Howdy everyone, so I just made a discovery of something that has actually caused me to lose games before but that I've never seen discussed before on TL, here we go:

I've made the discovery that queuing construction commands on SCVs that are already constructing another building will only issue commands to the SCV that is closest to the new command. This seems to work in a similar fashion to how the Warp Gate that is closest to the unit being warped in is the one who will be used to warp in the unit.

How to replicate:

Have multiple SCVs constructing multiple buildings, select all the SCVs(easiest way is to box all the buildings in one shot) and then without using shift order them to build more buildings.

Let's say you try it with 2 scvs constructing 2 buildings, you will notice that if each SCV is closest to one of the buildings both buildings will be constructed, but if only one SCV is closest to both buildings, the second construction command will override the first one and the second SCV will not be involved in the commands at all.

Here's a few example photos:

When the commands were given, each individual SCV was closest to one of the barracks, no commands were overridden and all 3 SCVs were given a command. Each SCV proceeded to build their own second barracks after finishing their first one.
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When the commandss were given, only one SCV was closest to all 3 barracks, meaning every new command overrode a previous command, as such only the top SCV received any commands(one, followed by another to replace the first, then a third to replace the second) while the other 2 SCVs received no commands. This resulted in only one barracks being built.
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After issuing 3 commands to build 3 barracks next to each other, only the last one remains registered.
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This is the result. 1 barracks being built with 2 SCVs following their previous commands (which were nonexistant so they remain idle).
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This was the result that we wanted to achieve when issuing the 3 commands.
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Things to note:

This is in stark contrast to how SCVs that are doing another command (idle, mining, attacking, moving, hold position) are given orders. In this case if you box 3 SCVs and command them to build 3 barracks, the positions of the SCVs don't matter at all. However if you command 3 SCVs to build 4 barracks, then the barracks command that will be overridden to make place for the new command IS based on positioning, meaning if 3 SCVs are moving toward a ramp to quickly build 3 supply depots and you instead try to tell the SCVs to build 3 supply depots in another location, all 3 of those commands will be issued instead to the SCV building the supply depot closest to the SCVs at the time of command. This means if you quickly command 3 supply depots to be built for say an emergency wall, but you accidentally misplaced the one farthest from the SCVs, you would have to realize the situation, understand the mechanics, order a new command (such as move command) to the SCVs that are going to build these 3 supply depots then reposition all 3 depots, or alternatively select the individual SCV that is set to construct the misplaced depot and fix it immediately.

Why/How this matters:

Situation 1:
I'd assume a very large majority of Terrans shift queue their SCVs to a new command when it is constructing a building, with most of the time this command being to return to mine. Because of this if I say had 2 barracks building and I want to construct 2 barracks right after, I cannot quickly order my 2 SCVs to construct the 2 new barracks without either positioning the new barracks properly based on the existing position of the SCVs, issuing a move command to cancel out the return to mine command before issuing the construct barracks commands while holding shift (causing wasted travel time for the SCVs instead of going straight to the construct commands) or just using shift to issue the commands right away, causing the SCVs to return to the minerals, mine and then go to construct the new barracks.

Situation 2:
An attack is coming and I have very little time to issue commands to build a wall or I'm dead (good example is a second wall for a baneling bust). If I box 10 SCVs and order them to construct 3 barracks, but the farthest barracks is misplaced, I would have to either issue new commands to all 10 SCVs such as a move command followed by a shift command to issue new construct commands for all barracks or find the individual SCV set to construct the misplaced barracks and replace his command with a new one, or the third option and probably the best is to select all 3 SCVs set to construct new barracks, give them a new move command to cancel the existing command then hold shift to give new construct barracks commands.

What is your opinion on this?

dNa

Germany591 Posts

February 25 2012 10:02 GMT

oh god that pisses me off all the time, i most of the time have 2 scvs building supplydepots at once, i think 1 out of 5 games that happens to me then. Now i know why, thank you :p

i don't really think it's a big deal, i mean you very rarely will lose games off of that, but it definetely adds up the actions you have to waste on building shit in your base, which is annoying, they should definetely fix it ^.^

Ethalion

Norway14 Posts

February 25 2012 10:17 GMT

How does it work if you hold down shift while issuing the command? Will the closest SCV build all three, one by one, or will they get one each? I believe they will get one each, which means the problem should be solved.

Ghyslyn

Canada130 Posts

February 25 2012 10:27 GMT

On February 25 2012 19:17 Ethalion wrote:
How does it work if you hold down shift while issuing the command? Will the closest SCV build all three, one by one, or will they get one each? I believe they will get one each, which means the problem should be solved.

They get one each, the problem is the commands will be added to any existing command, so if you gave any other order before wanting to order them to build new things (such as return to mine) they would go do that order and then go build the new buildings.

Also in the case of SCVs being sent from the mineral line and a building needing to be repositioned, There's no easy way to fix it.

Ethalion

Norway14 Posts

February 25 2012 10:32 GMT

In those situations I usually just right click once close to where I want the building built, and then shift+click the command. It's of course not always optimal, but it's not a big problem really, and it's one of the things that slightly rewards the players with better mechanics, which is good.

iTzSnypah

United States1738 Posts

February 25 2012 10:37 GMT

Thats why you just box workers and hit BB+click in a repeating fashion over and over again, then shift click back to minerals...its how i've always done it. IF you click BB+shift then click scvs will finish mining a patch before creating...

phiinix

United States1169 Posts

February 25 2012 19:23 GMT

I've never queued 2 buildings before with multiple scvs, but nice find. I don't think this affects higher level players as much, because they generally don't/wouldn't need to build like 4 rax, only 2 at a time. if they have money for 4 rax, they'd build 4 rax.

RoboBob

United States798 Posts

February 25 2012 20:48 GMT

Well everything you said was certainly true. It's just another reason why its a bad idea to have queue. But I don't think it should be changed.

Yes, you can lose some games if you fail to queue up new buildings properly. But you also need to consider that even if Blizzard changed that, then you would start losing games because SCVs would start wasting travel time when moving towards queued construction sites.

Tenks

United States3104 Posts

February 25 2012 20:58 GMT

I always wondered why that happened with my supply depots. Thanks for the write up.

Cyro

United Kingdom20326 Posts

February 25 2012 21:06 GMT

#10

Thanks for post, another "weird as shit" thing that fights against you with ai, good to understand what these are and how to avoid them instead of randomly noticing your extra barracks did not infact start building 20 seconds ago

blackberry_

114 Posts

February 25 2012 21:28 GMT

#11

Another case of Derpy SCVs

That's only happened to me a couple of times. Slight nuisance.

Ghyslyn

Canada130 Posts

February 26 2012 08:35 GMT

#12

On February 26 2012 04:23 phiinix wrote:
I've never queued 2 buildings before with multiple scvs, but nice find. I don't think this affects higher level players as much, because they generally don't/wouldn't need to build like 4 rax, only 2 at a time. if they have money for 4 rax, they'd build 4 rax.

This is specifically the situation that's an issue for me. I was building 2 rax and in the last couple of seconds of their construction wanted to build 2 more, but this issue came up and then when I expected to have 4 rax ready to go I only had 3. Had to GG right there.

You should also consider that this happens regardless of which buildings you wanna make. A better example is probably building 2 supply depots at a time, if you have 2 supply depots building and you want the same SCVs to build 2 more right after, this would become an issue.

foxSC

United States60 Posts

February 26 2012 08:52 GMT

#13

i dont understand the problem...it works fine if you just select and hit bb+click doesnt it? why would you do it any other way? you dont need to use shift at all for queueing buildings or telling workers to go to minerals afterwards..i never use shift that way i dont see why you would either?

HungrySC2

United States191 Posts

February 26 2012 09:16 GMT

#14

You will never hear of a high ranking player having these problems.

You shouldn't have the money to tell any worker to build more than 1 thing at a time. If you do. You're doing it wrong.

Say you an emergency wall needs to go up. It's common sense to NOT use the shift command. Without it SCVs do what they are told to do immediately. (occasionally they get in each other's way but that's easy to deal with)