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I have seen some replays where terrans will just go 9 or 10 rax into fast OC, with no rush thoughts whatsoever. Yes you have to cut probes but you will get your mule and rax much faster. How much economy do you really sacrifice or do you at all? So I've done a bit of research on the subject.
Map: Kulas Ravine, bottom position.
First I compared both builds as simple as possible (to cut down on interfering factors): no gas at all, only single supply depot, one marine, 1 scv on scout mission and up to 16 scvs mining.
BO's
+ Show Spoiler +9 rax BO:
9 rax
11 supply depot
11 rax building scv - scouting
11 OC (you would have 160 or so minerals once rax gets done)
11 marine
scvs to 18
12 rax BO
10 supply
12 rax
15 stop scvs for some seconds for OC
15 OC
15 marine
scvs to 18
Here are some timings:
-----------------------------9rax/12rax
12th worker was done: 2:51/1:46
16th worker was done: 3:59/3:32
OC finished: 2:33/3:14
Here are amouts of minerals in bank at specific time:
9rax: Minerals/Supply - 12rax Minerals/Supply
2:00: 25M/11S - 40M/14S
3:00: 350M/14S - 270M/16S
4:00: 890M/17S - 870M/18S
5:00: 1675M/18S - 1695M/18S
Conclusions:
1) 9 rax allows for 41 seconds earlier OC which should result in 4 additional mule trips which is 120 minerals. On the other hand u will be on 11 workers untill it finishes.
2) 9 rax results in overall 27 seconds delay in scv production, which is 1,58 scv.
3) As you can see from minerals mined if you stop producing scvs at 18 both builds will neerly brake even. 9 rax was ahead at first because of faster OC but 12 cought up and have ended up slightly ahead because of those 1,58 scvs.
In another test I expanded the limits to taking both gases, making tech lab on rax, scvs to 31 supply.
Basic BO's
+ Show Spoiler +basic 9 rax BO:
9 rax - scouting afterwards
11 supply depot
11 OC (you would have 160 or so minerals once rax gets done)
11 1st gas
11 marine
scvs not stop
tech lab as soon as 25 gas.
2nd gas shortly after 1st is done, no hard timing here, it can be done faster if needed.
basic 12 rax BO
10 supply - scouting afterwards
12 rax
14 1st gas
15 stop scvs for some seconds for OC
15 OC
15 marine
non stop scvs after OC, when money allow 2nd gas
as soon as marine is out - tech lab
* - in reaper build marine is not built and gas is starte on 13
The core timings remained the same:
-----------------------------9rax/12rax
12th worker was done: 2:51/1:46
16th worker was done: 3:59/3:32
OC finished: 2:33/3:14
Added:
-----------------------------9rax/12rax
Tech lab: 3:23/3:29
1st gas finished: 2:40/2:34
2nd gas finished: 3:33/3:49
Resourses and supply:
9rax: Minerals/Gas/Supply - 12rax Minerals/Gas/Supply
3:14: 135M/31G/15S - 60M/43G/17S - time of OC from 12rax build being completed.
4:00: 260M/159G/17S - 280M/143G/19S
5:00: 600M/387G/21S - 670M/371G/23S
6:00: 1125M/619G/24S - 1320M/603G/26S
7:00: 1815M/851G/28S - 2045M/831G/30S
8:00: 2620M1083G/31S - 2930M/1063G/31S
*I took into account units being qued and structures being made or completed when calculating resourses at bank so these numbers are comparable.
Conclusion:
Scvs taken to gas push saturation much further and thus allow for 1,58 spare scvs to kick in much faster. In 4 minutes 12 rax will be already ahead in minerals but slightly behind in gas. In 8 minutes it will be ahead by nearly 300 minerals but with even worker count. On the other hand terrans are already rich in minerals so losing 1 scan in the very long run is not that costy. The point of most economic advantage of 9 rax build is 3:14, after that it starts losing ground. As far as resourses in the begining of the game are more valuable than later on 9 rax build is still economically viable in some situations. For example if you plan to expand really early.
Generally the 9rax build has the following pros/cons:
Pros:
- Gives you early economical advantage as the mule is built faster.
- Gives you early raxes which: makes you imune to any sort of early game rush by the opponent, allows you to bunker rush the opponent, can force opponent to cut eco because of the dange of being rushed (expect some opponents to overreact), screws the opponents timings.
- Gives you 2nd gas much faster.
Cons:
- cuts 1,58 scvs. In 4 minutes you will be economically behind and in 8 will be behind by 300 minerals.
- 1st gas is 6 seconds later.
P.S. On Kulas Ravine with 9 rax build you can have a loaded bunker (1 marine) in the opponents nat in 3:20. With 14 pool the zerg has his lings in his nat at 3:34. I think that 9 rax can be mainstream opening vs zerg and at least viable vs others.
P.P.S.
Reaper timings
+ Show Spoiler +Solid BO: On April 22 2010 00:20 FortuneSyn wrote:
9 rax
11 refinery
OC
11 supply
tech lab
reaper + scvs.
delay putting the 2nd and 3rd scvs in the refinery slightly so u get exactly 50/25 for tech lab.. Fast BO On April 22 2010 03:21 GreggSauce wrote:
the fastest reaper build is
9 barracks
9 refinary
scv
10 supply depot
scvs to gas
scv
tech lab
scv/oc
reaper
The core timings remained the same:
-----------------------------9rax/12rax/9rax-reaper(solid)/9rax-reaper(fast)
16th worker was done: 3:59/3:32/4:04/4:23
OC finished: 2:33/3:14/2:34/3:49
1st gas finished: 2:40/2:34/1:58/1:41
Tech lab: 3:23/3:11/2:47/2:31
Reaper out: -/3:52/3:27/3:14
Solid build: So basicly you get reaper out in 25 seconds faster for 32 seconds (only, compare with standard 9 rax build) delay in scv production = 1,88 scvs.
Fast build: By the time you get your reaper in production (which is 13 seconds faster) you will have a choice: have idle CC and accumulate minerals for OC or build scvs and delay OC. If you delay OC it will be late by 1:15 secs compared to solid build... delay in workers is 51 seconds = 3.00 scvs. If you delay scvs you will be down by 4.2 scvs and OC will be late by 1:01. So basicly you have to kill 3 workers in 12 seconds or solid build is better.
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excellent post, will experiment with 9rax when betakey allows
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Thanks cheerio, this is a great post! I love that even the most basic of openings (rax or depo first, pool or hatch) are still up for debate as to which is more effective in an agressive/eco situation.
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Hmm, that's odd cause according to my findings you will not be ahead in minerals mined at ANY point if you go for OC earlier. Going for Rax so early that you have to cut SCVs to build it (or when waiting for the Depot to finish) will cripple you economically and the earlier OC will not save you. The ONLY way to get an early economical advantage is to delay the OC, not build it earlier.
I do believe earlier rax builds are more viable thanks to the earlier OC gained from it, but it won't be as good as a normally timed or even delayed OC at any point.
Here's a graph of how they fare against eachother (worst one is 6rax): http://pici.se/pictures/fQXxhZuJz.jpg (edit: oops, accidentally cut off the actual values of the y-axis. each level is 500 minerals.)
X-axis time in game seconds, Y-axis total minerals MINED since the start.
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On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
The ONLY way to get an early economical advantage is to delay the OC, not build it earlier.
It can't be true. The OC economically is a big scv, if you constantly recast it. It has build time of 35 (twice of scv) and mines at speed 3minerals/second. Scvs mine at speed 0,75minerals per second. 4 times mining speed for 2 times build time and 3 times cost. OC gives eco advantage over scv production, it's a hard fact.
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On April 21 2010 21:46 Cheerio wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
The ONLY way to get an early economical advantage is to delay the OC, not build it earlier.
It can't be true. The OC economically is a big scv, if you constantly recast it. It has build time of 35 (twice of scv) and mines at speed 3minerals/second. Scvs mine at speed 0,75minerals per second. 4 times mining speed for 2 times build time and 3 times cost. OC gives eco advantage over scv production, it's a hard fact.
Then you should ask yourself why not EVERYONE goes 6 rax instead, since there are no drawbacks.
The truth is that it is possible to cut too many SCV's to get the OC. The Mule is like 4.5 SCV's, but its true strength lies in mining effectively in already saturated bases. Adding a SCV to a mineral line with 16 SCV's in it will be like adding 0.4 SCV's, but the effectiveness of the Mule is unchanged. Saturating your base and then building the OC is not that bad.
All my builds didn't account for the cost of the OC since all of them eventually got it. I also made them when I underestimated the mining rate of SCV's, so the ones who get the OC later should be slightly stronger than what is shown. edit: Not actually that certain though. Won't be any big changes anyway. The trends will be the same.
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On April 21 2010 21:58 HeyheyLBJ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 21:46 Cheerio wrote:On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
The ONLY way to get an early economical advantage is to delay the OC, not build it earlier.
It can't be true. The OC economically is a big scv, if you constantly recast it. It has build time of 35 (twice of scv) and mines at speed 3minerals/second. Scvs mine at speed 0,75minerals per second. 4 times mining speed for 2 times build time and 3 times cost. OC gives eco advantage over scv production, it's a hard fact. Then you should ask yourself why not EVERYONE goes 6 rax instead, since there are no drawbacks.
There is a huge difference between cutting to get smthing faster and building something instead of something to get it faster. As soon as OC is available it should be made right away, there are no drawbacks. But cutting scvs to get barracks faster and thus OC faster is a drawback. Obvious decision is to have non-stop production on your CC. But obvious is not always best. It would be obvious to build non-stop probes with chronoboost for perfect economy yet a lot of players cut probes for 10 gate in pvz and chronoboost zealots. And terrans even have short term eco benefit for cutting. 9 rax is heavily overlooked in tvz imo.
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Zurich15307 Posts
On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
Hmm, that's odd cause according to my findings you will not be ahead in minerals mined at ANY point if you go for OC earlier. Going for Rax so early that you have to cut SCVs to build it (or when waiting for the Depot to finish) will cripple you economically and the earlier OC will not save you.
Why don't you post these findings then? The OP made a pretty clear case for 9rax vs 12rax. If you disagree please present figures that support your point.
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Interesting, thanks for the input !
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It's pretty obvious that a 12 rax is far economically superior to 9 rax as stopped scv production is a hefty longtime economic loss while the earlier OC is only a shorttime gain.
This would be more interesting if you compared a fast reaper build with a normal 12 rax build. Since the reapers give you a indirect advantage by killing their workers you could then see how many workers you would need to kill roughly to have a reaper build be economically better then a non-reaper build.
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It's pretty obvious that a 12 rax is far economically superior to 9 rax as stopped scv production is a hefty longtime economic loss while the earlier OC is only a shorttime gain.
It's a bit more complex than that, see Cheerio's post above:
It can't be true. The OC economically is a big scv, if you constantly recast it. It has build time of 35 (twice of scv) and mines at speed 3minerals/second. Scvs mine at speed 0,75minerals per second. 4 times mining speed for 2 times build time and 3 times cost. OC gives eco advantage over scv production, it's a hard fact.
He's framing this question as "Is it worth cutting back on SCV production so that can get the equivalent of 4SCVs earlier?" Also, the MULE becomes worth more than 4 SCVs once you have more than 1 SCV per patch (since the added benefit for additional SCVs becomes less than linear).
In any case, I am really curious about the question of "If you go 9rax->reaper, how many workers do you have to kill to make it worthwhile?"
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On April 21 2010 22:18 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
Hmm, that's odd cause according to my findings you will not be ahead in minerals mined at ANY point if you go for OC earlier. Going for Rax so early that you have to cut SCVs to build it (or when waiting for the Depot to finish) will cripple you economically and the earlier OC will not save you. Why don't you post these findings then? The OP made a pretty clear case for 9rax vs 12rax. If you disagree please present figures that support your point.
I posted a graph of total amounts mined with the different openings.
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On April 21 2010 22:16 Cheerio wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 21:58 HeyheyLBJ wrote:On April 21 2010 21:46 Cheerio wrote:On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
The ONLY way to get an early economical advantage is to delay the OC, not build it earlier.
It can't be true. The OC economically is a big scv, if you constantly recast it. It has build time of 35 (twice of scv) and mines at speed 3minerals/second. Scvs mine at speed 0,75minerals per second. 4 times mining speed for 2 times build time and 3 times cost. OC gives eco advantage over scv production, it's a hard fact. Then you should ask yourself why not EVERYONE goes 6 rax instead, since there are no drawbacks. There is a huge difference between cutting to get smthing faster and building something instead of something to get it faster. As soon as OC is available it should be made right away, there are no drawbacks. But cutting scvs to get barracks faster and thus OC faster is a drawback. Obvious decision is to have non-stop production on your CC. But obvious is not always best. It would be obvious to build non-stop probes with chronoboost for perfect economy yet a lot of players cut probes for 10 gate in pvz and chronoboost zealots. And terrans even have short term eco benefit for cutting. 9 rax is heavily overlooked in tvz imo.
You're building rax instead of depot, which will cut back on your SCV production. Are you saying you can have the same amount of SCV's 9-raxing as you can 10-depoting?
I don't really get what you're saying at all. We're discussing it from an econommical standpoint here and you go talking about chronoboosting zealots...
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On April 21 2010 21:02 Cheerio wrote:
Here are some timings:
-----------------------------9rax/12rax
12th worker was done: 2:51/1:46
16th worker was done: 3:59/3:32
OC finished: 2:33/3:14
Here are amouts of minerals in bank at specific time:
9rax: Minerals/Supply - 12rax Minerals/Supply
2:00: 25M/11S - 40M/14S
3:00: 350M/14S - 270M/16S
4:00: 895M/17S - 870M/18S
5:00: 1675M/18S - 1680M/18S.
sorry, im having a hard time following your data. shouldn't the scv have finished at 3:31 if the oc finished at 3:14 for the 12 rax player, and if the 12th worker was finished for the 9 rax player at 2:51 how did that player create 2 scv's in 9 seconds.
i am probably just greatly misunderstanding something
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On April 21 2010 23:41 Markwerf wrote:
It's pretty obvious that a 12 rax is far economically superior to 9 rax as stopped scv production is a hefty longtime economic loss while the earlier OC is only a shorttime gain.
This would be more interesting if you compared a fast reaper build with a normal 12 rax build. Since the reapers give you a indirect advantage by killing their workers you could then see how many workers you would need to kill roughly to have a reaper build be economically better then a non-reaper build.
What is the solid build order for reaper rush?
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Not taking the Minerals into account 9 Rax is the only SAFE build in TvT without going marauders against reapers. Furthermore i always go 9 Rax, 1 Reaper -> marine->maraud against protoss and the transitioning works perfectly with that.
Vs Z i just fail to win because i have no solid game plan ;/.
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@Cheerio:
Did you come across http://sc2tacop.site90.net/edition1/index.php ?
Click load and import the following:
9rax
9 rax| 0.8.0.14593| terran| un0| un0| un0| bu3| un0| un0| bu1| fl0| fl0| fl22| mo0| fl0| un1| un0| ab0| un0| un0| un0| un0| un0
12rax, I sent the scout at about the same timestamp as it is with 9rax
12 rax| 0.8.0.14593| terran| un0| un0| un0| un0| bu1| un0| fl0| un0| bu3| un0| fl22| un0| un0| fl1| mo0| un1| un0| ab0| un0
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On April 22 2010 00:05 CheeC[h] wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 21:02 Cheerio wrote:
Here are some timings:
-----------------------------9rax/12rax
12th worker was done: 2:51/1:46
16th worker was done: 3:59/3:32
OC finished: 2:33/3:14
Here are amouts of minerals in bank at specific time:
9rax: Minerals/Supply - 12rax Minerals/Supply
2:00: 25M/11S - 40M/14S
3:00: 350M/14S - 270M/16S
4:00: 895M/17S - 870M/18S
5:00: 1675M/18S - 1680M/18S. sorry, im having a hard time following your data. shouldn't the scv have finished at 3:31 if the oc finished at 3:14 for the 12 rax player, and if the 12th worker was finished for the 9 rax player at 2:51 how did that player create 2 scv's in 9 seconds. i am probably just greatly misunderstanding something
scv was finished not at 3:31 but at 3:32 is that a big difference? 1 sec took me to react and send a mule, only after that I had scv being constructed.
3:00: 350M/14S - 270M/16S
This is not number of scvs, this is supply. 1 supply is marine. The other one is the next SCV being constructed.
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Here is a solid BO for reaper rush:
9 rax
11 refinery
OC
11 supply
tech lab
reaper + scvs.
delay putting the 2nd and 3rd scvs in the refinery slightly so u get exactly 50/25 for tech lab..
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On April 21 2010 23:59 HeyheyLBJ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 21 2010 22:16 Cheerio wrote:On April 21 2010 21:58 HeyheyLBJ wrote:On April 21 2010 21:46 Cheerio wrote:On April 21 2010 21:32 HeyheyLBJ wrote:
The ONLY way to get an early economical advantage is to delay the OC, not build it earlier.
It can't be true. The OC economically is a big scv, if you constantly recast it. It has build time of 35 (twice of scv) and mines at speed 3minerals/second. Scvs mine at speed 0,75minerals per second. 4 times mining speed for 2 times build time and 3 times cost. OC gives eco advantage over scv production, it's a hard fact. Then you should ask yourself why not EVERYONE goes 6 rax instead, since there are no drawbacks. There is a huge difference between cutting to get smthing faster and building something instead of something to get it faster. As soon as OC is available it should be made right away, there are no drawbacks. But cutting scvs to get barracks faster and thus OC faster is a drawback. Obvious decision is to have non-stop production on your CC. But obvious is not always best. It would be obvious to build non-stop probes with chronoboost for perfect economy yet a lot of players cut probes for 10 gate in pvz and chronoboost zealots. And terrans even have short term eco benefit for cutting. 9 rax is heavily overlooked in tvz imo. You're building rax instead of depot, which will cut back on your SCV production. Are you saying you can have the same amount of SCV's 9-raxing as you can 10-depoting? I don't really get what you're saying at all. We're discussing it from an econommical standpoint here and you go talking about chronoboosting zealots...
Yes, economically 12 rax is better. Can we go on now to see the big picture?
P.S. gone testing reaper rush trade-off.
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EPT
