when is a good time to stop making probes? like say you have two bases that are saturated, is it ok to stop? say your going to take an expansion, your main would be starting to get mined out so you would transfer all your workers to the expan? keep in mind this question revolves around protoss + probes cause I really dont play anything else
unless the game goes really long term, do you make more workers?
Yeah I think making lots of "workers" for Terrans & Protoss is a good tip. I remember following that guide which suggested to make lots of probes,was finally getting better at the game. I would actually expo in time and stuff.
when u get into mid game and late game, that's another issue. if u have 2 expos, but u'r playing on a 4 player map, then u can still have potentially 3-4 more expos, depending on how you handle your macro.
in that case, it's never "bad" to have excess probes. over-saturating is always better than under-saturating
it's up to the player to figure out the timings for additional expos
and if u have to cut probe production to get that immortal or VR out, sure thing. i personally never stop producing probes. i hotkey my nexus at 1, and go back to them and hit e until all of them are producing at least one probe.
It actually is bad to keep producing probes. If you have 3 probes per mineral patch + 6 for gas, you should have 30 probes. However, the final 4 probes for the minerals give tiny returns cause of travel/find time, so 26 = fully saturated.
So if you're going a build that's aimed at ending the game at 8 minutes, stop building probes at 26. Want to know why your all-in failed? Cause you built too many probes. You can not support an all-in and constant probe production, that's the entire reason it's called an all-in. If you don't deal significant damage (or win) you're farked cause your expansion will be late and you own't have probes to saturate it.
So if you're playing 4 gate all-in, 3 gate robo, or 3 gate stargate, stop probe production at 26 and don't start again until after you push (not exact, you'll have to find your own timing). You will notice your push will be significantly stronger. (you will also notice yourself considerably more farked if your push fails horribly, but at low levels no one will be able to hold that push cause they're all missing pylons and not scouting) Afterwards you won't be able to afford all your unit production facilities, but that's the whole point of the strat. You can't have superior econ and superior army without a fight, the game does not allow this to happen. So if you're following a build order that focuses on army, then don't dilute the army portion with econ. All you're doing is making a smaller army than a guy focusing on army and not big enough of an army advantage to kill off an econ player who's second base/superior production will overwhelm you. Have a huge army, rape the econ player till he has no army and had to pull probes to finally drive you off, then skip a unit production cycle to get your econ going again and he'll have to catch up in both army and econ.
If you're going to play some type of "standard" build, 3 gate expo, 2 gate pressure into fast expo, 2 gate robo, 2 gate stargate, (2 gate dt into expo, though a lot of people I know don't consider any opening with the word dt in it standard)etc. the missing unit production building will let you keep building probes and eventually save enough money to take your expo.
I'd go on into timing attacks, but it's already a wall of text. Just read some brood war timing attacks. They cut a couple probes to squeeze out +1, goon range, or speed zeal so that the attack will arrive fast enough to counter a specific strategy. (there's a really nice one that's a pre-lurker +1 speed zeal timing) Another reason I don't want to go into it is cause commentators throw out the word "timing attack" like it's candy without understanding what's really going on.
If your build needs to stagger unit production and probe production then your build probably sucks. (i.e. you're adding gates too soon or adding too many gates or adding tech too soon or getting +1 too soon or w/e, basically you can't afford all your shit and you need to watch the replay and re-evaluate what your building)
Just completed all the challenges on gold. This game owns!
[Epic Beard Man] wrote:You gonna get a Vietnam now mother, and i whipped his butt so fast and so quick, so pretty. I hit him with the Muhammad Ali left, right, left. I did the Ali shuffle!
Sorry. My PC decided to peace out. I can't be bothered to go back on it. My Mac wasn't setup up (brought it to work). I finally set it up but now i'm too tired to play.