My question is: Is having an expo or 2 on a map like this a bad idea?
I've not seen expo's mixing mins (though i'm sure there have been). But is that because its generally not a good idea?
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Archivian
United Kingdom362 Posts
My question is: Is having an expo or 2 on a map like this a bad idea? I've not seen expo's mixing mins (though i'm sure there have been). But is that because its generally not a good idea? | ||
ScrubS
Netherlands436 Posts
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StormsInJuly
Sweden165 Posts
If you want to experiment with mineral placements, look at the scbw map Baekmagoji, it had very unique mineral placements where mining certain patches would unlock more mineral patches that were hidden in the back. Again though, mules would allow you to deplete specific patches much faster than the other races so it would definitely be a terran advantage. Ofcourse, having a slight terran advantage doesn't break the whole map, as long as you take it into consideration | ||
Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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Archivian
United Kingdom362 Posts
I was planing to have this expo very open on both sides, its upside and down side is the grass on both sides (LOS blocker). If Terran was defending with siege and 1 air unit would do quite well, But the attaker just has to take the Air unit out to cripple the defense. Protoss defence with collossus it pretty strong too, also collossus means air units wouldnt be needed. But their expensive and if you build them to protect an expo, then your not using them anywhere else. Zerg defence, well if they creep it all then vision isnt an issue. Though broodlords would give the vision and range to make a good defence if its not creeped. Defending it well would require some bigger spending on expensive units, so in some ways it comes down to how long can you get away with having it with no-one knowing before it actually starts to become an expense. | ||
iGrok
United States5142 Posts
On December 06 2010 02:30 Barrin wrote: ScrubS and StormsInJuly explained it quite well. Also you have a few too many mineral patches in that example o.O Well not really, as long as you put it in a place that's very difficult to defend. I have been thinking about having a 9 mineral patch main though. I honestly think it would greatly alleviate zerg's "need" to take such an early expansion and that an in-base hatch before expanding would be rather viable. Mains need to stay at 8 mineral patches. The reason for this is that anything else screws up timings like no other. Maps without 8 mineral 2gas mains render current strategies useless, and SC2 hasn't progressed far enough for that yet. | ||
inFeZa
Australia555 Posts
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EatThePath
United States3943 Posts
On December 06 2010 11:02 iGrok wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2010 02:30 Barrin wrote: ScrubS and StormsInJuly explained it quite well. Also you have a few too many mineral patches in that example o.O Well not really, as long as you put it in a place that's very difficult to defend. I have been thinking about having a 9 mineral patch main though. I honestly think it would greatly alleviate zerg's "need" to take such an early expansion and that an in-base hatch before expanding would be rather viable. Mains need to stay at 8 mineral patches. The reason for this is that anything else screws up timings like no other. Maps without 8 mineral 2gas mains render current strategies useless, and SC2 hasn't progressed far enough for that yet. iGrok, can you explain a little more about this? Or point me to another discussion? First, I find it hard to believe there are huge differences in timing windows made available or closed by a small boost in minerals. Second, I don't think it's ever too early to experiment, especially when 9 patches vs 8 doesn't have an inordinate effect on standard play (to my knowledge). | ||
neobowman
Canada3324 Posts
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laLAlA[uC]
Canada963 Posts
On December 06 2010 12:25 EatThePath wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2010 11:02 iGrok wrote: On December 06 2010 02:30 Barrin wrote: ScrubS and StormsInJuly explained it quite well. Also you have a few too many mineral patches in that example o.O Well not really, as long as you put it in a place that's very difficult to defend. I have been thinking about having a 9 mineral patch main though. I honestly think it would greatly alleviate zerg's "need" to take such an early expansion and that an in-base hatch before expanding would be rather viable. Mains need to stay at 8 mineral patches. The reason for this is that anything else screws up timings like no other. Maps without 8 mineral 2gas mains render current strategies useless, and SC2 hasn't progressed far enough for that yet. iGrok, can you explain a little more about this? Or point me to another discussion? First, I find it hard to believe there are huge differences in timing windows made available or closed by a small boost in minerals. Second, I don't think it's ever too early to experiment, especially when 9 patches vs 8 doesn't have an inordinate effect on standard play (to my knowledge). Actually, it will make a big difference. To be honest, I don't have exact numbers for you, nor do I plan on doing and testing (especially since my map editor doesn't work), but you will mine significantly faster. | ||
iGrok
United States5142 Posts
On December 06 2010 12:25 EatThePath wrote: Show nested quote + On December 06 2010 11:02 iGrok wrote: On December 06 2010 02:30 Barrin wrote: ScrubS and StormsInJuly explained it quite well. Also you have a few too many mineral patches in that example o.O Well not really, as long as you put it in a place that's very difficult to defend. I have been thinking about having a 9 mineral patch main though. I honestly think it would greatly alleviate zerg's "need" to take such an early expansion and that an in-base hatch before expanding would be rather viable. Mains need to stay at 8 mineral patches. The reason for this is that anything else screws up timings like no other. Maps without 8 mineral 2gas mains render current strategies useless, and SC2 hasn't progressed far enough for that yet. iGrok, can you explain a little more about this? Or point me to another discussion? First, I find it hard to believe there are huge differences in timing windows made available or closed by a small boost in minerals. Second, I don't think it's ever too early to experiment, especially when 9 patches vs 8 doesn't have an inordinate effect on standard play (to my knowledge). Aside from the recent 4OC Terran build (a brilliant piece of economic strategy, and one which would abuse any increase in main minerals to no end), a 9 mineral main messes up timings for anything that happens after 8 workers because of efficiency (over 8 workers actually mine at ~95-98% efficiency due to occasionally a patch being blocked). With a 9th patch, everything becomes accelerated, which throws timings off. Your cash will grow with any standard BO. Your income will be accelerated, but since unit/structure build times are normal, there's a disconnect. You'll feel like you aren't producing enough, and won't be able to predict your opponent's timings. This is bad. Now, BW-style extra-min mains are something different. When extra mineral patches are blocked off until others are mined out, that only affects later game. I'm not saying that it's a bad thing in of itself to have a 9 patch main. I just feel that before any race has neared its full potential, we ought to stick to a standard main. | ||
tainted muffin
United States158 Posts
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iGrok
United States5142 Posts
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TheAmazombie
United States3714 Posts
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TriumpH1
6 Posts
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StormWeapon
United States159 Posts
I don't really see anything wrong with the OP's idea because experimenting with it can be done (fewer gold patches or fewer overall patches, maybe 1 gas or mineral-only.) | ||
iGrok
United States5142 Posts
On December 06 2010 16:28 StormWeapon wrote: The subject of this imbalancing mains actually off-topic, he is specifically speaking of expansions. I don't really see anything wrong with the OP's idea because experimenting with it can be done (fewer gold patches or fewer overall patches, maybe 1 gas or mineral-only.) But this still makes players unnecessarily micro something that should be click-and-forget. And in later game, when you would have such an expo, you need you actions to focus on controlling your larger army, fend off harass, etc. Very similar combinations could be made with only-gold or only-blue, with simply varying the amount of minerals contained within each patch. a 5-patch gold base is pretty similar to an 8-patch blue, it just takes only 15 workers to saturate and is a little slower income (which is why 6 is standard, as a reward). By changing the amount of minerals in each patch to 2100, you effectively create a normal expansion (8 blue) that takes less workers to saturate - with the tradeoff being that income is slower. Less investment, less reward. I'll crunch some numbers and post up a full-detail post soon. | ||
Archivian
United Kingdom362 Posts
Taking onboard all of what has been said. I decided to use it in the end, some of my friends tested it and didnt find it an issue, but then they are a mixture of bronze though to Diamond (1 is diamond). Also, may as well use it and see what feed back i get. I also agree that unneeded extra micro is annoying. But the expo itself is in a position that would require attention I played around with mins before a bit, and quickly learned to touch nothing in the main. Just one min one block too far destroys all timing. Though all this feed back is great, thanks everyone. There is another map I am working on which works with an idea that I'm not sure is good yet. When I get more secure on how to do it will probably pick peoples brains yet again. | ||
iGrok
United States5142 Posts
-Anyways- The following numbers are from a study on was doing on MULE over-saturation absurdities. But I organized them for this specific example. I round every number to 2 sig figs, and due to the randomness of unit pathing, I can't guarantee that your results will precisely equal mine. Also, there are some pretty absurd numbers of Mules used in this. In the late game, it's possible to call down 24 Mules at once if you went heavy macro as Terran. It's just unlikely that you would. That part, at least, is only hypothetical. Data is in [income/second]. Standard Expo Stuff you should be basically familiar with. Mules take 2.05x as long as an SCV to mine. They Also start beeing hit by saturation after 1 per patch. 2 per patch actually oversaturates a patch, hence 2/patch and 3/patch are the same. There's roughly a 40% decrease in efficiency for the second layer of Mules. Standard Gold Again, pretty standard stuff. But look at how insanely high a fully Mule-saturated gold expo gives - thats ~2400 minerals a minute. (but 16 MULEs to get that) Now here's where things start to get interesting. The first column is merely an average - it depends on which patch is selected. In the second column, 1/patch, we notice that this expo is far and away more valuable than either the standard expo or the rich expo. Once we add a second layer of SCVs, it get even more apparent. By this point, MULEs are just absurd. So far, we've seen some pretty cool stuff. Now take a deep breath, and get ready to focus on some really crazy shit. First column: I micro 2 additional SCVs or 1 additional Mule to keep blue minerals mined at all times. 2 more SCVs is just about perfect to keep 4 patches mined at all times when there are 8 patches. You'll notice a fairly large increase in income, despite having semi-saturation already. Similarly, the second column shows an even bigger increase in income. In this example I am keeping the golds super-saturated with my 2 additional SCVs. I have ~the same income as a 24-worker 8B expo, with 6 fewer workers. Why would I ever choose to focus on the blue patches? Because doing so will give you a steadier stream of income long term. Super-saturating the golds will mine them out more quickly, and you'll soon be left with an anemic 4B expo. But if you're acting like a locust anyways, go for super-saturation on the golds. Or if you can manage it all, use the third column. This is VERY hard to micro-manage, but will pay off if you can do it. In this column I have an extra 4 scvs, and focus on keeping every patch saturated at all times. Very hard to do, but when you look at the 4th column you can see that it pays off. With 4 fewer workers, I'm able to have a higher income than an auto-mined 3/patch expo. This takes a lot of practice, and intense concentration. So much so that it is most unlikely to ever be used in an actual game. Microing the workers properly requires knowing when each worker will finish mining, and having another worker arrive the moment he finishes. If you mess up, the whole pattern gets thrown off. Anyways, thats the basic math. enjoy. | ||
Randomaccount#77123
United States5003 Posts
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