[D/H] The end of Supply Depots?

Showing what IMO is the beginning of a more mature use of this technique.



More links on some high diamond replays...

http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/112393-1v1-terran-zerg-jungle-basin
http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/112417-1v1-terran-zerg-jungle-basin

Some early testing...






Toss killing mass orbital:

(Over the duration of this thread, this strategy has evolve a bit thanks to those willing to
spend time and energy to try it out and prove/disprove it.) At this point, this build is about
going standard early game as you see fit, and after that switching to mass OC for supply
and mules and inevst in a mule heavy economy to support your army. With mass mules,
you can sacrifice some of your scvs in order to get to an army heavy max 200/200
(some say 180/20) scenario

The idea of this strategy is to reduce dependence on depots as food supply and instead
get it from OCs, especially mid-late game.

That was one of the initial ideas. But early tests indicate that you need standard depot
build early game for the following reasons:
- at 400m and longer build time, OCs are not optimal early game
- you need early game depots to support first batch of scvs and early army

By midgame, or once you have a stable economy and decent army, you can SWITCH to this
"build" by forgetting about depots and spamming OCs for mules (see details above for the
figures on mule-heavy economy).

You will still need scvs particularly early game (per standard) until it is safe to switch to
mule-based economy. At this point, you will need less scvs, mainly for gas harvest, repair,
and building. Reducing scvs is an essential part of this strategy since it will give you a
bigger percentage of army in a 200/200 max out scenario vs others.

If you proceed with your game rushing to this strategy, you will clearly have to skimp on
early army. An opponent who scouts this might react to this aggressively with early
pressure or might all-in against you. this could be a major problem. Or, you could simply
go standard early to mid game, 2 basing preferably, and switch to this strategy,
then you could see the potential of this strategy. Moreover, some point that mules only
address the mineral aspect of your economy, what about the gas? I see this a general
economy issue and not particular to this strategy - meaning mule or not, terran or any other
race, one has to always mind gas harvesting. you will have to save some scvs for gas
mining.

At this point, this strategy belongs to everyone, including you. If you think this is impossible,
you are welcome ignore this. But IF you argue against it, please be kind enough to post a
rational argument and not just a blanket denial. Otherwise, try it out yourself, experiment
with it, mix it up, do anything to prove by your account if this build is viable or not. By then,
you can post any argument you want with the benefit of personal experience.

The goal of this thread is honestly, to come up with a game breaking technique for terran by maxing out abuse of mules. How does this end supply depots? We'll get to this soon.

I'll be stating a lot of stuff, backed up by with rough math. But I admit this is all theory craft at this point. I'll be refining this as we go - but I wanted to share my conclusions. If anyone is interested in helping me figure out how to absolutely abuse the ideas that follow - please contribute.

Background Information

After running some numbers on mules in this thread:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=7156269

I came away pretty shocked at how incredibly broken mules are. I broke out excel and ran some calculations. The key point is I came away with is that once built, it takes around 3:20 for terran to pay for an orbital command plus 10 scvs (if people are curious I can share the xls).

The other key number is 4 orbital commands. That's the number of orbital commands required to call down enough mules to mine ~800 minerals per minute (the same as a fully saturated base).

Mules

Mules are incredible. So incredible that I think they may legitimately break the game if used to their fullest potential. An orbital command can put down a mule every ~85 seconds. A mule lasts 90 seconds and mines 180 minerals per minute. For comparison, 3 scvs mining a mineral patch will produce ~100 minerals per minute (about 40/35/25 if mining the same patch according to my tests). So in one sense a mule comes pretty close to being worth 5-6 scvs. A great ability that you can constantly use.

But the part where mules become broken is their ability to oversaturate a mineral patch. Every base in SC2 has 8 patches. In order to get 6 SCVs to mine 200 minerals a second, it takes up 2 mineral patches. A fully saturated base will mine 800 minerals per minute and require 24 scvs.

Mules on the other hand can mine 180 minerals a second regardless of how many other workers are there. With 24 scvs and 4 mules mining at a single base you should be able to mine roughly 1520 minerals a second. That's the same as two fully saturated expansions.

So 4 mules is roughly equal to a fully saturated base...so what?

4 Mules are much better than a fully saturated expansion.

In order to put together a fully saturated base, it costs money. You need to build the command center, and you need to build 24 workers, those 24 workers need to eat - so you also gotta build supply depots.

The true cost of an SCV is 50 minerals plus 1 supply (using a supply depot, a supply is worth 12.5 minerals) - so an SCV is costs 62.5 minerals. 24 of these will cost you 1500 minerals + 400 for the command center.

So it costs 1900 minerals to build and fully saturate an expansion - the CC itself is only ~25% of the total cost - the vast majority is in the workers and supply.

Why does this matter? 1900 minerals is a lot. It costs you that much to take a natural and fully saturate - this is why FE is pretty risky. Taking a quick third and fully saturating both bases will cost you 3800 minerals. Thats a metric shit ton. In this game, its generally not economically feasible to saturate a third base before your main is nearly mined out because of the cost in workers. Additionally, because workers take up supply, building 90 workers to fully saturate 3 bases will leave you with a paper army compared to someone 2 basing. Chances are pretty good, you won't hold that third (we see this happen time and again with zergs who take a third as a response to a FE - they simply do not have enough money to saturate and build any remote defense).

So most of the time, we all have to be content with a max income of around 1500 minerals per minute (2 fully saturated bases). It's almost impossible to exceed this (aside from golds, which we'll ignore for a bit).

Mules break all those rules

So here is where we finally get to the interesting shit. Mules are the only unit in SC that can completely break the above. A terran player capable of rolling out 4 mules on 2 fully saturated bases will mine ~2200 minerals per minute. This is realistically more than any other race can do. If you get really ambitious, a terran player capable of rolling out 8 mules on two bases will mine ~3000 minerals per minute. Thats equal to 4 fully saturated bases. With an income that high, you should be able to produce a marine every second.

But it's not possible to get a steady stream of 8 mules!

Well. Not if you play conventionally but I think that in order to play terran to its maximum potential, you should not play remotely like any other race, nor should you play as the designers intended, because AS TERRAN YOU SHOULD WORK HARD TO NEVER BUILD A SUPPLY DEPOT.

Well. Ok. You need that first one to get a barraks. But lets ignore that first depot. Let me say it again...

AS TERRAN YOU WORK HARD TO NEVER BUILD A SUPPLY DEPOT.

Command centers are always economically better for supply. Why? Because supply depots suck. They're just lost minerals AND they get killed easy leaving you supply blocked. If you can possibly arrange a way to afford it, you should ALWAYS BUILD COMMAND CENTERS FOR FOOD. Why? Because in ADDITION TO BUILDING WORKERS FASTER, THEY GIVE YOU MULES AND ALLOW YOU TO OVERSATURATE.

A command center gives you 11 food, this is worth 137 minerals in supply (depot gives 8 @ 100 minerals). The actual cost of a command center is really 263 minerals, the orbital is another 150. Using ONLY MULES the orbital command will pay for itself in about 3:20 (550 minerals) - a single mule will pay for the command center using its food adjusted cost in 90 seconds. After this, unlike a supply depot the orbital command will begin to improve your income. Dramatically. If you can get 2 orbital commands, the mules alone will entirely pay for a constant stream of additional orbital commands. What does this mean? Well. It means that you could have 8 orbital commands in around 9 minutes, and an income of 3,000 minerals per minute (equivilant to 4 fully saturated bases).
Obviously, it won't always be possible to avoid building depots.But the point is that this is something you should try very hard to avoid. A supply depot does not improve your income. Orbital commands do. Two will completely pay for a third in mule income alone, 3 will give you 540 minerals / minute, allowing you to continue pumping out additional CCs in mass (paid for by mules alone).

So let me just review. Using your main, and your natural, you can have an income equvalent to 4 fully saturated bases. This mechanic is absolutely unparalleled by anything the other two races have -- and we haven't even started looking into planetary fortresses as incredibly cost effective defense yet.

Theorycraft
I admit completely that this thread is theorycrafting at its best. But I wanted to put this post up so that I could eventually take credit for the inevitable nerf on Mules . I'll be adding builds, replays as I have time.

In the mean time, please feel free to add suggestions, think it out, try builds. The best I did was a 14 CC 15 rax with my 4th orbital at ~ 6 minutes. I walled off the natural with CCs and 2 bunkers. I had an income of 2200-2400 at 9 minutes. I'm sure this is viable.


EDIT:

Griffith has posted a build with high diamond replays showing that this is viable.

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=173703

The revolution has begun :D