For instance if you take a hidden expansion, how many minutes of constantly producing workers before breaking even, ignoring delayed tech, at what point are you "okay" if your expansion is scouted and killed?
ROI on Expansions
Forum Index > Brood War Strategy |
thezanursic
5478 Posts
For instance if you take a hidden expansion, how many minutes of constantly producing workers before breaking even, ignoring delayed tech, at what point are you "okay" if your expansion is scouted and killed? | ||
Moopower
126 Posts
| ||
Fezvezfez
58 Posts
| ||
thezanursic
5478 Posts
On August 28 2018 18:38 Fezvezfez wrote: Really rough numbers and consider that you maynard 16 workers : Initial cost : 400 (naxus/CC/hatch) + 800 (16 workers) + 100 (supply) = 1300 minerals A worker in LotV mines very very close to 1 mineral/second, so a fully saturated expansion gives you 16 minerals/second 1300/16 = 81.25, so you reimburse the expansion after 1 minute 20 seconds IF you immediately saturate it If you do constant worker production, math is a bit more tricky, but you should consider that by the time you have produced your 16th worker, the expansion has paid for itself (192 seconds) LotV... We're talking about Brood War and I'm specifically curious about hidden expansions or cases where you have to produce workers from scratch without transferring workers. | ||
thezanursic
5478 Posts
On August 28 2018 14:06 Moopower wrote: I don't know the exact numbers, but from just game sense and experience, usually if you benefited from the expo it paid off. If you have a surplus of resources that you invest now in more production buildings like gateways,factories,etc and produced a bigger army as a result. Essentially if your population is more than it would be without the expansion and you're not behind in army, then it was worth it or break even. That doesn't actually mean anything though, unless you take two identical situations one where you take an expansion and where you don't, it's impossible to tell. I'm just trying to get some kind of number here on the cost benefit of taking an expansion so I know roughly how long my expansion needs to produce workers for it to have paid of it's initial investment, because initially for the first few workers you're still losing resources before the expansion even starts producing enough resources to build it's own workers without downtime (first 4-5), after that you slowly get your ROI, but I don't know how long. | ||
jello_biafra
United Kingdom6631 Posts
This was done at one of the third bases on FS, at a base with more mineral patches available it might well be a shorter time period. | ||
kogeT
Poland2000 Posts
On August 28 2018 20:15 jello_biafra wrote: I just tested it, from the commencement of building the CC and assuming constant worker production and instant mining for each worker it took ~3 minutes 50 seconds to earn the money back. This was done at one of the third bases on FS, at a base with more mineral patches available it might well be a shorter time period. So this returned both CC + SCV cost? | ||
jello_biafra
United Kingdom6631 Posts
That's correct, and that's counting from the moment you start making the CC, so once it's actually complete it's really only a couple minutes of full worker production that will bring you back the full costs. | ||
Freakling
Germany1525 Posts
On August 28 2018 19:25 thezanursic wrote: That doesn't actually mean anything though, unless you take two identical situations one where you take an expansion and where you don't, it's impossible to tell. I'm just trying to get some kind of number here on the cost benefit of taking an expansion so I know roughly how long my expansion needs to produce workers for it to have paid of it's initial investment, because initially for the first few workers you're still losing resources before the expansion even starts producing enough resources to build it's own workers without downtime (first 4-5), after that you slowly get your ROI, but I don't know how long. Well, the situation then is almost as if you start a "parallel" game with your expansion where you basically star from scratch. So in a normal game you know that you can take a fast natural at around 12 to 14 workers (including building one Depot/Pylon/Ovi). So that's about the worker count where an expo has essentially paid for itself (with constant production and without cutting worker production anywhere else!). Since you start with 0 or 1 workers at the new expo, instead of 4 in your main, it is actually even a bit less as your first to third worker will already mine while the next one is being produced (although the time needed for payoff will be longer), so I'd say about 11 workers is a good ballpark number, or about 5 game minutes of worker production (in real time, at fastest speed, that would be about 3.5 minutes from starting your resource depot). How many mineral patches the expansion has does not make that much of a difference with a low worker saturation. You could also mine gas, which is an additional 100 mineral investment upfront for the gathering building, but gives you faster returns and is a usually the more critical and sparse resource (so you could probably calculate with an exchange rate of 1 gas to 1.5…2 minerals or something like that). | ||
ArmadA[NaS]
United States346 Posts
| ||
Freakling
Germany1525 Posts
| ||
Dazed.
Canada3301 Posts
| ||
Cryoc
Germany909 Posts
| ||
Highgamer
1346 Posts
On August 29 2018 01:02 f10eqq wrote: So as long as you don't build static defense and can delay for 4 minutes you get a free economic advantage + maybe some extra workers if you can safely transfer them to your non-hidden bases? Wonder why hidden bases are so rare- seems like it would pay off more often than not. I think you also have to consider that even after that moment at 4 minutes when your expo/investment is amortized, you'll still have a disadvantage for quite a while: an army disadvantage. The money you put into that fresh base, your opponent should have put it into more production and units or tech. You can catch up rather quickly obviously due to the extra income, but it will take yet a few more minutes until production is up and units are out. Until then your oponent should win any engagement and even if he cannot break you anymore - which is likely because of BW's good defenders advantage - he should be able to establish map control and expand himself. That's why it's good to combine ninja-expos with some kind of cheese or harrassment that keeps your opponent's mind elsewhere. Like others wrote, hidden expos suddenly stop working - not always, but most of the time - at some level where players have developed enough mechanics to have their mind free and some game-sense to guess what's going on, but up until what was high D/low C rank, I'd say going for it as a set strategy or when you float the money is definitely a good way to win (scrappy) games, especially if you're Zerg and Protoss because far-out bases will be easier to defend. | ||
Djabanete
United States2783 Posts
| ||
GeckoXp
Germany2013 Posts
On August 28 2018 13:21 thezanursic wrote: How long does it take for your investment on your expansion to pay off, assuming constant worker production? For instance if you take a hidden expansion, how many minutes of constantly producing workers before breaking even, ignoring delayed tech, at what point are you "okay" if your expansion is scouted and killed? at 6:00 done it starts to pay off at 8:43 using 12 scvs funny how times are changing source | ||
Freakling
Germany1525 Posts
| ||
Moopower
126 Posts
Also if you know how to max out in 10 minutes or less you'd know that you can take 3 bases and get your population at around 60 at 6 minute mark and then it exponentially grows into 150 in 2-3 more minutes. All these game sense knowledge leads me to the conclusion that it doesn't take very long to get your ROI on your expansion. The main focus should be what advantage will you be getting out of it rather than just pure numbers. I've seen players with vastly higher population numbers lose a game because of the momentum and how their opponent lead the pace of the game. But to address the exact science of the ROI numbers if you really want to know, you should just do a side by side parallel game of one game where you do the expo and one that you dont and compare your resource count. Unless you aim to be a progamer, I doubt it really matters to the exact T. For the average amateur just understanding the game flow and what you have to do in order to gain an advantage is sufficient enough. So if you lose your expansion without accomplish one of 3 things, your ROI is not as relevant as what actually dictates who wins the game in the end. 1. your army is now bigger and more of a threat 2. your economy is better than your opponent despite lost expansion 3. You've controlled the pace of the game by diverting his attention to your hidden expo while doing something else to gain some sort of map advantage or even just leading the game by your own pace making your opponent react to every move you make leaving less time for him to think about how he will win against you but just defending or responding. If you understand the korean commentators in PvT games, they even say that protoss will be fine (break even or little ahead maybe in context to the terran player not necessarily in terms of a parallel game of your ROI) if he forgoes his nexus but just save his probes rather than try to fight against early marine/scv/tank vulture push against 12 nexus play if the fight was unwinnable. | ||
Freakling
Germany1525 Posts
On August 29 2018 06:45 Moopower wrote: Expanding to your nat in a standard FE build means you get lots of additional benefits:I don't think it takes 4 minutes to reap the benefits from an expansion. If you take into account of zerg players taking bases vs 1 base play the difference is stark. Even in PvP where one player does 12 nexus and survives against 2 gate rush, if he micros better he will have superior army after the initial battle. So that's why unless you have some kind of mathmatical formula to account for every single number, I generalize it through experience and common sense. So in my estimation it takes about 2 minutes or so to get your ROI.
Also if you know how to max out in 10 minutes or less you'd know that you can take 3 bases and get your population at around 60 at 6 minute mark and then it exponentially grows into 150 in 2-3 more minutes. All these game sense knowledge leads me to the conclusion that it doesn't take very long to get your ROI on your expansion. The main focus should be what advantage will you be getting out of it rather than just pure numbers. I've seen players with vastly higher population numbers lose a game because of the momentum and how their opponent lead the pace of the game. This, again, is with immediate saturation of natural and third with transferred workers, which is not what the OP asked for. | ||
Moopower
126 Posts
| ||
| ||