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Catyoul
France2377 Posts
Update: image for terran @ 3 was wrong, corrected now
Goal
Mining rates had already been investigated in the past for Terran, thoroughly on a tl.net blog, and also on a gosugamers thread. This work had not been done for Protoss and Zerg to my knowledge.
Curiosity about the different mining rates per race and per patch finally got the best of me and I decided to investigate it thoroughly. No longer will you wonder where to send your first workers for that little extra edge ! Details about the methodology and the results can be found below. For quick reference here is the illustrated guide :
Methodology
The map will be Python 1.3.
The test games are played in LAN multiplayer on fastest game speed with no opponent.
The initial mineral investment (to build additional bases and workers) are gathered at the natural to avoid touching the main minerals.
To avoid differences rising from split differences, all nexus, hatchery or command center are first destroyed or lifted. One worker is sent at each patch of the base. The mining resumes synchronously for all workers when the nexus/hatch/cc is complete/landed.
All workers are stopped after a certain amount of time.
The process is repeated for all maine bases on the map and all races.
The whole process is rerun to check for consistency and provide averaging of the results on a longer period of time.
Results
As can be seen in the pictures above, the results are similar while not identical for Zerg and Protoss and very different for Terran. This could be attributed to differences in pathing, speed or acceleration of their respective workers.
Below are the detailed results (averaged over several runs, don't be surprised if you see some numbers that are not dividable by 8). Each patch of each base is on a separate line, starting with the top patch (1) to the bottom one (9). For each race, 3 columns are shown :
1. the amount of minerals mined over 10 minutes,
2. the mining rate per second,
3. the comparison of the mining rate for this patch with the average mining rate at this base. More than 100% is higher than average, less is lower (obviously).
After the 9 patches, a line gives the total mining rate (per 10 minutes and per second). You will notice the values are significantly different for each race/base combo. The values are pretty consistent for terran across all bases, but for protoss and zerg, 9 mines slighlty slower than the others. You can also compare the mining rate across races if you so wish.
In the spoiler below are the above results in graphic format :
+ Show Spoiler [Protoss] ++ Show Spoiler [Terran] ++ Show Spoiler [Zerg] +
Now that you have all the results, if you don't like the choices I made for the patches to highlight or the colors in the first images, you can modify them yourselves :
Protoss
Terran
Zerg
Conclusions and perspectives
As you can see, the mining rate can be extremely different from one patch to the other. It is really only useful at the very beginning of the game of course, but since you don't have anything else to do but care about your workers, you might as well do it properly. I haven't tested it enough yet to check for consistency, but preliminary results on a 9 pool with gas build at 3 o'clock show over 5 seconds improvement on the time the zerglings hatch when filling the patches from best to worst compared to a more naive bottom to top.
To my knowledge, the path the workers will take (and thus the time they will take to return the minerals) depends on the angle of approach of the patches. It is possible that by microing each worker to attack the minerals from the right angle, you could further improve the mining rate early game and shave more precious seconds off your fine tuned build order.
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Awesome work man. Some interesting points:
- Protoss seems to have the advantage in mining
- The base at 3 is imba.
Something i was thinking is how to make a script that run in everymap and enables us to make the same analisis in less time? Im thinking about letting the BW IA running some time and then return the data. It could be a mod or something im not too good at starcraft programming but could be nice to have a script or triggers to do it in all the maps.
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For protoss, at the 9 and 6 o'clock, there are two patches (5th and 7th patches) which are above average. These patches seem to be the same distance away as the 5th patch at the 12 o'clock position, but at 12 it isn't above average. I had assumed these patches would be the same. Is there any explanation that you could offer? Is the pathing so differerent when the probe is mining on the left or right side of the nexus?
Overall great work! thank you
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konadora
Singapore66063 Posts
I'm surprised at some of the results o_O
I always thought the closest = best, furthest = worst.
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You should put the nexus hatcherys and comand centres in all the pictures to help orientate people
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The benefits to be gained from making use of these results are negligible even at the professional level. It seems like a complete waste of time to me.
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It's interesting how different the Terran results are from those for the Zerg and Protoss. SCV behavior is really strange, they'll hesitate in front of certain patches. This is actually really helpful, since five seconds early game can easily translate into twenty seconds or even more later on. Thanks a lot, Catyoul!
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On May 09 2009 19:21 Malongo wrote:
Awesome work man. Some interesting points:
- Protoss seems to have the advantage in mining
- The base at 3 is imba.
Something i was thinking is how to make a script that run in everymap and enables us to make the same analisis in less time? Im thinking about letting the BW IA running some time and then return the data. It could be a mod or something im not too good at starcraft programming but could be nice to have a script or triggers to do it in all the maps.
Base 3 i in fact not imba
The color of a patch shows the mining rate relative to the base, not the absolute mining rate. If you look at the sum of minerals mined over 10 minutes, it is almost exactly the same for the different bases for each race.
Btw. great job by the OP. Super easy to read and understand with the layout and all. Interesting read
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Your result for Terran @3 is different than the result here, who should I believe?
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excellent work on gathering and sorting out all the info, have been looking for stuff like this for quite a while, i'm ust too lazy to do all these by myself 
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this is awesome
and its imo showing how BW is great... if u watch bw u can see that all economy rules works here this game is so deep.. i miss fact that i cant follow that BW lecture at that university in usa
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Smix
United States4549 Posts
Wow, thank you so much for this. Nicely organized and incredibly easy to follow.
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On May 09 2009 19:47 Swarmy wrote:
The benefits to be gained from making use of these results are negligible even at the professional level. It seems like a complete waste of time to me.
I don't think anything can be disregarded as such, every little advantage you can get you should take, also its not like this takes much effort, all you have to do is a little memorisation, enact it at the beginning of the match and then your done.
Awesome OP by the way, extreme good quality and clearly presented, your quality post star is well deserved.
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Thanks so much for making this, I knew the results would be different than with terran!
I honestly can't believe pro gamers don't do this stuff on every new map. It'd be great if there was a database of every map and good mining locations. It makes such a difference for early game rushes, for example.
Some of those mineral patches I really wouldn't've expected, and as a scrub that plays python way too often it'll help my early game economy to know which patches to split to first.
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pretty cool ^^
ive always wished sombody would research at which point stop making scvs would be ideal (ignoring other aspects from the game but to have as best mining with as few scvs as possible)
maybe your the man to do the job? 
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Wow, nice work, how long did all this take?
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Good job mate.
I had done this myself once and the problem I came across was that mining times differ significantly sometimes.
For example iirc the 3rd patch on 3 o'clock for protoss would mine extra fast sometimes and normally/slow some other times.
I know this happens for both protoss and terran ( i didn't test zerg) on every starting position on python (the only map I've tested).
I am guessing that the reason is the initial path the workers take the first time they mine but this is just speculation.
I remember that if a worker got into "fast mining mode" the difference in mining time was huge, so a more important question for me would be:
Can we find the way to cause a worker to take the optimal mining path each time?
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nice, but I really don't think the little things like this make that big of a difference. It may, if it was a early game rush and micro war between few units, but unless its that short a game, it really won't make that big of a difference
i know some people like to emphasize the importance of such procedures, saying how it is really important to split correctly, set the larvae on the left, etc. but it really doesn't make that much of a difference; they just like to exaggerate
nice nice work though
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i dont mean to shit on the OP for his greatly executed experiment, but for all the players or newbs who want to take time in studying this, you'd be better off knowing how to scout and defend rushes so these things won't matter much, and studying other things like build orders, counters, and perfecting macro
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