StarCraft2: Easy way to calculate number of harvesters

Question

During game play one of the most important questions is: how many harvesters do you have right now. Will it be effective to build 3 more harvesters or it is better to build additional production building (for example)?

AFAIK optimal number of harvesters per base is 30: 8 minerals + 2 gas multiply by 3.

But often is hard to detect how many do you have right now. From what I see you could go to your minerals line, select all harvesters and see how much do you have. But sometime it is hard to do that (other units, non-harvesting SCV/probes). Time - is also factor. I would like to look into my supply numbers and know something like this: currently I have 50/64 supply.... how much harvesters do I have 20? 30?

Usually in replays that I lost my opponents have around 27-35 harvesters on 1 base and 43-48 with expand... Usually I have less...

Probably I just need to build those harvesters CONSTANTLY till supply id less then 60/80? (don't forget to build army too)? Probably I don't need to worry that I have too many harvesters?

Any thoughts are welcome!

Asked by Budda

Answer

After some time of playing I've found the following: doesn't matter how many harvesters do you have, you always need to build more! At least till the time when you have 2 bases fully covered with harvesters.

How to see if they are fully covered? I would say by eye - it will come with practice.

And when you are getting the 3rd expand usually you will have almost finished main and some harvesters loses. So you will move almost all harvesters from main to the 3rd expand and again you need to build them more

Please comment this answer if you see any lacks here.

Thanks

Answered by Budda

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What games run as Microsoft Office macros?

Question

Are there any games that run as Microsoft Office macros (using the open document as the level)?

Asked by SHiNKiROU

Answer

I wasn't aware this was even possible, but you can try some of the links found in this blog post:

http://technabob.com/blog/2008/04/05/classic-game-excel-spreadsheets/

Answered by Doozer Blake

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What is quickest way to command the best mix of units be produced immediately?

Question

Let's imagine you are playing Terran vs Protoss. You have around 7-9 rax, few with reactors, others with tech labs. Your opponent has army that consists mainly of zealots and high templars...

and you need to build you stuff right now. What is the best way to do that?

Option A: press 'D' 5-6 times, and after that 'A' 5-6 times? This way you will receive required amount of marines + marauders. But (at least for me) that takes some time.

Option B: press 'D' for few seconds and after that 'A' for the same time. This way you will receive pretty similar amount of units and it will be quicker, but that won't be as precise as with option A.

What is the best way to order troops when you have A LOT of buildings? Should I go with option "B" or practice "A" but make it quicker?

Do you see any other better way?

Thank you.

P.S. I'm interested in terran race suggestions, but others would be useful too.

Asked by Budda

Answer

The answer totally depends on your keyboard delay setting. The lower it is the faster it will punch out repeated key strokes.

However, that said. It's better to go with Option A. It's better control over how many units you are pumping out exactly. You need 5 marauders, you hit D 5 times. It's a much more exact army composition that you are getting. You will be a much better SC2 player this way.

Answered by Sorean

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Will learning how to touch type make me a better player?

Question

As of late I have been learning how to touch type for many reasons but the one I speak of now is to become a better player. I'm learning via typingweb and have been forcing myself to touch type. I have always used the hunt and peck method of typing with my index fingers and applying that same skill to StarCraft of course because that's how I used a keyboard. In StarCraft I have never been very good at dealing with very large amounts of keys at a time due to the way I type. If I learn how to touch type I assume I will greatly improve all-around. Not to mention it's pretty much a mandatory skill to have if I happen to apply for a job involving typing. Obviously this skill will allow me to control a greater number of keys at once so I will factually improve my game, right? Thanks in advance.

Asked by I take Drukqs

Answer

Don't use the default lay-out, it will force you to hunt and peck if you are new to touch typing.
Instead, use the grid lay-out which feels on par with touch typing.

You don't have to learn all the key locations anymore if you use this as you can simply use relative positioning to determine the key you want to press and this comes a habit over time.

So, practicing to get up to speed with touch typing helps you improve your speed. But solely that…

As it is more important to improve how you play first before improving your APM. :)

For example, there is no sense in hitting a lot of keys if you:

1. Forgot to scout that your opponent went for two gas.

2. Forgot to scout what your opponent planned to do with those two gas.

3. There are suddenly Collosus / Thors at your front door or Mutalisks at your mineral lines.

4. You didn't slow down his BO or don't have enough counter unit against it so your opponent wins.

APM doesn't necessarily make you better, if you focus too much on it you could even become worse.

Answered by Tom Wijsman

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Mouse Button Press in ROCCAT Macro Manager

Question

I recently purchased a ROCCAT Kone[+] which has some great macro possibilities due to EasyShift, which allows you to bind extra commands to the other mouse buttons (accessed by holding the assigned EasyShift mouse button)

In the macro manager you can view all the in built macros and their key sequences. Below is an example which has mouse button presses:

In trying to create my own I was not able to add mouse button presses to my macro using the recorder. How do I do this?

Answer

In the sequence list (under 'KEY PRESS SEQUENCE') you need to right click and select 'Insert mouse event' after which you can select which button (or the mouse wheel) and what type of event (down/up/click)

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How can you saturate mineral fields effectively?

Question

I know that you should have 3 workers on each mineral to harvest it most effectively, but how can you manage how many workers you have to use per base?

The number should obviously be 3 x mineral patch, but how can you easily keep track of that quantity? How can you re-build them (reaching again optimum quantity) after some of them being killed? If some patches are depleted, how can you easily transfer some of them to an expansion (leaving some to finish off the ones that are not depleted)? When you expand, should you build workers from that base once it finishes building or transfer some from the main base?

I think that with those questions I'm asking for a drone/SCV/probe guide.

Answer

The most important thing to realize is that 3 workers per mineral is the max you would want. It is not necessarily optimal however. The third worker is not as effective as the first 2. Once you have more than 2 workers, one of them will always be "hanging around" waiting for its turn to be useful. Therefore, if you have an expo with less than 2 workers per patch, you would do better to move some workers there. You will get more minerals per minute by having 2 workers per patch at your main and 1 per patch at your expo than you would with 3 workers per patch at your main.

With that in mind, here are some answers:

How to keep track of how many you have at a specific base? Make sure all your mineral patches and gas geysers are visible on the screen. Now double click on one of your workers. This will select all your workers. At the bottom middle of your screen you'll see wireframes of all of them, 8 per row. if you have 3 rows full, that's 24 workers, which is a decently saturated base. "Full" saturation would be about 24 on minerals and 6 on gas, or 30. But if you have an expo, you're better off moving some of them... (Note that MULEs do not conflict with SCV's for mining time, so they should not factor into your counts.)

When you expand, should you build workers from that base or transfer?

This depends on the situation. If your expo is far away from your main, and there are potentially enemy forces in between, then transferring is probably a bad idea. If you have more than 2 workers per patch in your main, and your natural is nearby and well defended, then transferring makes sense. In my experience, Zerg players usually expand before they have much more than 2 workers per patch, while a 1 base terran or protoss will often build up 30 workers on one base before expanding.

*Rebuilding after some being killed *

I'm not sure what the question is here - you can just rebuild them like you normally build them.

Transferring when minerals run out

There is no automatic way to have workers move to an expansion when minerals or gas run out. However, you can listen for the voice that says "mineral patch depleted" and start transferring them. You can also look for the idle worker icon that pops up on the lower left hand side of your screen, that will alert you to a worker who is not doing anything.

Race Specific Tidbits

Protoss can chronoboost workers to help get an economy up and running, or recover from an attack.

Terrans can get by with less SCVs if they have a lot of orbital commands to summon MULEs with.

Terrans can load SCV's into command centers, then fly them to a new base.

Zerg players need to remember to build more drones to replace drones used to build buildings.

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Can I use a macro to leave a group?

Question

If I join a pick-up group, I generally try to see the dungeon or raid through to the end, but sometimes circumstances make that impossible. Maybe my guild is convening for a raid, or maybe I haven't paid as much attention to the clock as I should have, so I need to hearth out and list my items on the AH before quitting for the day.

In circumstances like these, it'd be handy to have a button that simultaneously announces that I'm leaving, apologizes, and explains that I have to go do something else before dropping me from the group and activating my hearthstone (which I can then choose to either permit to complete the cast, or move to interrupt as needed).

The explanation/apology part is easy; I just include two lines prefaced with /p as normal. Is there a command to leave the party, though? I tried this:

/p I'm so sorry, but my wife needs me to leave, so I'm going to have to stop here.
/p Thanks again for grouping with me.
/leaveparty
/leave

Neither /leaveparty nor /leave accomplished anything, though. Any ideas what I should do instead? How about for activating my hearthstone?

Answer

You can try either of these ones (they are case sensitive):

/run LeaveParty()

/script LeaveParty();

Hope that helps.

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