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Some Thoughts on Supply Drop - Page 9

Forum Index > SC2 General
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Funchucks
Profile Joined June 2007
Canada2113 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-16 00:38:27
April 13 2010 17:15 GMT
#161
On April 14 2010 01:54 Toran7 wrote:
Seems like a huge Zerg problem is overlord sniping, I can imagine that a static defenseless building like a supply dept could be sniped just as easily with clever drops and some unconventional harass.

They can solve both problems at once by letting you drop supply on overlords. That way, neither player will want to snipe them.

I think it should look like a bowler hat, and if it's on an overseer, it should get a monocle too.

edit: v My life is now complete. v
I serve my houseguests slices of butter.
metasonic
Profile Joined April 2010
United States115 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-13 17:59:50
April 13 2010 17:59 GMT
#162
^ i thought this had to be done ^
[image loading]
full
Diaspora
Profile Joined April 2010
United States140 Posts
April 13 2010 18:28 GMT
#163
I feel like the only reason to take up supply drop is an Oh Sh*t moment when you realize you are supply capped. The way that the OP describes supply drop being useful seems to be in mid to late game, but at that point scans are invaluable in finding expos or tech switches. I havent seen suitable evidence to change my game when it comes to supply drop, with the exception of fast rush builds that specify the use of supply drop to pump out units faster
hoovehand
Profile Joined April 2010
United Kingdom542 Posts
April 13 2010 18:59 GMT
#164
On March 27 2010 13:13 Tinithor wrote:
Even for like... a timing attack i feel like the extra minerals a mule brings in would be better for getting out more units FAST than the supply drop. I really don't see its uses in high level play (great for new players tho really, cause they already have trouble spending the minerals they have)


that depends on how fast you're mining gas. if you're having trouble spending the gas then you've got too many workers on gas etc...

overall i think mule is the best, especially when you're waiting to saturate a new expo. but supply drop could be favourable in certain situations.

the highest level sc2 replay i've seen (recently uploaded to youtube by husky - cellawerra vs 'boxer'), the terran player put supply drop on pretty much all of his depot's. the micro and macro of both players was far beyond the likes of idra, thelittleone, whitera etc, so it would be fair to call them high level. he used supply drop to good effect (also used a mech build against zerg to good effect).

i think the western hemisphere are suffering from mass flavour of the month noob cheese builds like massing roach/marauders, and people are bullied into making counter cheese and therefore the endless circles goes on. watching real top class players i've seen the game to be 'almost' perfectly balanced and pretty much any unit can be useful at high level unlike brood war.
Hot_Bid
Profile Blog Joined October 2003
Braavos36390 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-14 11:55:43
April 14 2010 11:55 GMT
#165
On April 14 2010 02:59 metasonic wrote:
^ i thought this had to be done ^
[image loading]
full

hahahahaha

this post deserves more recognition
@Hot_Bid on Twitter - ESPORTS life since 2010 - http://i.imgur.com/U2psw.png
Husky
Profile Blog Joined May 2009
United States3362 Posts
April 16 2010 00:17 GMT
#166
^ LOL
Commentaries: youtube.com/HuskyStarcraft
EntSC
Profile Joined November 2008
47 Posts
April 16 2010 00:23 GMT
#167
This is a bit random, but if a MULE gives 300 minerals, and a CC provides supply, plus can be lifted when an expo becomes secure enough to take, is there any worth in building spare CCs back in the main base and giving them the orbital upgrade to increase MULE production? They pay for themselves in a single mule over a supply depot, and the only cost is the extra time to build, the 300 mineral opportunity cost whilst you're recouping it through the first MULE, and the fact that you're using up more resources from the mineral patches (but if you can strip mine that much faster it might really help with securing expansions). Just a thought.
Thrill
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
2599 Posts
April 16 2010 00:27 GMT
#168
It should just add more HP to the building, not a huge buff.
MidKnight
Profile Joined December 2008
Lithuania884 Posts
April 16 2010 00:45 GMT
#169
On April 16 2010 09:27 Thrill wrote:
It should just add more HP to the building, not a huge buff.


Reducing supply depot HP by 100, but having supply drop increase hp by 200-250 and 1 armor might create an interesting tension between all 3 OC abilities.
You might require to use SD to wall-off more safely instead of an early mule, for example
Zeke50100
Profile Blog Joined February 2010
United States2220 Posts
April 16 2010 00:46 GMT
#170
On April 16 2010 09:23 EntSC wrote:
This is a bit random, but if a MULE gives 300 minerals, and a CC provides supply, plus can be lifted when an expo becomes secure enough to take, is there any worth in building spare CCs back in the main base and giving them the orbital upgrade to increase MULE production? They pay for themselves in a single mule over a supply depot, and the only cost is the extra time to build, the 300 mineral opportunity cost whilst you're recouping it through the first MULE, and the fact that you're using up more resources from the mineral patches (but if you can strip mine that much faster it might really help with securing expansions). Just a thought.


The 400 minerals can generally be used elsewhere in a more urgent manner; you would really only safely be able to do this if you were safely able to expand in the first place. If there was a timing window of dead silence for a couple minutes, you could invest in it; but then again, you would have invested in an expansion anyways, so it really isn't an additional strategy, just wording an old one differently.
peckham33
Profile Joined April 2010
United States267 Posts
April 17 2010 18:58 GMT
#171
400? where did the 400 come from? mule maxes at just over 300 if done perfectly. supply drop saves 100. so the only 400 i see is the difference in what you gain/save, which doesn't match what you are saying.
dead men tell no lies, and i am dead, yet i can talk so i must be alive, but i was just shot in the head five times so i must be dead, but if i am dead then all i have said must be true, so now i am dead and alive?
caution.slip
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States775 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-17 22:17:57
April 17 2010 22:17 GMT
#172
On April 18 2010 03:58 peckham33 wrote:
400? where did the 400 come from? mule maxes at just over 300 if done perfectly. supply drop saves 100. so the only 400 i see is the difference in what you gain/save, which doesn't match what you are saying.



if Starcraft were a game where getting economy is all that mattered then sure, you can build OCs in the back of your base. But why? Why not just build the OC at your expansion so you can get an OC (and the mules/supply) along with 8 new mineral patches and 2 new geysers

If you wanted to use a second OC just for more mules/supply drop/scan then you're investing 550 minerals in something that takes a long time to set up, and won't pay itsself off immediately. Which means you're out 4 marauders or 8 marines whatever else could have saved you when toss came knocking on your door
Live, laugh, love
peckham33
Profile Joined April 2010
United States267 Posts
April 18 2010 03:23 GMT
#173
On April 18 2010 07:17 caution.slip wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 18 2010 03:58 peckham33 wrote:
400? where did the 400 come from? mule maxes at just over 300 if done perfectly. supply drop saves 100. so the only 400 i see is the difference in what you gain/save, which doesn't match what you are saying.



if Starcraft were a game where getting economy is all that mattered then sure, you can build OCs in the back of your base. But why? Why not just build the OC at your expansion so you can get an OC (and the mules/supply) along with 8 new mineral patches and 2 new geysers

If you wanted to use a second OC just for more mules/supply drop/scan then you're investing 550 minerals in something that takes a long time to set up, and won't pay itsself off immediately. Which means you're out 4 marauders or 8 marines whatever else could have saved you when toss came knocking on your door


why did you quote that post? there is nothing you said that i see relating what you said to that post.
dead men tell no lies, and i am dead, yet i can talk so i must be alive, but i was just shot in the head five times so i must be dead, but if i am dead then all i have said must be true, so now i am dead and alive?
peckham33
Profile Joined April 2010
United States267 Posts
April 23 2010 02:06 GMT
#174
is this thread dead? bump
dead men tell no lies, and i am dead, yet i can talk so i must be alive, but i was just shot in the head five times so i must be dead, but if i am dead then all i have said must be true, so now i am dead and alive?
Con a la Bon
Profile Joined April 2010
Canada3 Posts
April 25 2010 06:50 GMT
#175
On April 16 2010 09:45 MidKnight wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 16 2010 09:27 Thrill wrote:
It should just add more HP to the building, not a huge buff.


Reducing supply depot HP by 100, but having supply drop increase hp by 200-250 and 1 armor might create an interesting tension between all 3 OC abilities.
You might require to use SD to wall-off more safely instead of an early mule, for example


I don't think they need to decrease the health of the SD just to make people use supply drop more often.

I think the increased health and armor is a great idea and should create some energy tension in the starting energy against zerg and baneling busts. The increased health and armor would obviously have to be chosen carefully to make everything balanced.

Right now banelings do 80 to buildings with SD's having 350HP, so 5 banelings can bust open a SD, With, say, a +150HP supply drop that would require 2 more banelings.

Also, having +1 armor would give it a little more durability against basic units and would be pretty decent with the +2 armor from the EB later on.
ComradeDover
Profile Joined November 2009
Bulgaria758 Posts
April 25 2010 07:44 GMT
#176
I'm a bit wary of the +1 armor idea. The thought that a lowly supply depot can be more resistant than an armory or a fusion core doesn't quite sit right with me. :/
Bring back 2v2s!
peckham33
Profile Joined April 2010
United States267 Posts
May 02 2010 01:56 GMT
#177
bump as there is another thread that is saying the same thing.
dead men tell no lies, and i am dead, yet i can talk so i must be alive, but i was just shot in the head five times so i must be dead, but if i am dead then all i have said must be true, so now i am dead and alive?
DeCoup
Profile Joined September 2006
Australia1933 Posts
May 02 2010 03:23 GMT
#178
On April 16 2010 09:23 EntSC wrote:
This is a bit random, but if a MULE gives 300 minerals, and a CC provides supply, plus can be lifted when an expo becomes secure enough to take, is there any worth in building spare CCs back in the main base and giving them the orbital upgrade to increase MULE production? They pay for themselves in a single mule over a supply depot, and the only cost is the extra time to build, the 300 mineral opportunity cost whilst you're recouping it through the first MULE, and the fact that you're using up more resources from the mineral patches (but if you can strip mine that much faster it might really help with securing expansions). Just a thought.

400 (cc) + 150 (oc) = 550. It takes 2 mules to pay for itself. But your point is still valid. Making additional OC for supply is a much better option than Supply Drop (assuming that you are not currently supply capped or need those minerals urgently).
"Poor guy. I really did not deserve that win. So this is what it's like to play Protoss..." - IdrA
ajfirecracker
Profile Joined May 2010
United States62 Posts
May 20 2010 20:45 GMT
#179
I've run the numbers and my MULES seem to get 270 from blue patches (9 trips of 30 each), which means that they've got 45 seconds until they hit (approximately) 135 minerals, which I believe is a good number to represent total direct costs of making a depot. This doesn't include indirect costs like giving up pumping scvs because you otherwise couldn't. (Although I do account for that below)

Building a depot takes about that much time (40 seconds near the CC, 50 seconds on the blistering sands choke, including travel time in both), and getting the depot instantly means you should get 3 SCV's worth of mining for about forty seconds, which should come out to 75-90 minerals (These comparative extra minerals hit while you're doing extra mining and pumping scv's instead of buying a depot), so the benefit of Supply Drop can be as little as ~120 minerals (if your SCV would be placed perfectly to build anyway, depot would be right on time, you'd be pumping SCV's the whole time) or as high as ~300 minerals (if you're both supply blocked and low on minerals while trying to pump scvs).

This high number comes from the fact that you have to wait almost 45 seconds before you can pay for the depot purely off a MULE and you have to wait about 40 seconds for the depot to come up, which means you give up pumping SCVs for as much as 85 seconds (In practice closer to 45-50, but it could be as high as 85), thus netting you approximately double the aforementioned 75-90 minerals you would get from pumping those SCVs earlier. Keep in mind, however, that whether it's 120 minerals or 300 minerals, the effective minerals from the supply drop hits much earlier than the effective minerals from the MULE, usually before you call the supply drop versus (on average) halfway through the MULE's lifespan.

In short, I think a well-made build would be likely to use supply drop for their first OC activation (the first depot has to be physical, as does the third if the second is dropped), and would likely use MULEs for the higher (but significantly slower) return after that. The most obvious builds to drop for your second depot are going to be 8-rax reapers and 10-rax 11 depot builds.

Of course, the possibility of mining out makes the depot preferable, but I don't think it's enough to really matter generally. And, if you've got a short life-span on some gold minerals, mining out with MULEs could be a pretty good thing.
peckham33
Profile Joined April 2010
United States267 Posts
May 21 2010 02:44 GMT
#180
i just noticed something when watching a replay of a tvt game from another thread: the are building supply depots like crazy early on and then forgetting about them to the point where a guy let his supply depots on his back side get sniped when his entire army was about 20 seconds away from the attacking units. this was a replay of a gold game.
dead men tell no lies, and i am dead, yet i can talk so i must be alive, but i was just shot in the head five times so i must be dead, but if i am dead then all i have said must be true, so now i am dead and alive?
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