How important is the gas for Swann?

Co-op Missions Discussion
21

Well I mean you’re not wrong… (hard to tell if you’re being sarcastic).

In that… if you waste 100 gas on 2nd Armory + 100 gas on unnecessary vehicle plating + 100 gas on 2nd Factory that you can’t support, as well as any units your 2nd factory can’t produce… (That’s 300 gas you gotta pull outta your poor-macro + w/e you were planning to make out of 2nd factory, which is at least another 100-200 gas??)

You sure DO need every drop of gas. If everyone played that way as a measure of what they “NEED”, then no commander ever would do well without vespene drones. Yet, here we are… lolz.

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22

(Swann’s armories+factories don’t need gas)

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23

in the transition from mid to late game you need a second factory to build the army you need (or want :wink: ). i agree that the second armory is not mandatory but if you dont get it, u will have an akward amount of gas floating. imo best games are when you get 8gas (for example with zeratul ally) early into 2x fac, 2x armory ,1x starport + asap drill upgrades.

ps: in terms of “needs”. i actualy also dont need the laser drill upgrades because i tent to use the top bars as a “flex”. so its more about tryin a near to perfect play.

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24

Yikes, you really need to learn to play Swann.

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25

So given your reply, I can confidently say you’re obviously not trying to be sarcastic.

Here’s the difference I’m trying to make you (and others who agree with you) understand.

  1. I’m not saying you can’t have 2 x armory, 2 x factory, 1 x starport, and Drill researches.
  2. I am saying you shouldn’t get them all at once.
  3. I am saying not just Swann, but no coop COs can support 6 x gas intensive structures at once.
  4. I am saying we don’t have to have all 6 x at once, but instead have only what’s needed… that is 3 of 6 (whatever you feel is more important to ya).
  5. I am still saying you don’t need 8 x Geysers with 8 x Vespene Drones for those 3/6 things to work for you.
  6. I am still saying you can still have 6/6 things on 4 x Geysers + 4-8 Vespene Drones regardless.

And that my friend, that is how you actually play “a near to perfect play”. The ramp up isn’t going from “6 x structures → research and build everything at once until max”. The ramp up IS “1-3 structures → research and build → add 4th → build and research some more → add 5th → b&r some more → 6th → some more”. That’s how you play every CO.

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26

how do you come up with the assumption i get all those buildings at once, lol.

if i only build what is needed, i can stop for almost any brutal map at factory, starport, armory. brutal is faceroll (for a veteran… im playing sc/bw for about 20 years now).

27

This is what I have in a regular brutal game with a partner, even works for solos. I only get weapon upgrades.

2x Factories, 1x Star port* and 2x armories usually are not needed. Sometimes I finish with less than 8 drones. Instead of putting drones, I commit my minerals for early game contributions, statics + drill abilities. Unless you are making a gas heavy build like Thors / Science Vessels, you don’t need get 8 drones early on.

Maybe you just like having all 8 drones early on so you don’t get gas starved.

28

The guy types that he gets x, y, and z. Then when quoted and discussed about it replies with… “how did you assume I got x, y, and z”

Lol, well, I don’t know… maybe cuz you said you want drill, 2x Armory, 2x factory, and Starport. Just going on a hunch here.

People who say brutal is faceroll are generally (in my experience) never facerolling brutal as they claim. Having 20yrs in the Starcraft franchise doesn’t automatically equal to “higher skill” somehow. Or are you some unknown GSL/WESG/World Champ I haven’t heard of? Or are you somehow better than speedrunners cuz you got your 20yr badge token of uselessness?

There’s a difference between winning a coop mission on brutal (extremely easy) ==> winning brutal in average timing ==> far faster than average (like say sub10 LL, sub13 CoA, sub15 or less SoA, etc.) ==> Speedrunning records for brutal/mutations.

Going by your “I get x, y, z as Swann”, I’m gonna venture a guess that your completion time on most missions is >15min, which is below average time. That said, it’s not a competition for sure, but do understand that giving advice about how Swann “requires” 8x vespene drone is just garbage advice.

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29

all iam saying is that swann is a very gas heavy commander that should harvest as much gas as possible. you dont need it, but you can spend it quite usefully. if you dont get gas starved, your not reaching for the max swann potential. ill try to provide a replay

h.ttps://www.file-upload.net/download-14606650/gasswann.SC2Replay.html

30

You can use the </> function to make it easier to copy, for future reference, like this:
https://www.file-upload.net/download-14606650/gasswann.SC2Replay.html

Your replay perfectly exemplifies my point. Here’s how much gas you floated to mineral at each time interval:
2min - 130min - 230gas (not a factory in sight that would use gas)
3min - 50min - 529gas (factory just getting reactor)
4min - 150min - 649gas (1 Tank + Maelstrom researching)
5min - 40min - 496gas (3 Tanks + 2 in production)
6min - 215min - 590gas (4 Tanks + 2 in production + Armory)
7min - 135min - 304gas (7 Tanks + 2 in production + Starport + Regen plate researching)

This DoN is basically not even worth watching at all. You’re banking so much gas from the beginning that you’re always mineral starved. Most of that gas is coming from your 2 saturated geysers, with the 6x Vespene Drones only accounting for about another 1 fully saturated geyser (of which you don’t saturate your 3rd geyser until late).

Why is that important? It’s important because those 3 geysers with -6x vespene drones would have given you exactly as much gas as you’d liked. AKA, you don’t need Vespene Drones to flourish as Swann!

Lest we forget, you didn’t make 2x Armory, didn’t start drill research, didn’t make 2x Factory at all. Nor would you have possibly been able to support that kind of production anyway (as was predicted). Basically, you didn’t do any of the things you “insisted upon”.

After watching your less than average Swann gameplay, I don’t even know what to make of it. You basically provided proof of your own gameplay of why you shouldn’t bank gas.

This is somewhat unrelated to the gas-issue. For anyone interested in the rest of the game play. The dude continues to clear during N2 (not bad right? wrong in this case!), only to leave his level 11 P1 Kerrigan to defend the entire night. North entrance gets overrun, which made him turn back near the end of N2.

Why is that ‘wrong’? You’ve left a clearly already inexperienced and sub15 kerri gimped. Then you expect him/her to somehow catch up? All the meanwhile forgetting how his single Kerrigan defended against Spotters on N1 for your ground-only Tanks to flourish…

Then at around 15min mark, he comments “dude, stop noobing around and following me”. This is kind of hilarious cuz it’s like ‘noob calling another guy noob’, essentially insulting himself. Like I get it man, your ally wasn’t pulling his weight but really was that necessary? It’s not like you were superb…

The whole game ends after 22min. This is exactly the kind of players who think they are “so gooooood, when in fact, is not nearly as pro as they think their 20 yr badge earns them.”

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31

im sorry, the replay is actualy not good for proofing my point. this match my macro was badly suffering from constant offensive. didnt even build a second armory xD. i just uploaded a random replay to show at least that im able to play sc2 coop.

for the gas issue please take a look at this match
h.ttps://www.file-upload.net/download-14606843/gasss.SC2Replay.html

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32

as u said DoN is kinda the worst map to discuss the topic. that akward 3 early gas (6 drones) while having less mineral patches later on, is unique and i dont have a refinded build for that.

revisiting the replay i find this offensive, haha. i cleard 90% of the map solo while my ally didnt even manage to defend the first night by himself. still finished the map in proper time. calling that “less than average”…thats fake news

33

How important is gas for Swann? Not as important as minerals are, that’s for sure. Jesus Christ I can’t go a few seconds without having to build another supply depot because tanks or even two starports’ worth of wraiths takes up supply so quickly…

Gas drones are not worth it early on. You need to build up that army and tech first before you get the extra gas, because you’re going to be mineral-starved even with the gas drone mastery early on. And banking gas is never a good thing when you have no immediate plans for it. Only once you have a build order in mind can you purposefully bank resources, because sitting on them with nothing in mind means you’re setting yourself back.

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34

Look man, I’m direct on the forum, but I am fair.

Night 1 on your first replay, Spotters came, and Kerrigan alone would have taken care of it and he did. You were too pre-occupied with just letting your tanks sieged there, you just assumed you defended it. You’d have gotten overrun with the measly few tanks you had.

Now, I’m not defending your ally as some super-helpful-ally. He’s level 11 and P1. He did his clearly inexperienced gameplay and still supported to defend most of N2 as well. When I see that, what I see is despite his lack of experience he still did his best. Poor choice on Guardians over Lurkers given his situation, but meh he’s not that good clearly.

You on the other hand, couldn’t have even left 2-3 tanks to help out the south/main entrance. And then leaving the entire north entrance for him… how is that going to work when you’ve seen how he played?

There’s nothing offensive about my comment for “less than average”. Average on DoN is about N3 to D4. As it depends on some commanders linked to “average players”. You finish on N3 while letting your ally taking all the fall for everything, then say you did the work.

Sure, I can give you credit for clearing more structures than he did, but that’s really it. That’s just average fair share. You’d have did “more” if you cleared more AND defended the nights, instead of leaving him hanging. You’d have did “more” if you cleared far faster than you did. So no my man, you did only 50% of the work… the more important half sure, but 50% nonetheless.

As for your 2nd replay, this is a much better opening than the 1st replay on DoN. The TotP game shows a much cleaner build order, you don’t really bank much gas until 4min and later. See, credit where it is due.

7min in and you didn’t provide the 7th and 8th vespene drones, even though they cost you 20min total. Why is this important? It shows why vespene drones are essentially pointless. At this point (7min), you have:

  • 305min/229gas banked
  • 1x Factory, Starport, Armory (300 gas)
  • 6x Tanks (750 gas)
  • Drill Level 1, Weapon 1 researching and Weapon Range researched (400gas)

These total to about 1500 gas used. To put that into perspective:

  • You saturated 2 main geysers at 3.5min with 50 banked from ally’s vespene drones x 2.
  • 114gas/min x 2 x (7min - 3.5min) = 798 gas or 800 gas.
  • You saturated 3rd geyser at 4.5min, same math 114 x 1 x (7-4.5) = 285 gas
  • You saturated 4th geyser at 5min, again 114 x 1 x (7-5) = 228 gas
  • 798 + 285 + 228 = 1311 gas
  • Recall you banked 229gas at 7min, this all total to 1540gas.
  • Exactly what you needed to get everything you have gotten at 7min mark

So no, vespene drones are very pointless. Lest we forget here, at 7min you only had 6 total vespene drones working at various times. The extra provided if you tally everything up is… 229banked + 300infrastructure + 750units + 400research = 1679 gas total collected. 1540gas / 1679gas = 91.7% of SCV collected resources. While only a measly 8.3% of your total gas at this point is banked from 6x Vespene Drones.

I’m simply trying to show you (and people who agree with you) that vespene drones are far less useful than people think during the early game (prior to 8min, definition of early game). That isn’t to say to not get them. However, getting them at 6x at 6min, or 8x at 6min, or 4x at 4min then 2x at 6min, or whatever… makes next to no difference.

You, as the player will always be better with an optimized build order. Shown by your 2nd versus 1st replay. And even in the 2nd one, you only had 1x Armor and not 2x, 1x Factory and not 2x. Why? Because my point stands lol. And even when you had 2x Armor and 2x Factory, it stands mostly idle. Why? Again, point stands :stuck_out_tongue:.

Side note: Shame, the thrasher ignored his units and temple taking 8dmg lolz. Also shame that neither of you cleared top right given how mobile Brutalisks and your Hercules are. But that’s more nitpicky cuz of my personal quirks.

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35

You maxed out supply just a little past mid game which is good but also why you were gas starved. You were also floating minerals, I would had used those extra minerals to build statics at the rear of the base and the spawn points after you cleared them.

I did notice you put down your first vespene geyser a little later (after Factory at the same time as the expansion). I usually put first geyser down before Factory.

But this is a decent replay. Seems like you are utilizing most of his tools available to him. I saw irradiates, mix of tanks, Goliaths, Thors, Science Vessels, D matrix on units on front line units, also good for this comp you were facing. You didn’t lose that many units.

36

it took until the 20th minute mark till my gas count stopped goind to about 0.
before that i needed all that gas. my gas count is proof for that. there might be floating a few hundred every once in a while but that is also needed, because there huge gas investements within next minutes, which bring me down to aorund 0 again. gas comes in slower as minerals, so you gota have itready

37

i would have gotten overrun?! wtf. i use my call down and chill.
i dont wonna argue about that match. there is no benefit.

38

ofc i was floating minerals and starving gas. thats my point in a nutshell :wink:
i thought about building static D but decided not to. thought proces:
“uuhh so much minerals!!!
build some static d?!
mhhhh, thats gonna be a lot of work
do i need the D?
no
ok”

39

Then don’t? People can see the 1st replay on DoN and decide for themselves.

With spotters, infested overrun quickly. If his Kerrigan wasn’t around then you’d have killed the 1st spotter with your ARES, sure. Then the other 2 that spawn later wouldn’t have done your non-AA Tanks in.

I mean geez dude. You keep taking credit where there isn’t any to take. Just cuz your ally played worse than you, it doesn’t automatically mean he didn’t contribute.

Similarly, just cuz you did better, doesn’t mean you did all the work. Fair is fair. And fair in this case is that you’d taken quite a bit of damage progressing as you did in the replay “if his Kerrigan wasn’t there”. That’s just fact.

You’d died completely and lost the mission if your ally didn’t defend N2 solo. Yet, you give 0 credit for that. Sorry if I find it hard to give you “more credit” than you deserve. So chill.

If you don’t get my analysis then I got nothing for you. It is fair and very accurate to show why vespene drones are pointless.

And it shows why inappropriate gas saturation (1st replay) vs appropriate gas saturation (2nd replay) makes all the difference.

If all you can come up with is “I drained my gas to 0 by 20min”, then I’m not even sure what that means. So your point is what? The reason you get early gas is so by 20min you can have max supply? That’s as terrible of a bar to have as it comes, as far as logic goes…

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40

my point is that i need every gas i can get until 20min in the game. i did drain my gas to 0 hat 20min mark AND several times b4 that. all the gas i spend was needed and no dumping. i can accept when you argue that defense upgrade is not needed - ok. but 2nd armory also gives speed advantage in terms of range and heal upgrade, before the armory is ready to constant attack upgrade.

i dont see where the sense of all your math is, when my gas count clearly goes to 0 several times.