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Earlier I was wondering how much mules mine from different mineral patches. I did find one other thread on the subject, but in it, the OP only covered layouts from specific maps. If this has already been covered in another thread, then whoops. Since I was bored, I decided to test it out myself. (Results below)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ad8rz.png)
Since mineral patches are 2x1, I just chose to use the left hex to represent the location. For a given box in the picture above, the results are for a mineral patch with its left hex in that location. The numbers in the hexes represent the number of times the mule will mine from that patch, with 0.5 indicating that it mined minerals on the last trip, but was unable to return them.
Keep in mind that my testing was done with only a single mineral patch (ie. no obstacles), so anything that would alter the path or mining time of the mule could also change the results. For example, if there is a front mineral patch that changes the pathing to a back patch, then you cannot assume the results would stay the same. Same with having a turret placed between the OC and minerals. If one were to drop multiple mules on the same patch, obviously the results would change as well.
I only checked the top/right quadrant of minerals, in hopes that the results can just be mirrored for the other sides, but I'm not going to test all of those. Because of the fact that minerals are 2x1 and not square, I felt it was prudent to check 1/4 of the circle rather than 1/8. If you do mirror the results, the ones on the left side of the OC need to be shifted one hex, again because of minerals being 2x1. I hope that maybe this will help someone out.
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Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches.
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On February 23 2012 03:25 Bagration wrote:
Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches.
that's not the most efficient though. your mule returns 9 trips worth of minerals, but expires after mining the final trip (minerals destroyed).
i believe there was a detailed post about this over a year ago and the conclusion was that mule is better 'spread' accross mineral patches so it takes longer to mine out (which will destroy your SCV saturation and lower your income).
but it's worth noting that mules on far away patches will return the same minerals as a close patch, without the final mineral harvest being destroyed.
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On February 23 2012 03:25 Bagration wrote:
Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches.
There was a thread about this and it was decided that you should only drop mules on the far patches.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=237419
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On February 23 2012 03:22 Dazarath wrote:
... testing was done with only a single mineral patch (ie. no obstacles), so anything that would alter the path or mining time of the mule could also change the results...
You don't say.
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Also calling them on the far patch will make the amount of minerals left on the patches more even, if you always call them on the closest patch that patch will be mined out much faster than the other patches and the expansion will have 1 patch less for a relatively long amount of time.
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There's one thing I havent seen mentionned in all these threads and it's the initial orientation of the MULE being dropped... Something it decides to start at the back of the mineral line instead of close to the OC, effectively making it's first trip longer.
I haven't bothered to check for consistency in this matter, but have you considered that?
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i remember a while ago, there was a korean terran who would sometimes stop a mule from mining, cos he knew that it wouldnt get back intime with those minerals and would just lose them. Obviously thats a ridiculous amount of APM and awareness to know how to do that, but im guessing some of the top top terran players will know where and when to drop mules
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Isn't there merit to having your mining be equally distributed for long term efficiency of that base? As in mining out the front patches early will result in a lower income rate averaged over the course of the bases mining life. Similar reasons as to why you try to equally distribute workers between separate bases of similar mineral counts.
I noticed in the recent GSL games, players would keep sending their mule away before its last gathering. That sounds like a good plan too. It seems like it would time well together with your next mule drop anyways because I believe your mule should be just around his final trip when you have the 50 energy to start the next one.
I'm sure this kind of information has been brought up, but it can't hurt to talk about again and spread the information more, and maybe even add something to it  .
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On February 23 2012 03:51 CursedFeanor wrote:
There's one thing I havent seen mentionned in all these threads and it's the initial orientation of the MULE being dropped... Something it decides to start at the back of the mineral line instead of close to the OC, effectively making it's first trip longer.
I haven't bothered to check for consistency in this matter, but have you considered that?
i think that happens if you fire too many at the same mineral patch, you can't have more than 1 on the same patch so the others will land on nearby patches.
just guessing though... i can't remember it ever landing behind mineral unless i shift-spammed a bunch at the same time.
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So essentially, you'll lose a few hundred minerals 15 minutes later. Not the biggest deal, but I guess every little bit helps.
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Wow. I did not realize MULEs are better used on distant patches. Thanks for bringing this to our attention OP and posters.
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As long as you know to drop MULEs on the blue minerals and not the gold (as scvs will give you high yield but not MULEs, so you don't want to waste gold minerals on the latter), you should be better off in the long run.
But the OP's data is nice to have too
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Wow. I thought I was supposed to mule on the closest.
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It would have been nice if this was done with regular mining units as well (unfortunately I don't think it's possible to have used 1 [custom] unit to figure out both times [accurately])
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On February 23 2012 05:04 grush57 wrote:
Wow. I thought I was supposed to mule on the closest.
I know right?
My mind has been blown...
This might be a hard habit to break
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the op's data is nice, but you cannot say that u shouldnt use the closest patches imo.
all it shows is that you dont need to use the closest (you can though, the mule shouldnt be able to expire with minerals - and it still does 9 turns), but you shouldnt use the furthest away, since youll only get 8 turns.
so use either "medium dinstance" or close patches, it doesnt make a difference.
more important is that u use differnet patches everytime!
€: oh, it seems that id does expire with minerals on it on the closest ...
are u sure that 10 turn mule is absolutely impossible, even if you drop it "perfectly" (closest distance for turn 1) and on the closest possible patch?
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I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals (if you put it on the close ones like most people do, that is)
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On February 23 2012 05:10 KalWarkov wrote:
the op's data is nice, but you cannot say that u shouldnt use the closest patches imo.
all it shows is that you dont need to use the closest (you can though, the mule shouldnt be able to expire with minerals - and it still does 9 turns), but you shouldnt use the furthest away, since youll only get 8 turns.
so use either "medium dinstance" or close patches, it doesnt make a difference.
more important is that u use differnet patches everytime!
If you use the close patches then the mule will die with 30 minerals on its way to the CC. It is not that big of a deal, but you might get a few extra hundred minerals out of a mineral patch if you are careful where to place them.
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I'm pretty sure it's map dependent as the mineral patches relative to the command center is different depending on the map/position. In some cases, the close patches are just far away enough that it won't take that extra .5.
Also I'm pretty sure you can and should use mules on gold minerals. Mules don't create more minerals. So just because mules harvest the same amount on blue or gold minerals, won't affect the total number of minerals mined. However dropping mules on the gold will mine it out faster. And since the gold bases are usually the most vulnerable, you generally want to mine out those bases faster.
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On February 23 2012 05:10 Gheed wrote:
I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals.
Always?
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On February 23 2012 03:51 ThatGuy89 wrote:
i remember a while ago, there was a korean terran who would sometimes stop a mule from mining, cos he knew that it wouldnt get back intime with those minerals and would just lose them. Obviously thats a ridiculous amount of APM and awareness to know how to do that, but im guessing some of the top top terran players will know where and when to drop mules
That's pretty sick, to be honest. I suppose that mules do waste minerals when they "expire", I never really thought about that. I don't know how many trips mules make from and to the mineral patches, but they lose a pretty significant fraction of their total amount if they die with minerals in their hands.
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On February 23 2012 05:19 Uncultured wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 05:10 Gheed wrote:
I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals. Always?
I think if you don't drop it on the closest patches, it always dies with one fewer finished trip.
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On February 23 2012 03:51 ThatGuy89 wrote:
i remember a while ago, there was a korean terran who would sometimes stop a mule from mining, cos he knew that it wouldnt get back intime with those minerals and would just lose them. Obviously thats a ridiculous amount of APM and awareness to know how to do that, but im guessing some of the top top terran players will know where and when to drop mules
That was likely fOrGG. I saw Mvp do this too on some replays. It's only at the beginning of the game, obviously.
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Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
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On February 23 2012 03:28 drgoats wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 03:25 Bagration wrote:
Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches. There was a thread about this and it was decided that you should only drop mules on the far patches. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=237419
Damn I've been doing it wrong for months then. Thanks everyone for the tip
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On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount.
If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining.
Only drop MULEs on blue bases.
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I dunno what everyone is posting these huge shpeals about. The answer is very simple.
If you have the APM to stop the mule before it mines the last trip on a close patch then close patch will get you money faster
If you don't have the APM then I would use the far patches because otherwise your permanently wasting minerals each mule.
So use the far patch. Even if you do have the APM. Those actions could probably be more useful doing something else unless it's like your first couple mules and it's really easy to pay attention when you need to pull them off
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On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases.
I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs.
Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant?
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On February 23 2012 05:10 Gheed wrote:
I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals (if you put it on the close ones like most people do, that is)
If most people do it wrong, then it's not common knowledge.
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i think most of us have much more important stuff to work on. this kind of theorycraft is like wow. you see pros stop mules from mining before they expire bunches of times on the gsl, but like i said alot more stuff us amatuers can work on besides this.
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Any 1 know the mineral loss for using unmicro'ed Mules? (when mules time out with minerals on them is they aren't stopped before they die)
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On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant?
There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases.
You can try thinking of it this way:
You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color?
The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway).
Hope that helps.
Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game.
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On February 23 2012 06:28 SeraKuDA wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 05:10 Gheed wrote:
I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals (if you put it on the close ones like most people do, that is) If most people do it wrong, then it's not common knowledge.
What was the point of your post again? That was the most generic statement in the world that is completely obvious and has nothing to do with to OP. He said he "thought" it was common knowledge. Not "it is" common knowledge. Don't come into a thread to try and bash someone's post and not say anything intelligent.
And I for one thought MOST people knew about this too because before close patches mined more so blizz patched it to make it so the mule will always mine the same amount of minerals no matter the patch.
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On February 23 2012 06:33 Blasterion wrote:
Any 1 know the mineral loss for using unmicro'ed Mules? (when mules time out with minerals on them is they aren't stopped before they die)
Umm... How much do mules mine per trip? Considering they only lose what's in their robotic arms that's the answer. And truth be told i don't know that exact number. I think 30 though.
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On February 23 2012 05:10 Gheed wrote:
I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals (if you put it on the close ones like most people do, that is)
Hey, what do you know about mining minerals!
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MULES? good unit lollol jkjk not rly..
User was warned for this post
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On February 23 2012 06:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant? There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases. You can try thinking of it this way: You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color? The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway). Hope that helps. Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game.
That doesn't matter. A mule mines the same minerals on blue or gold and doesn't disrupt pathing, so it doesn't matter what you want your SCVs to do, they aren't affected since MULEs oversaturate. All that matters is whether you want your gold or blue bases to mine out faster, and you will generally be OK with gold being mined out faster. Thus, dropping MULEs on gold is still superior.
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On February 23 2012 06:49 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant? There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases. You can try thinking of it this way: You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color? The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway). Hope that helps. Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game. That doesn't matter. A mule mines the same minerals on blue or gold and doesn't disrupt pathing, so it doesn't matter what you want your SCVs to do, they aren't affected since MULEs oversaturate. All that matters is whether you want your gold or blue bases to mine out faster, and you will generally be OK with gold being mined out faster. Thus, dropping MULEs on gold is still superior.
As an example: suppose you had enough mules saved up to instantly mine out a new expansion. You have scvs mining a gold and a blue. Option 1: mule the gold and now you only have blue minerals left to mine. Option 2: mule the blue, for equal minerals, and now you have a more rewarding gold base left to mine for your scvs.
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On February 23 2012 06:56 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:49 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 06:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant? There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases. You can try thinking of it this way: You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color? The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway). Hope that helps. Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game. That doesn't matter. A mule mines the same minerals on blue or gold and doesn't disrupt pathing, so it doesn't matter what you want your SCVs to do, they aren't affected since MULEs oversaturate. All that matters is whether you want your gold or blue bases to mine out faster, and you will generally be OK with gold being mined out faster. Thus, dropping MULEs on gold is still superior. As an example: suppose you had enough mules saved up to instantly mine out a new expansion. You have scvs mining a gold and a blue. Option 1: mule the gold and now you only have blue minerals left to mine. Option 2: mule the blue, for equal minerals, and now you have a more rewarding gold base left to mine for your scvs.
Wrong. The minerals are still there in the gold expo, you aren't deleting the minerals from the patches just because you're mining with mules. Let's say the blue base has 5000 minerals and the gold base has 7000. Put enough mules to completely mine out the blue base, and you get 5000 minerals. Put enough mules to completely mine out the gold base, and you get 7000 minerals, it will just take longer than it used to since the mules don't dig as fast on gold as they used to do.
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another thing about mules which people don't understand is that you can only effectively have 1 per mineral patch.
when you see a pro player throw down 10+ mules on a single patch (typical 8-patch base), two of those mules will be doing almost nothing. they take longer to gather than workers, therefore you can't stack two on the same patch.
whenever you saw a terran throw down 20 mules on a gold base (6 patches), he was being completely dumb. only 6 of those mules will be mining and the others will be bouncing back and forward at about 1% efficiency. basically throwing 13-14 mules down the toilet.
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On February 23 2012 06:58 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:56 Grumbels wrote:On February 23 2012 06:49 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 06:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant? There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases. You can try thinking of it this way: You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color? The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway). Hope that helps. Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game. That doesn't matter. A mule mines the same minerals on blue or gold and doesn't disrupt pathing, so it doesn't matter what you want your SCVs to do, they aren't affected since MULEs oversaturate. All that matters is whether you want your gold or blue bases to mine out faster, and you will generally be OK with gold being mined out faster. Thus, dropping MULEs on gold is still superior. As an example: suppose you had enough mules saved up to instantly mine out a new expansion. You have scvs mining a gold and a blue. Option 1: mule the gold and now you only have blue minerals left to mine. Option 2: mule the blue, for equal minerals, and now you have a more rewarding gold base left to mine for your scvs. Wrong. The minerals are still there in the gold expo, you aren't deleting the minerals from the patches just because you're mining with mules. Let's say the blue base has 5000 minerals and the gold base has 7000. Put enough mules to completely mine out the blue base, and you get 5000 minerals. Put enough mules to completely mine out the gold base, and you get 7000 minerals, it will just take longer than it used to since the mules don't dig as fast on gold as they used to do.
Obviously it's better to spread mules around, since you want your scv's to always be mining, but for instance if you have limited scv's it still makes sense to spare the gold with your mules. Some people are arguing it doesn't matter or you should still mine out the gold earlier. I can't really follow your logic, to be honest.
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On February 23 2012 07:37 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:58 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 06:56 Grumbels wrote:On February 23 2012 06:49 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 06:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant? There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases. You can try thinking of it this way: You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color? The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway). Hope that helps. Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game. That doesn't matter. A mule mines the same minerals on blue or gold and doesn't disrupt pathing, so it doesn't matter what you want your SCVs to do, they aren't affected since MULEs oversaturate. All that matters is whether you want your gold or blue bases to mine out faster, and you will generally be OK with gold being mined out faster. Thus, dropping MULEs on gold is still superior. As an example: suppose you had enough mules saved up to instantly mine out a new expansion. You have scvs mining a gold and a blue. Option 1: mule the gold and now you only have blue minerals left to mine. Option 2: mule the blue, for equal minerals, and now you have a more rewarding gold base left to mine for your scvs. Wrong. The minerals are still there in the gold expo, you aren't deleting the minerals from the patches just because you're mining with mules. Let's say the blue base has 5000 minerals and the gold base has 7000. Put enough mules to completely mine out the blue base, and you get 5000 minerals. Put enough mules to completely mine out the gold base, and you get 7000 minerals, it will just take longer than it used to since the mules don't dig as fast on gold as they used to do. Obviously it's better to spread mules around, since you want your scv's to always be mining, but for instance if you have limited scv's it still makes sense to spare the gold with your mules. Some people are arguing it doesn't matter or you should still mine out the gold earlier. I can't really follow your logic, to be honest.
You should mine gold out earlier because it's a high value target for your opponent and is usually way easier to attack. You're in a horrible position if you mine out your safe blue bases only to have your opponent completely wreck your gold base, leaving you with nothing.
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On February 23 2012 07:37 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 06:58 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 06:56 Grumbels wrote:On February 23 2012 06:49 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 06:34 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:26 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 06:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On February 23 2012 06:12 wunsun wrote:
Should you drop mules on blue minerals every time? I mean, if you just got a gold base up, should you drop mules on your gold so that your natural (or previous expos) don't mine out too fast?
You should never drop MULEs on gold bases anymore (unless there are no other minerals left on the map), as scvs give additional high-yield resources for mining gold bases but MULEs always give the same amount. If you drop MULEs on gold bases, then you're stealing away bonus minerals that scvs could be mining. Only drop MULEs on blue bases. I am not sure I understand. My understanding is that mules have a hard cap on the minerals that they can mine. If you drop it, you do not get the bonus, while on blue, you do get the bonus. So, you don't really lose any actual minerals, though you do not get the bonus, so in affect, your minerals mined per minutes are lowered. However, my situation was similar to when you expand, you drop all mules on your natural to keep the patches somewhat consistent so you don't mine out the main too fast. I am curious if this was used for the gold as well, even if you do not get the bonus. You still get to mine more as Mules mine over SCVs. Just curious of what happens when you expand onto a gold. Does keeping mineral patches even at the point is even relevant? There are far more blue patches than gold patches throughout the map (# of bases, for sure), so the "keeping patches consistent" is hardly a factor when trying to not call down MULEs on gold bases. You can try thinking of it this way: You have one blue and one gold mineral about to be brought in to your command center. Of those two different colored minerals, one will be brought by an scv and one will be brought by a MULE. Who would you prefer brings each color? The answer is that- for more money- you should have the scv bring the gold mineral and the MULE bring the blue, as the MULE brings the same amount regardless of color, and the scv mines more money on gold. (Obviously if you had infinite MULEs, it's irrelevant... but you always have more scvs than MULEs and the gold bases are never the last bases left in the game anyway). Hope that helps. Obviously, this (along with any of these other "mining out perfectly" strategies) are only extremely relevant if the map is about to lose all resources after 40+ minutes into the game. That doesn't matter. A mule mines the same minerals on blue or gold and doesn't disrupt pathing, so it doesn't matter what you want your SCVs to do, they aren't affected since MULEs oversaturate. All that matters is whether you want your gold or blue bases to mine out faster, and you will generally be OK with gold being mined out faster. Thus, dropping MULEs on gold is still superior. As an example: suppose you had enough mules saved up to instantly mine out a new expansion. You have scvs mining a gold and a blue. Option 1: mule the gold and now you only have blue minerals left to mine. Option 2: mule the blue, for equal minerals, and now you have a more rewarding gold base left to mine for your scvs. Wrong. The minerals are still there in the gold expo, you aren't deleting the minerals from the patches just because you're mining with mules. Let's say the blue base has 5000 minerals and the gold base has 7000. Put enough mules to completely mine out the blue base, and you get 5000 minerals. Put enough mules to completely mine out the gold base, and you get 7000 minerals, it will just take longer than it used to since the mules don't dig as fast on gold as they used to do. Obviously it's better to spread mules around, since you want your scv's to always be mining, but for instance if you have limited scv's it still makes sense to spare the gold with your mules. Some people are arguing it doesn't matter or you should still mine out the gold earlier. I can't really follow your logic, to be honest.
Jeez... lots of quotes. XD
I think he is thinking what I was thinking. Mules mine over SCV's so, your SCV's will always be mining regardless if there are mules or not. What he is saying, is that you want your gold to mine out faster, as typically golds are put in locations that are hard to hold; therefore, you want to mine it out faster as you want all the yummy minerals that you can get.
My original post was about you expanding to a gold, so that you have a (or more) blue bases that are partially mined out, and a gold base that is relatively untouched. I was thinking that you want to still mule the gold, as you don't want to mine out your blue too fast. Otherwise, you have SCV's that are essentially not mining as you will be over saturated with SCV's at your gold. Even though you don't get minerals as fast, you do not mine out your bases, which either forces you to expand before you really want to, or forces you to over saturate your gold with normal SCV's or to not mine at all.
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That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones.
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On February 23 2012 07:20 shizna wrote:
another thing about mules which people don't understand is that you can only effectively have 1 per mineral patch.
when you see a pro player throw down 10+ mules on a single patch (typical 8-patch base), two of those mules will be doing almost nothing. they take longer to gather than workers, therefore you can't stack two on the same patch.
whenever you saw a terran throw down 20 mules on a gold base (6 patches), he was being completely dumb. only 6 of those mules will be mining and the others will be bouncing back and forward at about 1% efficiency. basically throwing 13-14 mules down the toilet.
Uh... Mules do not disrupt pathing or "occupy" minerals. 20 mules on one patch could technically all work on it. Search on youtube, there are several videos where players show how fast mass mules can mine out a base (it literally takes a few seconds with enough mules).
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On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones.
Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare.
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On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare.
His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue.
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On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue.
But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same.
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Stop saying "literally no difference" (maybe you should write it in all caps). There is a difference, it's just small and won't really influence anything in most situations. Usually you want to default on muling new and vulnerable expansions. (remember that sometimes this won't be the gold)
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On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same.
I'm not sure if that is true or not. I need to give that more thought.
Anyways, I think that we both agree that in most situations, it is better to put mules on gold.
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On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same.
Yes Mules mine the same on both bases, but in real situations you'll also have SCVs, which will mine from gold faster. Wouldn't you want to keep SCVs mining on gold rather than blue? So you wouldn't want to drop Mules on gold bases since it'll cause you to stop mining there with SCVs sooner.
In other words, drop Mules only on blue -> SCVs mine from gold for 100 seconds.
Drop Mules on the gold -> SCVs mine gold for 60 seconds and then transfer to a blue base where they mine for <40 mroe seconds.
Dropping on the blue would be the best scenario.
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Mining from the closest patch will get you minerals the fastest. But, it might waste 30 minerals on the final trip because it might not make it back to the command center, minerals in hand. Mining from not a closest patch usually makes the MULE die when it has no minerals in hand. However, I think getting minerals earlier/faster is far superior to saving yourself 30 minerals much later on when your patches run out. Starcraft is a game of getting resources NOW, not later. It is a game of fractions of a second.
tl;dr put it on the close patches, noobs
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On February 23 2012 05:28 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 03:51 ThatGuy89 wrote:
i remember a while ago, there was a korean terran who would sometimes stop a mule from mining, cos he knew that it wouldnt get back intime with those minerals and would just lose them. Obviously thats a ridiculous amount of APM and awareness to know how to do that, but im guessing some of the top top terran players will know where and when to drop mules That was likely fOrGG. I saw Mvp do this too on some replays. It's only at the beginning of the game, obviously.
Bomber also did that.
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On February 23 2012 08:26 superLanboy wrote:
Mining from the closest patch will get you minerals the fastest. But, it might waste 30 minerals on the final trip because it might not make it back to the command center, minerals in hand. Mining from not a closest patch usually makes the MULE die when it has no minerals in hand. However, I think getting minerals earlier/faster is far superior to saving yourself 30 minerals much later on when your patches run out. Starcraft is a game of getting resources NOW, not later. It is a game of fractions of a second.
tl;dr put it on the close patches, noobs
This is partly true. When I am 1 rax FE-ing, I want that FE to be up 3 seconds earlier or whatever it is. However, at 15 minutes into the game I would rather not have 2 patches out of commission in my main, and at that point I'm not spending my minerals as closely. Therefore, always MULE on the close patches for the first few runs, and then spread it out equally.
As to the Gold/Blue mining debate, it is true that if you can keep your gold base safe, you will gain more of a benefit by allowing the minerals to be mined by bonus-mining SCVs rather than by non-bonus mining MULes. Practically, this seems to be unimportant compared to wanting to mine out your most vulnerable base first. However, perhaps some tests could determine the exact gain you get.
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God. The reason you want SCVs on gold minerals is because you mine MORE minerals FASTER that way. If you can mine out a base instantly with mules, it will always be better to mine out a gold one because it gives you MORE minerals FASTER than completely mining out the blue one, EVEN if MULEs get as much minerals per trip as on blue crystals.
The problem people are making in thinking it's better to mine out the blue to keep the gold is because they somehow think it's the same amount of minerals in a gold base as a blue base, only that the gold base somehow gives more minerals. That's not how it works. You need to think of it like this:
You have 2 bases, one gold, one blue. Both are about equally mined out, so lets say the blue base has 2000 minerals, the gold base has 3000 minerals. Now, if you put enough mules to mine out the blue base immediately, you get 2000 minerals right away and you're left with SCVs on gold working to gather 3000 minerals. However, if you put the enough mules to mine out the gold (can sustain 50% more mules because of the extra 1000 minerals), you get 3000 minerals immediately, and you're left with a blue base of 2000 minerals.
Putting them on the gold gave you 3000 minerals instantly, putting them on the blue gave you 2000 minerals instantly. Which option gave you MORE minerals FASTER?
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i'm not sure if anyone does this (they probably do, i've never seen it mentioned exclusively) but i always put one mule on the same patch over and over again, so that i will end up with 1 less patch at that base and therefore need less scvs at that base in order to have full saturation.
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On February 23 2012 17:49 Silidons wrote:
i'm not sure if anyone does this (they probably do, i've never seen it mentioned exclusively) but i always put one mule on the same patch over and over again, so that i will end up with 1 less patch at that base and therefore need less scvs at that base in order to have full saturation.
While that's a good tactic (you could put all mules on a far mineral and end up with a base needing less SCVs AND having closer minerals overall), I'd say it's very hard to implement properly. Remember, you have to actively remove those extra SCVs, or you're gimping yourself compared to spreading them out.
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On February 23 2012 17:44 Tobberoth wrote:
God. The reason you want SCVs on gold minerals is because you mine MORE minerals FASTER that way. If you can mine out a base instantly with mules, it will always be better to mine out a gold one because it gives you MORE minerals FASTER than completely mining out the blue one, EVEN if MULEs get as much minerals per trip as on blue crystals.
The problem people are making in thinking it's better to mine out the blue to keep the gold is because they somehow think it's the same amount of minerals in a gold base as a blue base, only that the gold base somehow gives more minerals. That's not how it works. You need to think of it like this:
You have 2 bases, one gold, one blue. Both are about equally mined out, so lets say the blue base has 2000 minerals, the gold base has 3000 minerals. Now, if you put enough mules to mine out the blue base immediately, you get 2000 minerals right away and you're left with SCVs on gold working to gather 3000 minerals. However, if you put the enough mules to mine out the gold (can sustain 50% more mules because of the extra 1000 minerals), you get 3000 minerals immediately, and you're left with a blue base of 2000 minerals.
Putting them on the gold gave you 3000 minerals instantly, putting them on the blue gave you 2000 minerals instantly. Which option gave you MORE minerals FASTER?
Your example is dishonest. You compare a base with 3000 minerals and one with 2000, and you conclude that (arbitrarily) the gold is better to mine out first, when you just make the argument it's better to use mules on the base with 3000 minerals.
Try the same scenario again, except now with two bases with 2000 minerals.
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On February 23 2012 18:05 Grumbels wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 17:44 Tobberoth wrote:
God. The reason you want SCVs on gold minerals is because you mine MORE minerals FASTER that way. If you can mine out a base instantly with mules, it will always be better to mine out a gold one because it gives you MORE minerals FASTER than completely mining out the blue one, EVEN if MULEs get as much minerals per trip as on blue crystals.
The problem people are making in thinking it's better to mine out the blue to keep the gold is because they somehow think it's the same amount of minerals in a gold base as a blue base, only that the gold base somehow gives more minerals. That's not how it works. You need to think of it like this:
You have 2 bases, one gold, one blue. Both are about equally mined out, so lets say the blue base has 2000 minerals, the gold base has 3000 minerals. Now, if you put enough mules to mine out the blue base immediately, you get 2000 minerals right away and you're left with SCVs on gold working to gather 3000 minerals. However, if you put the enough mules to mine out the gold (can sustain 50% more mules because of the extra 1000 minerals), you get 3000 minerals immediately, and you're left with a blue base of 2000 minerals.
Putting them on the gold gave you 3000 minerals instantly, putting them on the blue gave you 2000 minerals instantly. Which option gave you MORE minerals FASTER? Your example is dishonest. You compare a base with 3000 minerals and one with 2000, and you conclude that (arbitrarily) the gold is better to mine out first, when you just make the argument it's better to use mules on the base with 3000 minerals. Try the same scenario again, except now with two bases with 2000 minerals.
That's hardly a fair comparison though since that means the gold base is far more outmined relatively to the blue base since golds start with way more minerals. And even then, it would be scarry to put the mules on the blue since that mines out the blue base, and you're left with as many minerals in the gold base but it will be mined out faster since SCVs mine more minerals per trip. But I agree in this case, if the gold base is more mined out than the blue one, it is a good idea to put the mules on the blue one.
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On February 23 2012 07:54 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 07:20 shizna wrote:
another thing about mules which people don't understand is that you can only effectively have 1 per mineral patch.
when you see a pro player throw down 10+ mules on a single patch (typical 8-patch base), two of those mules will be doing almost nothing. they take longer to gather than workers, therefore you can't stack two on the same patch.
whenever you saw a terran throw down 20 mules on a gold base (6 patches), he was being completely dumb. only 6 of those mules will be mining and the others will be bouncing back and forward at about 1% efficiency. basically throwing 13-14 mules down the toilet. Uh... Mules do not disrupt pathing or "occupy" minerals. 20 mules on one patch could technically all work on it. Search on youtube, there are several videos where players show how fast mass mules can mine out a base (it literally takes a few seconds with enough mules).
oh weird... according to liquipedia you can only have 1 mule per patch unless the number of mules is greater than the number of patches... wtf :/
well i learned something.
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On February 23 2012 18:24 shizna wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 07:54 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:20 shizna wrote:
another thing about mules which people don't understand is that you can only effectively have 1 per mineral patch.
when you see a pro player throw down 10+ mules on a single patch (typical 8-patch base), two of those mules will be doing almost nothing. they take longer to gather than workers, therefore you can't stack two on the same patch.
whenever you saw a terran throw down 20 mules on a gold base (6 patches), he was being completely dumb. only 6 of those mules will be mining and the others will be bouncing back and forward at about 1% efficiency. basically throwing 13-14 mules down the toilet. Uh... Mules do not disrupt pathing or "occupy" minerals. 20 mules on one patch could technically all work on it. Search on youtube, there are several videos where players show how fast mass mules can mine out a base (it literally takes a few seconds with enough mules). oh weird... according to liquipedia you can only have 1 mule per patch unless the number of mules is greater than the number of patches... wtf :/ well i learned something.
Well, that is true. If you have 3 patches and send down 3 mules to one patch, they will split to those 3 patches. But if you have 3 patches and send down 21 mules, you'll get 7 mules per patch.
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On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same.
i think his argument is valid... it was just poorly explained.
on a blue base, a mule is worth 4 scv's.
on a gold base, a mule is worth 3 scv's.
however, i don't think it's a big deal in the long run because the 'loss' is insignficant when compared to the situation where you stack all mules on the same base, it mines out and your scv's are useless.
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On February 23 2012 18:34 shizna wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same. i think his argument is valid... it was just poorly explained. on a blue base, a mule is worth 4 scv's. on a gold base, a mule is worth 3 scv's. however, i don't think it's a big deal in the long run because the 'loss' is insignficant when compared to the situation where you stack all mules on the same base, it mines out and your scv's are useless.
The thing is, the idea that a mule is worth less SCVs on a gold base assumes that you have to pick whether to put a MULE or an SCV on said base, but you don't. Putting your mules on the gold isn't costing you space for your SCVs, so you can't compare the effectiveness of the MULE with the SCVs. 1 MULE on gold is worth 1 MULE on blue.
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I think that there are different optimal ways to do it in different situations. In many cases the impact will be negligible or you'll be unable to tell exactly what is the best (which also depends on what you expect your opponent to do, especially for hidden or vulnerable bases). I do get annoyed when people get sort of exasperated and start to talk like "Dear God! There's literally NO difference!", as did Tobberoth. There is a difference and in certain (realistic) cases (and independent of the expansion's vulnerability) it will be better to mule your blue minerals rather than your gold.
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On February 23 2012 18:52 Grumbels wrote:
I think that there are different optimal ways to do it in different situations. In many cases the impact will be negligible or you'll be unable to tell exactly what is the best (which also depends on what you expect your opponent to do, especially for hidden or vulnerable bases). I do get annoyed when people get sort of exasperated and start to talk like "Dear God! There's literally NO difference!", as did Tobberoth. There is a difference and in certain (realistic) cases (and independent of the expansion's vulnerability) it will be better to mule your blue minerals rather than your gold.
Name an example. The way I see it, the more vulnerable a base is the more you should try to mine it out faster. Most of the time the gold base will be more vulnerable than a blue base. Is this logic wrong? What other factor would decide which base to mine out faster?
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On February 23 2012 18:52 Grumbels wrote:
I think that there are different optimal ways to do it in different situations. In many cases the impact will be negligible or you'll be unable to tell exactly what is the best (which also depends on what you expect your opponent to do, especially for hidden or vulnerable bases). I do get annoyed when people get sort of exasperated and start to talk like "Dear God! There's literally NO difference!", as did Tobberoth. There is a difference and in certain (realistic) cases (and independent of the expansion's vulnerability) it will be better to mule your blue minerals rather than your gold.
I was defending people who were saying that you will still want to put mules on the gold who were being attacked by people saying that with the change, it's better to put them on blue minerals because SCVs are worth more on gold than on blue, which is a fallacy. The change means you don't need to save up mules for gold bases anymore, but it doesn't change the fact that in the vast majority of situations, it's better to put the MULEs on gold. If you have no specific reason to put them on blue, put them on gold.
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On February 23 2012 18:50 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 18:34 shizna wrote:On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same. i think his argument is valid... it was just poorly explained. on a blue base, a mule is worth 4 scv's. on a gold base, a mule is worth 3 scv's. however, i don't think it's a big deal in the long run because the 'loss' is insignficant when compared to the situation where you stack all mules on the same base, it mines out and your scv's are useless. The thing is, the idea that a mule is worth less SCVs on a gold base assumes that you have to pick whether to put a MULE or an SCV on said base, but you don't. Putting your mules on the gold isn't costing you space for your SCVs, so you can't compare the effectiveness of the MULE with the SCVs. 1 MULE on gold is worth 1 MULE on blue.
yes but 1 SCV on gold is worth 1.4 SCV's on blue.
because the gold SCV is worth more, if you consume those gold minerals with mules then your gold SCV's lose their 1.4 value somewhat as they're forced to prematurely return to a blue patch.
how is that a fallacy?
(Edit tried to make it more legible)
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First of all, gold minerals = more vulnerable is a horrible assumption. If you take a map like Metalopolis, with a planetary at the gold, this base is not as vulnerable as your new expansion to the other main.
A second scenario: no available bases and oversaturation for your gold and blue base. In this case you want to use the mule on the less mined out minerals, to keep all of your scv's mining for as long as possible, giving you greater income.
Third scenario: you have just 8 scv's for whatever reason. You have two bases with equal minerals. In this case it's best to have all your scv's mining at the gold, while you mule the blue.
In most cases you might still want to use mules on the gold as it will usually (but not always) be quite vulnerable, but that is unrelated to them being gold. So offering the advise that it is always better to mule your rich mineral fields above all is horrible and inaccurate in a number of scenarios.
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irrelevant
just spamm all my mules on one patch and spare the apm for macro or a marine-split vs banelings
file closed
//but it´s nice for theorycraft
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On February 23 2012 19:00 shizna wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 18:50 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 18:34 shizna wrote:On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same. i think his argument is valid... it was just poorly explained. on a blue base, a mule is worth 4 scv's. on a gold base, a mule is worth 3 scv's. however, i don't think it's a big deal in the long run because the 'loss' is insignficant when compared to the situation where you stack all mules on the same base, it mines out and your scv's are useless. The thing is, the idea that a mule is worth less SCVs on a gold base assumes that you have to pick whether to put a MULE or an SCV on said base, but you don't. Putting your mules on the gold isn't costing you space for your SCVs, so you can't compare the effectiveness of the MULE with the SCVs. 1 MULE on gold is worth 1 MULE on blue. yes but 1 SCV on gold is worth 1.4 SCV's on blue. because the gold SCV is worth more, if you consume those gold minerals with mules then your gold SCV's somewhat lose their 1.4 value when they're forced to return to a blue patch. (Edit tried to make it more legible)
This is correct, and this is the reason why it feels intuitive to think that it's better to mine out blue bases faster. However, since golds have more minerals and thus support way more mules, this is counteracted meaning that it still just up to which base you want to mine out faster... but since a gold base which has been mined longer may have the same minerals as a blue base (and thus support the same amount of mules), there are situations where you still want to put them on blue.
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On February 23 2012 19:11 Grumbels wrote:
First of all, gold minerals = more vulnerable is a horrible assumption. If you take a map like Metalopolis, with a planetary at the gold, this base is not as vulnerable as your new expansion to the other main.
A second scenario: no available bases and oversaturation for your gold and blue base. In this case you want to use the mule on the less mined out minerals, to keep all of your scv's mining for as long as possible, giving you greater income.
Third scenario: you have just 8 scv's for whatever reason. You have two bases with equal minerals. In this case it's best to have all your scv's mining at the gold, while you mule the blue.
In most cases you might still want to use mules on the gold as it will usually (but not always) be quite vulnerable, but that is unrelated to them being gold. So offering the advise that it is always better to mule your rich mineral fields above all is horrible and inaccurate in a number of scenarios.
Vs a zerg with broodlords, the gold on metalopolis is definitely the weakest base you can have, it's so easy to destroy it with no danger to yourself.
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On February 23 2012 19:13 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 19:00 shizna wrote:On February 23 2012 18:50 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 18:34 shizna wrote:On February 23 2012 08:06 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 08:00 wunsun wrote:On February 23 2012 07:55 Tobberoth wrote:On February 23 2012 07:53 Grumbels wrote:
That's a completely different argument. You say "you should mine out your gold first because it's a high value target", but that's just saying "you should mine out high value targets first" and you're assuming the gold is always easier to attack too. If you have two equally vulnerable expansions then it might be better to use more mules on blue minerals rather than the gold ones. Why? There's literally no argument why it's better to put Mules on blue minerals over gold minerals, the mineral gain is identical. The only reason would be that you for some reason want the blue base mined out faster, which will be rare. His situation I think is valid. If you have two bases that are equally vulnerable, than you want to maximize your mineral gain, which would be putting mules on the blue. But you're not maximizing your mineral gain, there's literally no difference. Put all the mules on gold, put all of them on blue, when they expire, you'll have gained as much gold. The ONLY difference is how fast the bases mine out, but since gold has more minerals, it will take a smaller hit from the mules (since the mules mine less of the percentage of minerals), so in a situation where you want bases to last as long as possible, you'll still want to put most of your mules on the gold. The only "gain" from putting all the mules on the blue base is that it will mine out much faster than the gold base, the amount of minerals you gain is the same. i think his argument is valid... it was just poorly explained. on a blue base, a mule is worth 4 scv's. on a gold base, a mule is worth 3 scv's. however, i don't think it's a big deal in the long run because the 'loss' is insignficant when compared to the situation where you stack all mules on the same base, it mines out and your scv's are useless. The thing is, the idea that a mule is worth less SCVs on a gold base assumes that you have to pick whether to put a MULE or an SCV on said base, but you don't. Putting your mules on the gold isn't costing you space for your SCVs, so you can't compare the effectiveness of the MULE with the SCVs. 1 MULE on gold is worth 1 MULE on blue. yes but 1 SCV on gold is worth 1.4 SCV's on blue. because the gold SCV is worth more, if you consume those gold minerals with mules then your gold SCV's somewhat lose their 1.4 value when they're forced to return to a blue patch. (Edit tried to make it more legible) This is correct, and this is the reason why it feels intuitive to think that it's better to mine out blue bases faster. However, since golds have more minerals and thus support way more mules, this is counteracted meaning that it still just up to which base you want to mine out faster... but since a gold base which has been mined longer may have the same minerals as a blue base (and thus support the same amount of mules), there are situations where you still want to put them on blue.
golds have more minerals? is that a bad metaphor or something?
standard bases:
gold 6 x 1500 minerals
blue 8 x 1500
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Whut, that's extremely surprising... how can gold bases even last at all when there's fewer patches and not even more minerals in the patches, when workers mine much faster there? Is the extra minerals calculated after mining is done or have I just used gold bases to little to notice how ridiculously fast they have to mine out?
SCVs 40% more effective on gold, 6 patches instead of 8 means it mines out 25% faster... so a gold base should mine out 65% faster than a blue base? Is that seriously accurate?
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On February 23 2012 20:15 monkybone wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 20:05 Tobberoth wrote:
SCVs 40% more effective on gold, 6 patches instead of 8 means it mines out 25% faster... so a gold base should mine out 65% faster than a blue base? Is that seriously accurate? No, I don't understand what you are doing here. A gold patch will be mined out 40% faster, and hence the entire base will be mined out 40% faster.
Ah yes, right, because you use less SCVs because of fewer mineral patches.
Well, then my whole logic in this topic is completely wrecked since I assumed gold bases were balanced to mine out as slow as blue bases but give more minerals. This indeed does mean you will want to Mule blue bases as much as possible.
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I think the conclusion we're coming to is that you want to delay a dip in income for as long as possible. The total amount of minerals mined is the same no matter what. And now mules give the same amount for a gold or blue. Having money now is better than having that same money later, since you can use it now.
So people who are saying to mule the blue are saying so because if you mine out the gold first then your income will dip as opposed to if you mine out the blue first. Also, gold patches will mine out faster than blue patches by scvs.
However, I think another thing to take into account is completely mining out a patch. If a patch is mined out, you now have extra scvs that have to bounce around the other patches (and possibly not adding any income at all), which is also a dip in income. So I think the best thing to do would be to mule whatever patch will take the longest to mine out, regardless of whether it is gold or blue. So you'd have to find the ratio in the rate an scv mines a gold vs a blue. Then for every patch, adjust the minerals remaining with the ratio. Then whichever patch is the highest is the one you should mine. So actually it's not as black and white as blue and gold.
Although I think everyone would agree the real factor is to mine out whatever base is most vulnerable. However, assuming every base is safe, then the above method should be applied.
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On February 23 2012 05:09 Gov wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 05:04 grush57 wrote:
Wow. I thought I was supposed to mule on the closest. I know right? My mind has been blown... This might be a hard habit to break
It's really not... What's hard is dropping mules on blue rather than gold.
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On February 23 2012 20:26 monkybone wrote:
The bouncing around happens on every mineral field, it doesn't affect the difference between blue and gold bases. The differences that are already there, assuming ideal mining (no bouncing around), will remain the same because of this.
Yeah but if you completely mine out a patch, you are now increasing the amount of scvs bouncinng around, i.e. decreasing the income faster. Also assuming ideal mining, by mining out a patch, you now introduce unideal mining, which is also decreasing the income faster.
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I drop mine on whatever patch appears to have the least remaining minerals.
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On February 23 2012 20:37 naggerNZ wrote:
I drop mine on whatever patch appears to have the least remaining minerals.
More or less the worst possible tactic unless you're undersaturated, where it's still not beneficial.
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On February 23 2012 20:46 Tobberoth wrote:Show nested quote +On February 23 2012 20:37 naggerNZ wrote:
I drop mine on whatever patch appears to have the least remaining minerals. More or less the worst possible tactic unless you're undersaturated, where it's still not beneficial.
My bad. I mean't to say the opposite. I guess I should sober up.
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dropping mules on gold patches or close patches isnt gonna win or lose you any games nobody should really go crazy about it.
but mining out patches because your trying to use the "correct" method probably will
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I've seen forgg pull the first few mules of the game off the mineral line if they weren't going to make it back with the minerals. You may miss an extra return if you drop them on a very far patch to begin with, but you don't lose any either, in the sense of resources you'll never get out of said mineral patch. So long as you drop the mule on a mineral patch that'll get you the most amount of trips back and forth, does it matter? (assuming you have the apm to check and make sure it doesn't mine minerals on a trip where it'll expire without being able to return the minerals)
I don't think it matters as much in the later stages of the game though.
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United Kingdom38257 Posts
I drop on close patches early game when there's less going on and I can more reliably pull mules off before their last trip.
I drop on further patches later when I know there's more stuff to do and I'm more likely to miss the mule before it expires.
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I haven't seen any systematic information about which patches, on which maps, cause the MULE to overmine (collect 300 minerals, return only 270) - but in my testing, maps do matter. These are the results I've found, for the main base of the maps in the current map pool :
Antiga Shipyard : overmining on the 2 close patches
Cloud Kingdom : no overmining
Korhal Compound : no overmining
Entombed Valley : overmining on the 2 close patches
Metalopolis : overmining on the 4 close patches
Shakuras Plateau : overmining on the closest patch
Tal'darim Altar : overmining on the 2 close patches
Shattered Temple : overmining on the closest patch
This was done on the single player version on the maps (I expect they'll be the same as the ladder version, otherwise I guess my testing was useless). Further assumptions : all main bases work the same (I just picked a starting location at random, didn't test them all). No SCV was mining during that time, since I don't think SCV's interfere with MULEs.
So, on some maps it is OK to MULE the closest patches without worrying about overmining and losing 30 minerals.
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On February 26 2012 02:27 Fhaete wrote:
I haven't seen any systematic information about which patches, on which maps, cause the MULE to overmine (collect 300 minerals, return only 270) - but in my testing, maps do matter. These are the results I've found, for the main base of the maps in the current map pool :
Antiga Shipyard : overmining on the 2 close patches
Cloud Kingdom : no overmining
Korhal Compound : no overmining
Entombed Valley : overmining on the 2 close patches
Metalopolis : overmining on the 4 close patches
Shakuras Plateau : overmining on the closest patch
Tal'darim Altar : overmining on the 2 close patches
Shattered Temple : overmining on the closest patch
This was done on the single player version on the maps (I expect they'll be the same as the ladder version, otherwise I guess my testing was useless). Further assumptions : all main bases work the same (I just picked a starting location at random, didn't test them all). No SCV was mining during that time, since I don't think SCV's interfere with MULEs.
So, on some maps it is OK to MULE the closest patches without worrying about overmining and losing 30 minerals.
How many did you test per patch?
Just one mule? Just curious how solid this data is.
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On February 26 2012 02:45 wunsun wrote:Show nested quote +On February 26 2012 02:27 Fhaete wrote:
I haven't seen any systematic information about which patches, on which maps, cause the MULE to overmine (collect 300 minerals, return only 270) - but in my testing, maps do matter. These are the results I've found, for the main base of the maps in the current map pool :
Antiga Shipyard : overmining on the 2 close patches
Cloud Kingdom : no overmining
Korhal Compound : no overmining
Entombed Valley : overmining on the 2 close patches
Metalopolis : overmining on the 4 close patches
Shakuras Plateau : overmining on the closest patch
Tal'darim Altar : overmining on the 2 close patches
Shattered Temple : overmining on the closest patch
This was done on the single player version on the maps (I expect they'll be the same as the ladder version, otherwise I guess my testing was useless). Further assumptions : all main bases work the same (I just picked a starting location at random, didn't test them all). No SCV was mining during that time, since I don't think SCV's interfere with MULEs.
So, on some maps it is OK to MULE the closest patches without worrying about overmining and losing 30 minerals. How many did you test per patch? Just one mule? Just curious how solid this data is.
When the result seemed close, I tested twice. When it was not really close, just once. On that closest patch on Shakuras Plateau, I actually tested it 3 times, because the MULE was so close to completing its trip. But it failed every time. Breaks my heart.
If there is interest in this data, I could do more documented testing, on the multiplayer maps, etc. I just didn't want to go overboard at once, because it seems hard to believe no one has tested this before.
EDIT : re-reading your question, maybe you were asking how many MULEs were active ? Just one at a time. Whenever I was testing a patch, the MULE was the only thing mining in my base, and the SCV's were far away.
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EPT
