I got into a discussion over RTS mechanics and wanted to check something without reinstalling SC2…and if I recall correctly if you select a single SCV from the mineral line and shift-queue it to build a few buildings…will it immediately leave the mineral line to build the buildings? Or will it drop off the resources first? OR does the game do some sort of calculation as to whether dropping off the minerals will waste time or not and only drop them off if it’s on the way?
I don’t believe it will even leave the mineral line until the mineral patch is mined up, possibly until its entirely out of mineral fields. Shift-queueing something tells the worker to finish its current activity first, and if that happens to be mining, the act of harvesting a mineral, transporting it back, and going back for more are all considered part of the same activity.
There is, however, a separate “return cargo” command which can be used, which will not tell the worker to continue mining, and if you shift queue from that, it will return the resource to the nearest viable building, then go on to whatever task you set it to.
Are you kidding me? That’s exactly the answer I didn’t want to hear. Are you 100% sure about this? I was sure the SCV would leave the mineral line.
Yall about to make me re-download SC2 just to check this -.-
umm… why does it matter if you don’t play this game anymore? (since you don’t have it installed)
no, its more like 90% sure. I don’t have a lot of occasion to shift-queue a worker into making structures straight off the mineral line, I almost always lead with the return-resource command out of habit, just because I don’t like seeing builders with minerals. I can go into the game real quick and test, just to be sure.
That would be nice. Thanks.
Well, it appears I was mistaken. The worker does not consider the entire mining process to be one activity. He will finish whatever phase he was on and then go to the building. If he is harvesting or moving to harvest, he will take the mineral and then go start constructing. If he is returning a resource, he will return it and then go begin construction.
1 Like
BRUH. You had me going. Thanks for checking tho.
atleast terran and toss workers can return those minerals after the other job is done, those minerals spent when drones making structures is lost forerver … like tears in the rain on creep of overlords spreading them ^^
Yep. For example, players use this mechanic when they expand: they click on a mineral field at the place of the intended expansion and shift-click on a place near it. Thereby, the SCV/Probe/Drone mineral-walks to the intended place (and ignores all units in her path which would normally block it).
You can see this pretty often in tournament games.