EPT[D] Larva Injection Analysis - Page 3
| Forum Index > SC2 General |
|
farseerdk
Canada504 Posts
| ||
|
Hopeless1der
United States5836 Posts
Zerg has the least forgiving 'mechanic' of the 3 races. IMO one of the best solutions would be to have an icon for 'idle spawn larvae' similar to how toss gets one for warpgates off cooldown. Ideally, yes, you want energy at zero. However, if terran screws up, he ends up with money in the bank. Toss ends up with faster upgrades, more units and has only lost TIME (granted, a very valuable resource but if you stored 100 on your nexus then blew it all, no harm done right?) Zerg has LOST its larvae. Its gone, never to be recovered, forever unspent. This, in my opinion, makes the zerg macro mechanic weaker by comparison and not entirely fair. This is marginally fixed due to the fact that zerg builds everything from hatcheries so there is no need to jump all over for production, but the very idea of LOSING a resource is not really fair to me in any RTS. What could you do, build two more hatches to spend energy on? But anyways, good initiative looking into this OP. Thanks for giving us all something to consider next time the zerg pieces throw a tantrum. | ||
|
LoCaD
Germany1634 Posts
| ||
|
Mafs
Canada458 Posts
| ||
|
Jayrod
1820 Posts
On February 13 2011 11:24 Hopeless1der wrote: However, if terran screws up, he ends up with money in the bank. Toss ends up with faster upgrades, more units and has only lost TIME (granted, a very valuable resource but if you stored 100 on your nexus then blew it all, no harm done right?) Time is THE most valuable resource in RTS, but agree with your other points about zerg. | ||
|
Sv1
United States204 Posts
On February 13 2011 11:24 Hopeless1der wrote: After reading through this I finally understand what the graph shows. Its not very intuitive, and its also way too small of a sample size but it gets the point across: Missing larva inject is bad. Zerg has the least forgiving 'mechanic' of the 3 races. IMO one of the best solutions would be to have an icon for 'idle spawn larvae' similar to how toss gets one for warpgates off cooldown. Ideally, yes, you want energy at zero. However, if terran screws up, he ends up with money in the bank. Toss ends up with faster upgrades, more units and has only lost TIME (granted, a very valuable resource but if you stored 100 on your nexus then blew it all, no harm done right?) Zerg has LOST its larvae. Its gone, never to be recovered, forever unspent. This, in my opinion, makes the zerg macro mechanic weaker by comparison and not entirely fair. This is marginally fixed due to the fact that zerg builds everything from hatcheries so there is no need to jump all over for production, but the very idea of LOSING a resource is not really fair to me in any RTS. What could you do, build two more hatches to spend energy on? But anyways, good initiative looking into this OP. Thanks for giving us all something to consider next time the zerg pieces throw a tantrum. Hmm Perhaps I could be a little clearer about how to read the graph, it is essentially a timeline, and the status of your hatchery is reflected, I'll update the original post. You've also hit the nail on the head of one of the conclusions from the idea, zerg has lot its larva, and it's sitting in the form of 25 energy on a queen, you can only get that back if you build a hatch to dump it into (and then of course get another queen to pair it). Regarding the sample size, I understand it's small as it is only 2 examples, however the concept of it isn't so much a "well what is the average that zerg's miss over X number of games" it's really just to illustrate a point. Other games included a player missing 158 seconds on the main hatch and 138 on the expansion (short game), and another had missed 335 and 398 (also in about a 15 minute game) that was in short due to killing queens and lack of replacing them. Again, this post was first and foremost produced as a 'food for thought'. I think it's a given that you shouldn't miss spits, but when you look at someone who is average with their spits, and someone who is better at their spits, you can see the potential. Larry Bird practiced shooting his free throws every day. He has a career FT% of .886 and one of the best in the NBA of all-time. Just sayin! In addition to that, I would encourage anyone to look at a replay and post their results, here's an example of how I have them formatted: + Show Spoiler + Window Begin || Window End || Total Duration 4:30:00 5:00:00 0:30:00 5:40:00 6:16:00 0:36:00 6:56:00 6:58:00 0:02:00 7:38:00 7:55:00 0:17:00 8:35:00 8:39:00 0:04:00 9:19:00 9:29:00 0:10:00 10:09:00 10:47:00 0:38:00 11:27:00 11:28:00 0:01:00 12:08:00 12:56:00 0:48:00 13:36:00 13:43:00 0:07:00 14:23:00 14:27:00 0:04:00 15:07:00 15:46:00 0:39:00 16:26:00 16:39:00 0:13:00 17:19:00 17:35:00 0:16:00 Total Time: 4:25:00 The graph was created in good old photoshop. | ||
|
Sanguinarius
United States3427 Posts
| ||
|
Hopeless1der
United States5836 Posts
On February 13 2011 11:48 Jayrod wrote: Time is THE most valuable resource in RTS, but agree with your other points about zerg. You're absolutely right. But then, time is available regardless of the race you play  The point i was trying to make was that protoss can potentially make use of every chronoboost as long as the nexus doesnt reach full capacity. In a hypothetical where you just sat in your base and macro'd with no worrying about the opponent, it wouldnt make a difference if you spent your boost all at once or at the precise moment it became available, assuming continuous production of something. And of course, the entire point of the thread was that zerg MUST use the queens energy AS SOON AS POSSIBLE or it becomes a lost resource. It doesnt matter how long you're not injecting, if a queen gets above 25 energy (or should it be 50?) then you've effectively lost 4 larvae from that queen. | ||
|
Sv1
United States204 Posts
On February 13 2011 13:17 Hopeless1der wrote: And of course, the entire point of the thread was that zerg MUST use the queens energy AS SOON AS POSSIBLE or it becomes a lost resource. It doesnt matter how long you're not injecting, if a queen gets above 25 energy (or should it be 50?) then you've effectively lost 4 larvae from that queen. The amount of energy I think should always be as low as possible. It's also important to spread creep. I know some people oppose the idea, but a creep tumor as your first expenditure off the queen might be better. Remember that the addition of another hatchery/queen later on almost exponentially increase larva production. You can see what haypro is doing off of 4 hatcheries when they get synced up. If you consider that a larva represents a production slot in a building, having 24 larva banked is pretty impressive even if you don't have money at the time to built it. For terran or protoss to invest enough for 24 production slots is simply off the table as a concept as no economy could ever sustain that in a game. | ||
|
Sv1
United States204 Posts
On February 13 2011 13:17 Hopeless1der wrote: And of course, the entire point of the thread was that zerg MUST use the queens energy AS SOON AS POSSIBLE or it becomes a lost resource. It doesnt matter how long you're not injecting, if a queen gets above 25 energy (or should it be 50?) then you've effectively lost 4 larvae from that queen. \The amount of energy I think should always be as low as possible. It's also important to spread creep. I know some people oppose the idea, but a creep tumor as your first expenditure off the queen might be better. Remember that the addition of another hatchery/queen later on almost exponentially increase larva production. You can see what haypro is doing off of 4 hatcheries when they get synced up. If you consider that a larva represents a production slot in a building, having 24 larva banked is pretty impressive even if you don't have money at the time to built it. For terran or protoss to invest enough for 24 production slots is simply off the table as a concept as no economy could ever sustain that in a game. (12 reactored barracks aside | ||
|
manicshock
Canada741 Posts
With the OP, I've more recently learned the value of macro hatches. Zerg is my offrace, and I just can't seem to keep my money down. But when I drop down a 3rd in base hatch, I find it's much easier then taking my 3rd a lot of the time and still gives me the larvae I want. I definitely feel zerg's very powerful, and I quite like being able to throw down a lot of units at once. Not missing injects just amplifies this, as does in base hatches. | ||
|
lac29
United States1485 Posts
On February 13 2011 06:53 tealc wrote: I get the feeling that people are now analysing starcraft for the sake of analysing. I'd rather have this type of analyzing rather than the ton of other garbage that is out there. | ||
|
denzelz
United States604 Posts
Seeing this post actually give me a lot of hope. If I don't miss any injects, I would make so many more units right now and can reduce that huge mineral spike in the mid game that most Zergs I know experience. | ||
|
morimacil
France921 Posts
Same thing with creep tumors btw, each second that you dont make a tumor out of your existing tumors is lost creep that you can never get back. It would be fun to see a similar graph for a high level toss for example, with red whenever the nexus is over 25 energy  I suspect even for someone really good, there will be a LOT of red in the average pro player toss :D | ||
|
Smigi
United States328 Posts
On February 13 2011 06:57 schiznak wrote: Id be interested in a program where you can plug in the replay and it will spit out a similar graph. Anyways, the main conclusions to be drawn from this is that; A: Nobody is perfect B: Haypro is better than a 2900 diamond player C: Investing 450 in a macro hatch and a queen is a signifigantly better solution to missed injects. pretty much sum'd up everything I was going to say. | ||
|
Chise
Japan507 Posts
This makes it basically almost impossible to not lose time from larva injects, because if your Queen is at exactly 0 energy after injecting, you have to wait for about 1-2 seconds after you got the larva from the injection until you can inject again. | ||
|
Logros
Netherlands9913 Posts
| ||
|
AT_Tack
Germany435 Posts
on-topic: a friend of mine has been argueing with me about the macro hatch for some time now. He places it right after his first queen pops (might be 2 early) but he states that once he gets his macro rolling he almost never loses. i get the feeling that this could be the thing that gives zerg play a push into the right direction! | ||
|
morimacil
France921 Posts
On February 13 2011 20:19 Chise wrote: A problem I see with larva inject is that a Queen doesn't get exactly 25 energy per 45 game seconds. In the early game i rarely miss larva injects, so I always lose about 1-2 seconds waiting for my Queen to go from 23/24 energy up to 25. This makes it basically almost impossible to not lose time from larva injects, because if your Queen is at exactly 0 energy after injecting, you have to wait for about 1-2 seconds after you got the larva from the injection until you can inject again. The simple solution there is to first use the popped larva to make units as soon as it pops off the hatch, and then inject, if you try to inject right after it pops, then yeah, you lose valuable time. on-topic: a friend of mine has been argueing with me about the macro hatch for some time now. He places it right after his first queen pops (might be 2 early) but he states that once he gets his macro rolling he almost never loses. i get the feeling that this could be the thing that gives zerg play a push into the right direction! How is that really a push in the right direction? Its similar to doing a 4gate every game against every race. It will help you win, but it wont help you improve. Or if as a protoss, for example, you went for an 8 gate push off 2 bases, instead of a 6 gate, because you are missing tons of warp-ins, and arent using your chronoboost. Its a good idea to win the game right now, but in the long run, its detrimental to improving, since your money will be low, and you will have the impression that your macro is good, but in fact it wont be. The only reason to get a macro hatch would be if you want to mass queens, or if you want to make units that are extremely larva inefficient, such as pure lings and drones. If you are making anything else than just lings and drones, then 1 hatch per base should be enough. | ||
|
6xy
Philippines51 Posts
On February 13 2011 06:34 B.I.G. wrote: thread says larva injection anal... lol.. I was gonna post a screenshot and say the exact same thing. But SRSLY, Thank you for the post, it does really hammer in the idea that Z shouldn't miss injects. I have fun with the Z macro mechanic but I just miss injects some times. As a garbage level Zerg casual, its useful. + Show Spoiler + thanks, imba terran man XD | ||
| ||
