New to the forum and have been reading a lot and one thing i am having trouble with is scouting. I do go check out the other person base but i wonder if im doing it to early becuase i really dont know what info im supposed to be learning. If any one got tip as to what to look for and what it mean it would be helpful.
I usually send out my scout at around 14 supply in order to maximise my early income and sneak in before a wall-in. I don't always pull off the latter but I always send 2 ovies at my opponent so I'm not entirely left in the dark. But basically you want to be able to scout your opponent at key tech choices, the first one coming after the first military building - whether they go for multiple ones or tech up and in which direction. I don't think you lose much by sending an early scout. You'll miss out on a little extra income but you'll definitely get behind a wall, plus you can just roam around in the other base until they put down key buildings.
It's never to early to scout, I tend to send one of my 1st drones right off the bat. That early information can really determine a lot of things. Like what build order will you do, or if they are setting up for a rush, or if he/she hasn't built anything then you might be getting proxied, and etc etc. You might lose a tiny bit of income but it's definitely invaluable. If your facing terran, you can really do some harassment on killing workers building a supply depot or barracks or force them to halt or send an SCV on your worker, every second counts and if you can delay the buildings being finished + scout and it will put you at an advantage. Scouting purposes later on is basically for: 1. Expansions 2. Finding out "Specific" Buildings like Robotics Factory or a Starport for example. Which will help you determine what you want to make to counter.
It's a bit weird for me to disagree with a better player but whatev. Scouting that your opponent is busy collecting minerals and then staying in their base for the whole build time is worthless, especially if you really send one of your starting workers where you're effectively reducing your income by 1/6. Factor in time and we're talking about a 50 mineral loss in the first 1 minute if you send a scout right off the bat. I say estimated because I can't remember how long it takes for a worker to fetch 5 minerals but you get the idea. And you recognise cheese by not seeing what you should anyway.
True that but you make it sound as if the worker I'm sending is doing nothing but sitting at his base. The enemy is going to pull 1-2 workers off the line too to get rid of yours, so he/she isn't going to be ahead of you economically. You got good points though 50 minerals tend to not be game breaking for me anyways. High level play both players usually send it out anyways, leaving it pretty equal in terms of minerals.
I don't get cocky with my scout to avoid it getting murdered. I prefer not to sacrifice APM just to keep it alive. I tend to hide somewhere in their base occasionally to keep a low profile. After all, my primary aim is not to damage anything or hinder their income - it's to gather information.
Scouting later on yes keep low profile, starting of game you can be aggressive. You can't really hide it in their base too long because then they will just kill it off with a zealot/marine/lings. Not getting cocky or sacrificing anything really, it's just the norm at diamond. Not to be blunt but really what information is there to gather at the start besides, FE - Early Gas - Double Barracks - Gateways, etc, etc..?
More later game but seriously changelots FTW! drop these bad boys in the back of their base periodically and way point around base/ expo to get all the info you need. You can set to follow on their units also. These are so underused btw. <-- why is that? gas consumption? With my first scout i try to do 2-3 runs through the base, check for cheese, double rax/gate and gas/2x gas, then looking for cyber, early factory, tech to lair, starports etc. I generalyl leave and hide near expo when chased. I'll either leave him near expo to keep an eye on it or morph to extractor a couple of times when it gets low hp to deny gas. Also I harass terran builder scv's (I had my first scout on 3 kills in the first 6 min in one game lol!) this makes for an easier ling/bling rush.
I know, but the line still described the situation nicely As for your what information to gather bit, it's exactly the ones you listed, but as I like to hide my scout I can also learn about later tech. Granted the player doesn't scount their own base, which is fairly common in low platinum.
