Karune explains how T or P counter 1hatch queen.

[Nicol Bolas]

why does producing a lot require extra hatcheries? Can't you simply make a lot of queens and keep using larva injection with all of them? Requires only 150 minerals per queen, and they spawn 4 extra larva rather than a hatchery that only gives 3 larva...

First, my commentary was about SC1 and how the Zerg can use increased larva production to increase resource accumulation.

Second, while a Hatchery is in the middle of a Spawn Larva cycle, it cannot start another. With the specific numbers from the TeamLiquid post, one Queen is exactly sufficient to achieve maximum Larva throughput. Spawn Larva cost 25 energy and took 25 seconds (the time it takes to get 25 energy) for the larva to grow and spawn from the Hatchery.

No need for a cooldown.

[Norfindel]

The problem with the Zerg has been squeezing out Drones from a very limited supply of Larva, while still building necessary units. The reason Zerg expand first is because they're going to throw down a Hatchery soon anyway just to increase larva production, and it may as well be an expansion. Zerg rarely saturate their mineral patches because they tend to have more than other races.

Higher unit production therefore gives them more resources. You don't have to "squeeze out" Drones anymore; you can just build some. So a Zerg with more larva on the same number of mineral patches is able to get more resources than a Zerg with less larva, simply on Drone count. They can more quickly develop an expansion, powering out Drones until saturation is reached.

So the two are very interrelated when it comes to the Zerg.

That happends with the other races too. More workers = more resources. More resources = more production. The Hatchery makes all the Zerg's units, that's the tradeoff. They have better production capability, but must choose between workers or warriors.

Maybe early game it does look costly (and that would really need a detailed analysis to be sure), but mid/late game, it allows you to build advanced units pretty fast, and only costs minerals.

That's still the better part of one Overlord's worth of Zerglings. To get all of these extra units, you're going to have to pay for them in 100 mineral Overlords. That does act as something of a deterrent.

It might be interesting to see what would happen if Overlords provided only 7 food instead of 8...

That's assuming you don't have the minerals, or the supply, but such things cannot be theorycrafted 100% accurately, so there's no point into discussing that.

[Nicol Bolas]

The Hatchery makes all the Zerg's units, that's the tradeoff. They have better production capability, but must choose between workers or warriors.

Right. And in SC1, the Zerg's biggest resource crunch was larva. All the Drones in the world are meaningless if you don't have the larva to produce stuff with them. And producing Drones means you're not producing units.

Playing the Zerg in SC1 requires very precise understanding of when to pump Drones vs. when to build units. Managing this resource makes Zerg play different.

[Amph]

That's the crux of the problem, innit? Queens come out much more quickly than Orbital Commands or Proton Charge. People are worried that with a Queen, Zerg can put on heavy early game pressure and still burn past you economically. So they've kept you in your base the whole game, and by the time you're able to harass they're more than ready for it. GG.

'Course what we should be saying wait for beta and/or give Blizzard more credit for balancing their games.

wrong

to have a queen= 115 sec 150m

to have PC= 120 sec 200m

to have a mule= 115 sec 150m

calculating start after having built ovi/supply depot/pylon...

[Santrega]

wrong

to have a queen= 115 sec 150m

to have PC= 120 sec 200m

to have a mule= 115 sec 150m

calculating start after having built ovi/supply depot/pylon...

How come you didnt start calculating the time after gateway/barracks. Because you need both of those for the obelisk and orbital relay.

At any rate, David Kim in the 3rd battle report had the obelisk at 3:20-3:25 mark and used it at 3:25.

[Amph]

you need also the pool for the queen...

anyway if you start calculating before the !supply units"

it becomes

120 for PC, 120 for Mule and 115 for queen...just 5 sec

also when you have the queen you must wait other 25 sec(larva appear 25 sec later or immediately after you use the ability?I do not recall this particular) , to spawn the first 4 larva

[Pandonetho]

I think after casting the spawn larva ability it's a 25 second wait time before they pop out and you get the actual 4 larva, then you can cast immediately again.

[SaharaDrac]

I am pretty excited to have real balance discussions. I haven't been posting as much, simply because these trivial alpha-state balance discussions are all that's left to talk about until beta comes, and they simply seem pointless to me.