Lift off @ start for more protection/economy

[Sight]

So on maps with protected minerals is it fair that terran can lift off instantly move to a protected, yellow crystal position?

If you think it's fair, how are you suppose to counter it? Even if you scout and know they aren't at a starting position (which I did), you can't know which position they are at without tearing down all the rocks or getting air. If you decide to tear down the rocks it takes forever (if you guess wrong) and they have such a huge advantage it's over.

It takes too long to find and destroy rocks. Any disadvantage that might occur for their time lost in travel at the beginning is more than made up for by the mineral gain.

Thoughts?

[Beta]

FE and tech to air and kill him? I don't see how this is hard... 2 gas bases > 1 high yield base...

Use low tier to keep him from expanding.

[Kralic]

Wrong map? High yields in Kulas are open to ground.

[Bibdy]

Send your initial scout through the high-yield stuff at the start, as you're doing your patrol route through the regular starting positions. The high-yield areas aren't protected on Kulas Ravine. In fact, I don't think they're protected on any of them.

Your scout is already going in that direction. Might as well take a slight diversion so you don't get blind-sided.

The only protected place is the natural expansion on the cliff beside the base, where you'd ordinarily have to bash the wall down.

[Sight]

I edited my original post, kulas ravine wasn't a good example :P

What if they move to an island mineral etc?

[Bibdy]

I edited my original post, kulas ravine wasn't a good example :P

What if they move to an island mineral etc?

Tech air. Expand early if you think you can pull it off. He's obviously not going to be rushing you any time soon.

[magister]

It also doesn't take all that long to get out an observer or other flying unit to scout. I mean, I build a robotics facility very early on. Learned my lesson against DT's very early.

As Zerg, you have overlords, and as Terran you can easily crank out a starport and a quick couple cheap fliers to look around in very short order. Not to mention a few reapers to scout around with cliff jumping.

If they have built in this manner, they've lost time by moving their starting point, and are likely to be teching like mad. You also can therefore tech a bit. It's not like they are doing this so they can make 12 marines and break out and rush you. That would be stupid.

[Madrhetoric]

They fall behind A LOT to do something like that so its very rarely worth it. Normally they would fly a second CC to a island expo. flying your main is pretty dangerous because your economy is dead the entire time its in flight. If they do fly their first to an expo you just have to take advantage of your better economy, keep him from getting an expo and tech up.

[Dakarian]

Once I see that all of the mains have nothing, I'll know they did something like that. Just scout around till you find them and know that they are so behind that there's no way in anything that they can stop you from expanding, teching, and basically showing them why it's not a smart thing to do in general.

[Sonanko]

If you scout early enough and figure out where he is going and can get to where he is going you could always use your scout to block him from landing as well.

[Jabs]

The CC moves slowly... by the time you have your gateway, spawning pool, or barracks made, he will just be landing and starting.

[Dirkydu]

For a few extra minerals you'd be giving up:

Map Control.
Time (they WILL be teching once they see you're doing that, and now they'll be teching faster than you).
Any sort of Early-Mid offensive or pressure capabilities.

[Jaerin]

OP i see you're a copper player too.

Seriously though, once you've got 50 games under your belt you'll know the answer to the question you posed, just keep playing and learn from the replays in games you lose. Lots of time until release, use it.

[Jabs]

If you scout early enough and figure out where he is going and can get to where he is going you could always use your scout to block him from landing as well.

Could also try locking him in the island if the map layout allows for it.

[ger]

Once had a guy do it to me with the high yield. Scouted him by passing the Xel'Naga watchtower. Immediatly swapped gears to a full Zealot rush and hit him with my very first Zealot without waiting for a second.

He was toast.

[Conscience]

if my scout sees this i start building on their land as an expansion because i know they're walled in and cant kill it.

[Stratosspear]

So on maps with protected minerals is it fair that terran can lift off instantly move to a protected, yellow crystal position?

If you think it's fair, how are you suppose to counter it? Even if you scout and know they aren't at a starting position (which I did), you can't know which position they are at without tearing down all the rocks or getting air. If you decide to tear down the rocks it takes forever (if you guess wrong) and they have such a huge advantage it's over.

It takes too long to find and destroy rocks. Any disadvantage that might occur for their time lost in travel at the beginning is more than made up for by the mineral gain.

Thoughts?

1) There aren't any high-yields that are protected.

2) It's easy to counter. If he lifts off to an island or something that's defended, you can both fast expand and tech without much fear of being attacked because he has to get air/transports to attack you.

[Dreuel]

I had a game like this. The moment I knew he'd done this I teched straight to ghost academies and medevacs, dropped a couple ghosts on the tip of the island, and nuked the crap out of him. He seemed startled.

[Anon]

Someone tried it on me last night

Partner pointed it out,i rushed lings to get him at the yellow minerals
then i broke down the boulder to the nearby protected base

he hadn't even recovered enough yet to get a formidable rine army.

It really falls flat if your enemy scouts.

EDIT:for islands i'd probably try scouts dashing through,picking up SCVs,and killing em.Maybe use them to cover void rays.

[Fors]

The only map that you can really do it in is Kulas Ravine.

And it's not a high yield expansion.

There are no maps that have blocked off high yield expansions.

All the other maps with island/blocked expansions are either 1v1 maps where you know where someone is going to start at or the islands are too far away to make floating there viable.

[Kranden]

I only have ever had one game where using an island won it for me, and that is when I had void rays on scrap station and moved my xpo to the island before my main got toasted, I took out his capacity for air units and slowly starved him by skirting around the edges of the map until I got carriers

[Bluance]

The only time your opponent wont notice this and then change strategies to take advantage of your late start, is in a ffa game. in which case it can be really entertaining for all three opponents to realise one has left the battlefeild, but are a little too focused on the other threats to find you.

[Mut]

have people actually done the math on lifting an initial base to a high yield?

Most high yields: 6 patches returning 7 per cycle
Most starting bases: 8 patches returning 5 per cycle

The difference ends up being very minor, these are exceptionally powerful expansion positions because they boost your normal economy more quickly than a standard expansion would (most expansions dont hit saturation as quick as the start of game base does).

The lost time of flying to the expansion barely makes up for the boost.

[Fors]

have people actually done the math on lifting an initial base to a high yield?

Most high yields: 6 patches returning 7 per cycle
Most starting bases: 8 patches returning 5 per cycle

The difference ends up being very minor, these are exceptionally powerful expansion positions because they boost your normal economy more quickly than a standard expansion would (most expansions dont hit saturation as quick as the start of game base does).

The lost time of flying to the expansion barely makes up for the boost.

Yes, they do give you a boost, but Terran right now is the race that is the most dependent on ramps for early protection.

Ironically, Terran is the only race that can start a game at a high yield, none of which have ramp protections

[magister]

I wonder..

could you combine this idea in some way with a full on SCV rush to delay your opponent?

Fly to a high gain minerals, and send all your SCV's to your opponent. You'll still have 50 minerals on hand to make a new one when it lands. A slow start, yes, but I can't help but think you could reak some havok and slow someone up bigtime with your starting SCV's.

Just keep them from getting surrounded. Attack his town hall. When he responds with workers to fight back, run around in circles with them until he gives up and goes back to mining. Then start attacking again. Just basically doing all you can to screw up his build order.

[Fors]

I wonder..

could you combine this idea in some way with a full on SCV rush to delay your opponent?

Fly to a high gain minerals, and send all your SCV's to your opponent. You'll still have 50 minerals on hand to make a new one when it lands. A slow start, yes, but I can't help but think you could reak some havok and slow someone up bigtime with your starting SCV's.

Just keep them from getting surrounded. Attack his town hall. When he responds with workers to fight back, run around in circles with them until he gives up and goes back to mining. Then start attacking again. Just basically doing all you can to screw up his build order.

Now this sounds promising! I haven't seen anyone try it yet though, and I don't think I'm good enough micro-wise to pull it off myself.

[Karlbungus]

Now this sounds promising! I haven't seen anyone try it yet though, and I don't think I'm good enough micro-wise to pull it off myself.

ive been experimenting with this terran strategy a couple different ways, sometimes i put all but 1 in the command center and head for the island or just exact opposite place i should be. the leftover guy i send some other off place. other times i just scv rush and build the one with the 50 minerals.

I've been winning alot of those matches but its clear that someone smart realizing what im doing can easily overtake me.

its great when people flip out over it. getting cursed out during a game pretty much totally rules. like this replay... it's 4 minutes and rather funny. http://precision-materials.com/9thpowerrush.SC2Replay

[Gokanjin]

I edited my original post, kulas ravine wasn't a good example :P

What if they move to an island mineral etc?

I did this once, I did it for sh*ts and giggles. Dessert Oasis is what you're thinking of. Most likely is economy will be bad at the start for moving to the islands, you're best bet is to expand early and go for uptech. Keep his island base quarantined and don't allow him to expand if he tries. Make sure he doesn't have a second base on the second Island since island maps mirror one another and assuming he's terran he could do this. Your best bet is to hit him hard, if he goes pure air defense tactics, then tech up to carriers/bcs or broodlords and kill off his base. As long as you keep scouts around his island base and see any approachable exp/attacks you'll repel the player off.

For quick games you're best bet is to realize quickly he's moved to a island base and quicky tech up to air and get him before he can set up any decent defense to repel air assault or dropships.

[Geo]

High yield materials are usually in spots where terrans can't wall off.

A rush will quickly destroy a terran doing it.

[Dreuel]

The only time your opponent wont notice this and then change strategies to take advantage of your late start, is in a ffa game. in which case it can be really entertaining for all three opponents to realise one has left the battlefeild, but are a little too focused on the other threats to find you.

Thanks to the always deeply entertaining Worax, here are a couple videos of someone doing this in a 2v2. In this instance, the enemy do NOT react the right way to finding that he's moved:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gte1YioXD4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSxvqxvOcUY

[Nick]

A lot of platinum terrans have been doing this, and supposedly it doesn't take long to catch up in minerals. The CC moves pretty fast. I wonder how a fully saturated gold patch compares to a fully saturated blue one, though, considering that there are 3 less fields in it. It probably comes close either way, though, considering that you'd need less SCVs to saturate it. The biggest thing is that you don't have the ramp.

All of the high-yield minerals should probably be blocked with rocks, anyway, because this just seems OP.

[Bam]

I've found that most ppl panic when they see someone lift to the yellow minerals and so they make dumb mistakes instead of just playing normal and killing the player.

I want to teach everyone something that will change your world.

Yellow minerals come in patches of 6 and blue come in patches of 8.

The math is the same.

U gain the same amount of minerals from both patches, I have tested this. Except when they lift off and run to them, they lose out.

So next time someone does it...don't panic and do something dumb like build a bunker.

Just play normal and smash them.