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A CC gives 11 supply now, doesn't it? Well conservatively calculating with 10. That is worth 125 minerals alone because of saved supply depots. Obviously you would have to design your build properly to prevent getting supply blocked.
So it's "only" 425 minerals that you have to mine back with mules. That is less than 2 mules (240 each).
Normally you have ~16 SCVs and 1 OC worth of mules mining from one base. 1 mule harvests ~6 times as fast as an SCV? If that is so, the second mule will earn you about 25% more income/time once it is out. Since you will have to use a scan every now and then, it's even more. That sounds quite significant imo.
And your opponent can't really expo like crazy - after all you only spent ~1 expansions worth of money and time on this, so if you opponent can comfortably expand more than once something's wrong. Don't forget that your opponent has to invest in harvesters to actually make use of his expansion. Again if a mule is worth ~6 SCVs, your oppoent has to spend an additional 300 to be even with you.
So the biggest threat imo is the timing window in which you are more vulnerable. 425 can't be neglected easily, but I wouldn't ignore this strategy just because it seems too slow/risky. It seems worthwile if you can pull it off.
EDIT:
Your opponent can only immediately earn more efficiently from another expansion if he oversaturated before he had that new expansion up. A fast OC build would most likely not oversaturate and thus get the OC out way faster than your opponent could.
Also, if your opponent is terran and counters with an expansion of his own, you should be able to scout that much more easily than he can scout your in-base OC. If you see that he takes an expansion, you can just float your OC over to your own expansion.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 07:02 spinesheath wrote:
And your opponent can't really expo like crazy - after all you only spent ~1 expansions worth of money and time on this, so if you opponent can comfortably expand more than once something's wrong. Don't forget that your opponent has to invest in harvesters to actually make use of his expansion. Again if a mule is worth ~6 SCVs, your oppoent has to spend an additional 300 to be even with you.
Why do people keep saying this? Improved mining efficiency is a benefit in and of itself. Your opponent doesn't need to have more workers than you for 3 bases to be better than 2, especially since you spent the money on a CC without having the actual mining benefit of a CC.
On March 03 2010 07:02 spinesheath wrote:
So the biggest threat imo is the timing window in which you are more vulnerable. 425 can't be neglected easily, but I wouldn't ignore this strategy just because it seems too slow/risky. It seems worthwile if you can pull it off.
In concept, it works out the same as sneaking an expansion in Starcraft 1. It doesn't work because it's a sound plan. It works because your opponent is bad and can't capitalize on your weaknesses.
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Even if this strat isn't viable, I kinda like the creative thinking behind it. Keep thinking up wacky strategies and you may just hit gold eventually ^^
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On March 03 2010 06:51 TheYango wrote:So what exactly do you do if your opponent responds to you starting a CC by actually taking an expansion? You can't punish him for it because you've spent equivalent cost building a CC, and since he can improve mineral efficiency by maynarding workers to his expansion, he'll recoup it's cost before you do yours. Not to mention that he can skimp on defense because he knows you committed to a CC, while you have to put bunkers down without knowing what he'll do in response. Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 06:38 Tiamat wrote:
Also the MAJOR difference in SC2 vs SC1 and the Command Center can now effectively mine by itself. In SC1 you had to build SCVs to mine, thats a hidden cost. Building an Orbital Command doesn't count as a "hidden cost", but building SCVs does?
550 for a Orbital Command - 100 for the 11 supply (free depot) So its 450, which is 9 scvs. A mule mines as well as 6 SCVs so lets - 300 more. so your paying 150 extra for a CC that doubles also as a scanner or free supply to your depots.
My thinking is this, you have your extra CCs in your main base. You only have to really build defense 1 time, your main defense. This means that for every turret, tank, bunker etc you build in your main, it would protect your SCV "source" (the mule generating CCs) throughout the entire game. With as mobile as units are in SC2, I feel main base defense will play a much bigger role in games, no longer and you put a few turrets and a tank and forget the main. So while your enemy would in turn have to build defense at all his other expos just to protect the workers he has maynarded there, you dont. Just drop and go.
Hell if you really wanted to get tricky, you could sneak a CC on his side of the map (thinking a 4 player map here) and steal minerals at a high rate from one of his "supposed" bases.
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You'll be way behind units wise despite all these calculations... It's like you'd put yourself behind on purpose and try to catch up, and by the time you've caught up you've mined out your main and your opponent is prob maxed out lol
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 07:07 Tiamat wrote:
550 for a Orbital Command - 100 for the 11 supply (free depot) So its 450, which is 9 scvs. A mule mines as well as 6 SCVs so lets - 300 more. so your paying 150 extra for a CC that doubles also as a scanner or free supply to your depots.
My thinking is this, you have your extra CCs in your main base. You only have to really build defense 1 time, your main defense. This means that for every turret, tank, bunker etc you build in your main, it would protect your SCV "source" (the mule generating CCs) throughout the entire game. With as mobile as units are in SC2, I feel main base defense will play a much bigger role in games, no longer and you put a few turrets and a tank and forget the main. So while your enemy would in turn have to build defense at all his other expos just to protect the workers he has maynarded there, you dont. Just drop and go.
The decision making pattern to stopping this isn't that hard. If you build the CC at an expansion, then you have too much ground to defend, and your opponent can kill it. If you build it in your base, you don't get as much out of it as an expansion, and an opponent can respond by actually taking an expansion. A Terran player will always come out equal or better than you by doing so, because he can keep parity with your MULEs, can skimp on defenses that you're required to build, has better mining efficiency, and has better infrastructure for the long run. Protoss and Zerg can't MULE, so what? They also saturate faster than Terran because of Chrono Boost/Larva Spawn, which means that an expansion's mining efficiency benefits make a much bigger deal.
On March 03 2010 07:07 Tiamat wrote:
Hell if you really wanted to get tricky, you could sneak a CC on his side of the map (thinking a 4 player map here) and steal minerals at a high rate from one of his "supposed" bases.
Snuck expansions don't work because they're a good strategy, they work because opponents are bad and don't scout them/have the game sense to realize that the opponent's unit production is off. And if your opponents are bad, why are you bothering with "special strategies" to beat them?
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On March 03 2010 06:28 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 06:23 MorroW wrote:
how much does a mule give again? i mean total 240 Don't forget, you also have to upgrade the CC to an Orbital Command before you can start MULEing, so it takes 2-3 MULEs actually to recover the cost. This means that it takes 3-4 minutes before you even break even. That kind of timing window for an attack is huge.
you mean 270, its 30 per trip, 9 trips.
yellow minerals are 42 each trip = 378
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On March 03 2010 07:06 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 07:02 spinesheath wrote:
And your opponent can't really expo like crazy - after all you only spent ~1 expansions worth of money and time on this, so if you opponent can comfortably expand more than once something's wrong. Don't forget that your opponent has to invest in harvesters to actually make use of his expansion. Again if a mule is worth ~6 SCVs, your oppoent has to spend an additional 300 to be even with you.
Why do people keep saying this? Improved mining efficiency is a benefit in and of itself. Your opponent doesn't need to have more workers than you for 3 bases to be better than 2. Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 07:02 spinesheath wrote:
So the biggest threat imo is the timing window in which you are more vulnerable. 425 can't be neglected easily, but I wouldn't ignore this strategy just because it seems too slow/risky. It seems worthwile if you can pull it off. In concept, it works out the same as sneaking an expansion in Starcraft 1. It doesn't work because it's a sound plan. It works because your opponent is bad and can't capitalize on your weaknesses.
Maynarding from a base with 16 SCVs or less HURTS you economically in SC2.
In a build like siege expand (BW obviously), you also spend a lot of money that will only be returned after a while. That still doesn't mean that you will lose to any C- player if you use that build.
Think of the fast OC like this: It's an fe attempt but the OC is kept in base until it is safe to actually take an expansion. In BW you were only able to produce SCVs from such CCs, in SC2 you can use it to boost your mining rate by more than 20%.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 07:18 spinesheath wrote:
Maynarding from a base with 16 SCVs or less HURTS you economically in SC2.
Except that's never actually going to be the case. You're not going to finish the CC before 16 supply, and you can expect a Protoss or Zerg opponent to have between 1.2-1.5 times as many workers as you do because that's the way their macro mechanics work. Supposing you finish the CC with 20 SCVs (already extremely greedy), they'll have 24-30 drones or probes, meaning they've already passed full saturation on their base.
On March 03 2010 07:18 spinesheath wrote:
In a build like siege expand (BW obviously), you also spend a lot of money that will only be returned after a while. That still doesn't mean that you will lose to any C- player if you use that build.
Think of the fast OC like this: It's an fe attempt but the OC is kept in base until it is safe to actually take an expansion. In BW you were only able to produce SCVs from such CCs, in SC2 you can use it to boost your mining rate by more than 20%.
The difference between this and a siege expand is this: if an opponent expands in response (say he opened 10/15 or something), his resulting mineral output will always be less than yours because he took his expansion later. In this case, you don't get the output of an actual expansion, meaning that an opponent that responds by taking an expansion will be ahead in the long run.
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A mule mines as well as 6 SCVs
I don't know if this is true. But if it's true, then economically
1 CC = 6 scv + 11 foods > 6 scv + 10 foods = 6scv + 2 supply depots
(the 6 scvs take away 6 foods from the 16 food sgenerated by the 2 supply depots)
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Again, if he expands, you can do the same. OCs can fly. You started your OC earlier (or else you opponent wouldn't be reacting to your build), so it isn't very unlikely that you actually come out ahead in this case.
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I've only skimmed the topic and while I do agree its ridiculous, you have to remember orbital commands have the ability to add supply too.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 07:27 spinesheath wrote:
Again, if he expands, you can do the same. OCs can fly. You started your OC earlier (or else you opponent wouldn't be reacting to your build), so it isn't very unlikely that you actually come out ahead in this case.
In that case, it depends on which CC this is. If it's just going to your natural, then yes, you're probably ahead. Given the OP's implication of more than just 1 CC, the distance to a 3rd means that, no, you probably won't come out ahead on the 3rd CC because buildings are slow.
To be clear, I'm not trying to denounce fast expansion builds. But having more than 1 more CC than you have mineral fields (which the OP is very obviously implying) is pretty absurd.
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On March 03 2010 07:21 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 07:18 spinesheath wrote:
Maynarding from a base with 16 SCVs or less HURTS you economically in SC2. Except that's never actually going to be the case. You're not going to finish the CC before 16 supply, and you can expect a Protoss or Zerg opponent to have between 1.2-1.5 times as many workers as you do because that's the way their macro mechanics work. Supposing you finish the CC with 20 SCVs (already extremely greedy), they'll have 24-30 drones or probes, meaning they've already passed full saturation on their base. Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 07:18 spinesheath wrote:
In a build like siege expand (BW obviously), you also spend a lot of money that will only be returned after a while. That still doesn't mean that you will lose to any C- player if you use that build.
Think of the fast OC like this: It's an fe attempt but the OC is kept in base until it is safe to actually take an expansion. In BW you were only able to produce SCVs from such CCs, in SC2 you can use it to boost your mining rate by more than 20%. The difference between this and a siege expand is this: if an opponent expands in response (say he opened 10/15 or something), his resulting mineral output will always be less than yours because he took his expansion later. In this case, you don't get the output of an actual expansion, meaning that an opponent that responds by taking an expansion will be ahead in the long run.
TheYango, I am talking about creating the extra CCs past 50-60 supply. Not a super early CC
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Sanya12364 Posts
It seems like building the CC earlier is certainly viable. It's certainly viable to build preemptively in anticipation of an expansion. Building up scan energy is even worth it as well as being able to build SCVs quickly to saturate any new mining base extremely quickly.
The early CC is hard to justify since it's such a large investment that it's better to just make supply depots and extra SCVs to saturate mineral patches.
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going from 1000 to 5000 as terran isn't always going to be very useful when you're stuck at 100 gas
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On March 03 2010 07:07 Tiamat wrote:
With as mobile as units are in SC2, I feel main base defense will play a much bigger role in games, no longer and you put a few turrets and a tank and forget the main. So while your enemy would in turn have to build defense at all his other expos just to protect the workers he has maynarded there, you dont. Just drop and go.
I can't agree more with this statement. This strategy has an added benefit which is the fact that you will only need to protect a single base and a single mineral line for a good time.
Also, I've been thinking, if you mine out the main faster, it means you will be mining the same near the minerals your oponent will, but with less scvs, thus when you expand, there is a chance to reuse the same scvs you used to mine the main minerals, using less supply in the process, wasting less depots, thus wasting less minerals in the whole process.
My friend and I were testing crazy stuff yesterday and trying a fast planetary fortress build, lifting the CC to the expansion while sending the 6 initial SCVs to mine from the gold minerals, then proceeding to block the entrance to the main ramp with the initial supply depot and ebay, and getting the gas to make the PF as soon as the ebay finished. It seemed possible for some reason, though we were playing against the AI. We considered expanding to the yellow minerals but it's quite impossible considering the risk and flight distance.
I'm still interested in how much an SCV mines in the 90 seconds though, I wonder if anyone knows this.
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On March 03 2010 07:43 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
going from 1000 to 5000 as terran isn't always going to be very useful when you're stuck at 100 gas
True but thats a hell of alot of marines and maurs that the other guy would have to defend against  And if the buggy is good, throw it in as well.
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On March 03 2010 06:21 arb wrote:
ima assume that the cost sare the same in SC1
1cc = 400 mins / 10 food
4depots = 400mins/32 food
doesint it speak for itself?
Get enough command centers and use that stupid unused + supply ability lol.
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Clever idea, seems absurd offhand but there is some backing for it. Main problem will be that you're lagging behind in gas because mules only mine minerals, so you'll have to spend that exra money to mass marines I guess?
On March 03 2010 07:06 TheYango wrote:
Why do people keep saying this? Improved mining efficiency is a benefit in and of itself. Your opponent doesn't need to have more workers than you for 3 bases to be better than 2, especially since you spent the money on a CC without having the actual mining benefit of a CC.
That is not really true, I have seen replays with 1 base (protoss) vs 2 bases (zerg), and a similar number of harvesters gave the same income.
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EPT
