SC2 Optimal worker saturation - Page 3
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Steve496
United States60 Posts
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SBelmont
United States122 Posts
The reasoning: The time it takes for a worker to deliver minerals and return to them is slightly longer than the time it takes for a worker to start mining and then start heading back. With 2 workers a patch, there will (almost) always be a slight delay in which the patch is not being mined. For the closest patches to your CC/Nexus/Hatchery, it only takes 2 workers to always have it being mined. Obviously this can also be noted that 18 workers is complete saturation at a gold mineral patch (3 x6). This isn't accounting for different in worker movement speed. I believe all workers have a "mine" time that is equal to each other, so with 3 per patch income should be even. | ||
us.insurgency
United States330 Posts
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StorrZerg
United States13910 Posts
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-orb-
United States5770 Posts
6: Zerg: ~248 Protoss: ~248 10: Zerg: ~419 Protoss: ~419 14: Zerg: ~590 Protoss: ~590 18: Zerg: ~705 Protoss: ~705 22: Zerg: ~762 Protoss: ~762 Here is the replay of the test game proving this: http://www.mediafire.com/?uyqjjdymmhy edit: also here's the ratios of going from step to stop going up 4 workers: 6>10 worker ratio: 1.6667 Mining ratio: 1.6895 10>14 worker ratio: 1.4 mining ratio: 1.4081 14>18 worker ratio: 1.2857 mining ratio: 1.1949 18>22 worker ratio: 1.2222 mining ratio: 1.0809 as you can see you're getting basically 1:1 bang for your buck up to 14 workers, but after that your payoff per worker added drops and it gets less and less efficient to add workers. | ||
Gescom
Canada3303 Posts
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Zeke50100
United States2220 Posts
Until you hit 17 workers (that is, once you hit 17 workers, the remainder of this sentence is false), you have the exact same efficiency for every worker barring patch distances. The 17th worker, however, will have less efficiency due to not having a time slot it can perfectly fit into. @Orb: The reason your ratios/efficiencies are not accurate is because you only measured them at every 4th worker, starting at an arbitrary 6. If you measured efficiency for EVERY worker, you should find relatively maximum efficiencies for the first 16 workers (the variations will be due to patch distances), and then start seeing decreases with the 17th worker. By jumping from 14 to 18, you are assuming that each worker between there will have the same efficiency. Also, note that each worker has a walking speed of 2.8125. Every single one. There are also NO known differences in mining speed. | ||
_EmIL_
Sweden138 Posts
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NiiPPLES
United Kingdom201 Posts
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SichuanPanda
Canada1542 Posts
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DrSmoke
United States175 Posts
On April 27 2010 02:48 SichuanPanda wrote: I've found 17 DRONES to be sufficiently saturated for Zerg. However, Protoss I've found 24 Probes provide full saturation, and 22 SCVs provide full saturation for Terran. The number of workers I put on gas depends how far the geyser is, the ones that are as close as possible to your CC/Nex/Hatch I used 3 workers on, while the ones that are one space further away I've found 4 can mine it without having a worker waiting outside for more than .3 seconds. 100% wrong | ||
agleed.agleed
Germany110 Posts
On April 27 2010 02:48 SichuanPanda wrote: I've found 17 DRONES to be sufficiently saturated for Zerg. However, Protoss I've found 24 Probes provide full saturation, and 22 SCVs provide full saturation for Terran. The number of workers I put on gas depends how far the geyser is, the ones that are as close as possible to your CC/Nex/Hatch I used 3 workers on, while the ones that are one space further away I've found 4 can mine it without having a worker waiting outside for more than .3 seconds. yeah sorry dude, never seen some wrong in one post. | ||
moapy
Australia5 Posts
Can I please have someone who actually knows what they are talking about tell me which one of the 50 responses to this thread is correct? My understanding is 16 is a nice number and 24 is max saturation? (this is not including 6 gas workers). Is this correct? | ||
Warp
United States166 Posts
The best example of saturation is watching HuK play.... because he ALMOST always stops probe production at 30. Way to revive the thread btw | ||
Shika
Sweden1711 Posts
2.5 workers per patch = 20 workers (not counting gas, naturally). You could add 4 more but the gain will be small and you are probably better of sending those to an expansion or using the larvae for attack units. | ||
Stropheum
United States1124 Posts
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semantics
10040 Posts
On August 25 2010 08:09 Shika wrote: For zerg, this is what i've gathered to be quite effective. 2.5 workers per patch = 20 workers (not counting gas, naturally). You could add 4 more but the gain will be small and you are probably better of sending those to an expansion or using the larvae for attack units. This 20-22 gives around the max return for your value, then ofc 3 for each gas. Anything past that is usually used for maynard. | ||
heishe
Germany2284 Posts
any more drones bring absolutely minimal improvements, because the freelancers sometimes don't perfectly cover the far patches, but the difference will not make a difference in any game. the difference from 16 to 19-20 drones also isn't too big, about 3-5% if I reckon correctly. So when you set up two bases, maynard workers so that both bases have 16 on minerals before you fill both up to 20 | ||
Snowfield
1289 Posts
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Najda
United States3765 Posts
On August 25 2010 09:38 Snowfield wrote: Man, there's even a ingame tip for this, it says 3 workers pr mineral field, but since zerg has creep, you can have slightly less. Drones have the same movement speed on and off the creep. Don't believe me? Go into a game and look at the drones movespeed when on the creep (2.81) then move it off the creep and check again, still 2.81 . The 2nd post of this thread gives all the information one could really need. There is no magic number though, because its always useful to keep making workers for a transfer. | ||
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