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Alright so here is the definite answer based upon my opinion =D If you cannot kill more than enough SCV's to cause him to be undersaturated, it is better to kill a MULE, if you are killing SCV's and he is super saturated then it was pointless kills not unless he expands. I'd say 1 Mule is greater than 1 SCV, so make sure to just kill like 10 things and include the MULE. Also if you come back every 30 seconds to do harass you can easily kill an income quickly. Even with turrets up you can kill a couple with a fly by. If he leaves guys in his back just pull away and attack his front, once he pulls away attack his mineral line rinse repeat win.
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I target mules first, especially if I see them called down just before I attack.
As zerg I r jelly of mools.
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I like to first pick of SCV's on gas, then mules, then mining SCV's.
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When you pick off a MULE it makes the Terran player cringe.
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Here are my personal guidelines for killing workers. I feel this is a practical application backed by most of the mathcraft found earlier in this thread.
If it's relatively early game I'll... a) Kill MULEs if I'm looking to end the game early. b) Kill SCVs if I want a long macro game.
If it's later on... a) Kill MULEs if the base is >=saturated. b) Kill SCVs if it's some fledgling expansion.
When it doubt, kill MULEs. It hurts the Terran's feelings.=D
*SCVs on gas are prioritized in all situations
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An SCV is not worth infinite minerals. It is worth exactly 50 minerals + the amount of minerals it would've mined between the point you kill it and the point you reach saturation.
Say you are on one base, and you have 24 SCVs on Minerals, 6 on Gas. If you kill an SCV, it is worth 50 minerals + the amount of minerals it would've mined in the build time of one SCV (assuming that you were not producing SCVs at the time of it being killed). Once you have finished building this SCV, you are back at saturation and would receive no additional income from that killed SCV.
Ergo, by the same logic, if the base is very undersaturated, an SCV is more worthwhile to kill, but as the base tends toward saturation, there will become a point where a Mule is more worthwhile to kill.
This logic only applies in the scenario that you're analysing their economy in the long run, but if you're looking to do short run damage (i.e. kill a mule and then hit a timing where they have 200 less minerals than they otherwise would've), then killing the Mule is almost always better.
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i for myself came to the conclusion that targeting scvs is way better for more than one reason, at first if you kill a mule they will call another one a minute later and its like you have never been there but if you kill scvs actually they have to replace them a scv costs 50 minerals + 50 to replace the old one + lost miningtime. If you kill a mule the terran doesnt lose any minerals because all a mule can do is mine minerals faster - you do not gain any minerals by using mules.
I think different if the terran is either heavily over saturated with scvs or if it is in the very early game and you just saw a mule called down so id try to snipe it with my reaper or w/e unit i have at that time.
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I'd say it mostly depends on the type of the game. If you see it going to the mid/late game, just go and kill some scvs(cause it's long-term harm) and if you think he's going to do 2 base all-in, you should kill mules.
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Get the mules, it throws their timing pushes off.
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Fairly certain its usually better to hit SCVs unless its early game.. (around first through 3rd mule drop).. SCV's cause more long time issues.. for instance using more mules.. and having one less scv to build buildings with // scout etc. It puts them farther behind for sure.
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I'm of the opinion it's better to it SCVs in every circumstance - unless the Terran player (I play Terran) is doing some sort of all in.
The proper way - I believe - to think about this, is that an Orbital Command produces enough energy to mule once every 90 seconds. Or in other words, the Orbital command is like having 4 extra SCVs.
Killing a mule - is simply 'stopping' those 4 scvs from mining for the Terran player for 90-x seconds, where "x" is how long it's already been mining for. (For now I'm going to ignore any theory on what psychological decision you are causing the player to make with their future orbital energy).
Whereas killing an SCV does 50 minerals of REAL dmg, 17 seconds of CC production time, and removes the mining benefit of that single SCV "Permanently". Killing an SCV will do more dmg unless you are 100% the game will end in the next 270 seconds (and that is assuming the mule was FRESH when you killed it).
Is there something wrong with the logic I'm using here? -- From the Terran perspective (myself as a player) losing a mule bothers me much less than losing an SCV because I do not have to re-build, and generally, being the best 'defensive' race in the game in MOST circumstances I can choose to play a slower game should I desire, so the BOOST of minerals is less important to me than the overall 'efficiency' of my economy - rebuilding SCVs which I previously lost is an inefficient use of minerals.
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Hyrule18766 Posts
If you pick up and kill a loaded MULE you remove 30 minerals from the game. Each loaded SCV is only 5. I don't see how it's a hard decision.
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On February 18 2011 01:46 tofucake wrote: If you pick up and kill a loaded MULE you remove 30 minerals from the game. Each loaded SCV is only 5. I don't see how it's a hard decision.
Nope, the MULE is worth 0 minerals (90 seconds time however of energy), whereas the SCV is worth 50 minerals - by destroying the SCV you remove 55 minerals from the game (assuming it's loaded).
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If I saw a mule drop down I'd go for it first definitely, otherwise though I think SCVs are a better target (Terran have so few already ^^).
On February 16 2011 14:51 Kornholi0 wrote: If you think about it, you shouldn't target any units at all, you need to target units that have resources in their hands =D That way you can capitalize on the loss of resources. I just looked at your sig.
Please stop posting every single game you play. GR is not meant to be used like that lol
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