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I am going to say that a scan costs 270 minerals indeed. edit: I now rephrase it to "A scan costs about 270 minerals". edit again: Since you cannot buy the scan directly for 270 minerals, some hesitate to say that the scan costs 270 minerals. (You cannot pay the OC 270 minerals, you need to use 50 energy.) Of course this is true, but my main point is that the scan is not free.
If a scan would be really free, you would have no disadvantage if you waste it. Since no good player just waste a scan, it is not free. It also depends on a limited ressource, the OC energy.
Now does the scan cost just 50 energy, or 270 minerals since you could also call down a Mule for that amount of energy? A player scans to get information, to detect invisible units, or to gain vision to attack. Would you use a scan if you think that you can kill just a single marine which would otherwise be out of vision range? Taking 50 mineral worth from the enemy but at the cost of beeing 270 harvested minerals behind?
Would you scan an enemy base if you don't expect to get information of at least 270 minerals worth? To know if you build the right units has a mineral equivalent since you don't need to build an extra bunch of units to blind-counter to a possible hidden tech switch of the enemy.
A depot built far away costs more than a close depot since the SVC is longer off mining. But a terran wall-in can pay off since you can skip some early Marines to safely get your worker count up.
It gets more complicated with Zerg. If you build a hatch, you need 300 minerals plus 50 minerals for the drone replacement plus the travel time in which the drone is not mining plus a larva. But with the drone morphed to a hatch, you get 1 supply back, which is worth an 1/8 overlord, meaning it saves you 12.5 minerals.
Anyways, to get the real cost, I think a good approach is to think about "what else could I have done with it?" A scan wasted on a random location on the map means to get behind by 270 minerals which you could get if you just call a Mule on a close mineral patch. While the direct cost of the scan is just energy, I think it is very reasonable to convert the energy cost to minerals, since nearly anything can be measured in minerals and this makes comparison much easier.
To forfeit the opportunity to get 270 minerals in addition to your worker harvests means, to get 270 minerals behind compared to optimal play.
edit: In the long term, the Mule is worth even more than 270 minerals. While the Mule just helps you to harvest faster (he does not add minerals to the ressource location) and thus requires you to expand at an earlier time, it is always better to have minerals now compared to have the same amount later. With the 270 minerals per Mule you can get five workers (250 minerals) earlier and enables you to saturate an expo running earlier. Over the time, it adds up. If you use the mule just once, you have more than +270 minerals harvested compared to a player who never calls down a Mule.
edit #2On November 30 2010 21:01 Cel.erity wrote:However, a mule is not as good as 270 minerals. First off, even though it harvests quickly, it's not instantaneous. It's not as if the 270 minerals just appears in your bank account when you spend the energy. This is of course true. If you need to pump 5 marines out of 5 raxes, a Mule will not enable you to do so instantly. While the Mule helps you to get 270 minerals over the worker-only harvesting, you need to think ahead since you get the minerals (9x 30) only over time. A scan however rewards you instantly. That means: Killing 5 enemy marines (250 minerals) with scan vision right now is may be better than getting 270 additional minerals over time.
edit #3: Some users pointed out that a Mule is good early on, but less useful later since you have a good income anyways. This is true. Instead of comparing absolute income, a comparison of percental gain is also useful. If you have 3 blue bases running plus a gold expo, any Mule will get you very few % more income. If you are still building up your first base, a Mule however considerably boosts you overall income. Another way to phrase it: When you already have a high income, the value of 270 extra minerals is small. However a scan gets more useful compared to 270 minerals, because at this time the enemy may be already mustered cloaked units, or has a large force on a cliff you could attack with scan vision.
edit #4On November 30 2010 21:26 QofQfromtehQ wrote: If a Mule is worth 270 Minerals, every Zerg building is worth infinite minerals because instead, the sacrificed drone could have collected minerals all the time. Lot of flaws there, and btw I would LOVE to be able to scan for 270 Minerals anyway. This analogy is wrong because we need to compare with optimal play. The drone which is consumed by the zerg structure can and should be rebuild for 50 minerals and a larva. If you not rebuild the drone, then you will really be punished in the game as it develops.
edit #5: Another argument against "A Mule costs 270 minerals" is that you don't lose those minerals on a scan, you just get them later. This is of course true, but in a standard game, there is always an expansion you could secure. (Unless the enemy has very good map control.) If we simplify it, the total count of mineral patches to harvest is not a limiting factor.
edit #6 (Link to full posting http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173018¤tpage=4#74)
On November 30 2010 23:12 thenexusp wrote: There's an idea from economics that says that money now is worth more than money later.
[...]
People who argue that the MULE is just a loan don't know what they're talking about. It's an interest-free loan that you don't have to pay back for a very, very long time (as long as you keep taking expansions anyway...) which is almost as good as the money straight up. Thank you for the short, yet complete analyzis.
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Cost is energy, so you aren't losing actual minerals, but the opportunity cost of the MULE.
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I think it just gives you the 270 minerals quicker, it doesn't cost you anything but if you have a tight build order that requires them and you scan, you are missing out. TvT mules and scan balance is very important. Lategame I really prefer scans unless a gold expo.
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This is something people have been talking about since the first week of beta. Terrans are obviously careful about when they use scans.
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It only costs 50 energy. You have to decide if you want to transform the 50 energy into some 270 minerals or into information. depending on the situation and personal choice, either can be valid. also, if you MULE, you do NOT get behind in minerals, but rather AHEAD, provided that you have a roughly equal worker count as your opponent.
maybe T players rely on the mule too much as an income source and therefore get less workers then the other races and need the mule to stay even and that is where the 'cost' mentality stems from.
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I think the later into a game you get the less you lose from using scan over mule. In the first 5-10 minutes of the game, i rarely scan due to needing resources but once I get 2 fully saturated bases then i feel like i gain more than i lose by using Scan.
once you are on 3 bases, you can basically choose which you want to use. Do i need to rebuild my army fast? Mules. So i need vision for an attack? Scan.
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On November 30 2010 20:53 emythrel wrote: I think the later into a game you get the less you lose from using scan over mule. That is correct, I added a long-term examination to the OP.
On November 30 2010 20:53 Nycaloth wrote: It only costs 50 energy. You have to decide if you want to transform the 50 energy into some 270 minerals or into information. depending on the situation What is a good way to decide? I think a very reasonable way is that if you expect to get an advantage somehow worth 270+ minerals, you will scan. If you only expect a very small advantage, you would prefer the 270 minerals because you compare the expected scan information / vision with 270 minerals.
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In early game I don't use ANY scans to scout if possible at all and 1 max. Mid-late when you have 2+ orbitals with energy building up while you macro and control your army I use scans all the time just to be safe.
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United States4890 Posts
If you choose X over Y, your choice in effect costs you Y. It's semantics, but that's the game theory geek way of thinking about things. So yes, every scan costs you a mule.
However, a mule is not as good as 270 minerals. First off, even though it harvests quickly, it's not instantaneous. It's not as if the 270 minerals just appears in your bank account when you spend the energy. Secondly, it's only a loan. In some cases like when you're taking your 3rd, odds are you will never mine out quick enough for that to matter, but early game you're basically just borrowing minerals with the mule.
So yeah, if mules were cooldown-only, and scans just cost straight up 270 minerals, you would see fewer scans. As it is, it's merely a tactical decision between taking a huge economy boost or getting valuable scouting intel.
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On November 30 2010 21:01 Cel.erity wrote: If you choose X over Y, your choice in effect costs you Y. It's semantics, but that's the game theory geek way of thinking about things. So yes, every scan costs you a mule.
However, a mule is not as good as 270 minerals. First off, even though it harvests quickly, it's not instantaneous. It's not as if the 270 minerals just appears in your bank account when you spend the energy. This is a good point, I will include it in the OP.
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Hmm, while in the early game its completely resonable to say that scans have a "cost" of 270 minerals, in the late game when you have a decent about of scvs its completly sound to have a fair share sum of energy to scan to gain advantage of sight or scouting
Whether you're scanning to get vision for Siege tanks, to see a high-ground to nuke with a ghost, or scout places that you would never of been able to of gotten a unit in.
While having your first depo close to your mineral line its not as important after that, since macro kicks in, and unless you intend on having all of you sim city compact, (seeing 12 depos all clustered together with food drops on them or not is a sight i love to see when i go nuke ghosts) I enjoy the fact that even though we lose mining time, we have the option to continue mining after making structures, where zerg doesn't, though I envy toss being able to just drop buildings lol
In the end It really comes down to play style and reacting to opponents build orders, (for example having a scan ready just in case of dts engaging away from any turrets, and many people go with out ravens its seems, so i'd say in case of cloaked/burrowed units i'd rather have some scans saved, then losing half my army to something I could of scanned.) or over-reacting to the fear of cloaked units, and losing out on several mules. :-/
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On November 30 2010 20:53 Nycaloth wrote: maybe T players rely on the mule too much as an income source and therefore get less workers then the other races and need the mule to stay even and that is where the 'cost' mentality stems from. I think the opposite is actually true. Some terrans rely too much on scans as an information source. If you can get the same information with a 50 mineral unit like an SCV or marine (like checking an expansion for example) and some forethought, it's much better to use a mule instead.
A mule doesn't give you free minerals, but it does give you more income. The downside is draining your mineral fields quicker, but you can partially help that by calling them down in newer expansions. No matter how you think of scans, if you scan 10 times you are going to have 2700 minerals worth less stuff than if you used 10 mules instead. The downside is having less information of course. There is of course a potential to lose a mule to an attack, and you do need an expansion with plenty of minerals to make use of that income.
The races are always balanced as a package. You can't just say that mules are extra income, because they are part of the terran package, as is the ability to sacrifice that income for more information/detection. It is possible for a race to be overpowered of course, but that's a completely different thing.
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it doesnt cost gold immediately, but it costs gold in the long run. if u call down a mule instead of scanning, u will have 270 more minerals some minutes later. so it is a hit to ur eco if u scan.
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On November 30 2010 21:07 CompanionQue wrote: Hmm, while in the early game its completely resonable to say that scans have a "cost" of 270 minerals, in the late game when you have a decent about of scvs its completly sound to have a fair share sum of energy to scan to gain advantage of sight or scouting I will add a similar idea in the OP, and use relative income as second option to compare.
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Yeah, but you are lying. A scan does not cost minerals. OC energy is not limited. I'm just gonna give up now.. I agree with everything you said but please word your stuff so that you are not straight up lying to people's faces, it destroys your credability.
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Starcraft is a time based strategy game.
It costs 270 minerals you could have had sooner, but it doesn't take away minerals that you can get later.
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i think that the 150 first energy is critical for mules, it is so easy to scout with scvs or troops in that time, and you really do need the extra minerals. after that its all about if you think you need it or not, maybe if he has low army count so you need 2 scout in order 2 find out what he does.
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On November 30 2010 20:53 Nycaloth wrote: maybe T players rely on the mule too much as an income source and therefore get less workers then the other races and need the mule to stay even and that is where the 'cost' mentality stems from.
It's not really a choice - Terrans can't actually produce workers as fast as either of the other races on equal bases.
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It gets more complicated with Zerg. If you build a hatch, you need 300 minerals plus 50 minerals for the drone replacement plus the travel time in which the drone is not mining plus a larva. But with the drone morphed to a hatch, you get 1 supply back, which is worth an 1/8 overlord, meaning it saves you 12.5 minerals.
Using your logic this should say "plus the time in which the drone is not mining", which is the rest of the game duration. That's 40 minerals a minute in a base that isn't fully saturated, which would result in all the zerg buildings "costing" a lot more. Buff zerg?
Scan costs 50 energy, nothing more.
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If a DT kills 300 minerals worth of your units because you didn't save scans then you'd regret it. Sometimes that extra knowledge gained is worth more than 270 minerals.
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