Big Game Hunters/Resources Income
BGH Resources and Income
Introduction[edit]
Even though a Big Game Hunters is a mass money map, it's still important to know how to properly improve mineral and gas mining. In a high level game, this knowledge can give you leverage over your opponents in an early game. As the game progresses, relevance of mineral and gas mining starts to fade way which is not to say you should neglect it.
Mining Efficiency[edit]
In BGH, different spots have different mining efficiencies. In addition, depending upon the position of the mineral field relative to the main building, mining speed can vary greatly. Dakota_Fanning undertook a series of 10 hours of tests in order to determine the relative mining speeds of the various positions. Although it may seem insignificant, it can make a big difference, especially early on. Those zealots popping out a few seconds earlier make it much easier to stop a 9 pool from 12 v 11, for example.
A higher number means that the mineral field or vespene geyser mines at a quicker rate.
Click for larger image
Conclusion[edit]
- In a long game, all of the positions are roughly equivalent in mining speed, although 1 is the best and 11/7 are the worst.
- Although 7 has the slowest money access, it's gas mining is the most efficient with 6 workers.
- 11 has by far the worst gas mining by default, with 60500 compared to the optimal 67000 of 7. At 11, a full 8 workers are a must if using a gas heavy strategy.
- The mineral fields which are visually closest are not always the fastest ones
- Mineral fileds which are located on a straight diagonal from the base tend to be more efficient.
- Early on, mining from the optimal mineral fields can lead to several seconds earlier for a build order.
Tips 'n Tricks[edit]
- For many mineral fields, mining time can be improved (or slowed) by sending workers from different angles.
- On some mineral fields, two workers can mine from the same mineral field without having to redirect to other fields if the second worker is sent to arrive right as the first is leaving with minerals.
- When pulling a worker off to build (early on), try to make sure that the patch which now goes idle is sub-optimal
- When you initially split workers, it may be difficult to send them to the absolute optimal fields depending upon where they are -- if you can't, you can redirect them after they return from their first trip.
- Advanced trick: you can constantly redirect workers so that the most efficient mineral fields are being used (difficult).
Credit goes to Dakota_Fanning for all research + original text.
Optimizing Your Gas Mining[edit]
Gathering gas with the greatest efficiency is super important, especially early game. Later on, it's possible to stick 4 (or even 5 depending upon how terrible the gas is) workers on gas in order to get the most possible gas, but early game being able to gather gas optimally while not giving up that extra worker can make a huge difference.
So first of all, as a general rule up/left geysers are the best geysers to pick early on. See Mining Efficiency to see why. However, it's also possible to further improve gas gathering with building placement. No actual tests have been run, but it just seems to be faster with proper building placement.
As a general rule, other buildings of the same size will work.
Building Placement at 11:
Building Placement at 12:
Building Placement at 3:
Building Placement at 7:
Careful about position at 7! If you place a 3 square width building (like a pool) there, it'll frequently mess up the mining of the top mineral patch.