Mining with 3 workers per field. As far as I can tell, the third worker is only 1/4th as efficient as the first 2 workers per field This means it takes about 2 minutes for the third worker to mine 50 minerals.
In the past, I thought it might not be worth it to mine with 3 workers per field (but I did it anyway just in case I was wrong) but now I’m not so sure. Now I think it IS worth it, as long as they live for 2 minutes, because they pay for the cost of the expansion while the expansion is building, and then you can just maynard the extra workers faster.
This implies I should expand as Protoss after all in PvZ and PvP, even though I have a near-perfect win rate just doing 1 base all-ins.
I’m going to test this and see how much money you mine in an 8 minutes game (when I usually win PvZ and PvP) and see whether the 3rd workers have time to pay for themselves by then, and also whether an expansion has time to pay for itself within an 8 minute game. If the answer is “Yes” then I should expand, even though I technically almost never need an expansion in those matchups.
Edit:
I tested this against the A.I. an dwhat I found is the first 2 workers mine an average of 60 minerals per minute, and the third workers mine an average of 15-18 minerals per minute, which means it actually takes 3 or 4 minutes for the “extra” workers to pay for themselves one time.
It might still be worth making the extra workers in a long enough game though, especially if you plan on expanding, because you can Maynard the extra workers and mine from each expansion much faster. Maynarding 8 extra workers to your natural immediately pays for the entire cost of the next 2 expansions vs waiting for 8 workers to train from the CC at the natural. So you should train the extra workers ahead of time, mine from the main base while you are waiting for the expansion, and then maynard the 8 extra workers, then you should go up to 3 workers per field on each base you control, and maynard both bases to the third and 4th base respectively.
2 workers per field mines at 925 to 975 minerals per minute.
3 workers per field mines at 1047 to 1119 minerals per minute. This gives 400 extra minerals about every 3 minutes, which basically pays for each of your expansions…or pays for 4 extra zealots every 3 minutes.
So that would seem to be “worth it” to me in an 8 minute game to have 3 workers per field, and it is evidently worth it even if I don’t want to expand, I probably should expand just in case I need it, but I think even a “late expand” will pay for itself in an 8 minutes game…
Which basically means I’m just flat out better at protoss mirror than most other protoss, because I win every time either way, but I’ve technically been doing the wrong thing all along and winning anyway by not expanding.
This suggests players should be mining with 90 workers on 3 base timing, and 100 workers on 4/5 base timing.
I Shouldn’t find this surprising, in Age of Empires III, the British mine with over 100 workers in a 200 supply game. British mines with 100 settlers and max fishing boats, and they take the card that allows them to get fishing boats cheaper and have more of them, and the boats count against your supply if I remember correctly, and they still have one of the highest win percentages.
In the old days around 2001, my cousin played Protoss in Broodwar, and swore the ideal number of workers was 120 for Protoss, and he had a 99% win percentage on all map types. I think it’s actually 100 Probes if you are not planning on mind controlling an ally’s worker. If you are planning on mind controlling an ally’s worker, you need 120 probes.
I used to mine with 96 Drones on BGH in Brood war around 2001, before I got sick, that’s (2 mains and a natural expansion and I had a 99% win percentage on all map types. So you stay on Zerglings and Hydralisks, with 3 to 6 lurkers per base for defense, and you make 6 queens ASAP and 6 defilers ASAP (3 for defense and 3 for permanent offense) then once you have your 96 drones, you are permanently attacking with everything you have for the remainder of the game, and you pretty much run right over any 2or 3 players on Public, or even any pro gamer in 1vs1.
End Edit