Hi,
I’m wondering why the supply depot build time is 21 secs while pylon and overlord only require 18 secs to build ?
Was it done to delay the barrack ?
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Might have been done to delay the barrack by 3sc back in WOL or whatever because of the weird allins and stuff that existed with really small maps and stuff. Gonna look it up and update on that topic
Edit : No real reason behind this, not a patch talking about why it should be like this but I’m guessing it’s because terrans can lift and burrow their depots
Well, Zergs can fly theirs. At considerable speed nowadays. Dont see that as a reason to make depos 3s later. Its probably so that reaper wont arrive too early in TvP.
It could be an economy balancing factor based upon general cost of units, buildings upgrades and such. Three seconds is not a large difference though but can add up as time goes by and more depots are built. By having SCVs take a bit longer to build a depot, that’s a little less time spent getting minerals.
In general, protoss units are more expensive, as I see it, and zerg have to make a lot more units than terran or protoss. A longer depot build time decreases terran minerals / time gathering just a tiny bit. Having an extra SCV just for a building, though, means 50 minerals taken from your eco.
Admittedly, I can only imagine why since there are so many balancing factors to the game. It’s beyond my scope to defend my premise.
Someone may want to check out other build time factors such as how long it takes a gateway vs barracks to be built. Where as a spawning pool is a bit longer and more pricy but zerg don’t have to build but the one.
Maybe you can argue it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, and when it came down to it, with the numbers and such, 18 seconds could be set for the depots without some crazy prices/times elsewhere for any one race.
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You are right. It was done to delay the barracks.
If the reason is delaying Barracks, why wouldn’t they just increase Barracks build time by 3 sec instead of Supply Depot? That would be much more straightforward, understandable and better in all possible ways.
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There’s no real reason for it to be 3 seconds longer. It’s just a dumb decision they made. And yeah, it was meant to delay barracks, they should’ve just made Barracks 3 seconds longer instead; I know they eventually changed it so Barracks requires a Supply Depot because there were rushes but the depot itself doesn’t have to take longer to build.
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Maybe that was a consideration to increase barracks time, but think of it this way.
What’s the ratio of built barracks to built supply depots in a match?
Usually you make a lot more depots.
What’s the trade off of +3sec / depot vs +3sec / barracks given the previous info?
Why not just make gateway and comparable zerg buildings time -3sec? What’s the difference there?
If the answer to some of these questions is “it doesn’t matter,” I don’t think you fully appreciate the scope of interconnecting variables in StarCraft II.
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So that you can build 3 barracks faster, than 1 depot (with 3 scvs occupied rather than 1). Afaik yes it was done to balance all-in or w/e
But for Macro Games of course the Depot build time has a much bigger influence / Nerf than a Barracks one.
just another example of terran’s macro being worse than the other races for no apparent reason
didnt even realize this one smh…
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Hey. They changed stim and the world didn’t crash and burn. Maybe blizzard will consider testing a change to depo build time in the next annual patch.
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Why do SCVs have more HP thqn Drone/Probe?
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Because they get worker harassed while building unlike Protoss and Zerg.
@topic: I’ll never understand why Terran supply take 3 seconds longer to build compared to other races. Terran is handcapped even on that. If Barracks rush is the issue, why just don’t increase it in 3 seconds instead of the Supply?
It’s an artifact leftover from early WoL, when maps were much smaller and stim timings were deadly. I do not remember which one came first, supply depot as requirement for Barracks or build time increase (and Liquipedia doesn’t have info on latter), but both was to slow down the early stim pushes which were especially deadly vs Protoss.
Now, with larger maps and so many other changes, I don’t think Supply Depot has to have longer build time than Pylon and Overlord.
(And with the same logic, I don’t think Pylon needs to have 6.5 range on the energy field, considering all the nerfs to power field and warp-in)
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Maybe it’s aslo a way to prevent worker rush to be too strong vs T, as they produce worker at a lower rate than the other race
i think its to slightly counteract the efficiency of the mule…
having scv’s not mining afew extra seconds for every depot that is built throughout the game adds up.
mules supplement the mineral loss deficiency… and vise versa…
I have another nice coincidence for you
Zerg Spine crawler takes 36 seconds!!! It takes a drone, which takes larvae, which is less mining and less army.
VS cannon rush:
Cannon Build time:
Guess what: 29, for an easy warp in cannon which you need only one probe for doesn’t take any mining etc etc etc…
Last game I build 6 spine crawlers where he was about to spawn 3 cannons, guess who came out ahead.
edit: ps: and even creep: which takes itself not only about 10 seconds but also a hatchery or a T2 tech and an overlord flying into positon… you need more?
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Well, one of these can pick up and leave. The other, not so much. Your static defense is 0 suply, mid range siege unit.
There was a small patch that was added to the game around June/July 2011 during WoL. It indirectly nerfed bunker rushes which where borderline broken Vs Zerg back then as you could completely wall-in the Zerg because no maps had those neutral buildings down the ramp.
There was practically no way to beat it, (unless you drone-drilled, but was too map-specific) because back in WoL, a one base Zerg was a dead Zerg, so those 3 seconds + requiring a supply depot to construct a Barracks gave Zerg some time to mount a defense.
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Basically, going to be using WoL and HotS numbers here, depots take 30 seconds to build, and pylons and overlords take 25 seconds to build. Barracks take 65 seconds to build, same with gateways and spawning pools. Barracks used to take 60 seconds to build if I recall. Then sometime in WoL the build time was increased by 5 seconds and never reverted. As far as I remember, the supply depot build time was always 30 seconds. This was intended by design. The barracks was played with to be 60 seconds instead of 65 seconds, but I guess it was too strong.