So I’m dabbling with Raynor P3 and while I think I’ve got it down for long maps like mist or CoA. What’s the best build order for short maps with very early attack waves like on rifts? Do you need to rush a starport to get a viking/banshee right away?
Do you rely solely on an army of mules or a few medics wouldn’t hurt for sustain?
Someone crunched the numbers and found that immediately upgrading to an orbital before you build any SCV’s gives you more minerals than building a few SCV’s.
For RoK, I usually rely on building something near the ramp to buy me time until I get my Dusk Wings ready. May even need to wall off and repair until they’re ready (ideally one of those buildings can lift off, lol).
As for sustain, I usually use a small army of SCV’s. Your mules are far more effective at getting minerals, and usually gas is what limits your production, so I try not to get extra medics (plus they run out of energy so quickly). If you’re already later in a mission and nearly maxed out, then dropping a group of mules for front line repairs can work.
Orbital commands pay for themselves fairly quickly, so it’s best to get them asap. If your partner can’t cover on RrK, then you’ll have to go for a normal barracks build, though, to have a bunker for that early wave. (Using extra minerals on Marines is still viable with P3, since you’ve still got the OCs to cheat minerals, after all)
Otherwise, you can afford to go a little slower and greedier as you can wait until after Hyperion to really need any units (depending on enemy comp, and your masteries, you can wait until after the second dusk wings even)
Medics are in an odd spot, assuming the rest of your units are pure air, then you can’t use them as combat healers so they’re more comparable to scvs. Ultimately, they’re slower healers that will maybe save a bit of gas in the long run. But, once they’re out of energy they’ll be pretty terrible for ship healers.
Agreed with these.
You could also throw down a bunker if needed, though you’re probably not soloing. Go for a normal P0 style of maxing out the eco ASAP, but with more weight on gas and skipping to starport. Check out some of the solo P3 runs by ones like Lila. Oh, and be sure to micro those early air units so as not to lose any, the first few are rather precious. GL!
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If you go 3 or 4 Orbitals before any tech and keep Mules flowing I find theres little reason to ever go over 4 Orbitals (unless scans are needed). I usually build air units + vultures (make sure you rapid fire spam those mines everywhere).
Opening with Banshees offers a really easy transition into whatever is required. BCs + Banshees, BCs + Vikings, Banshees + Vikings are all valid compositions depending on map/enemy/mutation.
Mass some BCs and if one BC is severely damaged, use tactical jump to pull out of combat and let the medics heal for them.
Interesting. I go up to 6 because I thought the standard was 8 even. lol.
I usually stop at 4 as well. You TECHNICALLY shouldn’t be losing a much as mass marines would. Plus you’ll find yourself still limited by gas.
I haven’t found myself gas starved actually. Probably because I got cheap upgrades mastery and saturate my gasses ASAP. I guess I’ll try to stop at 5 OCs and see how I’m comfortable to go down from there.
Thanks for this. My build order went much much smoother by going OC first. I could even get away by building 2 refineries right away while OC is upgrading and now I worry even less about gas. Also, having a repair squad of 6 or more SCVs does seem better than medics and is also F2 friendly.
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The traditionally large number of orbitals are there to sustain a bio army + spider mines. I’ve not personally done the calcs for a banshee/viking or mass BC build. Either way there’s no reason you couldn’t include a small vulture when playing P3 on random vs ground comps that have heavy anti-air. Or just drop a dusk wings or hyperion on each of those waves.
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Iirc, even for the other prestige, OCs should be around 4 to 8 depending on the length of the map and what you’re looking at using.
For P3, I believe it was mathed out to be 4 OCs, 4 geysers, and 2 star ports is perfect for BCs (if you have perfect macro, obviously for a normal person an extra starport is probably ideal). Obviously, other units or needs might change that.
Yeah I sometimes end up Getting 3 Starports just because I’m floating like 2k+ resources and my BC fleet isn’t maxed yet. Also, I feel comfy at 5 OCs so I’m gonna make it standard. I sometimes get a 6th if I need the last few supply but don’t need to make depots right away.
The power of Reynor IS his incredible mineral income… especially with P3, where everything costs more minerals.
TECHNICALLY P3 with enough orbitals can produce marines just like P0… which you should while you still lack the gas to max out on air units. And TECHNICALLY, even if P3 is maxed out on air units, nothing prevents you from having 5 vultures laying couple thousand mines or 10 SCVs building a hundred bunkers and missile turrets.
All of that costs only minerals (except the 2 vulture upgrades), so won’t reduce the time to max out on air units. Also keep in mind, that late game you want to get rid of all your mineral mining SCVs, to replace their supply with air units, so your only mineral income to replace losses at that point, will be from mules.
not very experienced but I think it depends on the map
if uncontested expansion go to 17 scvs, then send two to build ccs next to rocks
after that start the orbital in your base
saturate your bases, start building some additional infrastructure then start adding more ccs when you can afford it
if contested expansion make 2 orbitals in your base, use the banshees to push into the expansion, then land one of your close to the xpnsion built ccs. start making scvs before the cc lands and premake a few of them in general
dead of night make only one cc before you fully saturate. add one more or maybe two more. in general it’s the only map that in the end game you are gated by minerals more so than gas as long as you dont take too great losses