[H] TvT unable to win marine tank vs mech

I based my build on the 1 rax fe build from thorzain that was featured in a day9 daily some time ago. The only real difference is in the upgrades. The way thorzain does it allows him to get stim, shields and +1 right when medivacs pop, so he can do an attack or drop. I've changed that so that i get 2 ebays, get 1-1 simultaneously with shields and 2-2 simultaneously with stim. This works wonders against a player that also does marine tank, as I'll get a pretty big upgrade lead over him most of the time.

rough buildorder:
depot, rax, OC, depot, CC (standard 1rax expo)
2nd rax + 2 gas (2-3 workers in each gas depending on scouting)

scan at 5 minutes, if i see techlabbed factory i build factory and a techlab on my rax and swap it to fact (this in fact happens in the replay i posted). If i dont see tanks coming, i will delay my own tanks in favor of upgrades and medivacs)

3rd rax, addons on raxes (reactor, reactor, techlab)
double ebay, 1-1 ups, shield upgrade
starport (reactor), medivacs
3rd CC, then take additional gasses

*note: i change this up a little depending on scouting
*note 2: obviously constant worker, depot and unit production, and otherwise building stuff ASAP

http://drop.sc/199992?pass=6df8a5d0-87e2-4ffd-8a27-59a1171dd668

*note i would have posted more replays but i ended up not saving a couple and a lot of games ive played seem outdated.

Analysis:
I played this game against a fellow diamond player named Ghettoboy. Although i didnt execute my game intirely perfectly (not all buildings built right on time, not 100% constant production) I did feel like i was ahead throughout the whole game. Even looking back at the replay, i feel like i should have been able to win, as my opponents build was just bad (half bio, half mech, lots of marines without upgrades ASWELL as blueflame hellions, much later natural expo then me, builds up a massive bank of minerals, I have an upgrade lead, etc. etc.).

Early scouting: My SCV scout sees 1 gas and i scan at 5 minutes, seeing 1 techlabbed factory. I assume at this point that he is going for a tank allin (I assume this wrong, as he expands), and that i am ahead in economy by vertue of my 1raxFE. I choose to get tanks asap myself.

6:30 I see a small force with a tank moving to my base and so i pull scvs and kill the tank. I lose 6 scvs, but still think im ahead due to my FE. This ends up not being the case as he is about 6 scvs ahead of me for a good while. My macro ends up allowing me to catch up, but too late i think.

11:00 pretty bad supply block (this doesnt happen to me that often, but it did this game and it hurt!)

12:00 scanned again and see techlab port, i build turrets and kill a banshee a minute later.

15:00 i do two drops and also scout his third having been placed at the moment I arive. both drops fail horribly due to not seeing his well placed tanks.

16:00 i attack, because i feel it is my only chance to kill him before his 3rd base kicks in. I didnt have vikings tho, which made it very difficult to encroach onto his defensive bubble. Eventually he catches me out of position and kills me.

The 2 main things that i find i should have done differently was i should have made marauders, and i should have had air superiourity with vikings. Of course i also need to not get supply blocked and i need to work on improving my macro, but that goes without saying for anyone who is not high master.

What particularly troubles me about this game is that i missinterpritted his build. I saw a techfact at 5 minutes and asumed a tank allin, which would have put me ahead economically. Thus i was way too passive, and did not scout properly afterwards.

It seems, from what you write, that you're more scared about a tank all-in with your 1 rax FE build than actually playing against "mech." Similar to you, I utilized the Thorzain build, or at least its fundamentals, for a long time on the ladder, but continually died to 1-base all-ins. That's when I picked up an extremely important maxim from a teammate: When expanding, build a tank and a viking. I recognize that this is probably a complete departure from your build order, which I will analyze when I get home, but I do hope that this gives you food for thought. Terran, almost by design, is a defensive race, so possessing a single siege tank on the high ground can indefinitely hold an all-in (well, not indefinitely, but it buys time for you to react). Utilization of a viking negates medivacs and banshees, and because you're close to repairing scvs, you can win a 1:1 viking war with decent micro.

Another answer to TvT mech, is the heavily-underutilized sky terran composition with banshees/vikings/hellions into eventual raven/battlecruiser. A mech player sinks virtually all of their supply and most of their upgrade resources into a ground-based, largely immobile army of hellion/tank/thor/viking. BC/banshee/viking/raven is essentially the hard counter to their composition, while you can use BF hellions defensively to hold off any hellion harass.

But if you prefer the marine-tank or pure bio style, as iterated above, being active is key. Playing against terran mech is analogous to playing against a slow protoss. Make constant small trades before they can max out, build vikings (and get the air upgrades) to win the air war, try to snipe the armories/reactors/factories/tech labs, deny expansions, get into good positions, etc. A meching player trades mobility for slowly increasing power, ceding all initiative to the more active player (with the exception of using BF hellions to harass).

1. Okay, first thing I notice right off the bat. At 6 minutes with a two-base build, you should have 23/24 workers. More detailed information on benchmarks can be found here.

2. Holding the tank/marine push: You do a good job holding off the push, but I think that because you thought it may have been an all-in that you sacrificed a few too many workers.

3. @8:00 minutes, the tech breakdown looks like this. You: 3 naked raxes, siege mode starting. Opp: 1/1/1 Expand. Additionally, your opponent's economy is actually slightly higher than yours because of the aggression, which sort of negates your fast expand. All in all, positions fairly equal (though you want to be ahead with a greedier build).

4. @8:30. I question why you're pulling SCVs for tagging the watchtower. This is typically something you do against zerg, not terran, since the response you want to illicit is spending on army instead of economy. Additionally, had your opponent seen the push, would he have changed anything? He already had siege tanks while your combat-shieldless marines MIGHT have had stim. In my opinion, an unnecessary sacrifice of mining time. With builds, you're generally either greedy or aggressive, it's very difficult to do both unless you're ahead, and based on what you knew about your opp at the time of moving out, you didn't know whether or not you were ahead.

5. @9:16/9:17 your engineering bays finish. If I'm going double eBay, I like to them to be done before 9:00 and 1/1 started by 9:00. That sets it up nicely to have 3/3 by 15:00. Just some timings that help me remember things.

6. @9:29. Your natural is slightly oversaturated. You may be using the mantra "mine out the expos that are harder to defend," but this basically puts you on 1 base (considering the travel time between rallying your Main OC SCVs to the natural) and your natural OC is still rallied to the natural mineral line.

7. @10:01. You knew the banshee was coming, so that's good. Good reaction time with the turrets. Unfortunately, you're still stuck in a defensive position. I'm waiting for you to be aggressive and take map control. Luckily, your opp didn't have map control either.

8. @10:26. I'm looking at the Spending Tab. You've spent 1000 resources more on tech while your opponent has a 1000-resource bigger army. I'm just curious, when do you expect to be aggressive? The Thorzain-esque opener wants you to be aggressive at around 10 minutes, but Thorzain's opening has a lot more marines, 2 medivacs, and at least +1 with CS and stim finished by around now. When does your push happen? -- Additionally, part of that tech spending difference is your investment in A LOT of missile turrets. I like to just build one, maybe two in each mineral line and a viking to ward the banshee away. :

9. @11:16. By this time, the fact that your counter-attack hasn't happened yet, coupled with your investment in so many turrets, is delaying your third expansion. Your opponent, who feels comfortable now that his banshee is out as an early warning system, is throwing down his third. You use the 10 minute push to buy time for your third, unfortunately, your push has been heavily delayed. Your units at this point in the game: 14 marines and 1 tank vs. 1 banshee, 4 tanks, and 13 marines. Your army is simply falling behind in size.

10. @12:05. Your turret kills a banshee, but the mining at your natural is getting more and more inefficient. You've also fallen behind by 9 workers. There's no reason for this, even the early attack, because there was a point when you and your opponent were both at 31 workers.

11. @13:52. Your drops are almost in position, your army is still much smaller than your opponent's, your opp is transitioning to heavy tank production, your opp is getting a third, and the fast armory that you invested in isn't even being utilized as 2/2 is not getting upgraded.

12. 14:48. Your drops just got cleaned up. The number of tanks he has should be an indication to you to one of several things. 1) Scrap your current build, grab a third and tech to BCs as soon as possible. 2) Ramp up tank production and take a forward position outside of his bases. 3) Move your bio army to a more aggressive location. Instead of one of those three, you still have no third, your opp controls the map, and your army is stuck at your natural. The one advantage your army has over mech is its mobility, and it's being completely negated by its defensive positioning.

13. 15:10. You finally throw down your third, but your fast armory is just a dead-weight at this point. 2/2 is not on the way and your opp already has vehicle weapons 1 basically completed. He's also constructing 3 thors.

14. 16:35. Your push-out just sniped his banshee, but by this point, all of your early game advantages have been negated. He caught up to your FE, your upgrades are late, your marine count is small, you're only utilizing your mobility now, etc.

15. The Engage. You set up a siege line outside of his base, which is excellent. Unfortunately, after a little skirmishing, you decide to try to break his massive tank/BF hellion/thor line by running up his ramp. Bad move. By sieging outside of his base, YOU have the defender's advantage. He has to attack into you. Holding the siege line a little longer may have bought you time to tech switch. You're also not actively reinforcing the siege line. The strength of a siege line is either a) concavity or b) depth. Your siege line, while it had elements of both, didn't have the dimensions necessary to hold off the inevitable mech push (as in, he would've been able to a-move instead of inching up his tanks).

16. As for your opponent's composition, it's basically standard mech, though he used the marines as a crutch from his 1/1/1 Expand.

Summary: Take a look at Thorzain's build again and try to get up his marine numbers, make sure you analyze Day[9]'s comments on TvT terran positioning, try to get a faster third, make sure you have efficient saturation on your mining bases, utilize the ability to get faster upgrades if you go that route, invest in marauders, and if you see mech, don't feel constrained to follow your build to the letter—there's a point where marine-tank cannot win against mech. Additionally, be more mobile. You moved out of your base 4 times (if you count both drops as separate moves). That's not enough mobility. Establish forward positions and continually reinforce while making small trades—your army rebuilds faster than his.

I hope that that's all helpful and is what you were looking for.