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Unfortunately I only get to play against an AI, but I want Terran players to try and start doing this if you dont mind.
- Make more CCs instead of supply depots for your food. -
I had around 6 CCs when I was about to take my 3rd expand, dropped 12 mules on the new patch and my minerals went from around 1000 to 5000 in like 2 minutes. Its possible that someone very good at their macro game could take advantage of the mule, or hell even the extra supply to upgrade your 6-7 depots laying around. Use the extra money for even more barracks and CCs and it seems like a slippery slope until you get cannot mine off a patch anymore. It worked really well on the bigger maps with lots of expansions.
With the free bunkers and it seems Terran still has one of the better "turtle style" defenses in the game, perhaps multiple CCs are not a bad option?
EDIT: [url blocked] <-- this is what i am talking about its a rep. I know its against AI but could it maybe work?
EDIT2 [url blocked]
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the cost to make the cc is nowhere near = to the supply you would get from the same cost in depots
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You can get youself into ugly situations because you initially invest a lot of money into CCs and they only pay off slowly (well, including supply cost I guess it pays off after the 2nd MULE). But if you manage to survive and your opponent doesn't boost his economy more than you do it should be a viable strategy.
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United States47024 Posts
Building CCs ties up too many minerals for too long without return. You spend 400 minerals, and it takes 2 MULEs to recoup that cost. In the early/midgame that leaves you too vulnerable. You're essentially 8 marines weaker in every fight until your CC finishes and 2 MULEs can get launched from it. Any competent opponent will scout it, and use that advantage to take an actual expansion, which is worth more, or to just roll over you and kill you.
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Also you will get supply-blocked because of the build time of a CC. Mules may be usefull, but I think if you go too many Mules, your bases will be mined-out in no time and you have no advantage at all because you cant spend all your minerals so quick.
I don't think CCs for depots is a good way to go, CCs are for mining and thats it.
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ima assume that the cost sare the same in SC1
1cc = 400 mins / 10 food
4depots = 400mins/32 food
doesint it speak for itself?
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how much does a mule give again? i mean total
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United States47024 Posts
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.
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Mule gives around 270 each mule (which is 50 energy)
Thats only 1 CC, imagine if you had 6 of those, 1620 minerals for every 50 energy you build up. That would pay for 3 of the CCs right there. I am saying its an investment for the long run. I mean lets face it, how many Terran reps have you seen where the player has floated 700 or 800 minerals in his base?
I'm just thinking that you could fly one of the CCs over to a gold patch, drop 10 or 12 Mules and mine that base out in like 5 minutes lol.
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ok so it takes 187,5 sec ~ 3 mintutes to pay off for the cc and the orbital command by pure mule
sorry to say but this takes too long time^^
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
On March 03 2010 06:31 Tiamat wrote:
Thats only 1 CC, imagine if you had 6 of those, 1620 minerals for every 50 energy you build up. That would pay for 3 of the CCs right there. I am saying its an investment for the long run. I mean lets face it, how many Terran reps have you seen where the player has floated 700 or 800 minerals in his base?
That's not how starcraft works. You're forgetting about how important timing is.
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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?
Well, this was a very bad comparison I must say, since the whole point was to recoup the money with mules later on.
Something no one seemed to note was that you can use the additional CC to expand later when you can defend properly.
I really liked this idea, and I believe it has some potential indeed.
BTW, does anyone know how many trips to minerals an SCV makes for 90 + supply-build-time seconds? It may be worthwhile to use calldown supplies from time to time if the difference is not too big from the 240 minerals the MULE gives over the same 90 seconds.
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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.
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On March 03 2010 06:36 julealgon wrote:Show nested quote +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? Well, this was a very bad comparison I must say, since the whole point was to recoup the money with mules later on. Something no one seemed to note was that you can use the additional CC to expand later when you can defend properly. I really liked this idea, and I believe it has some potential indeed. BTW, does anyone know how many trips to minerals an SCV makes for 90 + supply-build-time seconds? It may be worthwhile to use calldown supplies from time to time if the difference is not too big from the 240 minerals the MULE gives over the same 90 seconds.
That and also you can salvage any bunkers for free, to help with the window you need to defend while building the CC.
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its not gonna pay off because of u invest 550 minerals in something that will be neutral to itself in 3 minutes it will give ur enemy a window of time to expo like crazy
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Thanks guys for testing the strategy and providing feedback like the OP asked.
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A cc mines roughly at the same rate as 6 scv's and gives ~200 minerals worth of supply.(6 scv's are 6 supply and the supply it got for itself)
Basically that is 500 mins, so command centers are certainly not such a bad deal. The best thing with it is that you don't ever saturate your mineral line with mules, unless you have ~16 command centers but then you would be mining at the same rate as from 6 minerals fields at once! You could make a locust build, fly a cc over to the yellow minerals, drop a million of mules and just suck it all up in a minute!
Not saying that this would be uber awesome, just that it isn't as crazy as many of you seem to think. Basically the resources you get for it is worth all the minerals spent, but it also costs a bit of gas and it takes a bit longer to build. On the other hand it allows you to break even with your enemy with much fewer expansions and it allows you to scan like crazy.
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United States47024 Posts
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.
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?
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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.
Considering that a cc mines roughly as good per cost as normal workers if you consider that it also provides supply, and considering that cc mining won't ever oversaturate the fields you will not get that behind from him taking another expansion. And you can just as well take an expansion if you want, if he tries to attack it just fly back with your cc...
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 06:55 Klockan3 wrote:
Considering that a cc mines roughly as good per cost as normal workers if you consider that it also provides supply, and considering that cc mining won't ever oversaturate the fields you will not get that behind from him taking another expansion. And you can just as well take an expansion if you want, if he tries to attack it just fly back with your cc...
Wait, what?
I don't see how you can say you won't be behind. Suppose you're opponent is Terran. You start your CCs at roughly equal times (yours a bit faster). When they finish, you have identical numbers of MULEs. The difference is he can split his workers among 1 more base than you because he started his CC at an expansion. His mining efficiency is better, regardless of where the MULEs are coming into play. What's more, the fact that you started the CC without knowledge of what your opponent would do to respond means that you are REQUIRED to put up defenses. But since your opponent starts his CC after yours, he has the knowledge that you can't punish him for it, so he can skimp on them. The fact that the CC provides supply isn't relevant because the CC takes so long to build that you have to build supply depots in the interim anyway.
If you choose to actually take a 3rd instead of building the CC in-base, you lose the luxury of being able to defend it easily. Your opponent isn't going to respond to that by taking an expansion--he's going to take advantage of the fact that your forces are spread too thin to defend and destroy one of your bases.
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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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Dude, this would take way to long to build and would only work early game and would wipe out your money entirley. Plus how can yhou only play against the cpu? makes no sense at all unless its a hack...
-Zabestrial
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 07:32 Tiamat wrote:
TheYango, I am talking about creating the extra CCs past 50-60 supply. Not a super early CC
Then if we're going to theorycraft, let's at least stop handwaving and try to construct the scenario.
Suppose you're at about 60 supply, with about 32 SCVs mining minerals. Suppose your opponent is Terran, and has about a similar number. Both of you already have mining set up in your mains and your naturals. Consequently, both of these bases are saturated.
You start a Command Center in your base. Your opponent sees this and starts a Command Center in his 3rd. Both of you progress to making these into Orbital Commands. By the time they finish, you will both likely have 40+ SCVs. Your opponent transfers his SCVs to his 3rd. His SCVs start mining before you can start building a MULE, and because they're coming from saturated bases, he loses no mineral income transferring them--he strictly gains from doing this. Once he gets his Orbital Command up, he's getting the same income as you are from MULEs, plus however many SCVs he transferred. You can't really choose after the fact to lift your Orbital Command, because the distance between your main and a 3rd is far enough that even if you started it earlier, he will most likely be mining from his base before yours lands.
Against a competent opponent, you should be behind. The fact is that the same emphasis on lower base counts and more main base defense means that it's more likely that mineral fields will be saturated--meaning that an opponent can gain by transferring SCVs without investing additional cost. He doesn't need to make new workers for his new base to generate more minerals. The only situation in which you should be ahead is if your opponent so completely misses your Command Center that you're able to get a cycle of MULE mining in before your opponent even transfers his SCVs to his new base (e.g. he doesn't start his CC until yours is half-done). And if your opponent is that oblivious, do you need a strategy like this to beat him?
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If you only make 1 extra OC, which costs 550 - 100(supply) - 300 (6 scv mule) = 150 minerals, with the ability to float out later to expo, you're not too bad off financially. Especially with the extra benefit of crazy-mining expos with multiple OC's later on, scanner and add supply abilities.
And I don't think 3 minutes is that big of a window at all. In those 3 mins, your opponent has to:
- scout you, inside of your main base, which isn't always dead easy (choke & using his energy not to scan).
- focus on building up an army. You can only build a couple extra rounds of troops.
- traverse the map (push if you have any tanks) and take advantage of the situation. You only have to defend your main.
That is a lot to do in 3 minutes.
So I think ppl with a key should test this extensively!
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I tried it out just now. No scv, build barracks, build 1 scv waiting for barracks, orbital command, then a cc next, another cc, then orbital command on second.
Income started getting around 450 per minute once the second orbital command finishes, but that's pushing 5 minutes into the game and I haven't made any units.
I literally never played terran a single time until now, so I'm not sure if I'm doing it optimally. I thought it was interesting but I welcome someone else to try.
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Sanya12364 Posts
This an unrealistic scenario.
When is there ever perfect scouting info to construct a CC like that and it's just as possible for the player to fly the CC over to the 3rd base without much time loss.
And a 3rd base makes another harass target. The opponent would have to be able to secure hold and defend a 3rd base while the SCV constructed the command center onsite.
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On March 03 2010 08:06 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 07:32 Tiamat wrote:
TheYango, I am talking about creating the extra CCs past 50-60 supply. Not a super early CC Then if we're going to theorycraft, let's at least stop handwaving and try to construct the scenario. Suppose you're at about 60 supply, with about 32 SCVs mining minerals. Suppose your opponent is Terran, and has about a similar number. Both of you already have mining set up in your mains and your naturals. Consequently, both of these bases are saturated. You start a Command Center in your base. Your opponent sees this and starts a Command Center in his 3rd. Both of you progress to making these into Orbital Commands. By the time they finish, you will both likely have 40+ SCVs. Your opponent transfers his SCVs to his 3rd. His SCVs start mining before you can start building a MULE, and because they're coming from saturated bases, he loses no mineral income transferring them--he strictly gains from doing this. Once he gets his Orbital Command up, he's getting the same income as you are from MULEs, plus however many SCVs he transferred. You can't really choose after the fact to lift your Orbital Command, because the distance between your main and a 3rd is far enough that even if you started it earlier, he will most likely be mining from his base before yours lands. Against a competent opponent, you should be behind. The fact is that the same emphasis on lower base counts and more main base defense means that it's more likely that mineral fields will be saturated--meaning that an opponent can gain by transferring SCVs without investing additional cost. He doesn't need to make new workers for his new base to generate more minerals. The only situation in which you should be ahead is if your opponent so completely misses your Command Center that you're able to get a cycle of MULE mining in before your opponent even transfers his SCVs to his new base (e.g. he doesn't start his CC until yours is half-done). And if your opponent is that oblivious, do you need a strategy like this to beat him?
I agree with what your saying, if the map is small, its going to be harder to pull something like this off. The type of map I had in mind was like a lost temple 4 player map, at around the 8-12 minute mark, I am sure you would have a good chance to sneak an SCV to build a CC at a far and away expo without it being scouted asap. Then as soon as it completes, you could call at lot of mules down to mine it very fast, build 6 extra SCV to try and get the gas. The gain behind this, is if you lose this expo your only out the cost of 6 SCVs and the CC, vs if you were to take out one of his expos, he loses the CC and 20+ SCVs that he has to rebuild, you get your mineral mining SCVs free because of all the CCs back home safe in your base.
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On March 03 2010 08:11 onmach wrote:
I tried it out just now. No scv, build barracks, build 1 scv waiting for barracks, orbital command, then a cc next, another cc, then orbital command on second.
Income started getting around 450 per minute once the second orbital command finishes, but that's pushing 5 minutes into the game and I haven't made any units.
I literally never played terran a single time until now, so I'm not sure if I'm doing it optimally. I thought it was interesting but I welcome someone else to try.
I am not calling to not build any depots at all, you obivously need around 3-4 depots early game to not kill your eco.
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United States47024 Posts
On March 03 2010 08:16 TanGeng wrote:
When is there ever perfect scouting info to construct a CC like that and it's just as possible for the player to fly the CC over to the 3rd base without much time loss.
You don't need perfect scouting info. Because you can start mining before the Orbital Command finishes, you're ahead so long as you start your CC before the in-base CC is half-done building. That's a pretty lenient window of time. As for how long it takes for you to reach a 3rd by air, that depends on the map. The air distance to another main on Metalopolis is admittedly pretty short, but the ground distance between them makes that base impossible to defend in comparison to a normal third. Admittedly, I haven't found out how long it takes the CC to fly all the way to the actual 3rd, but I'm inclined to say it's pretty long. It could be viable on maps with close or Island 3rds like Scrap Station or Kulas Ravine. But on a map with a main-third distance like on Metalopolis or Lost Temple, I don't see the flight time being short.
On March 03 2010 08:16 TanGeng wrote:
And a 3rd base makes another harass target. The opponent would have to be able to secure hold and defend a 3rd base while the SCV constructed the command center onsite.
This is true, though I'm admittedly taking it on assumption that with the amount of resources that the player building the OC in his base has tied up, he can't really afford that many units to harass. While he can eventually recover the cost by salvage, he still doesn't know if his opponent is going to expand or attack upon seeing the CC building in-base, he does need to prepare some sort of defense which will tie down resources.
On March 03 2010 08:18 Tiamat wrote:
I agree with what your saying, if the map is small, its going to be harder to pull something like this off. The type of map I had in mind was like a lost temple 4 player map, at around the 8-12 minute mark, I am sure you would have a good chance to sneak an SCV to build a CC at a far and away expo without it being scouted asap. Then as soon as it completes, you could call at lot of mules down to mine it very fast, build 6 extra SCV to try and get the gas. The gain behind this, is if you lose this expo your only out the cost of 6 SCVs and the CC, vs if you were to take out one of his expos, he loses the CC and 20+ SCVs that he has to rebuild, you get your mineral mining SCVs free because of all the CCs back home safe in your base.
My point is that you shouldn't be building CCs if you don't have the express intent of using them to take a base immediately. You're not making full use of what the CC does (act as a gathering site and worker production) so it's not cost effective. Having a CC you're going to build or float to a safe base is fine, but having CCs in your base solely for the purpose of making MULEs is just silly.
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On March 03 2010 07:56 wintergt wrote: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? Show nested quote +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.
That's because saturations occurs around 20+ workers most 2 base zergs only have a few workers on each patch.
One could use cmd centers upgrade them to planetary defense for their attack ability and basically have huge powerful attacking static defense walls that boost your econ with more abilities. I think maybe mid game you could probably do something like that if you heavily invest in air units or aa units or many turrets. maybe in tvz not so much in tvp as planetary defense cmd centers eat up zerglings very well.
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On March 03 2010 08:03 Zabestrial wrote:
Dude, this would take way to long to build and would only work early game and would wipe out your money entirley. Plus how can yhou only play against the cpu? makes no sense at all unless its a hack...
-Zabestrial
This was for me right? The idea was to protect the ramp first and then expand to the main. By using the PF to defend, you can expand very fast and start using MULEs from the main CC.
Also, yes it is a hack, I never said otherwise.
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I don't know, it almost seems dangerously close to viable, because it is exponential growth.
You can wall off with your barracks and second command center. At 5 minutes, maybe there's a zealot at your door you can make a couple marines to make it go away. Every minute that goes by you're going to make a crapton more money than your opponent could ever hope for because you don't max at 24 resource units, you max at 8 mules + however many scvs you bothered to build. At some point you'll throw down 10 barracks and just use all your minerals on marines.
Even if it isn't viable on normal maps, this type of play would be doubly dangerous on that one map where you can lift off to the gold minerals.
Unfortunately I just don't know enough about terran to even attempt to try and make it workable. I'm not concerned about whether there is a counter to this or whether it would beat a platinum player who scouts competently. I just want to see if it is possible to literally get exponential growth if someone leaves you alone for a little while.
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On March 03 2010 08:06 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 07:32 Tiamat wrote:
TheYango, I am talking about creating the extra CCs past 50-60 supply. Not a super early CC Then if we're going to theorycraft, let's at least stop handwaving and try to construct the scenario. Suppose you're at about 60 supply, with about 32 SCVs mining minerals. Suppose your opponent is Terran, and has about a similar number. Both of you already have mining set up in your mains and your naturals. Consequently, both of these bases are saturated. You start a Command Center in your base. Your opponent sees this and starts a Command Center in his 3rd. Both of you progress to making these into Orbital Commands. By the time they finish, you will both likely have 40+ SCVs. Your opponent transfers his SCVs to his 3rd. His SCVs start mining before you can start building a MULE, and because they're coming from saturated bases, he loses no mineral income transferring them--he strictly gains from doing this. Once he gets his Orbital Command up, he's getting the same income as you are from MULEs, plus however many SCVs he transferred. You can't really choose after the fact to lift your Orbital Command, because the distance between your main and a 3rd is far enough that even if you started it earlier, he will most likely be mining from his base before yours lands. Against a competent opponent, you should be behind. The fact is that the same emphasis on lower base counts and more main base defense means that it's more likely that mineral fields will be saturated--meaning that an opponent can gain by transferring SCVs without investing additional cost. He doesn't need to make new workers for his new base to generate more minerals. The only situation in which you should be ahead is if your opponent so completely misses your Command Center that you're able to get a cycle of MULE mining in before your opponent even transfers his SCVs to his new base (e.g. he doesn't start his CC until yours is half-done). And if your opponent is that oblivious, do you need a strategy like this to beat him?
That sounds like your opponent is not only map hacking to have perfect information but is also reading your mind. Even if he finds out quickly that you are making another CC, he'll just assume you are going to fly it to another expo spot. In fact if it's so easy to expand, then you can do just that aswell and you break even. We have to assume some sort of deadlock where you can't just keep on endlessly expanding because more expansions will mean more places to defend and involves risk.
In theory-craft extremities, if you make an expansion and your opponent knows this and uses the same money to make a superior army to kill you then you could never expand, but this obviously not true in practice, So why can't he just do the same but not float his CC off but just keep it sitting in his base? Whatever risk there is in fronting the minerals for a CC is exactly the same as making an expo, actually this is safer because still only your starting location to defend.
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QUOTE]
My point is that you shouldn't be building CCs if you don't have the express intent of using them to take a base immediately. You're not making full use of what the CC does (act as a gathering site and worker production) so it's not cost effective. Having a CC you're going to build or float to a safe base is fine, but having CCs in your base solely for the purpose of making MULEs is just silly.[/QUOTE]
Here is my argument, we have already determined that building a OC puts you 150 minerals to the red. Is the 150 minerals worth the ability to produce "safe mineral mining units", meaning that it does not matter if you lose them out on the field because they are free. You dont have to worry about transferring scvs all the way across the map to mine, or rebuild all those SCVs if the expo gets overrun.
The pros for building multiple OCs in your base
- You mine minerals at a rate of 6 times faster than the other guy
- You have your "Mineral mining guys" protected at all times at home, because your main base defense is protecting your CCs, so when you take a far away expo, your investing 400 minerals, not 400 + the scvs + static defense to protect it.
- If you have a surplus of money you can scan pretty much where ever you want, or get bonus supply on your few depots you have.
- If you miss a mule call down it does not hurt you because your CC always will be charging and there is no cooldown on mule, unlike building SCVs if you forget to queue em up you have to wait.
The cons
- You lose your main you lose the game
- Puts you in a defensive state early/mid game
- Mules are not good if your enemy does not let you build a CC to mine from.
- Mules dont harvest gas (god i wish they did)
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Sanya12364 Posts
It doesn't seem like a comprehensive strategy that you would want to implement on such a large scale during the midgame. The return on investment for SCV's is faster. Late game though it will help since you can dedicate more SCVs to gas mining and save supply for your army. Having extra scans is also of great benefit. At this point, if you're piling up the minerals you might as well preemptively make a CC that'll either turn into an orbital command immediately or be flown over for an expansion.
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On March 03 2010 08:31 julealgon wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 08:03 Zabestrial wrote:
Dude, this would take way to long to build and would only work early game and would wipe out your money entirley. Plus how can yhou only play against the cpu? makes no sense at all unless its a hack...
-Zabestrial This was for me right? The idea was to protect the ramp first and then expand to the main. By using the PF to defend, you can expand very fast and start using MULEs from the main CC. Also, yes it is a hack, I never said otherwise.
Yes you can end up expanding very quickly and the PF can defend BUT... by the time you have 3 i could proably have 10-20 mutas by then.
In other words:
Easily countered and killed
-Zabestrial
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lol if this works, blizzard will just remove it from the game...or do you rly think building cc instead of supply depots was their intention?
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On March 03 2010 09:00 Zabestrial wrote:
Yes you can end up expanding very quickly and the PF can defend BUT... by the time you have 3 i could proably have 10-20 mutas by then.
In other words:
Easily countered and killed
Nah. I watch mostly terran replays and I have seen plenty of top terrans who take a first expansion pretty quickly vs zerg and a second one not much later. By your reasoning this should be impossible because you'll have 20 mutas and win, but in practice it doesn't work that way.
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On March 03 2010 06:06 Tiamat wrote:
Unfortunately I only get to play against an AI, but I want Terran players to try and start doing this if you dont mind.
- Make more CCs instead of supply depots for your food. -
I had around 6 CCs when I was about to take my 3rd expand, dropped 12 mules on the new patch and my minerals went from around 1000 to 5000 in like 2 minutes. Its possible that someone very good at their macro game could take advantage of the mule, or hell even the extra supply to upgrade your 6-7 depots laying around. Use the extra money for even more barracks and CCs and it seems like a slippery slope until you get cannot mine off a patch anymore. It worked really well on the bigger maps with lots of expansions.
With the free bunkers and it seems Terran still has one of the better "turtle style" defenses in the game, perhaps multiple CCs are not a bad option?
The two bolded statements are contradictory. Theoretically speaking, each CC->Orbital Command pays for itself easily... in the long run. But in the short run, by making CC's you are just creating a timing window that your opponent can exploit. The more CC's you make, the more timing windows you create for your opponent. It just isn't reasonable in a fast and dirty game like Starcraft.
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United States4126 Posts
On March 03 2010 08:51 Tiamat wrote:
QUOTE]
The pros for building multiple OCs in your base
- You mine minerals at a rate of 6 times faster than the other guy
- You have your "Mineral mining guys" protected at all times at home, because your main base defense is protecting your CCs, so when you take a far away expo, your investing 400 minerals, not 400 + the scvs + static defense to protect it.
- If you have a surplus of money you can scan pretty much where ever you want, or get bonus supply on your few depots you have.
- If you miss a mule call down it does not hurt you because your CC always will be charging and there is no cooldown on mule, unlike building SCVs if you forget to queue em up you have to wait.
The cons
- You lose your main you lose the game
- Puts you in a defensive state early/mid game
- Mules are not good if your enemy does not let you build a CC to mine from.
- Mules dont harvest gas (god i wish they did)
Another con is that you mine out much faster, meaning you have to expand much faster. It's basically checkmate if you end up mining out without an expo as a good player can deny any OC's from landing.
You also force yourself to rely more on mineral-only units like marines/hellions, since your mineral:gas ratio is going to skyrocket.
Unless I'm missing something in your logic...
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hmmm... lots of ubernoobs playing SC2 and posting unviable strategies.
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Mules just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. If you're concerned about the efficiency of getting free supply out of OC so that less money is tied up in supply, then you definitely wouldn't make an extra 550-mineral structure to do so. You would drop supply pods on your depots, this doesn't reduce the total number of minerals available to your army, it only reduces your income compared to if you dropped mules.
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How long for an scv to pay back its cost exactly?
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Sanya12364 Posts
~60-70 game seconds I think. It's about 6 or 7 seconds for 1 round trip.
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On March 03 2010 09:28 Gedrah wrote:
Mules just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. If you're concerned about the efficiency of getting free supply out of OC so that less money is tied up in supply, then you definitely wouldn't make an extra 550-mineral structure to do so. You would drop supply pods on your depots, this doesn't reduce the total number of minerals available to your army, it only reduces your income compared to if you dropped mules.
Why build SCVs, they just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch.
Whatever your answer is, I can say the same for mules.
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I can't believe people are actually considering this.
Seriously.
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On March 03 2010 10:19 Gaspa79 wrote:
I can't believe people are actually considering this.
Seriously.
my thoughts precisely.
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we need a separate strategy forum for bronze-silver leagues, and gold-platinum leagues.
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On March 03 2010 06:55 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +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. Considering that a cc mines roughly as good per cost as normal workers if you consider that it also provides supply, and considering that cc mining won't ever oversaturate the fields you will not get that behind from him taking another expansion. And you can just as well take an expansion if you want, if he tries to attack it just fly back with your cc...
Young man, it's been stated 3-5 times in this thread already, but your plan is full of holes. TIMING is ridiculously important, and you will be 550 minerals behind as soon as you build the OC in your main. Mules only mine minerals that are already there, you'll mine out your main and be 550 minerals behind on unit production, tech, and upgrades in the short-term for no actual long-term benefit other than having more scanner energy. Useful for getting an early look at the army that's coming to stuff your 2nd OC up your asshole, sideways. Mining your main out faster is NOT equal to taking an expansion, you get no gas out of an OC, Mules don't mine gas, can't mine gas, and don't want to mine gas.
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On March 03 2010 09:35 wintergt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 09:28 Gedrah wrote:
Mules just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. If you're concerned about the efficiency of getting free supply out of OC so that less money is tied up in supply, then you definitely wouldn't make an extra 550-mineral structure to do so. You would drop supply pods on your depots, this doesn't reduce the total number of minerals available to your army, it only reduces your income compared to if you dropped mules. Why build SCVs, they just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. Whatever your answer is, I can say the same for mules.
An SCV pays for itself in 10 trips and continues mining forever. An OC pays for itself, kind of, once you've made 2 mules. Those mules die off, can't build structures, won't still be around when it's time to take a new base. For the price of that 550-mineral OC you could have gotten 11 SCVs which would pay for themselves after 10 trips and continue mining afterward, a very small and temporary investment of 50 minerals which returns very quickly.
You might have smart-alecky comparisons to make between SCVs and Mules but they aren't the same thing, and if you think you can win a TvT or any other match with just mules, I'd like to see it. Keep making OCs as the basis for your economy 
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Mystlord
United States10264 Posts
This is ridiculous. More responses to this thread than any other one that features a better topic of discussion. Do people just like attacking dumb ideas or what?
Depots over CCs. If you need math or an explanation in addition to what has already been posted as to why this is true, you're beyond our help.
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On March 03 2010 10:27 Gedrah wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 09:35 wintergt wrote:On March 03 2010 09:28 Gedrah wrote:
Mules just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. If you're concerned about the efficiency of getting free supply out of OC so that less money is tied up in supply, then you definitely wouldn't make an extra 550-mineral structure to do so. You would drop supply pods on your depots, this doesn't reduce the total number of minerals available to your army, it only reduces your income compared to if you dropped mules. Why build SCVs, they just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. Whatever your answer is, I can say the same for mules. An SCV pays for itself in 10 trips and continues mining forever. An OC pays for itself, kind of, once you've made 2 mules. Those mules die off, can't build structures, won't still be around when it's time to take a new base. For the price of that 550-mineral OC you could have gotten 11 SCVs which would pay for themselves after 10 trips and continue mining afterward, a very small and temporary investment of 50 minerals which returns very quickly. You might have smart-alecky comparisons to make between SCVs and Mules but they aren't the same thing, and if you think you can win a TvT or any other match with just mules, I'd like to see it. Keep making OCs as the basis for your economy
I dont know if spammin CCs is ever good but thats plain wrong. The fact that mules die doesnt mean shit, since the OC keeps making new ones.
I think it might be a sensible thing to do, on some map, some situation, preferably on gold minerals. Just making your next CC abit earlier, to generate some energy. On certain type of FFA maps at least if nothing else... But chances are its not something to take as a standard thing.
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see if you can view the reps.
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On March 03 2010 09:34 TanGeng wrote:
~60-70 game seconds I think. It's about 6 or 7 seconds for 1 round trip.
No, they don't do their trips any faster than mules, if a mule gets 270 in 90 seconds it means that a normal worker gets 45 in the same time.
A cc pays off itself roughly as fast as scv's do if you add in the 17 supply it also provides compared to building 6 scv's. The only thing you lose is the gas it costs to get the OC.
On March 03 2010 10:27 Gedrah wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 09:35 wintergt wrote:On March 03 2010 09:28 Gedrah wrote:
Mules just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. If you're concerned about the efficiency of getting free supply out of OC so that less money is tied up in supply, then you definitely wouldn't make an extra 550-mineral structure to do so. You would drop supply pods on your depots, this doesn't reduce the total number of minerals available to your army, it only reduces your income compared to if you dropped mules. Why build SCVs, they just make you mine out the mineral patches faster, not add minerals to the patch. Whatever your answer is, I can say the same for mules. An SCV pays for itself in 10 trips and continues mining forever. An OC pays for itself, kind of, once you've made 2 mules. Those mules die off, can't build structures, won't still be around when it's time to take a new base. For the price of that 550-mineral OC you could have gotten 11 SCVs which would pay for themselves after 10 trips and continue mining afterward, a very small and temporary investment of 50 minerals which returns very quickly. You might have smart-alecky comparisons to make between SCVs and Mules but they aren't the same thing, and if you think you can win a TvT or any other match with just mules, I'd like to see it. Keep making OCs as the basis for your economy
You wont get 11 scv's for that cost since you need to get supply for them. Also since the OC can drop another mule every time the old one is used up it is basically like building a permanent mule. Building a cc proviced the same benefit as building 6 scv's and 2 supply depots, that is 500 minerals. Of course it isn't the best thing to do all the time, but it certainly isn't as laughable as many here seems to think it is. Especially in longer games where you hit the supply caps, getting supply free workers with imba mining speeds per patch can be huge.
On March 03 2010 10:23 Gedrah wrote:Show nested quote +On March 03 2010 06:55 Klockan3 wrote: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. Considering that a cc mines roughly as good per cost as normal workers if you consider that it also provides supply, and considering that cc mining won't ever oversaturate the fields you will not get that behind from him taking another expansion. And you can just as well take an expansion if you want, if he tries to attack it just fly back with your cc... Young man, it's been stated 3-5 times in this thread already, but your plan is full of holes. TIMING is ridiculously important, and you will be 550 minerals behind as soon as you build the OC in your main. Mules only mine minerals that are already there, you'll mine out your main and be 550 minerals behind on unit production, tech, and upgrades in the short-term for no actual long-term benefit other than having more scanner energy. Useful for getting an early look at the army that's coming to stuff your 2nd OC up your asshole, sideways. Mining your main out faster is NOT equal to taking an expansion, you get no gas out of an OC, Mules don't mine gas, can't mine gas, and don't want to mine gas.
This isn't my plan or topic, I just mathcrafted. Anyway, your point is exactluy the same as saying "TIMING is ridiculously important, and you will be 150 minerals behind as soon as you build the SCV and supply depot", but do that mean that you should stop building scv's and depots just because they do put your mineral count back a short while? Also, why would anyone build more scv's when "they just mine minerals that are already there"? It costs 50 minerals and you gain "nothing" from it! (That was mocking him for the dumb people out there who might have thought that those were seriously my opinions...)
Yes the CC takes a bit longer to construct so it ties up the minerals slightly longer, but it provides a lot of other benefits as well. I don't say that this is uber viable, I just want to say that everyone scoffing haven't really thought about it. It barely costs more than building scv's and supply depots per benefit, and that don't take into account the many benefits of having mules instead of scv's as mineral gatherers.
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On March 03 2010 10:23 Gedrah wrote:
Young man, it's been stated 3-5 times in this thread already, but your plan is full of holes. TIMING is ridiculously important, and you will be 550 minerals behind as soon as you build the OC in your main. Mules only mine minerals that are already there, you'll mine out your main and be 550 minerals behind on unit production, tech, and upgrades in the short-term for no actual long-term benefit other than having more scanner energy. Useful for getting an early look at the army that's coming to stuff your 2nd OC up your asshole, sideways. Mining your main out faster is NOT equal to taking an expansion, you get no gas out of an OC, Mules don't mine gas, can't mine gas, and don't want to mine gas.
Then explain to me how it is possible a game can exist where KHB masses CCs (makes 10+ of them in 15 minutes) and wins? Obviously there is more possible and the game has more depth already than we can easily ascertain.
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EPT
