I'm sure it's been tried and tested, but do you build a worker first and then send the starting workers to get minerals or the other way round? And when you send the workers, are there more efficient command inputs than sending them all to one mineral patch?
Some people split them, but watching replays, splitting them takes ppl too much time and they are behind in income compared to when they just ctrl-click them to one patch like I do. And I like to send drones and build drone afterwards, as I think 1 sec for 1 worker able to carry 5 mins is less bad than 6 workers waiting to mine for 1 sec.
There were a thread here in the forums where someone really tired it out. Producing a worker before sending the starting units to mine had a slight advantage. Splits had advantages, too. He tested the income during a minute in the game. Was beta, though, but guess there aren't to much differences to the retail version. Remember, if you split your units, you have to be fast. Otherwise you have no advantage at all. I'd recommend to send all 6 drones to 1 patch, then splitting 3 out to another patch. Usually, i don't like to split - i send my drones to one patch (preferably the middle one) and then start producing my first worker. I got used to it, don't go to bad with it...
I send all to one patch as the game will spread them out as needed by itself. Then I immediately build the worker, set my nexus to control group 1, set the waypoint for it on a mineral patch, set one worker to control group 2 and then say "wasup" to my team mates. All this is done in a matter of 5 seconds.
Yeah I think Amduscias and 1n5an1ty are spot on. Just saw a replay which showed that one of the pros (TLO) build a worker first. Well, I guess the difference this makes is very small, but it's better to get into good habits
i remember misclicking once and not clicking on a mineral patch at all. My probes were having a work free day.
It is better to build first send second and split if you have the apm, you can actually feel a diff as you have just 50 mins when the worker pops rather than 65 or so. As for where to send probes I keeo them to one side to better rally.
some dude on tl.net did full analysis, with graphs etc. and he concluded that there is no difference between splitting workers and sending them to 1 mineral or between making a worker or sending workers to minerals first ;-)
So to sum it up, if it does matter at all, the difference is that small that it is even unclear into which direction it goes. ^^
Pretty much the bottom line is that there ain't nobody in here good enough where .5 of a second is going to make any real difference anyway.
I know that. Pretty much screws the whole game since your all ****ed up during the game that you spend 3 seconds to hit a ****ing mineral patch.
