EPTOn July 10 2012 18:21 monkybone wrote:
An OC with constant muling equals 180 minerals per minute. That's the equivalent of 4 SCV's. The mule mines 270 minerals / 90 seconds, so 180/minute.
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On July 10 2012 18:20 Domus wrote:
A mule equals roughly 3 scvs, so if you stop at 50 workers + 2 orbitals you have about 56 workers of income. And you say terran should actually cut workers to get there. The macro gap with zerg will be huge, considering a zerg goes to 70 workers+, and will go uncontested because the terran army is weaker and the terran is pumping minerals into orbital production.
Considering that these are macro orbitals, the cost of the orbital is 650(see earlier post for explanation0, takes 155 seconds to get up (120 build time +35 orbital), and then a mule mines about 270/minute, it will take another 144 seconds before the orbital breaks even. So 155 + 144...lets say 300 seconds. So 5 minutes before a single orbital breaks even. Only after 5 minutes the macro orbital starts making money and even then it only brings in 270 minerals/minute (so about 5.5 marines).
As for the supply depot drops. You need to look at it as a mule vs a depot. A depot drop, considering build time + depot saves you about 150 minerals. A mule gives you 270 minerals. I think a depot drop only ever made sense in some very early pressure builds where you would rather save the 150 minerals now compared to getting the 270 minerals over the course of a minute.
On July 10 2012 17:56 fenrysk wrote:
i checked the replays of my last handful of TvZs and the solution i used was to simply cut workers early on (or in one case of TvZ, lose 40 workers to banelings, but i still came back to win that game because of the MULE hammer, and quad/quint scv production off of all my orbitals, including the 2 macro orbitals). currently most terran and toss will go up to ~70-80 workers and then sac em once they hit 200/200 to get more army supply. if you cut at around 45-50, and spend the extra minerals you would spend on workers on orbitals, you can at least get one or two extra OCs. (20 scvs is 1000 minerals, so if you cut that, and then cut a cycle of marines, you can afford 2 orbitals).
8 orbitals would be overkill for sure, at least when you're not in a commanding lead, but 1-2 macro orbitals when you're on 3 base works, and maybe you'd add one more for every expansion thereafter. yes, the army will be weaker a bit, but it's risk vs reward. i'll risk having a few less marines and a lot less scvs for some more long term advantage.
having extra mules and scans, and even supply drops really comes in handy. "but supply drops are for noobs you say", yet even artosis confirmed that in long games, supply drops mean you mine out slower. but you're muling so you're still mining pretty fast. but it's more minerals devoted to army and tech and less to supply. energy for supply? what other race can do that? the concept as a whole is underused by terran, yet it is one of terran's unique advantages. most don't use it because they'd rather spend the energy for mules and scans, but having extra orbitals allows you to supply drop comfortably without sacrificing mules and scans.
On July 10 2012 17:16 Domus wrote:
I don't think you play terran...You seem to be underestimating the costs of orbitals. Are you aware that considering build time, an orbital costs 400 + 150 + 100 minerals mining time lost (moving SCV in position, 2 minutes build time). So an orbital costs roughly 650 minerals.
Now consider that the terran army is very heavy on the mineral cost(needs a strong backbone of either marines or hellions, and bunkers if you start turtlling) and you see that mass orbitals will mean that the army backbone will be severely weakened. So it is not like a terran can just build 8 orbitals and expect to survive, and I am glad for it because this would make the game incredibly boring like the zerg MU is now
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On July 10 2012 13:38 fenrysk wrote:
your points i've already accounted for in my disadvantages and advantages sections. 2-3 starports with addons is a much bigger investment indeed, but i feel the investment is worth it going into the lategame (and probably would've made a lot of the pro-matches i've seen go a lot differently in favor of Terran).
them going ultra-bane means you can turtle harder (thicker building walloffs, forward PFs) and make all their attacks against you very inefficient (ultra/bling is pretty gas heavy, no?), and/or you can make use of the starports and crank enough banshees to wipe his ultras and then snipe an expansion or two (enough to kill sporecrawlers and queens at that!).
i'm not as worried about my structures being more expensive when i can mule hammer all day long (as long as i'm taking expansions and building macro orbitals) and mine more than the zerg can with less SCVs than he has drones, than i am of being caught off guard by a tech transition that i scout too late.
On July 10 2012 12:46 vthree wrote:
The main problem with this is that terran infrastructure are so much more expensive. For zerg, they make 1 extra tech building and save up larvae (which can be used for other units). 2-3 starports with add ons is a much bigger investment. Zergs scouts this and just goes Ultras/bane (unless the map is horrible for Ultras). I feel that add-ons gives terrans a lot of flexibility early/mid game but actually hampers them in the late game. And since Blizzard seems to want to move games to late game more (Queen buff nullifies most early/mid game pushes), the terran disadvantage becomes more apparent.
On July 10 2012 12:24 fenrysk wrote:
let me try and do this according to the templates from the first page:
Metagame observation:
a lot of the recent pro matches i've seen with Terran in non-mirror matchup, Terran make too late of a heavy starport transition. I mean, after they get their one reactor starport for medivacs. In TvZ, they'll wait for after scouting the greater spire or when it's already too late to drop the extra starports, and sometimes they will have already sac'd their factory from scouting so that they'd need to rebuild that before being able to throw down extra starports. Likewise in TvP where Colossus comes out and sometimes before Terran has the ideal medivac cloud, they are forced to stop medivac production for vikings.
proposed Metagame evolution:
what if once Terran secures his third, he throws down two extra starports (or just builds two to begin with, or on 2base and throws down a 3rd or 4th) even if not to directly produce out of, but to have the infrastructure ready to produce in case a switch vikings or other air unit is needed? one reactor starport for early-midgame medivacs, and then add techlabs to other starports once Terran feels he has the economy and game stability to transition to something like lategame BCs or other tech units such as lategame raven play. This type of infrastructure preempt would be analogous to Zerg stockpiling larva and having tech structures ready, not to always produce with right away but when the situation calls for (either army is maxed or you're waiting for tech to transition). Having the infrastructure ready for Terran means that Terran too can be ready to switch sooner than before, as the game flow dictates.
disadvantages of such a move:
+ Show Spoiler +
advantages:
+ Show Spoiler +
last words:
the whole "throw down more starports" hinges on the idea that you don't need to be constantly producing from these structures, but by having the infrastructure ready, you can save yourself critical time when you need the production to respond to what the enemy is doing. there was an old joke about making one of every unit, but i always thought that at some point there is a modicum of truth in it. getting earlier infrastructure for sky terran will help you stay prepared for anything
let me try and do this according to the templates from the first page:
Metagame observation:
a lot of the recent pro matches i've seen with Terran in non-mirror matchup, Terran make too late of a heavy starport transition. I mean, after they get their one reactor starport for medivacs. In TvZ, they'll wait for after scouting the greater spire or when it's already too late to drop the extra starports, and sometimes they will have already sac'd their factory from scouting so that they'd need to rebuild that before being able to throw down extra starports. Likewise in TvP where Colossus comes out and sometimes before Terran has the ideal medivac cloud, they are forced to stop medivac production for vikings.
proposed Metagame evolution:
what if once Terran secures his third, he throws down two extra starports (or just builds two to begin with, or on 2base and throws down a 3rd or 4th) even if not to directly produce out of, but to have the infrastructure ready to produce in case a switch vikings or other air unit is needed? one reactor starport for early-midgame medivacs, and then add techlabs to other starports once Terran feels he has the economy and game stability to transition to something like lategame BCs or other tech units such as lategame raven play. This type of infrastructure preempt would be analogous to Zerg stockpiling larva and having tech structures ready, not to always produce with right away but when the situation calls for (either army is maxed or you're waiting for tech to transition). Having the infrastructure ready for Terran means that Terran too can be ready to switch sooner than before, as the game flow dictates.
disadvantages of such a move:
+ Show Spoiler +
1) immediate resource cost: 150m 100gas x 3 (or 4) and then [50m/50gas + 50m/25gas (x2 or x3)] for add-ons can be redistributed so many different ways through existing production facilities for Terran, and sometimes depending on the flow of battle (especially aggressive style terran) the resources are needed to replenish an army right away.
2) space in the base: was your sim-city good enough to have space left for these buildings and their add-ons?
3)resource cost over time: starport units are pretty gas heavy, so this is self-explanatory. i think it is ideal on 3base minimum, but depending on how well you're trading your fighting force, gas and (to a relatively lesser extent) mineral starvation can be a problem. make sure to keep on expanding. also, if you need to be pumping out those vikings as priority over other units, i think cutting production elsewhere is an option.
these are all that i can think of right away, please feel free to add more in the discussions, but i think number 1 is the greatest disadvantage. maybe those resources could be the difference between ending the game after a significant engagement or dragging the game on 5-25 minutes longer
2) space in the base: was your sim-city good enough to have space left for these buildings and their add-ons?
3)resource cost over time: starport units are pretty gas heavy, so this is self-explanatory. i think it is ideal on 3base minimum, but depending on how well you're trading your fighting force, gas and (to a relatively lesser extent) mineral starvation can be a problem. make sure to keep on expanding. also, if you need to be pumping out those vikings as priority over other units, i think cutting production elsewhere is an option.
these are all that i can think of right away, please feel free to add more in the discussions, but i think number 1 is the greatest disadvantage. maybe those resources could be the difference between ending the game after a significant engagement or dragging the game on 5-25 minutes longer
advantages:
+ Show Spoiler +
1. infrastructure is ready to produce soon as enemy army/tech is scouted. scout a greater spire morphing with your scan from your macro orbital? start pumping the vikings and take command of the skies! they switch back to ultras? well if you got the techlabs i prescribed, you can just make some BCs or Banshees to add extra dps against the ground units. same principle applies in TvP for colossus techswaps
2. sets up for later transitions into BCs/Ravens depending on the flow the game. this is pretty much the same as advantage #1, but for ultra lategame. If you planned on doing BCs before the start of the game or by the mid-game, you can preempt the transition further with getting air upgrades from your armory, or with Ravens, you can plan ahead with taking the building armor and hi-sec auto-tracking upgrades from the engineering bays (usually though it'd probably better to do that after your 3/3 infantry is done unless you meched/sky-terran'd to begin with)
3. you can get Caduceus Reactors. i'm half joking and half serious, and this could be it's own metagame evolution i suppose: a lot of lategame TvP and TvZ end up with lots of medivacs running out of energy at some point from healing storm/stim/fungal damage, so why not get this once you're on 4 or more bases? the only risk is when high templar try to feedback, but that means they aren't storming you (yet), and with 4 starports you can remake your medivac cloud without killing your viking production if you expect a colossus/voidray/carrier transition.
4. opponent overreacts and does something he wouldn't have done, sometimes to your advantage. maybe he sees this and thinks "okay time to kill him" but runs in to your well fortified siege line. maybe he dumps a ton of resources into cannons because he thinks you will banshee his expos (which you might want to do at some point)
2. sets up for later transitions into BCs/Ravens depending on the flow the game. this is pretty much the same as advantage #1, but for ultra lategame. If you planned on doing BCs before the start of the game or by the mid-game, you can preempt the transition further with getting air upgrades from your armory, or with Ravens, you can plan ahead with taking the building armor and hi-sec auto-tracking upgrades from the engineering bays (usually though it'd probably better to do that after your 3/3 infantry is done unless you meched/sky-terran'd to begin with)
3. you can get Caduceus Reactors. i'm half joking and half serious, and this could be it's own metagame evolution i suppose: a lot of lategame TvP and TvZ end up with lots of medivacs running out of energy at some point from healing storm/stim/fungal damage, so why not get this once you're on 4 or more bases? the only risk is when high templar try to feedback, but that means they aren't storming you (yet), and with 4 starports you can remake your medivac cloud without killing your viking production if you expect a colossus/voidray/carrier transition.
4. opponent overreacts and does something he wouldn't have done, sometimes to your advantage. maybe he sees this and thinks "okay time to kill him" but runs in to your well fortified siege line. maybe he dumps a ton of resources into cannons because he thinks you will banshee his expos (which you might want to do at some point)
last words:
the whole "throw down more starports" hinges on the idea that you don't need to be constantly producing from these structures, but by having the infrastructure ready, you can save yourself critical time when you need the production to respond to what the enemy is doing. there was an old joke about making one of every unit, but i always thought that at some point there is a modicum of truth in it. getting earlier infrastructure for sky terran will help you stay prepared for anything
The main problem with this is that terran infrastructure are so much more expensive. For zerg, they make 1 extra tech building and save up larvae (which can be used for other units). 2-3 starports with add ons is a much bigger investment. Zergs scouts this and just goes Ultras/bane (unless the map is horrible for Ultras). I feel that add-ons gives terrans a lot of flexibility early/mid game but actually hampers them in the late game. And since Blizzard seems to want to move games to late game more (Queen buff nullifies most early/mid game pushes), the terran disadvantage becomes more apparent.
your points i've already accounted for in my disadvantages and advantages sections. 2-3 starports with addons is a much bigger investment indeed, but i feel the investment is worth it going into the lategame (and probably would've made a lot of the pro-matches i've seen go a lot differently in favor of Terran).
them going ultra-bane means you can turtle harder (thicker building walloffs, forward PFs) and make all their attacks against you very inefficient (ultra/bling is pretty gas heavy, no?), and/or you can make use of the starports and crank enough banshees to wipe his ultras and then snipe an expansion or two (enough to kill sporecrawlers and queens at that!).
i'm not as worried about my structures being more expensive when i can mule hammer all day long (as long as i'm taking expansions and building macro orbitals) and mine more than the zerg can with less SCVs than he has drones, than i am of being caught off guard by a tech transition that i scout too late.
I don't think you play terran...You seem to be underestimating the costs of orbitals. Are you aware that considering build time, an orbital costs 400 + 150 + 100 minerals mining time lost (moving SCV in position, 2 minutes build time). So an orbital costs roughly 650 minerals.
Now consider that the terran army is very heavy on the mineral cost(needs a strong backbone of either marines or hellions, and bunkers if you start turtlling) and you see that mass orbitals will mean that the army backbone will be severely weakened. So it is not like a terran can just build 8 orbitals and expect to survive, and I am glad for it because this would make the game incredibly boring like the zerg MU is now
.i checked the replays of my last handful of TvZs and the solution i used was to simply cut workers early on (or in one case of TvZ, lose 40 workers to banelings, but i still came back to win that game because of the MULE hammer, and quad/quint scv production off of all my orbitals, including the 2 macro orbitals). currently most terran and toss will go up to ~70-80 workers and then sac em once they hit 200/200 to get more army supply. if you cut at around 45-50, and spend the extra minerals you would spend on workers on orbitals, you can at least get one or two extra OCs. (20 scvs is 1000 minerals, so if you cut that, and then cut a cycle of marines, you can afford 2 orbitals).
8 orbitals would be overkill for sure, at least when you're not in a commanding lead, but 1-2 macro orbitals when you're on 3 base works, and maybe you'd add one more for every expansion thereafter. yes, the army will be weaker a bit, but it's risk vs reward. i'll risk having a few less marines and a lot less scvs for some more long term advantage.
having extra mules and scans, and even supply drops really comes in handy. "but supply drops are for noobs you say", yet even artosis confirmed that in long games, supply drops mean you mine out slower. but you're muling so you're still mining pretty fast. but it's more minerals devoted to army and tech and less to supply. energy for supply? what other race can do that? the concept as a whole is underused by terran, yet it is one of terran's unique advantages. most don't use it because they'd rather spend the energy for mules and scans, but having extra orbitals allows you to supply drop comfortably without sacrificing mules and scans.
A mule equals roughly 3 scvs, so if you stop at 50 workers + 2 orbitals you have about 56 workers of income. And you say terran should actually cut workers to get there. The macro gap with zerg will be huge, considering a zerg goes to 70 workers+, and will go uncontested because the terran army is weaker and the terran is pumping minerals into orbital production.
Considering that these are macro orbitals, the cost of the orbital is 650(see earlier post for explanation0, takes 155 seconds to get up (120 build time +35 orbital), and then a mule mines about 270/minute, it will take another 144 seconds before the orbital breaks even. So 155 + 144...lets say 300 seconds. So 5 minutes before a single orbital breaks even. Only after 5 minutes the macro orbital starts making money and even then it only brings in 270 minerals/minute (so about 5.5 marines).
As for the supply depot drops. You need to look at it as a mule vs a depot. A depot drop, considering build time + depot saves you about 150 minerals. A mule gives you 270 minerals. I think a depot drop only ever made sense in some very early pressure builds where you would rather save the 150 minerals now compared to getting the 270 minerals over the course of a minute.
An OC with constant muling equals 180 minerals per minute. That's the equivalent of 4 SCV's. The mule mines 270 minerals / 90 seconds, so 180/minute.
yeah, sorry, just corrected the math
. Anyway, just a tl dr then. From the moment the building of the macro orbital starts it takes 6 minutes + to earn it back, and then it earns 160-180 minerals a minute.Personally I don't think it is enough. mules are great when combined with scv's, but just macro orbitals to me sound like something only done in the ultra late game on a maxed out army if you need a mineral sink...Even then I would personally use my money to scale up the army production...
