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Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them.
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
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On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it. Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them. Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
They have to burn SCV time to rebuild them? Zerg loses the drones forever just building tech buildings.
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United States47024 Posts
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote:
The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum.
This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote:
But what bugs me the most is how flexible the terran is. For Protoss and zerg, what happens if you have 40 of your workes taken out? You have to GG. Zerg either has a choice of producing works over units, in which case the other race can just push and win, or producing units over workers, in which case there eco will be aweful and they will also lose pretty soon.
Same for protoss. Although protoss can chrono boost out scv's, the chrono is not constant and its still a very very long time until you have a decent eco going again. By which time the other race should already have pushed and over ran you.
Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it.
Again, the MULE minerals don't come out of nowhere. In order to have spare MULEs to use, Terran has to have chosen, deliberately or accidentally, not to use them before, and thus have had a smaller income at some earlier stage. This is exactly analogous to the situation where Z may have chosen not to spend larva to make drones, again either deliberately or accidentally, and instead uses his extra larvae after the battle to replenish his drone count.
On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote:
Or, what if a protoss forget detection and the other race goes for cloaked units? Well thats pretty much GG. Same for zerg. What happens if a terran forgets turrets or a raven and gets a DT in there base? Its ok, they had their detection before you even had a unit. And if its on cool down? Well its not long enough for a DT to kill all your buildings or even make a decent dent in your army before you can scan again.
This argument is weak. I understand that you're saying that Terran has less to worry about because they can't "forget" to get detection because the Orbital Command is built into everyone's build, but likewise it's not really easier to "forget" to get an Overseer or Robotics Facility--the fact that they're later doesn't change the fact that they're still generally worth having around in the same manner that an Orbital Command is worth having around.
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It would be interesting if the mule had a cooldown, say 30secs to a minute, but then chrono boost doesnt have a cool down and larva stacks.
Spawn Larvae doesn't stack, it is currently the only macro ability that has a cooldown (40 seconds on the Hatchery, a Queen can do it multiple times)
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On September 19 2010 11:44 TheYango wrote:
I understand that you're saying that Terran has less to worry about because they can't "forget" to get detection because the Orbital Command is built into everyone's build, but likewise it's not really easier to "forget" to get an Overseer or Robotics Facility--the fact that they're later doesn't change the fact that they're still generally worth having around in the same manner that an Orbital Command is worth having around.
No. The Terran analogue to overseers and observers is the raven. The OC's detect ability is, like many other things Terran has, just an extra gimmick the other factions plain and simple do not get any compensation for. Like flying buildings and 100% salvageable bunkers.
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On September 19 2010 09:09 Mensab wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 08:00 Karkadinn wrote:
Personally I think the disadvantage to Terran production is overblown when taken in conjunction with the rest of the game environment. How easy is it to put pressure on Terran while they're converting their minerals? How often is being able to convert large amounts of stockpiled money at once a practical advantage? At the later stages of the game, being able to convert all of that income into something other than the Avg Unspent Resources bar is a pretty big part of the game. T as a whole is the most limited in its ability to produce units, with only Marines, Hellions, Vikings and Medivacs being units that can be produced two at a time, using an addon that prevent other often more important units from being built, regardless of tech structures/tech level.
What?
How hard is it to build even more factories, starports barracks?
In the late game that economy is pretty critical and said economy will allow the T player to simply build more production facilities - along with MBS how is dumping really a problem?
The fact is, the Z and P races can have their workers / income smashed and not recover, whereas if you see the OP and the picture included in it, the T player can spam mules and completely keep themselves viable.
I'm no where near good enough to argue imba in this game or not but it's certainly something which needs some thought put into it.
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On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote:Show nested quote +Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it. Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them. Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
I don't know why people keep saying this.
Technically, yes zerg can rebuild 50 drones off say 6 bases. In reality though if you have lost that many drones, you are using your larvae on army to not die right away. Sure you could technically remake the drones but that means you have an army attacking you and no larvae left. And don't get me started on Zerg losing a structure (spire build time is what again? not to mention Hive :x). At least Terran can fly away most of their key tech.
On the other hand Terran after a big fight like that usually have accumulated energy (even pro macro slips with crazy end game micro) so they drop a dozen or more free mules that give them an econ equivalent to 60 ish workers. This econ is right when it is needed, where both players are weak, and instantaneous. The workers don't need to transfer or move from the inactive bases, they just appear on wherever you have mineral patches (likely gold if you have one).
Not only that but these 60 free workers you get at the right time take no supply, this is a rather big issue because the 200/200 Terran is already very powerful without adding the fact that they only need 50-60 supply of scvs to get a better econ than zerg or toss on 80-90 workers.
Actually I also think the problem is how spammable they are late. In the beginning Terran can't get workers as fast as chrono boosted probes or hard droning so MULES are the mechanic to compensate. On the other hand what makes Terran so bloody awful to play against is that they have a ton of failsafes in the late game. Kill all their scvs => mules just show up, kill their army => 3 siege tanks and a couple PFs will hold them until they make a new army, catch them out of position => they lift off so you can't really base race them, start starving the whole map => they fly to whatever unclaimed base is left, put down 2 PFs and 6 turrets and they are completely untouchable.
Now there are several possible fixes. The cooldown is one. Another would be to make mules land at the orbital command that spends the energy and then rally to the patch (this does not decrease 1 or 2 base play but means you cant just drop 20 MULES on an island or gold as easily). Yet another would be to make MULES cost 2-3 population while active, this would in my opinion not help the late spam (because you probably just lost an army) but it would punish them for poor macro (it makes it better to have 1 mule per orbital active all the time than dropping them 3 at a time from all orbital commands).
My favorite would be to force MULES to land at the orbital then move. It avoids that silly "I took a gold, dropped 15 mules and am now swimming in minerals when 2 seconds ago I had nothing". It also greatly decreases the effectiveness of Terrans with Island expansions which I don't think is bad.
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On September 19 2010 11:43 nihoh wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote:Now what happens when you destroy a terrans economy? MULE and the problem is sorted. Well ok, it's not sorted, but it puts them in a far better position than if Z or P had been in it. Zerg can rebuild their economy way better than anyone else. Terran suffer the most from losing unit structures as well since they have to burn SCV time to rebuild them. Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late. They have to burn SCV time to rebuild them? Zerg loses the drones forever just building tech buildings.
How expensive is that in reality?
Let´s take a supply depot for example: 30 seconds buildtime. The fastest build "general" Terran building. The Terran looses 30 seconds minimum in harvesttime from one SCV.
When the Zerg builds something he needs to replace the drone. The cost is in the structure, all Zerg buildings have a 50 Mineral "discount" or even more because the drone is calculated. Thus the Zerg looses droneharvesttime in the size it takes to replace that drone: max 15 seconds for the next larvae and 15 seconds morphtime.
The Zerg modell is only a disadvantage if the Zerg can´t afford the larvae to replace the drone.
On September 19 2010 10:26 Karkadinn wrote:
Which is why the race with the worst base defenses is the most dependent on a fast expansion to match the one-base income of a race with the best base defenses. Heh.
I think you are misunderstanding the concept of static defense in SC2. It´s there to buy you time until your units arrive. Zerg get the "worst" static defense because their army is the most mobile. Their ONLY really immobile ground unit is the Hydralisk which is actually quite fast on creep which you should have between your bases. On top of that Zerg get the Nydus system - ever tried to use them for mobility/defense instead of just drop attempts?
Terrans get the best static defense because it´s the easiest to abuse their immobility.
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this post is stupid, he had 2 CC, for all we know he had 200/200 energy at his CC. thats 8 mules he could have called down after his miners got whipped. That mineral count was for at most maybe 1 minute, not the whole game. I am tired of people being such babies about stuff.
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Agreed.
If the Terran player does not get any Planetary Fortresses and transitions into the late game Mules could arguably be Imba, but lets face it, how many Terrans get more than 2 Orbital Commands? The Terran army is just too slow to be everywhere at once.
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On September 19 2010 11:44 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote:
The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum. This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration.
How did you come up with this number? My testing showed it to be 4 SCVs if you don't count supply and 4.5 if you do. Also I don't understand what you mean by saturation makes it go up to 5.
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On September 19 2010 18:59 Grond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 11:44 TheYango wrote:On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote:
The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum. This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration. How did you come up with this number? My testing showed it to be 4 SCVs if you don't count supply and 4.5 if you do. Also I don't understand what you mean by saturation makes it go up to 5.
You "lose" 2 SCVs to the upgrade process to Orbital command. Terrans take longer to saturate Minerallines than even Protoss that don´t boost their Probeproduction because of that.
Yeah, Terrans CAN squeeze the most minerals out of a mineralline but that doesn´t mean they DO most of the time. On top of that you "lose" saturation to the Building construction process.
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Mules are too forgiving in term of Macroing.
Give them a cooldown, even 10 or 15sec. Would be enough to show that Terrans players HAVE to macro before their CC's get 200/200.
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On September 19 2010 18:59 Grond wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 11:44 TheYango wrote:On September 19 2010 11:24 Westy wrote:
The mule is exactly equivalent to 6 scv's mining, but it also goes beyond that because its equivalent to 6 scv's mining and is it does not matter how saturated the mineral line is, it will always mine its maximum. This is incorrect. The MULE is exactly equal to THREE SCVs' mining on an unsaturated mineral line. It is worth somewhere between 3 and 5 when saturation is taken into account as a practical consideration. How did you come up with this number? My testing showed it to be 4 SCVs if you don't count supply and 4.5 if you do. Also I don't understand what you mean by saturation makes it go up to 5.
counting mule by scv is useless, if terran has <12scv then mule is worth about 4-5, between 12 and 16 scv it progresses to 8 scv worth of income, if there are16+ scvs mining mule is worth exacty infinite count of scvs 
only good comparison of mule is extra 2 patches of mineral with workers included
imagine playing with 6 patches, this is income difference there
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On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote:
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late.
you don't seem to understand the mechanics of other races in comparsion
chrono-boost early is strong, mules early are strong --> balanced;
chrono-boost late is useless, mules late are strong (multiple gold-mules, comebacks after losing tons of SCVs) --> screwed
the thing is....it's not even about "imbalance", because theoretically mules may or may not be fine; but a good strategy-game just shouldn't allow these kinds of come-backs; when I watch a terran-player screwing up and losing half his SCVs while just barely hanging in there, I don't get the feeling he "deserves" to come back just by throwing out some mules; he either pulls some crazy stuff or is doomed;
the current mule-mechanic imo doesn't "fit" in a competitive game, because it's just too easy to regain ground after screwing up badly; it's not so much about balance/imbalance but more about the overall mechanics
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I don't think mules are really THAT good. The only problem is they're good when compared to spawn larva and chornoboost. Here is something I wrote in my offsite blog.
Mules are really great mineral gatherers. Once you get up an orbital command and start pumping these guys you pretty much don't have to worry about your mineral resources anymore. I would really find this system fine if the other races didn't have such less forgiving methods; mainly Zerg.
With Zerg you have spawn larva, which takes a very long time to complete. If you miss casting it when you can that is just wasted time, and production. It really doesn't matter how much energy your queen has saved up.
With Protoss you can chronoboost your buildings. Now I actually feel this is balanced somewhat due to the fact you can chronoboost everything. I still don't feel it's as good as Terran's ability to gain such a huge economic lead though. Sure you may able to spit out a million probes, but they can only collect so fast. With Mules they can overlap workers on mineral patches, and they don't take any supply.
It's just not the minerals that are an issue either. If a Terran forgets to spend his energy it saves up to 200 which is enormous. This allows him to throw down multiple mules, or even increase his supply. Terran isn't disadvantaged by player error very badly compared to P/Z.
As for the OP I really don't mean to sound like a condescending ass here, but mining minerals faster is ALWAYS a good thing. Being able to get an early economic lead means you can gain an army count lead, which then leads to easier map control. Which in turn leads to safe expansions. Saying that "Mining your base out faster" is bad... is just... lol.
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On September 19 2010 21:09 sleepingdog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote:
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late. you don't seem to understand the mechanics of other races in comparsion chrono-boost early is strong, mules early are strong --> balanced; chrono-boost late is useless, mules late are strong (multiple gold-mules, comebacks after losing tons of SCVs) --> screwed the thing is....it's not even about "imbalance", because theoretically mules may or may not be fine; but a good strategy-game just shouldn't allow these kinds of come-backs; when I watch a terran-player screwing up and losing half his SCVs while just barely hanging in there, I don't get the feeling he "deserves" to come back just by throwing out some mules; he either pulls some crazy stuff or is doomed; the current mule-mechanic imo doesn't "fit" in a competitive game, because it's just too easy to regain ground after screwing up badly; it's not so much about balance/imbalance but more about the overall mechanics
Yeah from a general gameplay sense I just disagree with the mule. I've disagreed with it since TLO vs Nazgul when TLO essentially due to mules back then.
People are constantly trying to make comparisons to other races where they don't exist, the scv, and the importance of keeping your workers alive in many situations is completely marginalized by the mule. One of the fundamental tenets of a harvester based game is undermined to a very large degree by the mule. Someone will invariably try to compare this to some zerg with an excess of larva who can redrone instantly without addressing any of the commonly known facts about the zerg race in sc2, they have a horrible time economically keeping up with other races. They are dumb comparisons.
Not to mention the fact that they allow terran to exceed saturation on a mineral line, I just don't see why anyone would think that's a good idea. Why not just have terran bases start with 2 extra mineral patches
Mule has always upset game balance to me. That's not to say the second a terran drops a mule the game is over, just that the way it can marginalize scv loss, and allow terran to exceed saturation in a way neither other race can do, is a disruptive force to the flow of the game
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I have to disagree with whoever said that chronoboost late game is useless. Late game during macro battles you can chrono all your warp gates for even faster production. Seems pretty damn good to me. Also, I hear late game chronoboosting a crap-ton of +attack speed voidrays is pretty broken as well
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On September 19 2010 21:22 floor exercise wrote:Show nested quote +On September 19 2010 21:09 sleepingdog wrote:On September 19 2010 11:37 EnderCN wrote:
Also the person that said mules are fine early and OP late seems to have it backwards. They are incredibly strong early when every mineral counts and pretty weak later in the game unless you are in an emergency. If you want to nerf anything about them it should be how fast they come out early, not how spammable they are late. you don't seem to understand the mechanics of other races in comparsion chrono-boost early is strong, mules early are strong --> balanced; chrono-boost late is useless, mules late are strong (multiple gold-mules, comebacks after losing tons of SCVs) --> screwed the thing is....it's not even about "imbalance", because theoretically mules may or may not be fine; but a good strategy-game just shouldn't allow these kinds of come-backs; when I watch a terran-player screwing up and losing half his SCVs while just barely hanging in there, I don't get the feeling he "deserves" to come back just by throwing out some mules; he either pulls some crazy stuff or is doomed; the current mule-mechanic imo doesn't "fit" in a competitive game, because it's just too easy to regain ground after screwing up badly; it's not so much about balance/imbalance but more about the overall mechanics Yeah from a general gameplay sense I just disagree with the mule. I've disagreed with it since TLO vs Nazgul when TLO essentially due to mules back then. People are constantly trying to make comparisons to other races where they don't exist, the scv, and the importance of keeping your workers alive in many situations is completely marginalized by the mule. One of the fundamental tenets of a harvester based game is undermined to a very large degree by the mule. Someone will invariably try to compare this to some zerg with an excess of larva who can redrone instantly without addressing any of the commonly known facts about the zerg race in sc2, they have a horrible time economically keeping up with other races. They are dumb comparisons. Not to mention the fact that they allow terran to exceed saturation on a mineral line, I just don't see why anyone would think that's a good idea. Why not just have terran bases start with 2 extra mineral patches Mule has always upset game balance to me. That's not to say the second a terran drops a mule the game is over, just that the way it can marginalize scv loss, and allow terran to exceed saturation in a way neither other race can do, is a disruptive force to the flow of the game
I agree completely. The issue I have with the mule is exactly that. Killing terran workers seems less viable than other races and it really shouldn't be. You have to do loads of damage to set a terran back but they only have to do a little damage added to the fact they have the best means of doing that damage.
The whole Terran race seems badly designed in my opinion.
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On September 19 2010 21:22 floor exercise wrote:
Why not just have terran bases start with 2 extra mineral patches
blasphemy! that would be a huge nerf as theyd have to pay worker and control cost to saturate them
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EPT
