I've been playing around with probe micro the last few days and decided to post my findings. As many already know, the distance of mineral patches from the main building will alter the amount of income received from workers, and will minor control in the early game, small advanatages can be aquired. Well, this post will describe exactly what number of probes is best to have on how many mineral patches available.
Notes; -This analysis assumes that the base has 4 close and 4 far mineral patches. -Numbers used for calculations are a mix of my own observations, and information posted here; http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Resources
1 - Obvious Observation
The first thing that I managed to confirm is that having the first 6 workers mine close mineral patches provides a 12 mineral per in-game minute advantage over having only 4 workers mine close minerals. Since the first few minutes of the game are spent with a small amount of workers, this information confirms that my early game attention should first lie with what mineral patch my miners are focused on.
This observation remains constant until the 8th worker. At this point, having 8 workers focus on close mineral patches provides 24 minerals per in-game minute over having 4 on close and 4 on far patches, which is a very commonly seen event.
Up to this point, note that the only thing you have to pay attention to is your probes. The first pylon/overlord/supply depot doesn't need to be started until the 8th worker is actually out, and depending on the build/race may even be later than this point.
2 - The Magic Number
The second interesting piece of information that I've pulled out of my analysis is that 8 workers mining close mineral patches remains the ideal number until you have a total of 20 probes mining. The reason 20 is the upper limit here is that you cannot have more than 3 workers per far patch mining at the same time, so after 12 workers are dedicated to far patches, they need to start mining close ones.
I bet many of you are asking; Why 8? Well, the answer is actually quite simple. When 3 workers miner a mineral patch, you'll get an average of 102 minerals per minute regardless of whether the patch is close or far. This means that the advantage of close mineral patches only exists for 1 or 2 workers per close patch.
At 10 workers, having 8 on close and 2 on far will provide you with a mineral advantage of 18 minerals per in-game minute over an even 5-5 split.
At 16 workers, an 8-8 split is ideal and no advantage is generally experienced as the AI will automatically try to balance workers per patch.
At 20 workers, having 8 on close and 12 on far will provide you with a mineral advantage of 24 minerals per in-game minute over an even 10-10 split.
Using workers, excluding chrono and mules, as an example; having all workers up to 8 focus on close minerals and then trying to leave only 8 on close afterwards will generate a total mineral surplus of roughly 60 minerals by the 21st worker.
Chronoboost and Mules have a negative effect on this surplus, especially if you cannot use either but your opponent can. For example, a zerg player will remain with a mineral advantage until the first mule is cast. Also, a zerg player will remain with a mineral advantage until after the second chronoboost (because your worker count can match theirs until this point).
As an extreme example, if your opponent retains the worse possible worker split (would have to be intentional), you have the ability to gain a mineral advantage of roughly 320 minerals. (All 8 early workers on far minerals to 12 workers only mining either close or far to 19 workers split 12 close and 7 far...the later two being the most likely)
Conclusion
I've noticed mineral gains up to roughly 100 by the 20th worker, which is one or two additional units and would actually make a difference. Whether or not you feel your early game focus should be spent on mining, split between mining and early scouting, or spent APM spamming I will leave to you. My primary intention here is to disclose not-so-obvious information regarding close mineral patches (I've seen people force their first 12 workers to mine close as much as possible, which would be bad...you're better off letting the AI split them for you at this point.)
On March 03 2011 19:47 sixzeros wrote: I dont think it means that 20 is saturation, just that above 16 it doesnt matter where those workers settle because they all earn the same so rather than upset a happy 2 worker patch, send them to the far away ones until you hit 20, but you'll still have the opportunity to attain gains after 20.
In fact in my tests I found that the workers above 20 actually mined more efficiently because they seem to stop the aimless wandering around. 21,22,23 and 24 were much more efficient.
So for example if you had 40 workers to assign and were stuck on 2 bases, you'd be better off to group and send 24 to 1 base, and then 16 to the other. You're then guaranteed to have all your 3rd drones mining at their most efficient and its much easier to micro in a hurry.
** edit.. of course at that stage, nothing beats a 3rd. mind you every drone you add after 48 is only about 30% efficient even if you have a 3rd.
Saturation occurs at 24 workers, after this number of workers there aren't enough mineral patches to ensure that a probe is almost always mining. Out of curiosity, I calculated the average mineral gain per additional worker;
7th worker adds 16.67% average minerals per minute. 8th worker adds 14.29% average minerals per minute. 9th worker adds 9.26% average minerals per minute. 10th worker adds 8.46% average minerals per minute. 11th worker adds 7.79% average minerals per minute. 12th worker adds 7.21% average minerals per minute. 13th worker adds 8.56% average minerals per minute. 14th worker adds 7.88% average minerals per minute. 15th worker adds 7.30% average minerals per minute. 16th worker adds 6.79% average minerals per minute. 17th worker adds 5.24% average minerals per minute. 18th worker adds 4.96% average minerals per minute. 19th worker adds 4.70% average minerals per minute. 20th worker adds 4.48% average minerals per minute. 21st worker adds 2.45% average minerals per minute. 22nd worker adds 2.38% average minerals per minute. 23rd worker adds 2.32% average minerals per minute. 24th worker adds 2.26% average minerals per minute.
After the 16th worker (8-8 ideal split), the gains start becoming less and less important.
With 48 workers the ideal income would come from 3 bases, each having 16 workers (minerals only, of course). This would provide roughly 2016 minerals per minute over the two bases with 24/24 which would provide 1632 minerals per minute.
On March 03 2011 04:08 whatthefat wrote: Very interesting, but how many of these potential mineral gains are lost by the time required to force workers to mine from a close patch (which typically involves them sitting still for a moment while you spam click on the patch)? My guess is not a lot, but it would be interesting to actually measure.
A worker on a far patch mines on average 39 minerals per in-game minute. A worker on a close patch mines on average 45 minerals per in-game minute.
The in-game second equivalent is 0.65 and 0.75 respectfully.
If it takes 5 in-game seconds to set the worker, then you lose 0.65*5 = 3.25 minerals and gain 45-39 = 6 so your net gain is 2.75 minerals per minute. Still worth the effort. Keep in mind that the better you get at microing workers, the least time is wasted.
thanks for the numerical values, in several of my builds i would realize my mineral stacking i could aford doing certain things earlier etc. very nice post.
Nice stuff. This would explain the super minor discrepancies between my early probe timings that throw me into a fit of muscle memory induced rage when I'd have to click half a second later than I'm used to.
Interesting, and informative, Once i get my game back under my wing like a second nature again, ill start focusing on little details like this o improve my game.
Very interesting, but how many of these potential mineral gains are lost by the time required to force workers to mine from a close patch (which typically involves them sitting still for a moment while you spam click on the patch)? My guess is not a lot, but it would be interesting to actually measure.
Puts more emphasis on messing up mining AI with the scouting probe/scv/probe. If you really want to punish your opponent while your probe is there, mine every close patch for 1/2 a second. This will force the waiting probe to pick a new patch as there are 4 completely open patches.
This also makes your scouting probe basically free as just having him there costs your opponent 50 minerals + APM to fix his own workers.
Pretty big effect for such small effort offensively.
On March 03 2011 04:08 whatthefat wrote: Very interesting, but how many of these potential mineral gains are lost by the time required to force workers to mine from a close patch (which typically involves them sitting still for a moment while you spam click on the patch)? My guess is not a lot, but it would be interesting to actually measure.
A worker on a far patch mines on average 39 minerals per in-game minute. A worker on a close patch mines on average 45 minerals per in-game minute.
The in-game second equivalent is 0.65 and 0.75 respectfully.
If it takes 5 in-game seconds to set the worker, then you lose 0.65*5 = 3.25 minerals and gain 45-39 = 6 so your net gain is 2.75 minerals per minute. Still worth the effort. Keep in mind that the better you get at microing workers, the least time is wasted.
I'd also love to see some actual data from, for example, replays of Jinro or HuK or other players who double up on close mineral patches to see how much they actually benefit relative to other players who don't double up on close mineral patches. Hopefully someone more motivated than myself to do this tedious work will do it .
Or if someone sends me a large replay pack of these players I might do it myself ^^.
On some maps it's obvious which minerals are the "close" patches and I do this pretty effectively, but on some maps like blistering sands I don't know which patches are the 4 closest, 3 are pretty obvious in 1 spawn as I recall, but only 2 in the other.
On March 03 2011 03:20 Logo wrote: Really cool stuff! I love the counter-intuitive result that the 3rd workers/patch are better on far mineral patches.
You can get some intuition for this by thinking from the perspective of each mineral patch and how much "dead time" or "idle time" is eliminated by getting a worker on that patch.
For the first few workers, putting them on the closest patches will let them mine as often as possible, so they will eliminate as much idle time as they can. But after putting 2 on each close patch (8 total), the close patches have very little idle time remaining for the third worker to eliminate. So if you put a third worker on that patch, that third worker won't actually take advantage of much idle time (a lot of time gets wasted as each worker waits for the guy in front of them to finish). Thus, after 8 workers, it's better to put the next worker on a far patch.
I wish Blizzard would change the worker AI to actually pick out which patch would be most helpful, so there isn't this silly bouncing-back-and-forth thing.
On March 03 2011 04:35 AySz88 wrote: I wish Blizzard would change the worker AI to actually pick out which patch would be most helpful, so there isn't this silly bouncing-back-and-forth thing.
Actually, they made significant improvements since the July release. At one point workers would run around aimlessly until they found a free patch, rather than wait 2 seconds for the next worker. Microing them has also gotten quite a lot easier.
I've seen a few of these worker posts, this way by far the easiest to understand. It was also the first one to convey the important parts of early game worker control without throwing in mountains of text, multiple charts or complicated mathematics. I have 2 A-Levels in maths and sometimes I had a hard time understanding some of the other worker posts, you have managed to strip out the maths and simply explain in literal terms the benefits of worker control.
Concise but detailed information with correct grammar, spelling and punctuation to boot..... TL never ceases to amaze me ;p
This thread makes me miss mineral boosting and also means I'm going to have something to focus on early game besides singing along with my iTunes! Both of these are pretty good things, kudos for an informative and interesting thread.
Thank you for the well-written and informative post! That 2 workers on close patches until you hit 20 workers thing is something that I think I can manage to put into my gameplay. I think pretty much anyone can manage to fit at least some part of this in.
I'm really struggling to beat the worker AI to achieve this, can someone give me some tips on how to do this?
This is how I'm trying right now at the start of the game: 1.Send workers to minerals. 2.Build worker. 3.Split. 4.Attempt to move workers 2 per close patch.
But the AI keeps moving them away, I'll send a worker to a close patch but then another worker will move to a far, I then try to move him to a close patch and then a different one moves to a far and so on.
On March 03 2011 09:56 Intense wrote: I'm really struggling to beat the worker AI to achieve this, can someone give me some tips on how to do this?
This is how I'm trying right now at the start of the game: 1.Send workers to minerals. 2.Build worker. 3.Split. 4.Attempt to move workers 2 per close patch.
But the AI keeps moving them away, I'll send a worker to a close patch but then another worker will move to a far, I then try to move him to a close patch and then a different one moves to a far and so on.
If a patch is occupied and there's a patch free then the worker will jump to the free patch. Basically you need to watch the worker thats on the "far" mineral patch. The moment he drops the minerals at hatch/nexus/cc you need to see what "close" mineral patch is occupied by a worker and is about to be free. You need to send you (returning far mineral patch) worker towards that mineral patch.
On closest mineral patches you will often not be able to time this perfectly. If mineral patch is still occupied you can spam the idle worker on that patch so mining starts as soon as the mineral patch is free.
As much as I would like to downplay the significance of 24 minerals per minute, that amount of minerals can be the difference of a second or two, which could mean the difference between a voidray coming out or the stargate dying.
On March 03 2011 11:21 Axeinst wrote: I dont really understand what OP is trying to say. Can someone explain shortly?
Thank you
At each base, there are two different types of mineral patches: close and far. Since the close patches are well, closer, they mine more quickly up to two workers. Basically, OP shows what the minerals harvested/time rate is depending on the split of workers on close patches and far patches. So for the first eight workers, you want all eight on close patches.
Wow this can be pretty important analysis. In long games, this may make the difference between winning and losing. Might be a bit intensive on your APM though. But definitely something to do early game with your spare time. On the other hand, ppl with this info can rush easier, like 6 pool, quite a bit better against those who don't know this. 0_o Lol thanks for this.
On March 03 2011 11:21 Axeinst wrote: I dont really understand what OP is trying to say. Can someone explain shortly?
Thank you
I think the important thing to get out of this is that it's detrimental to "force" workers to mine 2 per close patch before each mineral patch has at least one worker assigned to it. But once that happens, (you reach 8 workers), then forcing workers to mine 2 per close patch is better than mining 4 close/4 far.
On March 03 2011 11:21 Axeinst wrote: I dont really understand what OP is trying to say. Can someone explain shortly?
Thank you
I think the important thing to get out of this is that it's detrimental to "force" workers to mine 2 to a patch before each mineral patch has at least one worker assigned to it.
Sorry but i still cannot understand.
I mean, can someone illustrate with picture what mineral patches are those "close" ones what are needed to use and should I have 2 workers on those patches or 3? This would help alot
On March 03 2011 11:21 Axeinst wrote: I dont really understand what OP is trying to say. Can someone explain shortly?
Thank you
I think the important thing to get out of this is that it's detrimental to "force" workers to mine 2 to a patch before each mineral patch has at least one worker assigned to it.
Sorry but i still cannot understand.
I mean, can someone illustrate with picture what mineral patches are those "close" ones what are needed to use and should I have 2 workers on those patches or 3? This would help alot
Thank you
...
You have 8 workers. It's suggested that you keep them all on the patches that physically closer to your base (the middle ones) more so than separating them all on their own patches.
This topic is only about the beginning of the game. 2 per middle patch instead of separately everywhere.
If what you say is true (100 minerals) then I would consider that huge, it may be the difference between being able to put down an e-bay and keep pumping out units, or start a structure early. Besides, it's much more productive than spamming, and scouting isn't that APM consuming.
Good information, but by this point it is somewhat common sence that 2 per close patch is more effective in a numbers game.
Overall, good post fror lower tier players =) Given I am still mid plat with like 2k ish or more bonus pool but that is because my inet is wireless right now and SUCKS!!!!!! >>;
Cannot wait till I get the money to run enough cat5 to go wired again,
1. I can't remember where I heard this, but I remember a tip something along the lines of when a worker is about 25% complete (being produced), rally it to a mineral patch where the worker is just returning. So, if this holds true (even if it doesn't we can figure out exactly the timing), then look at the close mineral patches and pick one that is returning the minerals around that time.
2. This is something I'll keep in mind when I pick which probe / SCV / Drone to use to take off the line when I need something built.
3. I might also keep this in mind when I maynard to my new expansions. Not sure this one is worth the time as I usually just box and click.
so does this finally confirm that 20 workers is the saturation point on mineral lines and anything more is overkill (i had always assumed 20 as it works out to 2.5 per patch, but people more recently started saying 24 or 3 per patch)?
On March 03 2011 09:56 Intense wrote: I'm really struggling to beat the worker AI to achieve this, can someone give me some tips on how to do this?
This is how I'm trying right now at the start of the game: 1.Send workers to minerals. 2.Build worker. 3.Split. 4.Attempt to move workers 2 per close patch.
But the AI keeps moving them away, I'll send a worker to a close patch but then another worker will move to a far, I then try to move him to a close patch and then a different one moves to a far and so on.
You should try this for starters: 1. Build worker 2. Send all 6 to second from left (or right or top or bottom depending on position) mineral. 3. Grab 3 workers and send to middle or middle right (or left, bottom, top)
Basically in step 2, send your workers to the 2nd furthest mineral, and then split 3 to either a middle or closer mineral. If you're really gosu, send all 6 to far mineral, split middle 2 to middle mineral, and last 2 to closer mineral (and if you're 3x gosu, send the final worker to a separate mineral.)
On March 03 2011 18:12 papaz wrote: Good find but I hate all of these mineral patch findings
No offense to the OP, you did a great job finding this. But I would love if blizz could solve this whole mineral patch things so that:
1. Splitting doesnt give advantage 2. Choosing mineral patches doesnt give advantages
This part of SC2 is just annoying.
I'd have to disagree. I really like it when things like this are found out because now I have something to work on in the beginning of the game. I don't see this as giving advantages to players just as I don't see one person deciding to do a 14 gateway have an advantage over someone who does a 12 gateway (economically speaking). I consider to be apart of the build order, an essential part of the game.
No offense, but if blizzard were to remove the advantage you get from this technique it would only confirm what all the top players, and people on TL have been thinking for a while, that Blizz is making their game too easy, and so it becomes less competitively appealing.
A minor down side though would be, say you're terran. Have 8 on close 0 on far at start. And keeps using mules on the close one, they will mine out quite a bit before the other ones later on.
I've noticed mineral gains up to roughly 100 by the 20th worker
That's actually more than I was expecting, just by shifting your early workers around a little bit! When I'm in an opponent's base with my scouting worker I'll definitely start mining (then cancelling) a few times from his close mineral patches to throw his workers onto alternate ones too.
I dont think it means that 20 is saturation, just that above 16 it doesnt matter where those workers settle because they all earn the same so rather than upset a happy 2 worker patch, send them to the far away ones until you hit 20, but you'll still have the opportunity to attain gains after 20.
In fact in my tests I found that the workers above 20 actually mined more efficiently because they seem to stop the aimless wandering around. 21,22,23 and 24 were much more efficient.
So for example if you had 40 workers to assign and were stuck on 2 bases, you'd be better off to group and send 24 to 1 base, and then 16 to the other. You're then guaranteed to have all your 3rd drones mining at their most efficient and its much easier to micro in a hurry.
** edit.. of course at that stage, nothing beats a 3rd. mind you every drone you add after 48 is only about 30% efficient even if you have a 3rd.
On March 03 2011 03:13 Malloy wrote: -This analysis assumes that the base has 4 close and 4 far mineral patches.
I'm not sure about the new map pool, but in the old one only Xel'Naga Caverns had 4 close + 4 far if I recall correctly. Most other maps had 2 close + 6 far.
On March 03 2011 19:47 sixzeros wrote: I dont think it means that 20 is saturation, just that above 16 it doesnt matter where those workers settle because they all earn the same so rather than upset a happy 2 worker patch, send them to the far away ones until you hit 20, but you'll still have the opportunity to attain gains after 20.
In fact in my tests I found that the workers above 20 actually mined more efficiently because they seem to stop the aimless wandering around. 21,22,23 and 24 were much more efficient.
So for example if you had 40 workers to assign and were stuck on 2 bases, you'd be better off to group and send 24 to 1 base, and then 16 to the other. You're then guaranteed to have all your 3rd drones mining at their most efficient and its much easier to micro in a hurry.
** edit.. of course at that stage, nothing beats a 3rd. mind you every drone you add after 48 is only about 30% efficient even if you have a 3rd.
Saturation occurs at 24 workers, after this number of workers there aren't enough mineral patches to ensure that a probe is almost always mining. Out of curiosity, I calculated the average mineral gain per additional worker;
7th worker adds 16.67% average minerals per minute. 8th worker adds 14.29% average minerals per minute. 9th worker adds 9.26% average minerals per minute. 10th worker adds 8.46% average minerals per minute. 11th worker adds 7.79% average minerals per minute. 12th worker adds 7.21% average minerals per minute. 13th worker adds 8.56% average minerals per minute. 14th worker adds 7.88% average minerals per minute. 15th worker adds 7.30% average minerals per minute. 16th worker adds 6.79% average minerals per minute. 17th worker adds 5.24% average minerals per minute. 18th worker adds 4.96% average minerals per minute. 19th worker adds 4.70% average minerals per minute. 20th worker adds 4.48% average minerals per minute. 21st worker adds 2.45% average minerals per minute. 22nd worker adds 2.38% average minerals per minute. 23rd worker adds 2.32% average minerals per minute. 24th worker adds 2.26% average minerals per minute.
After the 16th worker (8-8 ideal split), the gains start becoming less and less important.
With 48 workers the ideal income would come from 3 bases, each having 16 workers (minerals only, of course). This would provide roughly 2016 minerals per minute over the two bases with 24/24 which would provide 1632 minerals per minute.
It's probably going to sound like I'm trying to be a dick but I'm actually just trying to figure this out. So ideally you want 2 workers on each close mineral patch before any are mining on the far ones, I think everyone knows this. As far as I know you can't even get three drones to mine the same close mineral patch if you wanted to because the one that's just sitting there watching will just go to a different patch so... what am I supposed to be learning here?
The exact mineral advantage per in-game minute stuff was news to me, but is there more I'm missing?
2 more quick questions
1) I swear sometimes I get two drones on the same patch at the beginning of the game perfectly and I'll look back 30 seconds later and one of them decided to run away... am I crazy or does this happen for no reason?
2) I have to wonder how much of this advantage I lose by spamming a drone to to mine at a close mineral patch for 5 seconds while the other drone is mining it... not really a question but something I wonder.
cool should add to liquipedia. I don't think anybody should focus on this until they are suuper refined like immvp lol. I will continue to browse tl in the early game.
I was actually going to test this... but I was going to take it a bit further and look at maps like the new GSL maps, some of the ICCUP maps, and the new typhon peaks map with all the exapansions.
People are currently putting ~16 workers on minerals per base. This is fine when you are on 1 - 3 base.
But on these larger maps, you see Zerg players especially hitting the 5 - 6 base range were they just expand every where.
What if instead of the whole 16 on 3 base, then just gas at other expansions... you did something like
8 Workers on close minerals at 6 base (= 16 on 3 base) then gas.
This would theoretically increase your mineral production by 24 minerals per 16 workers per minute.
Meaning mining out of 6 base, with 8 workers at each will result in having 72minerals per ingame minute more than your opponent...
Same worker count, more minerals.
Seems like something people need to look into, because I might be crazy, but thats what the OP seems to be saying.
On March 04 2011 01:34 Neo.NEt wrote: It's probably going to sound like I'm trying to be a dick but I'm actually just trying to figure this out. So ideally you want 2 workers on each close mineral patch before any are mining on the far ones, I think everyone knows this. As far as I know you can't even get three drones to mine the same close mineral patch if you wanted to because the one that's just sitting there watching will just go to a different patch so... what am I supposed to be learning here?
The exact mineral advantage per in-game minute stuff was news to me, but is there more I'm missing?
You are correct in that after 2 miners on a close patch, they are more likely to mine a far patch...but the microing portion is more for the first 6 to 14 miners...where you can more acurately control where they mine. The most important portion is workers 6 to 8, getting them on the close patches.
The main point I had with the post is that early worker micro can create an advantage and is not wasted effort...which I questioned after the 7% mining boost fix.
On March 04 2011 01:34 Neo.NEt wrote: 2 more quick questions
1) I swear sometimes I get two drones on the same patch at the beginning of the game perfectly and I'll look back 30 seconds later and one of them decided to run away... am I crazy or does this happen for no reason?
2) I have to wonder how much of this advantage I lose by spamming a drone to to mine at a close mineral patch for 5 seconds while the other drone is mining it... not really a question but something I wonder.
1) If a new drone is rallied to a close patch, or decides to mine the one with two workers...it can dirupt the others. Also, your opponent can easily disrupt your mining timings.
2) I already answered this, please see the second spoiler tag of the original post. (I actually used 5 seconds for my example)
I played with this a good bit last night and there is a noticeable effect, you don't even have to be perfect with it.
Say you have 7 drones and your split didn't fully saturate the close patches, just watch the drones and catch far ones on return trips to go to close patches. The first few grabs are just direct money increases, cost you about 1/2 a second of mining time to change from a long patch to a close patch, easy enough. This should be done by everybody all the time.
Beyond that though, just spam clicking a few workers will end up giving you 20-30 minerals more by the time you get to the 2-3 minute mark. Anybody who thinks that isn't important at that stage of the game is lying to themselves. It makes all those timings work out sooner and gets your queen/marine/stalker out a second sooner, which can again be a huge game-changer.
Click spamming is definitely a sub-par usage of APM at the early stages of the game now.
Also, mineral stealing feels important as I pointed out on page 1. Every time I make a probe change to a far mineral patch, I know that I have cost my opponent at least 5 minerals and some more APM clicks, do that 4 times, while you have your own close minerals double-stacked back home, and you just got yourself a 50+ mineral lead. Again, pretty significant in the first minutes of the game.
On March 04 2011 01:34 Neo.NEt wrote: 1) I swear sometimes I get two drones on the same patch at the beginning of the game perfectly and I'll look back 30 seconds later and one of them decided to run away... am I crazy or does this happen for no reason?
What happens here is some mineral patches are so close that 2 drones don't even mine at 100%, the 2nd drone gets back to the patch before the first one is done mining.
When in a situation with double-stacked close patches and completely open long patches, the drone will immediately change to a long patch rather than wait that 0.1 seconds for the first one to finish.
This can be pretty annoying and the only way to deal with it is to know which patches those are and pay more attention to the drones mining, every 2 or 3rd trip will need you to hold that drone in place for 0.1 seconds.
On March 03 2011 04:25 Malloy wrote: If it takes 5 in-game seconds to set the worker, then you lose 0.65*5 = 3.25 minerals and gain 45-39 = 6 so your net gain is 2.75 minerals per minute. Still worth the effort. Keep in mind that the better you get at microing workers, the least time is wasted.
To clarify, the 0.65 * 5 = 3.25 minerals lost is a one time loss, whereas the 45-39 = 6 gain is a gain per minute; your net gain is 2.75 minerals in the first minute, but 6 minerals every minute thereafter (until your saturation gets high enough, of course).
On March 03 2011 19:47 sixzeros wrote: I dont think it means that 20 is saturation, just that above 16 it doesnt matter where those workers settle because they all earn the same so rather than upset a happy 2 worker patch, send them to the far away ones until you hit 20, but you'll still have the opportunity to attain gains after 20.
In fact in my tests I found that the workers above 20 actually mined more efficiently because they seem to stop the aimless wandering around. 21,22,23 and 24 were much more efficient.
So for example if you had 40 workers to assign and were stuck on 2 bases, you'd be better off to group and send 24 to 1 base, and then 16 to the other. You're then guaranteed to have all your 3rd drones mining at their most efficient and its much easier to micro in a hurry.
** edit.. of course at that stage, nothing beats a 3rd. mind you every drone you add after 48 is only about 30% efficient even if you have a 3rd.
Saturation occurs at 24 workers, after this number of workers there aren't enough mineral patches to ensure that a probe is almost always mining. Out of curiosity, I calculated the average mineral gain per additional worker;
7th worker adds 16.67% average minerals per minute. 8th worker adds 14.29% average minerals per minute. 9th worker adds 9.26% average minerals per minute. 10th worker adds 8.46% average minerals per minute. 11th worker adds 7.79% average minerals per minute. 12th worker adds 7.21% average minerals per minute. 13th worker adds 8.56% average minerals per minute. 14th worker adds 7.88% average minerals per minute. 15th worker adds 7.30% average minerals per minute. 16th worker adds 6.79% average minerals per minute. 17th worker adds 5.24% average minerals per minute. 18th worker adds 4.96% average minerals per minute. 19th worker adds 4.70% average minerals per minute. 20th worker adds 4.48% average minerals per minute. 21st worker adds 2.45% average minerals per minute. 22nd worker adds 2.38% average minerals per minute. 23rd worker adds 2.32% average minerals per minute. 24th worker adds 2.26% average minerals per minute.
After the 16th worker (8-8 ideal split), the gains start becoming less and less important.
With 48 workers the ideal income would come from 3 bases, each having 16 workers (minerals only, of course). This would provide roughly 2016 minerals per minute over the two bases with 24/24 which would provide 1632 minerals per minute.
I'll add this information to the main post.
hmm, thanks for this additional analysis. think the drop off between 20 and 21 makes it pretty clear that anything over 20 you should definitely expand.
and if i'm doing the math right 24 workers at one base and 16 at another gives you an advantage of 6.60% over two bases at 16 as opposed to the 12.03% you'd be getting and 20 and 20. in fact if you have additional bases, at no point should you not be splitting evenly, but the numbers do show the best times to transfer as being 8, 12 (ideal -- which interestingly but unsurprisingly is what usually 14 hatch amounts to), 16, 20, and 24 as the biggest drops occur after these numbers.
Very interesting and well written. I will definitely be trying to do this in my next few practice games. It would be interesting to see how hard it is to get this ideal split in the very early game without losing mining time, and when you 'should' do it. Especially as zerg, the fact your first 6 workers all return at once sets some very specific drone timings, as they are only limited by minerals early on. The lost mining time of waiting for a second or so, so they can mine from a close patch instead may cause these timings to be delayed slightly.
I'd hypothesize right now that it wouldn't be worth it to re-assign already mining workers, but instead sending your next 4 drones to the close patches, and forcing them to stay at those patches instead of wandering. This would make it an 8/2 split at the 10 drone mark, after which there will be less of an issue getting the next 6 to be on the far patches.
On March 04 2011 02:47 Shiladie wrote: I'd hypothesize right now that it wouldn't be worth it to re-assign already mining workers
I was playing with it last night and it's very worthwhile to re-assign workers, that's where you end up spending most of your attention.
The only thing you have to do is not just grab a worker randomly, you grab them in between trips and line them up with close patches that are soon to be available.
On March 04 2011 03:13 freetgy wrote: and one enemy worker can block the close patches to destroy your worker organisation. doesn't seem something for me to waste too much thought into.
yeah, beyond splitting and rallying your early workers to close patches, i don't think i'm going to worry too much about it.
On March 04 2011 05:35 SC.Shifty wrote: should be common knowledge, but 99% of people dont really know the exact numbers, very cool ^^
I've learnt to accept the fact that nothing should ever be truly deemed "common knowledge" in today's world.
I'll likely be testing the effects of disrupting your enemy's mining this evening...but if anyone has specific questions they want answered, let me know and I'll do my best!
EPT
(meaning it's not hard and I just suck at it).
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