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Earlier I was wondering how much mules mine from different mineral patches. I did find one other thread on the subject, but in it, the OP only covered layouts from specific maps. If this has already been covered in another thread, then whoops. Since I was bored, I decided to test it out myself. (Results below)
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ad8rz.png)
Since mineral patches are 2x1, I just chose to use the left hex to represent the location. For a given box in the picture above, the results are for a mineral patch with its left hex in that location. The numbers in the hexes represent the number of times the mule will mine from that patch, with 0.5 indicating that it mined minerals on the last trip, but was unable to return them.
Keep in mind that my testing was done with only a single mineral patch (ie. no obstacles), so anything that would alter the path or mining time of the mule could also change the results. For example, if there is a front mineral patch that changes the pathing to a back patch, then you cannot assume the results would stay the same. Same with having a turret placed between the OC and minerals. If one were to drop multiple mules on the same patch, obviously the results would change as well.
I only checked the top/right quadrant of minerals, in hopes that the results can just be mirrored for the other sides, but I'm not going to test all of those. Because of the fact that minerals are 2x1 and not square, I felt it was prudent to check 1/4 of the circle rather than 1/8. If you do mirror the results, the ones on the left side of the OC need to be shifted one hex, again because of minerals being 2x1. I hope that maybe this will help someone out.
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Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches.
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On February 23 2012 03:25 Bagration wrote:
Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches.
that's not the most efficient though. your mule returns 9 trips worth of minerals, but expires after mining the final trip (minerals destroyed).
i believe there was a detailed post about this over a year ago and the conclusion was that mule is better 'spread' accross mineral patches so it takes longer to mine out (which will destroy your SCV saturation and lower your income).
but it's worth noting that mules on far away patches will return the same minerals as a close patch, without the final mineral harvest being destroyed.
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On February 23 2012 03:25 Bagration wrote:
Basically I just mine from the close patches, my reasoning being that MULEs are ultra efficient harvesters with a time limit, so best to maximize that from the close patches.
There was a thread about this and it was decided that you should only drop mules on the far patches.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=237419
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On February 23 2012 03:22 Dazarath wrote:
... testing was done with only a single mineral patch (ie. no obstacles), so anything that would alter the path or mining time of the mule could also change the results...
You don't say.
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Also calling them on the far patch will make the amount of minerals left on the patches more even, if you always call them on the closest patch that patch will be mined out much faster than the other patches and the expansion will have 1 patch less for a relatively long amount of time.
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There's one thing I havent seen mentionned in all these threads and it's the initial orientation of the MULE being dropped... Something it decides to start at the back of the mineral line instead of close to the OC, effectively making it's first trip longer.
I haven't bothered to check for consistency in this matter, but have you considered that?
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i remember a while ago, there was a korean terran who would sometimes stop a mule from mining, cos he knew that it wouldnt get back intime with those minerals and would just lose them. Obviously thats a ridiculous amount of APM and awareness to know how to do that, but im guessing some of the top top terran players will know where and when to drop mules
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Isn't there merit to having your mining be equally distributed for long term efficiency of that base? As in mining out the front patches early will result in a lower income rate averaged over the course of the bases mining life. Similar reasons as to why you try to equally distribute workers between separate bases of similar mineral counts.
I noticed in the recent GSL games, players would keep sending their mule away before its last gathering. That sounds like a good plan too. It seems like it would time well together with your next mule drop anyways because I believe your mule should be just around his final trip when you have the 50 energy to start the next one.
I'm sure this kind of information has been brought up, but it can't hurt to talk about again and spread the information more, and maybe even add something to it  .
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On February 23 2012 03:51 CursedFeanor wrote:
There's one thing I havent seen mentionned in all these threads and it's the initial orientation of the MULE being dropped... Something it decides to start at the back of the mineral line instead of close to the OC, effectively making it's first trip longer.
I haven't bothered to check for consistency in this matter, but have you considered that?
i think that happens if you fire too many at the same mineral patch, you can't have more than 1 on the same patch so the others will land on nearby patches.
just guessing though... i can't remember it ever landing behind mineral unless i shift-spammed a bunch at the same time.
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So essentially, you'll lose a few hundred minerals 15 minutes later. Not the biggest deal, but I guess every little bit helps.
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Wow. I did not realize MULEs are better used on distant patches. Thanks for bringing this to our attention OP and posters.
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As long as you know to drop MULEs on the blue minerals and not the gold (as scvs will give you high yield but not MULEs, so you don't want to waste gold minerals on the latter), you should be better off in the long run.
But the OP's data is nice to have too
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Wow. I thought I was supposed to mule on the closest.
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It would have been nice if this was done with regular mining units as well (unfortunately I don't think it's possible to have used 1 [custom] unit to figure out both times [accurately])
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On February 23 2012 05:04 grush57 wrote:
Wow. I thought I was supposed to mule on the closest.
I know right?
My mind has been blown...
This might be a hard habit to break
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the op's data is nice, but you cannot say that u shouldnt use the closest patches imo.
all it shows is that you dont need to use the closest (you can though, the mule shouldnt be able to expire with minerals - and it still does 9 turns), but you shouldnt use the furthest away, since youll only get 8 turns.
so use either "medium dinstance" or close patches, it doesnt make a difference.
more important is that u use differnet patches everytime!
€: oh, it seems that id does expire with minerals on it on the closest ...
are u sure that 10 turn mule is absolutely impossible, even if you drop it "perfectly" (closest distance for turn 1) and on the closest possible patch?
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I thought this was common knowledge. You can easily test it by just watching a mule; it clearly dies on its way back with the last load of minerals (if you put it on the close ones like most people do, that is)
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On February 23 2012 05:10 KalWarkov wrote:
the op's data is nice, but you cannot say that u shouldnt use the closest patches imo.
all it shows is that you dont need to use the closest (you can though, the mule shouldnt be able to expire with minerals - and it still does 9 turns), but you shouldnt use the furthest away, since youll only get 8 turns.
so use either "medium dinstance" or close patches, it doesnt make a difference.
more important is that u use differnet patches everytime!
If you use the close patches then the mule will die with 30 minerals on its way to the CC. It is not that big of a deal, but you might get a few extra hundred minerals out of a mineral patch if you are careful where to place them.
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I'm pretty sure it's map dependent as the mineral patches relative to the command center is different depending on the map/position. In some cases, the close patches are just far away enough that it won't take that extra .5.
Also I'm pretty sure you can and should use mules on gold minerals. Mules don't create more minerals. So just because mules harvest the same amount on blue or gold minerals, won't affect the total number of minerals mined. However dropping mules on the gold will mine it out faster. And since the gold bases are usually the most vulnerable, you generally want to mine out those bases faster.
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EPT
