more efficient.
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