how many mineral gatherers? (protoss)

just wondering how many mineral gatherers you guys/girls get.

I usually make 30. Overkill or is that good?
Also how many workers per vespene gas extractor(s)?

 

Three workers per vespene gas extractor maximizes efficiency and minimizes cost, while 2-3 for each mineral patch is usually enough to maximize efficiency. ~28-32 probes for the minerals, 3 for each geyser. 4 on a geyser if the geyser is farther away from your nexus than usual.

 

30 is waaay overkill. The optimal number is 16, two for each mineral patch (Don't believe Blizzard's blatant lie in telling you to get 3 per patch). However, if you are getting an expansion soon then you should make more than 16 so that you can transfer some to your expansion and still be mining fully at your main.

 

I usually go for 2 per mineral patch and 2 per gas in my main base. And asap I'll try to get a 2nd base for an expansion, and I'll take halp the mineral workers from my main so they are now 1 per mineral patch and move the rest to the new base so my expo has one per mineral patch. I'll still have to make 4 more workers so my expo can have 2 workers per gas though. I can survive with one worker per mineral with a base and an expo. But really need 2 workers per gas, so in a main + 1 expo = 4 gas = 8 workers.

And if I have a lot of left over minerals I'll make a 2nd expo. And when I'm swimming in resources I'll pump out the units really fast and go to battle.

That works for protoss and terran well. (I dunno about zerg as I'm not a zerg player)
The only difference is you can live with one non resource gathering probe for building. But you need 3-2 SCVs for your main as you don't build one building at once and you one SCV per building to make it.

I know my way is a strange way of doing things. But it means you get the same rate as just a main. Instead od 2 per mineral at main, it's one per mineral ad base and 1 per mineral at expo. But the minerals last longer before depleting and you don't have to worry about expo one later on in the game when maybe you're being attacked.

The big negative is the 1st expo is 400 minerals and early in hte game that hurts. But if you're good enough you can have one base behind the other and only have one choke to defend and you can beat their early rush. It's hard but most times with a little skill it's doable.

 

I use two workers per patch, 3 per patch is absolute overkill although it proves to work and you will have a faster resource collection rate than that of 2 workers, the problem is you will have a slight overlap in the workers which means one will be waiting while the other finishes at all times. So go for an expo after you have the max I mean two per patch is a lot of resources, spend em. You can never have too many resources!

 

Well I used to say 30+ but I've gotten better with my timings. Go for 16 on minerals minimum I say...but it depends on your build/strategy. Less can work too but it all depends on your timings. So learn your builds well and time things well. I've been using the 4gate a lot lately and I think I'm going to try a really fast timing using 19 probes total and only one gas. I think it'll rip.

 

2 per patch, three per geyser. Very rarely should you have 4 per geyser, as they're all equidistant from your Nexus. I then have 1 random worker for building stuff.

Afaik, this is the same for all races, aside from the random 2. Prolly say 4 for terran and 2 for zerg.

 

If anyone has some spare time on their hands I wouldn't mind seeing a comparison of the gathering rate between 2 per patch vs 3 per patch, assuming your typical 8 mineral patch. It would be interesting to look at how long it takes your additional investment of more than 2 workers per patch to pay off.

Btw, does the Blizzard tip actually say 3 per patch, or does it say 2.5? I can't remember.

Depending on the rate gain though it could make sense to build more than 2 per patch depending on the game situation (e.g. how dangerous it is to expand). Keep in mind that when you first build your expansion, it is a net loss of 400 PLUS the workers you have to build for it. If you can set things up to have those workers pay for themselves at your main, and then transfer them to your expansion after it finishes, it could make economical sense (for natural expansions the amount you lose during the time they spend traveling to the expansion should be minimal).

Note: this doesn't mean you should race to the natural maximum number of workers, regardless of what that is. Other conditions influence that (such as having enough units to defend against the opponent lol).

 

I haven't done the math with Minerals, but I have with Gas. Assuming a normal/correctly placed Nexus directly in between two Gas terminals, the figures average like this:

1 Worker: 40 Gas / Minute
2 Workers: 80 Gas / Minute
3 Workers: 110-115 Gas / Minute
4 Workers: 115 Gas / Minute

The lesson: the first two workers unquestionably pay for themselves. There is no diminishing return of any kind. The third worker almost lives up to this standard -- he operates at ~80% efficiency compared to the first and second. The fourth (and fifth and sixth and so on) provide virtually no benefit of any kind, to nobody's surprise.

So the answer to the question, at least for gas, is that 2 workers per node is absolutely essential. Beyond that, I would argue that the 3rd is, in most cases, worth the investment, but in some rare cases perhaps not.

 

Funny thing is, it says "2 to 3", if I remember correctly.

I am a Zerg player and I ALWAYS use three drones on my gas and normally I also try to get three drones on the minerals, which is normally not possible, cause you need drones all the time to get buildings and expansions.

But I should set up some tests, too. My "three per minerals" only relies on what I heard / read in the internet or the Blizzard tool tips.

 

Then it was changed in patch 13, because before it said 3. A little misleading.

 

On a standard map with 8 mineral fields at each location, maximum resource gathering would be 2.5 workers on each field, so thats 20 workers. This is straight from Blizzard by the way, I read this on the Battle.net forums a while back.

 

Want to see a video for proof.

 

are you guys kidding me guys? 16 workers for minerals no more! which means 2 workers per mineral patch... just test it if u'd like... if u put 2 on the same mineral patch, the mineral never sits idle

this is old news yo.

obviously 3 per gas