On June 21 2010 10:23 waffling1 wrote:Show nested quote +But once it is saturated because it has more minerals it produces not 40% less income.
horrible wording. i'm not quite sure what u mean, can u reword?
edit: ok i understood what u mean here. i think it would be better if it was reworded like this
+ Show Spoiler +However, because a Gold Expansion has 6 Mineral Patches compared to 8 for a standard base a fully saturated Gold Expansion does not produce a full 40% more income than a regular base, but rather less than 40%. To do the math:....
(this leads into the next part, which i also wrote out extra clearly in the spoiler below
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Show nested quote +-Fully saturated with 15 workers a Gold Expansion produces 5% more income than a fully saturated base with 8 Mineral Patches.
-A fully saturated Gold Expansion produced 20% more income than a fully saturated base with 7 Mineral Patches.
-15 workers at a Gold Expansion harvest 40% faster than 15 workers at a base with 8 Mineral Patches.
I reorganized this bit of info with clearer labels and the calculations included for the reader.
+ Show Spoiler +
However, because a Gold Expansion has 6 Mineral Patches compared to 8 for a standard base a fully saturated Gold Expansion does not produce a full 40% more income than a regular base, but rather less than 40%. To do the math:....
Summary:
Rate comparison:
assumptions: saturation ratio is 2.5 workers for 1 mineral patch.
Fully Saturated:
gold expansion (6 patches) VS 8 mineral patches
(6 x 1.4 = 8.4) VS 8
8.4 / 8 = 1.05
5% faster
Fully Saturated:
gold expansion (6 patches) VS 7 mineral patches
(6 x 1.4 = 8.4) VS 7
8.4 / 7 = 1.20
20% faster
Same Number of Workers:
saturated gold expansion (i.e. 15 workers) VS
(15 x 1.4 = 21) VS 15
21 / 15 = 1.4
40% faster
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In light of these numbers, i would also add in the conclusions of strategic decisions:
1) the decision to take a gold or a regular expo: not super super significant in terms of gold payout.
2) but it is significant in that it requires less workers to saturate. The earlier the game, the more significant. making 5 less drones (compared to an 8 mineral patch base) early on is 250 mienrals, plus 17 x 5 game time seconds (plus larvae if you're zerg, and possibly queen energy and possibly a whole larvae cycle worth of time.) this can make a big deal for doing or defending a timing push, etc.
3) combining 1 and 2, if you're not REALLY banking for a timing push or you're in a situation where taking the gold is much more riskier than taking a nearby, more easily defend expo, then it's probably better not to take the gold
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BTW, what is the actual saturation ratio? it would be different depending on the number of mineral patches. so
8 mineral patches
saturation ratio = ?
7 mineral patches
saturation ratio = ?
6 mineral patches
saturation ratio = ?
With these numbers, we can do the same thing in the spoiler and get slightly more accurate percentages, if anyone wanted to know them more closer to the actual value.
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Show nested quote +In Game Time it takes 85 less seconds from beginning to end to saturate a Gold Expansion
big concept here. u also threw it in the middle of a paragraph that dealt with other things.
r u saying 85 game time seconds, ASSSUMING ur building drones from that one hatch?
If so, it's good to point out that the ONLY factor determining this is the number of mineral patches (6 as opposed to 7 or 8).
Now this should bring up an obvious issue that you failed to address:
"Is this 85 second difference based on comparing the 7 mineral patch base or 8 mineral patch base?"
ambiguous.
But it doenst matter, even if u specified:
When u take a gold expansion, u should be transfering at least 12 drones (2 per mineral patch) IMMEDIATELY, since the greatest mining rate difference is to be gained in the unsaturated state (i.e. 40% - same number of workers) keep in mind ppl transfer drones in BW, where all mineral patches are not judged by their color or the content of their minerals.
Thus another reason why that 85 second comparison is meaningless, (as well as ambiguous).
If anything, b/c u want this gold expansion to be saturated ASAP, the gold expansion is the most quickly saturated out of all bases, if u wanna get really technical.
but i think the time of saturation when taking expos is very meaningless when comparing gold vs non gold expos
i don't mean to bash. i say all this with the most improvement-mindful of intentions.
plus, i'm just fulfilling an order:
xp
EPT
