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The Gas Issue part 2

05 of October 2005 04:31 PM

Posted by:panschk[FP]
After the article by Starparty already made a lot of mappers sensitive to this issue, I wanted to gather more information. I created a map for this purpose:

I started with comparing the gathering speed for 3 workers. The game ended whenever I got 500 gas, and the fastest time was for the left position: 2:20 (I had to build the gas before, that took some time too of course)

Thats the ranking of the positions:

1. LEFT________ +0:00
2. TOP_________ +0:01

3. RIGHT_______ +0:10
4. BOTTOM RIGHT +0:13

5. BOTTOM______ +0:23
6. TOP LEFT____ +0:25

7. BOTTOM LEFT_ +0:34
7. TOP RIGHT___ +0:34

So there is a lot we already knew. Of the 4 most obvious positions, top and left are the "good" ones, and esp. bottom is "bad". More surprising is how good bottom right does, it's actually better than bottom, even though it looks so far away. So when you have to place your gas somewhere south of the main for whatever reason, keep that in mind.

Now I wanted to test if 4 workers garantees you get optimal gas income. I did not test it for every position, but even with the slowest one, top right, I got a time of 02:24 (Which can partially be explained by longer distance to actually build the gas), at bottom I even got 02:18, which is the fastest time I recorded during the test at all. So I think we can assume that with four workers, you always get the best gas income, at least if gas is not VERY far away.

I also wanted to test the fancy supply-depot trick to make gas gathering faster. At bottom pos it had no effect, and at the left side it even slowed the gathering down by four secounds. So it looks as if the depot-trick is more like a urban myth than anything useful.

Thanks to test1101, silence and tombombalin for helping with tests and to Listoric for his research he did a few weeks back. And of course to Starparty who made me aware of that problem at first ;)

Comments:

Listoric

Really nice.

So we definetely can say that the best positions are, as known, top & left followed by right & down right.

Every other position is somehow uneven, if you don't use 4 workers.

Great great, think the results definetely speak for themselves. GJ panschk. Maybe put that all into one article? so that we don`t have to post "read these two articles" in a comment, after that may be too much for "newcomers"?

panschk

Imo some research on mineral placement would be needed too, and then we can work on a really big article that refers to all the older ones.

SpoR[Mech]

I like your efforts but you did not take into consideration the different races workers acceleration and speed. I would like a copy of this map so I can run more thourogh tests with spawning pools,depots, different ammounts of workers etc.
My email is spore4006@hotmail.com

panschk

well, I know there are slight differences in race speed, but I did the tests with terran only, and I don't think that we woulc have other results with other races.

Feel free to make more tests though, but you won't need the map I made in 30 secounds for that^^

SpoR[Mech]

Im lazy lol. I'll get around to doing more tests sometime this week.

SpoR[Mech]

There was a post about mining times for the different races with different distances and stuff on TL.net. I think you should link that on the articles.

SpoR[Mech]

Also make a not that your map doesn't have to have all top or left gasses. Just make sure all the gasses are balanced equally.

SpoR[Mech]

not = note

panschk

actually, they should have top/left gasses. The gas issue is still not that widely known, and it is unfair to give players who don't know that a disadvantage. So if possible, use 3-gas.

Listoric

WHy has the article a width around 600, but the comments over the page? O_o

Starparty

i was thinking about an article telling how to place minerals good too. On some positions the workers will bug out if the mineral is placed badly..

STIMEY D OKGM FISH

i came across this when i was making hot cider. originally i was trying to find really innovative mineral placements that would be fair for things like manner pylon, build placement, defending lurks/mutas, but still mine fast enough for zerg and the same speed everywhere. i eventually just gave up and copied some other map's minerals, tested and improved it a little, etc. the nats though are cool. i balanced lots of tank and lurk stuff on that map.

my point was, i also experimented a lot with vespene. my goal was to make them all mine at the same speed, but not fastest. zerg with a little less gas than their opponent seems fair on a map that is otherwise slightly z>p and wouldnt ruin zvt i think. but i gave up on that too. a lot of it just depends on where the worker is when you tell it to go start mining gas. if they come from a different angle they might mine differently. it's freaking annoying

Starparty

yea i noticed.. i made a testmap with the minerals but i saw not a single difference in the uses of patch 1, 2 or 3 in different locations.. Still, take a look at the original LT (not the 1.12 version, the REALLY original if u still got it). On the 12 startpos the most right mineral patch bugs workers trying to mine it if they come in a bad angle... i wish i knew what made it like that so i could write a killer article, but sc is as you say: "freaking annoying".

iLLusioN.ReW

U can actually loss a zvz game due to the single fact that u need one more worker one the gas.

panschk

Of course you can, that's why balancing gas should be done whenever possible.

Kami5909

You can actually lose any matchup for that reason, moron.

nH.ArChAnGeL

you didnt show or tell where u put the depot by the gas.. we dont know if u did it right or not

iLLusioN.ReW

Kami, in zvz u use less workers than in any other match up. The loss of one scv in zvz is far worse than in the other match ups.

Starparty

cant loose scvs in zvz... :P

yeah i get the point *duh*

SpoR[Mech]

Thats what I meant. You don't have to have all Top or Left gasses ( but its nicer ). You just need to make sure that all the bases are equally balanced.

MillenniumArmy

When you did this test, did you have hyper triggers on? Because if you didn't, map timing will be off. Because triggers fire/activate only through 1 second intervals and so when you actually reach 500 gas, the victory trigger will fire once the next second cycle comes around. With hypertriggers, it will be instant.

MillenniumArmy

Trust me, hyper triggers WILL make a diff (I am a UMS map maker so I know this)

BlanK

You don't need more than three on gas.

spinesheath

@ MillennimArmy:
Hypers don't fire instantly either. Just a lot faster. And the time it takes for a normal trigger to react really is small enough to be neglected in this. Who cares about a +- 1/2 second...

I don't think you need to do detailed research on minerals placement. Just test it out and compare the positions on each map with some UMS script. If one position is slower, put a block nearer to the town hall and so on.

I use the depot/spawning pool/whatever to block harrassment rather than to increase mining speed. And I believe most of the better players use it for this purpose, too.

ludamad

I really take this into consideration with my maps now thanks to this site, it's something I would never think of seeing pro maps. It's very nice seeing the members on this site get very picky about the gas issue, because it's a positive trend that is necessary for truly balanced maps.

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