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5 gate all in off 1 base?

Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy
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1 2 3 Next All
Baldey
Profile Joined May 2009
United States28 Posts
October 21 2010 21:37 GMT
#1
What the hell is this? i see so many good people do this but i dont understand why? you cant fund 5 gateways off 1 base from my expereince... 4 is plenty with some chronoboost, what else are you gona be using it for... can someone explain to me why people put down that 5th gateway so often?
Kolvacs
Profile Blog Joined June 2010
Canada1203 Posts
October 21 2010 21:38 GMT
#2
You actually can support 5 gateways.
You just chrono probes.

Whats the point of this post?
Railgan
Profile Joined August 2010
Switzerland1507 Posts
October 21 2010 21:39 GMT
#3
maybe their macro slips or something like that and they want to spend the minerals on zealots
Grandmaster Zerg from Switzerland!!! www.twitch.tv/railgan // www.twitter.com/railgansc // www.youtube.com/c/railgansc
tx.zyclon
Profile Joined August 2010
United States145 Posts
October 21 2010 21:42 GMT
#4
On October 22 2010 06:38 Kolvacs wrote:
You actually can support 5 gateways.
You just chrono probes.

Whats the point of this post?


I think if you read, he's wondering why people 5 gate off one base when he hasn't been able to fund it in his games. Pretty obvious.
Immaterial
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Canada510 Posts
October 21 2010 21:54 GMT
#5
The only time I'll ever build 5 gateways off of one base is if I'm doing some really lame zealot all-in strategy.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Parra
Profile Joined September 2010
United States152 Posts
October 21 2010 21:55 GMT
#6
Even the pros forget to warp in units off each cooldown, the extra warpgate will make up for the extra minerals/gas laying around.
Dudemeister
Profile Joined July 2010
Sweden314 Posts
October 21 2010 22:00 GMT
#7
with perfect macro 3 gates are enough for one base while constatly making workers.
Baldey
Profile Joined May 2009
United States28 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-21 22:04:43
October 21 2010 22:03 GMT
#8
well specifically im talking about this game set2: http://www.gomtv.net/2010gslopens2/vod/1207 . but ive seen 5 gate all in many times in the GSL and out.

to the person that says chronoboost probes, lol. btw the 5 gate was off a failed DT rush. extra probes never helped no one. i didnt mention it casue i think its assumed that by the time you have 5 gateways you already have full probe saturation.

and these people are too good to let their macro slip. with 16-20 probes per 8 mineral patches and both gasses fully saturated, 4 gateways with chronoboost is all i can produce out of. 3 i obviously start piling up minerals, 5 i always have a gateway not doing anything.

the only benefit i can see from a 5 gate all in is maybe over saturating probes and having the ability to warp in 5 units instead of 4 when you need them... but i dono if thats effective or if thats what they are doing casue i dont have access to their replays
wizard944
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
194 Posts
October 21 2010 22:07 GMT
#9
I'm pretty sure you can support 5 gates under two conditions:
1. You stop making probes
2. You constantly attack so that you're losing units and have no need to build pylons.
So if you are satisfying these two conditions, then this is truly an all-in in every sense of the term
Kassar DeTemplari
Baldey
Profile Joined May 2009
United States28 Posts
October 21 2010 22:17 GMT
#10
from my experience my 4 gate push has perfect macro. i stop building pylons around 60 supply, and i stop making probes about the time my 3rd gateway goes up. i prefer to have 1 assimilator till i have 20-22 probes in the mineral lines, then i stop probe production and make that second assimilator and put 3 probes on gas. leads to a pretty strong 4 gate push thats gotten me top 10 diamond... ive never had the need for a 5th gateway to keep up with my macro, infact sometimes 4 gates seems like a bit too many. but 3 is definitely too few for me and u cant have 3 and a half...
StrikerZero
Profile Joined July 2010
United States4 Posts
October 22 2010 00:13 GMT
#11
5 gate means that you'll go heavier on sentries to make up for not being afford 5 stalkers everytime.
Cyber_Cheese
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Australia3615 Posts
October 22 2010 00:17 GMT
#12
if 5 gate didnt work, i doubt the pros would be doing it
its just more all-in than the 4-gate is all
(unless they expod)
The moment you lose confidence in yourself, is the moment the world loses it's confidence in you.
vohne
Profile Joined September 2010
Philippines197 Posts
October 22 2010 00:22 GMT
#13
On October 22 2010 07:07 wizard944 wrote:
I'm pretty sure you can support 5 gates under two conditions:
1. You stop making probes
2. You constantly attack so that you're losing units and have no need to build pylons.
So if you are satisfying these two conditions, then this is truly an all-in in every sense of the term


You're absolutely right. This 5 gate is pretty much an all in, I have done this. it also involves a lot of sentries.
TwentyAPM
Profile Joined August 2010
United States17 Posts
October 22 2010 00:53 GMT
#14
if you go zealot/sentry you can afford to support it going all-in, if you make stalkers you can't unless your macro slips.
ltortoise
Profile Joined August 2010
633 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-10-22 01:44:23
October 22 2010 01:20 GMT
#15
This is depressingly simple. Allow me to explain how with 15 paragraphs.
(thank you eckm!)

No, you can't support five gateways off of 1 base. Let's do some math, shall we? Maybe we will learn something from it.

A saturated Protoss base (24 probes on 8 mineral patches, and 6 probes on 2 geysers) gets 13.6 minerals per second, and 3.8 gas per second.

Now let's look at what a unit costs to produce continuously. We will disregard HT's and DT's because obviously they will be more expensive. We will also disregard chrono boost because that would make things worse. We seek only a combination of units that we can continuously produce off of 5 gateways, with all gateways in continuous usage.

(there is some rounding but it should be good enough for you people. anybody who could appreciate the difference would never think that 5 gates could be supported anyway)

A Zealot costs 100 minerals and has a 28 second warp gate cooldown. So a Zealot costs 3.57 minerals per second.

Similarly, a Stalker costs 3.9 minerals per second and 1.56 gas per second.
Sentry is 1.56 minerals per second and 3.125 gas per second.

There is no combination of 5 of these units such that your minerals will stay below 13.6 per second and your gas will stay below 3.8 per second.

Proof:
It is easy to see that some number of Sentries will be required, since 5 zealots would cost 17.85 minerals per second, and stalkers cost more minerals per second than zealots.

You can have at most 1.216 warp gates producing sentries due to gas restrictions (3.8 / 3.125). Assume this is the case. Thus, you need 3.784 warpgates producing Zealot/Stalker. The sentries leave you with 11.7 minerals per second. However, constant Zealot production out of the remaining 3.784 warpgates would equate to 13.51 minerals per second (we're assuming zealots since they are cheaper than stalkers in terms of minerals per second). Notice that decreasing the amount of sentries produced would increase the mineral cost further, since Sentries have the cheapest mineral/min. Thus, we have a contradiction since the 3.784 warpgates of zealot production + the 1.216 warpgates of sentry production put us at 15.4 minerals per second.

QED.

And this is extremely generous, too. I'm not even including pylon construction or probe construction! JUST the units!

Edit: I forgot to answer the OP's question. If you can't support 5 gateways off 1 base, why do good players and even professionals sometimes do it?

Answer: Because even professionals and good players slip up on macro. To spend all their money, they will need more gateways than they can support. Once they drop back down to low money, they will end up with a useless gateway unless they expanded.
eckm
Profile Joined May 2010
United States72 Posts
October 22 2010 01:39 GMT
#16
This is depressingly simple. Allow me to explain how with 15 paragraphs
turn on, tune in, drop out
tournamentnow
Profile Joined August 2010
Australia111 Posts
October 22 2010 01:47 GMT
#17
The 5 gate was there because he was planning to float some minerals and use it all up by warping 5 units at once. by the time JMC (iron) planted a pylon close to opponent's natural rock, 5 gate would still be viable because he knew he needed to warp in extra sentry, and he would have excess minerals. besides one base oversaturation produces excess minerals. 5 gate made sense, because the timing of resources flow in too fast
Gimpb
Profile Joined August 2010
293 Posts
October 22 2010 01:56 GMT
#18
It seems you've proven that you can't fully support 5 gateways. However, (and please correct me if I'm wrong), you could support 4.5 gateways worth of zealot sentry assuming you're not building probes or other stuff and are loosing units fast enough that pylons are unnecessary.

So if the value that can be supported is more than 4 but less than 5, building 5 doesn't seem unreasonable.
FakeDouble
Profile Blog Joined September 2010
Australia676 Posts
October 22 2010 02:17 GMT
#19
...And all because of the 5 second cooldown increase in zealot warp-in from patch 1.1

28*4/23 = 4.87 zealots compared to 4 zealots before. Sure, sentries change this a bit, but now zealots cost less per minute.

Formerly known as carbonaceous
ltortoise
Profile Joined August 2010
633 Posts
October 22 2010 02:31 GMT
#20
On October 22 2010 10:56 Gimpb wrote:
It seems you've proven that you can't fully support 5 gateways. However, (and please correct me if I'm wrong), you could support 4.5 gateways worth of zealot sentry assuming you're not building probes or other stuff and are loosing units fast enough that pylons are unnecessary.

So if the value that can be supported is more than 4 but less than 5, building 5 doesn't seem unreasonable.


Seems pretty unreasonable to me. You're wasting half a production cycle off a warp gate, and the "build" requires you to suicide at least 3 units (of your zealot/sentry) every 14.5 RL seconds (i did the math) or else you'll get supply blocked.

If your opponent can defend efficiently, their army will quickly simply be larger than yours, because yours cannot grow. It can only be replenished.
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