Responsible Usage of Vespene Gas

[solidsamurai]

Recent discussions have got me thinking, and I sometimes think geysers in SC2 contain too little gas. Then again, you'll almost never exhaust a geyser before a mineral patch. And if you can expand properly, you can harvest a lot of gas. Yet I always seem to never have enough gas when I need it, even with 3+ bases harvesting at once. I've mentioned a few of my builds, and this may be part of my problem.

The question/discussion is simple. Is there an optimal way or ways to spend gas, and does it vary at all between races? Is there an optimum number of geysers to harvest simultaneously? Let's hear your thoughts, folks.

My thoughts are 3 bases is a solid flow, but can be insufficient in crunch time, especially if you are macroing, upgrading and researching with regularity. Furthermore, holding a 3rd expo after your main runs dry can be a pain in the hindquarters. But after a battle, I almost always feel wanting in the gas department as I rebuild my army. The exception is as Terran. I always wind up with a vault of 3-4k mins to pump marines while I wait for gas to build up enough. I get the same stored mins with Zerg and toss, but I'm less comnfortable because lings and Zealots can't hit air.


Note to mods: wasn't entirely sure if this was better in General Discussion or Strategy. Feel free to move if necessary.

You kidding me? I often have too much after just my main and natural.

What are you doing exactly? Mass battlecruisers late game?

Of course, I'm also a noob so...

EDIT: It's just that expanding takes away time from defending/attacking and building an army.

But yeah, I often run short on gas unless I hold back... for like 5 seconds. But then it's too late.

[flak4321]

@Todie: Thanks! I had the tip of the ol' iceberg, but just the very tip. Good to know I was on the right track in understanding "metagame." The details are what I thought, at least as far as the third point. I don't really do much pregame stuff beyond "if i get race A and my opp is or gets race B, then I open with..." and leave the rest to the game itself. I do consider some stuff in regard to the second point. Thanks again.

[Gifted]

@Todie: Thanks! I had the tip of the ol' iceberg, but just the very tip. Good to know I was on the right track in understanding "metagame." The details are what I thought, at least as far as the third point. I don't really do much pregame stuff beyond "if i get race A and my opp is or gets race B, then I open with..." and leave the rest to the game itself. I do consider some stuff in regard to the second point. Thanks again.

Flak, if you get on the legacy observer tonight (linked on the main page) at 9pm central standard time (in about 45 minutes from this post) I'll be happy to give you some one on one public discussion before the Chrono Trigger shinanigans. Normally help the community night is Wednesday but for you I'll make an exception.

[Blazur]

What are people's thoughts on allowing users to invest minerals into exhausted gas buildings to get more gas? Maybe once it goes red, players can spend 400 minerals or some absurd amount to get more gas out of it.

[flak4321]

Flak, if you get on the legacy observer tonight (linked on the main page) at 9pm central standard time (in about 45 minutes from this post) I'll be happy to give you some one on one public discussion before the Chrono Trigger shinanigans. Normally help the community night is Wednesday but for you I'll make an exception.

A shame I did not come back until now. I appreciate the offer. maybe I'll show up Wednesday night for a bit. No need to do a special just for me though.

An additional admission is I play quick matches only. As such, I must take an early moment to view terrain before committing to my early game plan.

I'm getting pretty good with the 6-pool Zerg start, and on Wednesday had my first successful early muta harass. I said during the beta I would like playing as Zerg more often, and I was right. I just wish I didn't have to spend drones to build D. Another area of success is reaper harass. I can't find any good harass tactics for Toss except dts and blinkers, but I can't get dts or blink early enough to be really effective. My 2v2 partner likes to fast dt and use them as harassers for a time and then uses them to monitor yet unused expansions. When it works, it works well.

I'm actually asking and stating so much because I'm trying learn more, which I hope will in turn up the quality of my posting and balance suggestions. I may still throw a curveball here and there, as I like to do as a method of making people think , but hey, everybody's gone do that from time to time, right?

@Blazur: I think this might be viable, but I think there should be a reasonable limit on how many geysers a player can reignite. And the cost should include gas and have a building requirement such as Hive or Fusion Core or perhaps a minimum number of hatches/ccs/nexi on the map.

Edit: I just realized that perhaps they could reignite, but not at full capacity. We could make it like a trade-off: x# of mins for y# of gas, but this is getting close to the mechanic Blizz had and removed...