[D] Targetting MULEs or SCVs? - Page 3
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pandaminion
United States270 Posts
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LightningStrike
United States14275 Posts
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Narkil
38 Posts
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mytent
United States156 Posts
Or ask yourself, if I were Terran, which would I try saving the most. Itll be mule for sure. And immediate, maximized damage is what you aim for in any attack. Because you don't know how long the game is going to go for. He might take a third, so you see an opportunity to move out win your two base death ball. You might be going for a macro game... Btt maybe he wants to end it now with a 3 rax stim push. All I'm saying is that no one has the foresight to know whether a game will go for another 15 minutes or another 5 minutes. So you play to win as soon as possible. Even if as soon as possible is only possible by the time you're taking your third. The point is you don't know. So you always try to maximize the immediate damage you can deal to the other player. In this case that means the mule | ||
Silmakuoppaanikinko
799 Posts
If you just saw a massive calldown you know the guy needs minerals NOW and if he doesn't get them NOW he's in shit, so take those mules and then attack. On average though, definitely SCV's, going for mules in general because they 'provide more income' is just garbled mathematics, mules die on their own, SCV's down. If you kill a mule you're removed a fixed amount of income, let's say 180 in 30 seconds, if you kill an SCV you've taken an infinite amount of income. Terrans, in early game, also don't 'replace' SCV's, you should always keep producing SCV's so they always produce them anyway and in a constant pace, terran has no control over the pace in which they produce them, zerg and protoss have control over the rate in which they produce harvesters and thus can 'replace' them by stepping up production by allocating more larvae and chronoboost to them. Of course, I always enjoy to be a pest and lift SCV's that are making buildings, I've had games where that guy had 3 unfinished supply depots in his base and didn't notice because I snatched the SCV's from there. That's 300 minerals simply gone, beats a mule every day. The logic of saying 'but an SCV costs minerals!' is also debatable, yeah, it costs minerals, but when you snatch it it has already lived for a while and mined for a while so it already fulfilled some of its purpose. The point a lot of these arguments don't take into consideration is inflation in SC2, there is simply inflation going on, technically a worker costs only 50 and gives you infinite money back, but there is inflation, and money now, is always better than money later. In fact, I would argue that using your first mule to call down supply might in the end be an advantage, because 100 money directly in early game might prove better than 280 money over time. | ||
2v2SNAX
Canada97 Posts
So in terms of low numbers harras, grab the mule, then grab some SCVS. | ||
DoubleZee
Canada556 Posts
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Skyro
United States1823 Posts
The logic is first of all as many have pointed out, the time value of money, i.e. minerals early > minerals late, and killing a mule has a more immediate economical impact. Second of all, in most situations they be at least partially saturated on their bases, so there is dimishing returns for SCVs, but mules do not suffer from this. Also I believe killing mules when they are bring minerals back has more of an effect than people think. 30 minerals (42 w/ gold patches!) in their hand means 30 minerals that was mined but they received no benefit from. That's 30 minerals they are never getting back in addition to lost mining time from the killed mule. | ||
tMorris
Canada9 Posts
Generally Pick off the MULES Watching a MULE I just called down get picked off makes me cry, especially on a saturated base If I'm going heavy factory or starport play or it's late game, pick the guys out of gas. If you pick 'em out of gas when theres something else going on, it's really easy to forget about it, and wind up with 500 minerals 40 gas | ||
TNine
United States46 Posts
Also, as was already noted, always go for SCVs on gas (and probes and drones on gas, too). It will cut into gas until they start to replace it, and then it will cut into minerals. | ||
Trump
United States350 Posts
On February 16 2011 14:07 EnderSword wrote: SCV: 45min/minute. Mule: 270min in 90 seconds, so 180/minute. We can restate that the Mule is of unknown time duration left, so perhaps call it 60 of 90 seconds (2/3rds duration) to weight this a little unfairly in favor of killing mules. So in 60 seconds, the SCV gathers 45 minerals. It doesn't die, so that's +50 minerals. The Mule gathers 180 minerals, then dies. So if you expect the game to go on for only 60 seconds which is unlikely given that you're harassing, then you should kill the Mule. If you pull it out to that all important 3 minute mark, the SCV has mined 135 minerals and didn't die for another +50 minerals, so that means the SCV was worth 185 minerals whereas the Mule was worth 180. To cut it short, you should target the SCV unless you expect to end the game in the next 2 minutes. | ||
Simberto
Germany11032 Posts
Also, saturation is very important in this topic. As i explained before. | ||
tMorris
Canada9 Posts
On February 17 2011 05:55 Trump wrote: We can restate that the Mule is of unknown time duration left, so perhaps call it 60 of 90 seconds (2/3rds duration) to weight this a little unfairly in favor of killing mules. So in 60 seconds, the SCV gathers 45 minerals. It doesn't die, so that's +50 minerals. The Mule gathers 180 minerals, then dies. So if you expect the game to go on for only 60 seconds which is unlikely given that you're harassing, then you should kill the Mule. If you pull it out to that all important 3 minute mark, the SCV has mined 135 minerals and didn't die for another +50 minerals, so that means the SCV was worth 185 minerals whereas the Mule was worth 180. To cut it short, you should target the SCV unless you expect to end the game in the next 2 minutes. This doesn't sound quite right to me On a fully saturated base (assuming 16 scv's) you are getting 720 minerals per minute (16*45) With one MULE on top of that you get 900 minerals per minute (16*45+180) If you kill one SCV it takes 17 seconds to replace so if you kill the SCV at the start of the minute their minerals at the end of the minute would look like: (15*45=675)-50+(45*0.716r=32.25)+180=837.25 minerals If you kill the MULE: 810±90 depending on which point of its life time it's at TL;DR on average, ON AVERAGE!, killing the MULE will deprive him of more minerals during a one minute period | ||
EnderSword
Canada669 Posts
You almost never 'Replace' an SCV except in the late game. Almost anything up to 20 minutes, you're constantly building SCVs, so losing an SCV at any time is a straight up loss, you never 'replace' it, because you were going to keep building them anyway. If you had 16 and you lost one, the next isn't a replacement...he was building anyway. It's simply that you have 16 still when you would have had 17. You replace a Eng bay, a supply depot or an Armory you lost ...you don't 'replace' SCVs in the same way | ||
MacroKing
Canada298 Posts
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celeryman
United States54 Posts
MULE v. SCV optimizations depend on the length of time until full saturation of all bases is reached because at full saturation income reaches a ceiling. This depends on estimates about how many bases one can hold effectively, discounted by how long they're held. </tldr> Many people have suggested that saturation matters, so I ran some numbers. In doing, I thought more about how we could quantify the benefit of each option and compare. The original example sets up a baseline case, and then the two alternatives. This is good, but it doesn't map to a real game. By not creating additional SCVs, the OP doesn't experience an income ceiling due to saturation. I believe the most critical figure in determining which is a better choice is the time until saturation is reached, which determines how long income is suppressed compared to a baseline after a SCV/MULE kill. While minerals collected will lag by a set amount until the base is mined out, income levels will plateau at the same level as soon as full saturation on all operating bases is reached. How long it takes to return and the net income loss should allow the player to decide which is better in the given game. Assume the optimal baseline case. A player will have constant SCV production until they've reached saturation. EnderSword has mentioned this above. That means there's no slack to add an extra SCV to the production cycle (unlike Zerg and Toss, as someone mentioned). If we had a map with infinite resource locations then we'd never reach saturation. In this situation, +1 more SCV is always better, even over MULEs. However in practice, the saturation point is reached quickly. It actually scales as well, with the saturation time decreasing in proportion to the number of bases (because the CCs grow but saturation point remains the same). From game start, one base reaches saturation's at about 7 minutes [(30 - 6) * 17]. At two bases the production doubles. Saturating a second base from scratch can be accomplished in 4:15 [(17 / 60) * (30 / 2)]. When we lose an SCV, we've fallen behind the baseline in terms of minerals collected by a measurable amount. That amount is equal to: replacement cost of lost SCV + time until saturation * average of the marginal collection rate for each new SCV until saturation In other words, if you can estimate your opponent's time until saturation, you can estimate the extent to which he lags the baseline. Similarly, income is suppressed by the marginal value of the SCV/MULE lost (this is just a function of saturation). The income remains suppressed relative to the baseline until saturation is reached. The big if in this equation is the "time until saturation" number. In contrast, a MULE kill at 50% puts the player behind 135 in absolute terms, and suppresses income by 90 minerals per minute for 90 seconds, all irrespective of saturation levels. So saturation determines not only the degree of absolute minerals lost (or behind the optimal case, technically) but also the income rate reduction and its duration. Here are some examples with numbers: A) One base, 25 SCVs on minerals. Lose 1 SCV (24 now). Amount lost = 50 + 0 seconds * 0 = 50. B) One base, 23 SCVs on minerals. Lose 1 SCV (22 now). Amount lost = 50 + 34 seconds * 32 = 68. C) One base, 23 SCVs on minerals, 1 MULE. Lose 1 MULE (50%). Amount lost = 135. D) One base, 16 SCVs on minerals. Lose 1 SCV (15 now). Amount lost = 50 + (9 * 17 seconds) * Average_of(45,32,32,32,32,32,32,32,32) = 135.2. In example A, income (per minute average) doesn't drop at all, and extra costs only drop by the 50 used to replace the SCV. In example D, income rate doesn't reach baseline levels for over 2:30, although on average it is only depressed by about 33 per minute. I realize this omits some factors that may sometimes be relevant, such as preemptive over-saturation (this can be accounted for though), and supply issues and cost, higher HP on a MULE. There may be psychological issues too, and maybe hitting gas is better. If your opponent gets supply locked frequently or forgets SCVs, this will also increase the time to saturation, increasing the cost of losing an SCV. Most important, MULEs quickly extinguish a base, which is relevant in practical terms. Certainly in practice you would need to apply probabilities to these, and discount the full saturation calculations accordingly. Lastly, people may forget to replenish SCVs or may not have optimal saturation which could amplify the effect of SCV killing (although this would be reflected in the time til full saturation number). While there may be reasons to prefer targeting SCVs, we should be clear about what those are, and what affects that decision. I believe it's time until full saturation, but if I've made mistakes here please let me know (first post too so be nice). Thanks. | ||
Simberto
Germany11032 Posts
On February 17 2011 11:17 MacroKing wrote: Mules don't get you more minerals. Just faster minerals. Well, so do additional SCVs above your starting 6. One could also argue that faster minerals are indeed more minerals, since you have them when you would not have them otherwise, meaning that at many points in time, you have, in fact, more. You simply cannot talk about economy and completely ignore time as a factor, it just does not work. | ||
manicshock
Canada741 Posts
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farseerdk
Canada504 Posts
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Zombo Joe
Canada850 Posts
Killing an SCV is permanent damage while killing a MULE is just temporary as he can get his energy back for free. Killing MULEs is too much of a gamble imo, just focus on killing SCVs. | ||
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