• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EDT 04:57
CEST 10:57
KST 17:57
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
Serral wins Maestros of the Game 240ByuL, and the Limitations of Standard Play3Team Liquid Map Contest #22: Results and Winners7Code S Season 2 (2026): RO4 and Finals Preview12TL.net Map Contest #22 - Voting & Ladder Map Selection7
Community News
BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion6BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion6Weekly Cups (June 29-July 5): Solar Doubles0MC vs IdrA, Boxer vs Nal_rA to be Legacy Matches @ BlizzCon445.0.16 Hotfix (June 30) - Balance + Bug Fixes40
StarCraft 2
General
Serral wins Maestros of the Game 2 5.0.16 patch for SC2 goes live (8 worker start) What is your PC setup in 2026 for SCBW/SC2 ? Most successful SC2 players of Q2 2026 MC vs IdrA, Boxer vs Nal_rA to be Legacy Matches @ BlizzCon
Tourneys
RSL Revival: Season 6 - Qualifiers and Main Event GSL CK #5 Race War HomeStory Cup 29 Vespene Cup #1 — $300+ USD, July 10 Sea Duckling Open (Global, Bronze-Diamond)
Strategy
[G] Having the right mentality to improve
Custom Maps
New Map Maker - Looking for Advice - Love or Hate Work In Progress Melee Maps [D]RTS in all its shapes and glory <3
External Content
The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 534 Burning Evacuation Mutation # 533 Die Together Mutation # 532 Nuclear Family
Brood War
General
Pros Debate: Zerg Unfairly Nerfed? (ASL S22 map) BW General Discussion ASL22 General Discussion BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/ BSL Season 22 Full Overview & Conclusion
Tourneys
[ASL22] Wildcard Qualifier IPSL Spring 2026 Top 4! [Megathread] Daily Proleagues CSLAN 4 is Coming!
Strategy
Fighting Spirit mining rates Simple Questions, Simple Answers Creating a full chart of Zerg builds Relatively freeroll strategies
Other Games
General Games
General RTS Discussion Thread Summer Games Done Quick 2026! Nintendo Switch Thread Stormgate/Frost Giant Megathread Dawn of War IV
Dota 2
Looking for a Dota Mentor Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug
TL Mafia
NeO.D_StephenKing vs This Guy From 1 Million Dance TL Mafia Community Thread TL Mafia Power Rank Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Russo-Ukrainian War Thread UK Politics Mega-thread YouTube Thread Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The IdrA Fan Club The HerO Fan Club!
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread Movie Discussion! Series you have seen recently...
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread McBoner: A hockey love story Tennis[sport] Formula 1 Discussion TeamLiquid Health and Fitness Initiative For 2023
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Simple Questions Simple Answers FPS when play League Of Legend on laptop How to clean a TTe Thermaltake keyboard?
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Major Shifts in the Gaming I…
TrAiDoS
An Exploration of th…
waywardstrategy
Gauntlet SC2: A Retrospectiv…
Ctone23
ramps on octagon
StaticNine
Funny Nicknames
LUCKY_NOOB
Evil Gacha Games and the…
ffswowsucks
StarCraft improvement
iopq
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 6859 users

Unit Cost Effectiveness list (DPS,Health,Resource)

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
Post a Reply
1 2 Next All
Ixess
Profile Joined February 2012
Canada13 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-06 02:18:03
March 05 2012 21:57 GMT
#1
I calculated cost effectiveness based on time for resource gathering so gas and minerals are merged into time cost. The dps are taken from another thread, I did it myself but it is lost now. I may redo the dps at some point.

Total unit mechanics are hp*dps vs opponent hp*dps. Of course considering unit types and health regen rates. So here is the complete list calculated including supply cost.

For precise calculations, exact time for battle, number of units, health regen, and unit type is required. Also the mineral calculations are based on about 2 base, 2gas 18 minerals with about 20 miners. The cost increases with less miners and decreases with more miners which will effect cost effectiveness inversely.

* Update * Important Issues *

The goal of these numbers are for theorycraft and calculating builds based on large numbers of units or with much more calculations, small numbers of microd units. Also it is interesting and could give you some general insight if you don't ignore what the numbers here can't include.
Essentially, you can figure out, based on known economies, and a certain percentage of expenditure, which units will win when matched against each other.
This is of course not precise, but the idea is that with good macro and large armies, this can be very useful, since if it is very one-sided, no amount of micro or skill will help.

medic regen is not included. If someone knows it I can put it here. It does not increase hp, but reduces attacker's dps.

Upgrades for armour as well as built in armour does not influence unit hp, but rather dps of attacking unit, and so can not be included. Attack upgrades could be added to dps.

Some Important modifications to cost effectiveness:
turrets vs mutas: * .5
lurkers: * units in path
tank(s): % splash damage * units around target
corsair: * .5 units within 50 pixels * .25 units within 100 pixels
storm: * units hit (possibly .75 for dodging) (the cost effectiveness is greater and I will update at some point)

Vultures and mutas are calculated based on fighting ability, but this does not reflect the main value which is in speed and vultures also have mines.

[image loading]

(a) means air and vess/2 means average of 2 spells before dying.
(s) means stim or seiged

Example: I have personally used these numbers, in the 2gate zealot vs sunken and/or lings including hp regen,shields, and armour to calculate cost effectiveness based on economy and production ratios required. Of course higher skill will micro, increasing the time of that units fight and allowing regen more time, so a certain amount of skill can be accounted for by percentage.

I tried to include the time it took for units to build, but didn't quite figure out how to include that properly, the results were too distorted. I realize there are some errors and omissions and spells are calculated way too weak. I may fix this later or someone could help.

Just to be clear, build time is not currently used.
Everything has an optimal strategy
Sayle
Profile Joined October 2010
United Kingdom3685 Posts
March 05 2012 22:03 GMT
#2
Crackling best unit, turret/sunken/spore best structures. And you guys say protoss is imbalanced. Bunch of whiners.
mtwow789
Profile Joined April 2011
67 Posts
March 05 2012 22:07 GMT
#3
lol well.. to be fair, you gotta put "ease of use" as one of the factor.
To be honest, playing toss is easier cause you can 1a2a3a. But for terran, you gotta put mines, siege up, make turrets..
As a toss player, playing zerg is annoying because you just need more units to be as effective as toss. That means taking lots of control # slots for units...
Hittegods
Profile Joined April 2007
Stockholm4641 Posts
March 05 2012 22:28 GMT
#4
Yeah good luck breaking a siege line with your "1a2a3a". Will be really cost effective I'm sure.
This neo violence, pure self defiance
WeRRa
Profile Joined December 2010
378 Posts
March 05 2012 22:31 GMT
#5
Don't let it end in a balance discussion.
And this weird statement that toss is just 1a2a3a is a joke, try to 1a2a3a vs terran or zerg army and you will see what will happen.
Best structures i agree with sayle and to units i would add vultures to cracklings, i think every toss player knows why.
InnoVation Fighting!!!
Ixess
Profile Joined February 2012
Canada13 Posts
March 05 2012 23:06 GMT
#6
This game is balanced, much more than sc2. I will post my calculations for sc2 in a while.

There are slight imbalances, but it doesn't effect the game more than skill.

Things you have to realize:

Melee units get attacked by range and take extra hits so they need higher dps just to be balanced.
Upgrades are not included here.
Bad macro will cause your costs to go up and reduce your total army worth(both low numbers of workers and ineffective spending)

After those things are considered only skill remains(unless i forgot something)
Everything has an optimal strategy
hacklebeast
Profile Blog Joined April 2010
United States5090 Posts
March 05 2012 23:12 GMT
#7
It's interesting at first, but there are a few things that have me woried.

1. 28.23 dps is accurate if the storm is hitting one unit. How often do storms only hit one unit? If you are going to generalize that vessels/templar can get off multiple spells, you should generalize that the storm will hit multiple units.

2. You didn't take type of damage into account. Consider the sunken: It is most commonly used to defend against marines, lings, and zealots, but will commonly have the ability to attack medics, bats, vultures, HT, DT, goons and archons. Out of those 10 units only 2 of them are big (goon and archon) so the other 8 take reduced damage, significantly lowing the sunkens dps (average of 60% damage maybe?). Same applies to turrets (almost only attacks mutas so half damage) and vultures (do 1/4 to tanks and goons. although you did leave off mines so that should help).

3. I don't know how you calculated gas. how does an scv cost 30, a marine costs 36, and an archon costs 250?

4. splash isn't taken into consideration, and certain units (lurker, tank, sair) will get splash with nearly every shot.

5. hp should take into account armor. A bc saves ~ 70 health from armor when fighting another BC, and it's only higher when lower attack units fight. armor/weapon upgrades not being considered (which may be necessary for this)
Protoss: Best, Paralyze, Jangbi, Nal_Ra || Terran: Oov, Boxer, Fantasy, Hiya|| Zerg: Yellow, Zero
codonbyte
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United States840 Posts
March 05 2012 23:41 GMT
#8
Umm, it says that photon canons cost 150 gas. I'm pretty sure canons cost 150 minerals 0 gas.
Procrastination is the enemy
Ixess
Profile Joined February 2012
Canada13 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-05 23:51:20
March 05 2012 23:50 GMT
#9
1. I mentioned that spells are far too weakly calculated. I essentially didn't calculate dps in battle but over the units life. This seems wrong to me now, and they should have extremely high cost effectiveness. I plan on fixing this at some point.

2. I mentioned damage type was not considered, you have to do it yourself, its a simple calculation. Mines are a little more complicated so I left them out for now.

3. gas and minerals are calculated the same way, based on time to mine. Thanks for pointing out my formatting error, the 30 and 36 are build times. Archon gas is wrong but close, I'll fix it. Other units have gas that should have build time including zealots and cannons. I will have to fix that soon.

4. Yes splash can't really be accurately put in. What you can do is look at the proportion of splash to primary damage and multiply by the average number of units hit for the situation.

5. Yes I mentioned regen in a more broad sense, but armour can be added yourself. Each unit matchup is different and cannot be generalized. What you have to do is reduce the other units dps based on rate of fire and total armour.
Everything has an optimal strategy
Bill Murray
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States9292 Posts
March 06 2012 00:12 GMT
#10
damage type can be as low as 25%
furthermore, you are not considering many factors, such as the HT
why are you assuming people get 2 storms off per ht? I would wager the number is realistically less than 1.
University of Kentucky Basketball #1
GhostOwl
Profile Blog Joined July 2011
766 Posts
March 06 2012 00:46 GMT
#11
Everyone knows Vultures are the most cost efficient because of mines that are not included here, and MnM. MnM is a combo of units and the chart up there doesnt even factor in stim

Mines / MnM / 2 Supply tanks are the most cost efficient shit a RTS game has seen
mahO
Profile Joined April 2011
France274 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-06 01:03:55
March 06 2012 01:03 GMT
#12
Blah nevermind
Zariel
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
Australia1312 Posts
March 06 2012 01:17 GMT
#13
You really can't use any form of figures to judge in starcraft. Purely because all units are controlled by the player (ie: micro is involved), the power of a unit is judged by the power of a player. Let's not even talk about the mechanics and the inherent AI of each unit.

Examples:
- 1 marine (with stim and detection) will kill a lurker if controlled properly.
- A lurker under dark swarm is literally immune to all ranged fire.

If we had no control over units then using maths in this scenario will help us.

You put good time and effort into deriving these numbers, however, I do not understand what your trying to achieve.
sup
Ixess
Profile Joined February 2012
Canada13 Posts
March 06 2012 02:56 GMT
#14
In large battles micro is a percentage increase in hp and dps.
In small ones micro can be calculated and is a bigger factor(conserving hp, increasing dps).

Essentially if you know what he's going to have at a specific time you can calculate minimum units required based on economy and units required.

So this can help you improve, throw builds away, and adapt properly.

You might do some of this without thinking, but sometimes instincts are wrong, or you get stuck, or you want to make a better starcraft bot.

I also updated the list.
Everything has an optimal strategy
Dental Floss
Profile Joined September 2009
United States1015 Posts
March 06 2012 02:58 GMT
#15
On March 06 2012 09:46 GhostOwl wrote:
Everyone knows Vultures are the most cost efficient because of mines that are not included here, and MnM. MnM is a combo of units and the chart up there doesnt even factor in stim

Mines / MnM / 2 Supply tanks are the most cost efficient shit a RTS game has seen


Also, vultures are even more cost efficient because minerals are worth less to a T who is going mech.
Kim Tae Gyun.... never forget Perfectman RIP
Release
Profile Blog Joined October 2010
United States4397 Posts
March 06 2012 04:30 GMT
#16
On March 06 2012 11:58 Dental Floss wrote:
Show nested quote +
On March 06 2012 09:46 GhostOwl wrote:
Everyone knows Vultures are the most cost efficient because of mines that are not included here, and MnM. MnM is a combo of units and the chart up there doesnt even factor in stim

Mines / MnM / 2 Supply tanks are the most cost efficient shit a RTS game has seen


Also, vultures are even more cost efficient because minerals are worth less to a T who is going mech.

I suggest you watch the infamous 107 turret game. Minerals are INCREDIBLY worthy to a T who is going mech.

To the Op, account for attack ground/air. If both, then *1. If only 1, then *0.75 or something.
☺
vanatir
Profile Joined May 2008
Germany355 Posts
March 06 2012 10:26 GMT
#17
On March 06 2012 07:03 Sayle wrote:
Crackling best unit, turret/sunken/spore best structures. And you guys say protoss is imbalanced. Bunch of whiners.


so it must be the players who make this race imbalanced
aka EnjoYmE - streaming on http://www.twitch.tv/myprobe
DorF
Profile Blog Joined July 2009
Sweden961 Posts
March 06 2012 11:54 GMT
#18
I can agree to cracklings being imba... when I've seen one making it out of a feild of 12 mines with only the shields gone.
Until then I will stick with zealot imba !
BW for life !
ninini
Profile Joined June 2010
Sweden1204 Posts
March 06 2012 19:35 GMT
#19
On March 06 2012 07:03 Sayle wrote:
Crackling best unit, turret/sunken/spore best structures. And you guys say protoss is imbalanced. Bunch of whiners.

Well according to that, Zealot > zergling, plus zealot is 4 times better than regular marines. It's a good thing we use line-backers as workers or PvT would be completely unbalanced.
Mossen
Profile Blog Joined December 2010
43 Posts
Last Edited: 2012-03-06 20:14:54
March 06 2012 20:11 GMT
#20
No entry for scout in the list? Also maybe I'm wrong but I thought turrets were more than 75 minerals...
1 2 Next All
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Next event in 2h 3m
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft: Brood War
Bisu 851
firebathero 515
Larva 293
actioN 185
Dewaltoss 123
Sacsri 105
910 71
Aegong 34
soO 30
Sharp 21
[ Show more ]
ajuk12(nOOB) 19
Bale 15
League of Legends
JimRising 604
Other Games
ceh9705
WinterStarcraft427
Sick305
Happy272
crisheroes168
Pyrionflax128
RuFF_SC227
Organizations
StarCraft: Brood War
lovetv 6
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
[ Show 14 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• intothetv
• Kozan
• IndyKCrew
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• Migwel
• sooper7s
StarCraft: Brood War
• BSLYoutube
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
Dota 2
• lizZardDota2164
League of Legends
• Lourlo1413
• Stunt482
• HappyZerGling144
Upcoming Events
GSL
2h 3m
Monday Night Weeklies
7h 3m
Replay Cast
15h 3m
WardiTV Weekly
1d 2h
The PondCast
2 days
Replay Cast
3 days
CrankTV Team League
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
CrankTV Team League
4 days
Replay Cast
4 days
[ Show More ]
RSL Revival
5 days
Clem vs Lambo
Scarlett vs Cure
CranKy Ducklings
5 days
RSL Revival
6 days
Classic vs Trap
herO vs SHIN
Sparkling Tuna Cup
6 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

YSL S3
HSC XXIX
Eternal Conflict S2 E2

Ongoing

IPSL Spring 2026
Acropolis #4
CSL 2026 Summer (S21)
RSL Revival: Season 6
CranK Gathers Season 4: BW vs SC2 Team League
SCTL 2026 Spring
XSE Pro League 2026
IEM Cologne Major 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 2
CS Asia Championships 2026
Asian Champions League 2026
IEM Atlanta 2026
PGL Astana 2026
BLAST Rivals Spring 2026

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S3: W3
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 1
Escore Tournament S3: W4
ASL S22 SEASON OPEN Day 2
Escore Tournament S3: W5
CSLAN 4
Blizzard Classic Cup 2026
HSC XXX
SC4ALL II: StarCraft II
Kung Fu Cup 2026 Grand Finals
Light Tournament 2026
Eternal Conflict S2 Finale
Eternal Conflict S2 E3
Logitech G Connect 2026
StarSeries Fall 2026
FISSURE Playground #5
BLAST Open Fall 2026
Esports World Cup 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer 2026
BLAST Bounty Summer Qual
Stake Ranked Episode 3
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.