l46kok Profile Joined December 2010 United States 51 Posts Last Edited: 2011-04-13 01:12:19 #1



I'm really surprised that nobody really covered this technique on Teamliquid when it's been covered extensively on the Korean forum, PlayXP.com. While worker splitting is not as important as it was in Starcraft 1 because Starcraft 2 comes with a pretty good AI that automatically splits the workers for you, it's not exactly the best and manually splitting them still results in optimal mining.



Also, there's one more way to make your mining even more optimized in the beginning stage of the game. I'd like to coin the term "stack mining", since I don't see any other term for it & it's the best I could come up with :/



This is only a minor advantage and not really going to be the decisive factor to your gameplay if your level is lower than Diamond, but in higher levels and in matchups such as PvP where getting the warpgate research asap is crucial, this method could prove to be quite advantageous to your gameplay.



For proof on effectiveness, watch the TSL games of







I. Worker Splitting



Your goal is to have all the workers mine in the closest spot, as fast as possible without having them bounce at all. Keep in mind that this will take some practice to get it as perfectly as possible. Here is the way I do it:



1. Locate "Key" minerals. This will be the mineral patches which you will make the right click on to optimally separate your workers into.







2. Select all your workers, and right click them onto one of the key mineral patch. Then make a small box to select three workers which will go to the other remaining key mineral patch.







3. Your workers then will automatically be split and be efficiently mining from the mineral patches asap













II. Stack Mining



The key thing to remember in mining minerals is that the closest mineral patch yields faster mining and if done right, you can stack two probes on a single mineral patch without having them bounce even if the other mineral patches are not being mined.



From this, it is without saying that if you can get the probes to mine from the closest mineral patches first, you will result in seeing maximum mining efficiency.



1. Your worker that is mining on the farther patch than the closer one is going to be desynchronized eventually, meaning that a situation of one worker is returning mineral to the base where the other worker is still mining will happen. Keep in mind that the mining pattern is non-linear and slightly random, so you have to locate the better de-synchronized worker. In this case, it's the worker that has been selected. This de-synchronization happens when your 8th worker is being produced.



I personally prefer to stack the mineral patch that's away from the gas, because it's easier to build with the outer-lying probe.







2. Force the worker to mine on the closer mineral patch by vigorously right clicking on it to prevent it from bouncing to another patch. Make sure to be right clicking as closely to the base (Nexus) as possible to make sure the two workers are perfectly synchronized to the same patch. You also don't want to be losing too much mining time from doing this, so make sure to do this when the worker you've selected is perfectly or near-perfectly de-synchronized.







3. Repeat the procedure for the other mineral patches. In this case, you can see that the probe selected is almost desynchronized.







4. Eventually, your mineral patches should look something like this











From the above youtube link, you can see that MC had a lead by a probe in all three of his games by doing this.



Comments, criticisms and questions are always welcome. My credential: 3300 Season 1 Master Protoss, 550 Season 2 Master Protoss concurrently http://sc2ranks.com/us/1024744/ceyr I'm really surprised that nobody really covered this technique on Teamliquid when it's been covered extensively on the Korean forum, PlayXP.com. While worker splitting is not as important as it was in Starcraft 1 because Starcraft 2 comes with a pretty good AI that automatically splits the workers for you, it's not exactly the best and manually splitting them still results in optimal mining.Also, there's one more way to make your mining even more optimized in the beginning stage of the game. I'd like to coin the term "", since I don't see any other term for it & it's the best I could come up with :/This is only a minor advantage and not really going to be the decisive factor to your gameplay if your level is lower than Diamond, but in higher levels and in matchups such as PvP where getting the warpgate research asap is crucial, this method could prove to be quite advantageous to your gameplay.For proof on effectiveness, watch the TSL games of oGsMC vs White-Ra Your goal is to have all the workers mine in the closest spot, as fast as possible without having them bounce at all. Keep in mind that this will take some practice to get it as perfectly as possible. Here is the way I do it:1. Locate "Key" minerals. This will be the mineral patches which you will make the right click on to optimally separate your workers into.2. Select all your workers, and right click them onto one of the key mineral patch. Then make a small box to select three workers which will go to the other remaining key mineral patch.3. Your workers then will automatically be split and be efficiently mining from the mineral patches asapThe key thing to remember in mining minerals is that the closest mineral patch yields faster mining and if done right,even if the other mineral patches are not being mined.From this, it is without saying that if you can get the probes to mine from the closest mineral patches first, you will result in seeing maximum mining efficiency.1. Your worker that is mining on the farther patch than the closer one is going to be desynchronized eventually, meaning that a situation of one worker is returning mineral to the base where the other worker is still mining will happen. Keep in mind that the mining pattern is non-linear and slightly random, so you have to locate the better de-synchronized worker. In this case, it's the worker that has been selected. This de-synchronization happens when your 8th worker is being produced.I personally prefer to stack the mineral patch that's away from the gas, because it's easier to build with the outer-lying probe.2. Force the worker to mine on the closer mineral patch by vigorously right clicking on it to prevent it from bouncing to another patch. Make sure to be right clicking as closely to the base (Nexus) as possible to make sure the two workers are perfectly synchronized to the same patch. You also don't want to be losing too much mining time from doing this, so make sure to do this when the worker you've selected is perfectly or near-perfectly de-synchronized.3. Repeat the procedure for the other mineral patches. In this case, you can see that the probe selected is almost desynchronized.4. Eventually, your mineral patches should look something like thisFrom the above youtube link, you can see that MC had a lead by a probe in all three of his games by doing this.Comments, criticisms and questions are always welcome. oGsMC: "Maybe good brain?"