how many resource gatherers?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

i read alot about people saying 'always be training svs/drones/probes' , and ive been wondering about that

normally I'd keep training scv's at a resource point until I get about 25-26 altogether for minerals and vespene and i'd do the same amount again at my expansion(s). 3 scv's at each vespene point and then the rest at the minerals. Is that enough? or should I really keep training scvs no matter how many I have gathering, I figured there'd be some sort of blockage and scvs getting in the way of each other once you get past the high twenties but I often see protoss/zerg players with absolute ****loads of drones/probes at their naturals .

RoyalMarine

usually what i do is train scv's / probes / drones until i have 3 on each geyser, and 3 on each mineral field. there's usually 8 mineral fields at each base, so 24 would do it.

when i build my expo, i move 12 workers, and keep building 12 more at each base.

seems to be what most people do.

but yeah, they will eventually block up as 1 worker can harvest minerals at a time, so 3 workers per field is plenty.

Kirby

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

I figured there'd be some sort of blockage and scvs getting in the way of each other once you get past the high twenties .

If you move your probes around your base in a big group, you will notice they will get in each others way, like any other unit.

But once they start mining, they have a no clip mode.

They just pass through each other like the other probe isn't even there. Therefore you can never block or collide while mining. So you can never have too many. 30 is a nice sweet spot. 3 for each gas extractor, and 24 for the minerals. There is no harm in having more though. It means when you take your next expansion you don't have to wait for more probes to train. You can just transfer the excess and get mining straight away.

BopNiblets

I thought it was 2 at each mineral field?
Seems like if I have more than that scvs are just wondering around looking for a patch to mine from... did they change it or something?

valor

3 per patch is good saturation

the answer to the OP, imo, is that you should be building drones the whole game long..if you have 3-4 bases fully saturated and haven't lost any along the way, maybe you can stop then, but the basic idea is that you should never stop making drones if you have to ask "when should I stop?"

silvine

But there's a 200 unit cap so surely once you've a few bases with their own drones it makes sense to stop building them at a certain point and concentrate on the army?

Matthewthebig

BopNiblets wrote: »

I thought it was 2 at each mineral field?
Seems like if I have more than that scvs are just wondering around looking for a patch to mine from... did they change it or something?

valor wrote: »

3 per patch is good saturation

the answer to the OP, imo, is that you should be building drones the whole game long..if you have 3-4 bases fully saturated and haven't lost any along the way, maybe you can stop then, but the basic idea is that you should never stop making drones if you have to ask "when should I stop?"

it is 2-3 drones depending on the mineral distance. Something like 2.5 is meant to be perfect.

Dustaz

silvine wrote: »

But there's a 200 unit cap so surely once you've a few bases with their own drones it makes sense to stop building them at a certain point and concentrate on the army?

Well thats one of the great balancing acts of sc.

If you have 3 or 4 bases and 100 drones on them, your only going to have a 100 food army, however you have 3 or 4 bases mining at peak, so either you can constantly replenish it without waiting or if things go pear shaped that 100 food army will be back again in 20 or 30 seconds.

Anti

3 drones per mineral patch or geyser, apart from the furthest mineral patch and geyser, they need 4 each, so 26 is optimal.