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Hello guys So, as we all know, terran economy is hard to do maths with and figure out build orders, there are a lot of variables and different methods of obtaining resources. My idea is to code a economy simulator, so I can optimize build orders without having to do it during a game. The results are obviously going to be theoretical, but I'm trying my hardest to consider every variable possible.I'll share now my first version of it. I did it on Excel's VBA and for now the user interface is not very friendy for non excel experienced users. Soon I'll realase more user friendly versions.Version 1.0How does it workThe tickspeed of the simulation is 1 tick per second, meaning that all the data will be updated every second 1 time. On the "eco" worksheet" you can assign a building to start building by typing on the second you want it to start the quantity of buildings you want to start building in that second. The resources are going to be removed from your bank (it doesnt check if you will be negative) automatically. After the building time is complete, you economy will be increased accordingly.It doesn't work at real time, you have to activate the macro "simulation" every time you want to update it.Next version: I'll add army expenses, such as getting marines, reapers, armory upgrades, walls, wall upgrades, generator upgrades, etc.Feel free to send me some feedback.

Zerg Eco figured outJust to be clear before I start, this post is not about winning, it is about eco, which is basically the most important tool you have for winning. I guess in that logic this post might help you win. How zerg eco worksFor those who don't know, zerg hex has a very interesting economy, that consists on this equation:I = S * E + HI(income in minerals per minute); S(spawners); E(extractors); H(hive)The spawners value is shared between the zerg allies, meaning that building more spawners will increase your allie's economy just as much as your own - but not in the same value.Hive (H)A lot of people haven't actually noticed this, but hives actually generates 80 minerals per minute for each zerg player. A solo zerg then would get 160 minerals per minute from hives. That makes about 20% of a zerg's economy when the game starts.Extractors (E)Extractors cost 200 minerals and 15 supply. There are also the greater mineral extractors, that do the same as 4 normal extractors combined, and for that reason costs 660 minerals and 45 supply on top of a normal spawner. So other than saving space and taking longer to get enough resources to get it, a greater mineral extractor is the same as a normal one, it even has the cost of 3 unused drones.The game starts with 6 extractors for each zerg, meaning that the "S" value will be multiplied by 6.So what is the so called "ratio"? In a multiplication of S*E, the closer both values are, the bigger the result will be. For exemple, if you have 10 points to distribute for S or E, giving 5 and 5 is the best combination possible.1*9=9; 2*8=16; 3*7=21; 4*6=24; 5*5=25.In reality, that means that the closer you spawners to extractors ratio is, more efficient you have spent your resources eco wise. So if you are the kind of zerg who only builds a lot of extractors, you might be actually making your economy worse. That also applies for the kind of zerg who builds a lot of spawners and makes no extractors - notice how 1*9 is almost 3 times smaller than 5*5, so maybe if you made at least a few extractors, your eco can increase by a lot and therefore your offensive potential too.The indicator in game that shows you "the ratio" (if you should make more extractors or more spawners) appears when you click on the extractors. The "extract minerals" numbers shows you the "S" value, meaning that adding a new extractor would add that value to your income, and the "spawner income info" shows you how many minerals per minute would be added to your and your allie's economy combined if a mineral container (counts as 4 spawners) was built - that's a useful information, because a mineral extractor is worth 15 supply, the same as a mineral container. That means that if the "extract minerals" combined ("S" value) number is higher than the "spawner income info", you should make more extractors and if it's the other way around, adding more spawners would increase your economy more than a extractor would.Spawners (S)The "S" from our equation consists of a sum of 4 different values.1. Number of small spawners * 12. Number of large spawners *43. Number of mineral containers *44. A constant (30)For exemple, in the start of the game, each zerg starts with 12 spawners, so in total there are 24 spawners. In that case, the "S" value will be 30(the constant)+24*1+0*4+0*4=54So if all small spawners give the same economical return, why do people say that strikelings are so good for economy? Well, there are 2 reasons for that. To answer that, I'll make a comparison between strikelings and slowlings spawners.- Slowling: costs 50 minerals and 4 supply- Strikelings? costs 70 minerals and 3 supplyFirst reason:If you build 1 slowling or 1 strikeling, your economy will increase by the same amount, but how much does a slowling cost compared to a strikeling? The spawner costs in reality is usually lower then the supply cost of a spawner. The first 45 supply costs 600 minerals, the second 725 and the third 850, increasing the cost 125 minerals every time you buy it. Lets now analyse the real cost of a spawner for each supply.-First supply (600)Slowling=50 + 53.3 = 103.3Strikeling= 70 + 40 = 110-Second supply (725)Slowling=50 + 64.4 = 114.4Strikeling= 70 + 48.3 = 118.3-Third supply (850)Slowling=50 + 75.5 = 125.5Strikeling=70 + 56.6 = 126.6-Fourth supply (975)Slowling= 50 + 86.6 = 136.3Strikeling = 70 + 65 = 135You can see that after the fourth supply strikelings start being cheaper compared to zerglings, becuase they cost one less supply and that difference will only grow with time. The equation to know the real cost of any supply is:C=p+[(600+125n)/45]*sC(cost); p(price of the spawner); n(supply number); s(how much supply the spawner uses)I'll attach a excel with all the spawners real cost for each supply and a cool graph to make it visual Second and more important reason:With the same amount of supply (and not spawners) strikelings increase the "S" value more. For instance, if u buy a supply (45), with slowlings, you can afford 11 spawners, increasing the "S" value by 11, while if you buy 45 supply of strikelings, you can afford 15 spawners, increasing the "S" value by 15. If you have 10 extractors, that makes a difference of 40 minerals per minute, which and add up a lot considering that the economy of zerg is exponential - the more it grows, the faster it will grow.If you look at the attachment, a lot of things start to make sense, such as why you want to stay away from having many tanklings or many brutas (for your eco).Next steps: I would like to analyze how much eco damage capacity upgrades can cause to a zerg's economy and also the tankling maths to see how bad it really is. Also, would be interesting to see how much positive impact eco sharing can have on the zerg's economy.

Can turrets save energy?Early gameAs weird as it may sound, yes. Turrets if compared to t1 unupgraded marines or shock troopers can save energy, considering that it not only has a area attack, but also a better DMG/NRG.Turret stats:Damage = 16Energy cost = 3DMG/NRG = 5.33Marine stats:Damage = 3Energy cost = 1DMG/NRG= 3Shock Trooper stats:Damage = 5Energy cost = 2DMG/NRG = 2.5It's important to note though, that the more is invested into static defense, the less ofensive power you have and less threatening you become to the zerg, which can be bad for you and specially for your allies. Also, because they are so expensive, it would save even more energy if you got shattering for your marines, that also increases offensive power. Compared to upgraded marines, a turret's DMG/NRG falls behind pretty fast, leaving a huge unwanted investment. The only use I can see being helpful for turrets is denying infestors feeding: you can build one at your construction yard and leave it off, then when a infestor attacks it, you can turn it on. They are useful on that case specially for beginers because they're hard to kill and have high enough dps to actually kill infestors.Late gameNow considering upgraded turrets against upgraded elites, the turrets also fall very far behind. The area damage stops working when the target is as big as a bruta, leaving a 25(-7) damage per 4 energy, making the DMG/NRG against bruta 4.5, which is significantly lower than a elite's 14 DMG/NRG. That means that every time a turret shoots you waste more and more energy.Damage wise, turrets are also not very good on late game, considering that a fully upgraded elite has a total 52.5 DPS potential while a upgraded turret has 36.

Terran eco figured out (minerals only)This post is heavily inspired by Turb007's post and i'm not doing it because i dont trust him- he is a very experinced player- but because i'm a nerd and i like maths so here we go. I also want to add some new concepts I'm learning on university, like the return on investment (mineral per minute by gas invested) and the comment i saw from Mett on Turb007's post: how long does it take for sheep and cows to pay for themselfs (mineral wise) and how long does it take for cows to overcome sheeps - that sounds confusing but i hope it will make sense soon. I will not discuss build orders on this post.Buildings' aggregated value:Fruit Farms: Costs 30 gas and produces 1 fruit every 6 seconds, when no animals eat it, it gives +1 mineral. That is equal to 10 minerals per minute. And a return on investment of 0.33 minerals per minute by gas invested.Sheep farms (no sheep): Costs 40 gas and produced 1 mineral every 10 seconds, meaning 6 minerals per minute. The ROI (return on investment) is 0.15 minerals per minute by gas invested.     -With sheep: For each fruit eaten by the sheep, the value added compared to left decayed is +1 with no advanced farming. The mineral per minute then increases by 3.33 and adding the sheep farm itself, 9.33, making the ROI 0.233 minerals per minute by gas invested. Considering that a sheep costs 5 minerals, it would also take 90 seconds for the sheep to pay for itself. Upgraded sheep farms (no sheep): Costs a additional 20 minerals and 20 gas (on top of normal sheep farm), upgrades the sheep farm to produce now 2 minerals every 10 seconds instead of 1, which is a 6 mineral per minute increase on income. The ROI of that operation is 0.3 mineral per minute by gas invested. Considering the 20 mineral cost, the time it takes for it to pay for itself is 200 seconds (3 minutes and 20 seconds). The ROI of the upgraded sheep farm in total (not just the upgrade), is 0.2 mineral per minute by gas invested, and if you consider the sheep too, 0.255. It is important to diferenciate those scenarios, because in 1 gas situations, you might not have space for all sheep to be on fruit farms.Cow farms (no cows): Costs 30 minerals and 60 gas, providing 2 minerals every 10 seconds, a 12 mineral per minute increase. The ROI would be 0.2 minerals per minute by gas invested and it would take 150 seconds (2 minutes and 30 seconds) for the farm to pay for itself.     -With cows: Costs additional 15 minerals, increases the income by 10 minerals per minute (making it 22 in total), and takes 90 seconds to pay for itself (1 minute and 30 seconds). The ROI then becomes 0.366 minerals per minute by gas invested.Considering mineral costBefore we address advanced farming upgrades, i'd like to take a moment to analyze a very interesting comment from Mett:"cows generate more income compared to sheep only after about 3mins. So when you are building cow farms you need to expect the game to last another 3mins before it ends."Comparing cow farms with cows to unupgraded sheep farms with sheep, lets make some basic functions to figure that out. I wont consider gas cost for this, only minerals. s(x)=0.155x-5 and c(x)=0.366x-45. The (-) values are the innitial mineral cost and the constant multiplying x (time in seconds) is the minerals per second that sheeps (s) and cows (c) provide. One starts being better then the other when they both intersect at 187 seconds, confirming Mett's statement. I'll make a graph to show this. Still, note that cows are very superior on the long run, after 10 minutes, while a sheep farm with a sheep will give you 88 minerals, a cow farm with a cow will give 175 minerals, which is basically 2 times more - and the difference will just keep growing.Advanced Farming upgradesAdvanced Farming 1:This 300 gas cost upgrade increases the sheep mineral income when it eats a fruit by +1 and cows by +1 too. So when does it start being worth it? Well now that we calculated the ROI for each combination (excel is attached), the ROI increase from adv. farming times the number of farms has to be bigger than the cost of oportunity, which is the ROI of 300 gas worth of farms.     -Unupgraded sheep farms with sheep: ROI=0.23 --> after upgrade ROI=0.316. Therefore, the ROI increase is 0.083. With 300 gas, you can make 7,5 sheep farms, but you cant make half a farm, so 7 farms, meaning a ROI of 0.23*7=1.633. For the upgrade to be worth it, 0.083 * number of farms = 1.633, which is equal to 19.6 farms (20 farms).     -Cow farms with cows: ROI=0.366 --> after upgrade ROI=0.422. The ROI increase is 0.055 and with 300 gas you can make 5 cow farms, which is worth a 1.83 ROI. So, for the upgrade to be worth it, 0.055 * number of farms = 1.83. The result is 33 cow farms.Advanced farming 2:This upgrade costs 400 gas and increases sheep mineral income when it eats a fruit by +1 and cows by +2. Lets repeat the same process.     -Unupgraded sheep farms with sheep: ROI=0,316 --> after upgrade ROI=0,4; ROI increase = 0,083. The cost of opportunity is 3,16 (with 400 gas you can make 10 sheep farms, which is worth 10*0,316), meaning 38 farms.     -Cow farms with cows: ROI=0.422 --> after upgrade ROI=0.533; ROI increase = 0.111. Cost of opportunity=3.2, meaning 29 farms (28.8 ).What does this all mean? Does it mean that advanced farming is crap?Well, no. On a terran's base high ground with a standard layout (3 fruit farms and the tech lab), you can fit 30 sheep or cow farms, meaning that when you fill it all up it is worth it to get adv. farming, but it is a ultra late game upgrade. Before i read Turb007's post i used to get adv farming pretty early on, but apparantly that is not the way to go. That doesn't mean that getting it before 30 cow farms is not worth it. We did not consider the mineral cost of 30 farms, which is 1,350. And also, advanced farming reduced the time a farm takes to pay for itself: for cows, its inicially 122 seconds, then 106 seconds, then 84 seconds. So maybe in a scenario where you need urgently to get more minerals and cant wait to max out on farms and wait for the farms to pay for themselfs before giving you minerals back, it might be worth it to get advanced farming before it's "optimal timing".Conclusions:1. On ealy gameFruit farms are evidently the best choice for eco on early game, as gas is very limited, you want to maximize your mineral income by gas cost. If you are under a lot of pressure, getting sheep farms might help, their return on gas investment is 30% lower and it costs 5 minerals, but it is a much safer option.2. Upgrading sheep farmsThe return on gas investment for upgrading sheep farms is double the value of making a new sheep farm with no sheep and 30% more than making a new sheep farm with a sheep. Meaning that if gas is the limited factor, you always want to upgrade your sheep farms for more mineral income. The problem though, is that the upgrade takes 2 minutes and 20 seconds to pay for itself mineral wise, so if you can't wait 200 seconds for it to start giving you minerals, you probably shouldn't do it.3. Cows vs SheepAs Mett said, because of the time it takes for the cow farm to pay for itself, cows are ment for longer games, meaning that your push will be delayed and fewer pressure will be applied to the zerg. It is a tradeoff, to put it in economics terms, eco X pressure.4. Advanced farmingThe optimal time to get it considering only gas cost, would be when you have 30 cow farms or 20 sheep farms for advanced farming 1 and 30 cow farms or 38 sheep farms for advanced farming 2. But as it was discussed, advanced farming doesnt cost any minerals, meaning that you might want to get it earlier if you are under a lot of pressure or you need to push soon.Next steps: Might be time to go deeper into game theory and maybe try to consolidade team strategy. For exemple, we saw that cows after 10 minutes have already given the player double the mineral value sheeps would have given, but because it takes a lot of time for it to pay itself, meaning that little to no pressure is applied. What if the team has a strategy in which 2 players apply t1 pressure while the other one ecos for a t2 doom push to finish the game? What if 2 players eco and 1 tries to clear the 3 nests with a super agressive terran build while the others prepare a heavy push? What if the 3 players just t1 push? What if the 3 players just t2 push? What other possibilities are there? Is there a dominant strategy? How should the zerg react to each of them? Notes: Thank you Turbo and Mett for your contributions/inspirations and I hope I added something to the discussion xD. The attachment has some cool charts about each building eco info for normal, advanced farming 1 and advanced farming 2 values and also the comparison cow x sheep and sheep x upped sheep.

Hello and shock troopers: how good are they?Well before doing any maths i can already tell they're pretty good. They have a basic attack that costs 2 energy per shot and has a area damage plus 2 speels - Ground Pulse (EMP) and Instant discharge (needs armory research). Also, they are tier 1 units, meaning you can get them pretty early on without even getting a tech lab. So my first question is:Can a shock trooper basic attack be better compared to a marine basic attack?- Against 0 armor units: Shock troopers basic attack does 5 damage to units, consuming 2 energy, but because they have area damage, his total potential DMG/NRG depends on the zerg influx of units, but it is 2.5DMG/NRG for each target hit. In that case, compared to a plain marine (3 DMG/NRG), a shock trooper would have to hit in avarage 1.2 unit for the attack to be worth it in ou DMG/RNG variable. In case of upgraded tier 1 marines (shattering, pen laser and conservation 1), the shock trooper would have to hit 5.6 units, which is not very realistic. - Against armor 1 units (tankling): Using the already published DMG/NRG results for each unit armor and upgrades, a plain marine would now have 2DMG/NRG and the shock trooper 2DMG/NRG for each unit hit. In that case, aparently a shock trooper would only have to hit a single unit to be more cost efficient compared to a marine, so hitting additional targes would only be profit. How about upgraded tier 1 marines? - you might ask: they have 8.75DMG/NRG, so a shock trooper would have to hit 4.375 targets in average, which is maybe viable, but probably the avarege units hit is lower than that.- Against a structure: Shock troopers do 8 damage against a structure. Spawners and big spines have 2 armor and other zerg buildings have 1. In that case, for armor 1 buildings a plain marine would have 2DMG/NRG, with pen laser 3DMG/NRG and a trooper 3.5DMG/NRG. In case of a 2 armor structure, plain marine would have 1DMG/NRG, pen laser marine 2DMG/NRG and the trooper 3DMG/NRG. Therefore, it can be considered that against structures, shock trooper's basic attack is stronger than marines, even with pen laser.How about the spells, besides being very powerful for doing a lot of damage in short amount of time, do they "waste" energy?-Instant discharge: costs 50 energy and does 80 damage. Being a spell, it ignores completely armor. In that case, it has 1,6DMG/NRG, no matter what they are targeting. The only exception would be if it overkills a unit, but using instant discharge on a zergling is unecessary i'd say xD. In that case, Instant Discharge can only save energy if your other options would be plain marines against armor 2 or more target (spawners, big spines, roaches, primals, brutas). -Ground Pulse (EMP): costs 50 energy too and does 20DMG in area. That means that per target hit, the DMG/NRG increases by 0.4. A plain marine without armory has 3DMG/NRG, so a EMP has to hit 7.5 targets for no wasting energy. Or in case of a armor 1 oponent (tankling) versus plain marines with no armory (2DMG/NRG) would have to hit 5 targets. I'd say that it can be realistic.Can you use Instant Discharge to kill big spines?We'll it does look like a tasty option ;p because they do outrange the big spines and they do have 2 armor that getts nullfied by the spell. So how many discharges do you need to kill a big spine? The answer is 16.25, which is worth 812.5 energy. That makes me think: how many infestors do you need to heal for each shock trooper added? A infestor regenerates 1 energy per second and can spend 150 energy to heal 300HP. So it can basically heal 2HP per second, while a shock trooper has a 30 seconds cooldown on the Instant Discharge which would be 2.66 DMG/s. Meaning that you need for each Shock Trooper 1.33 infestor.Conclusion: Shoock troopers are very strong on early game, it's basic attack can be cost efficient if it hits more than 1.2 targets in average and the Ground Pulse (EMP) can also save energy if it hits 7.5 amor 0 targets or 5 armor 1 targets. Shock troopers on early game can be extremely powerful against tanklings, as their DMG/NRG is the same as a plain marine, even if it hits a single target, meaning that if a shock trooper hits more than 1 tankling it is saving you energy. The problem with shock troopers though, is how useless they get on mid to late game, because after marines get their upgrades, they're DMG/NRG gets way better. The only use would be Instant Pulsing big spines, but it is a big investment and can be countered by infestors (1.3 infestor for each shock trooper).Problem: I'm not sure about how i can make a fair comparison marine-shock trooper, because of the cost of the unit: Shock trooper is 15 minerals 30 gas and a marine 16/5. I proved that on early game shock troopers might save money on energy depending on what the zerg is doing, but it still cots 6 times more gas, and I'm not really sure about how I can compute that.

When and who do you bouble?This one is loaded with maths, but if u want, u can skip to the conclusion.So, the "bouble" is a techlab speel that costs 2k energy and gives allied units inside +3 dmg (with the exception of firebats apparently) and reduces enemy armor to 0 inside an area for 10 seconds. Who to bouble?Well that is kind of a simple question. Considering -1 armor has the same effect compared to +1 damage, the only scenario in which boubling the enemy is better is when they have more than 3 armor. Consider a roach (armor 2): if you bouble it, you will reduce his armor to zero (-2 armor) while if you bouble your own marine, it would be +3 damage - a 1 damage difference. Now, brutas (armor 7) are different, bacause the bouble would cause a -7 to them or a +3 to the marines. So if all brutas are running through a path, it's better to bouble the path - making all the units that pass through it affected. When to bouble?Now this is a little bit more complex. Have no doubt that boubling increases damage in all cases, so if you need to kill something faster it is obviously recommended, such as:-Big spine (armor 2): bouble marines, specially if they are normal marines (3 dmg -> reduced to 1 by the armor) or vets (6dmg -> reduced to 4 by the armor)-Infused roach (armor 2): can be dangerous when in big numbers with other zerg units; bouble marines-Roaches (armor 2): when in large numbers specially when you don't have shattering 2 or walls defending you; bouble marines-Primals (armor 3): bouble marines if no bruta are out bouble primals if there are also brutas in the mix,-Brutas (armor 7): defenitely bouble brutas if they are getting too close to your marines xDThe problem is though, when does the bouble become more energy efficient compared to no bouble? Basically when the bouble saves you more than 2k energy. I'll analize some situations to see if that happens at all.-Early game marines shooting nest spawners: spawners have 2 armor, while small spines and nest have 1. I'll consider only spawners, because i'm assuming the zerg will build some more adding to the 4 default ones. I'll use a already explored variable: DMG/NRG, which is how much damage can be done with 1 energy.     -No penetrating laser: Before=1DMG/NRG; After=4DMG/NRG. That is a significant increase, so let's make a function to see when it stats being worth it to bouble (x is energy and y is damage and -c is the initial cost of the bouble, but the cost of the bouble in damage depends on how much damage the unit without the bouble could do with 2k energy. So we have to substitute 2000 in the f(x)). For no bouble marines: f(x)= 1x; for bouble marines: g(x)=4x - 2000. To find the intersection the maths are f(x)=g(x); so x=4x-2000; 3x=2000; x=666.6 NRG. So what does that mean? It means that it starts being worth it after marines have shoot 666 times (1 energy consumed per shot). Marines have 0.4 attack speed, so for the duration of the bouble it can shoot 25 times. For it to be worth it then, you need at least 27 marines.     -With penetrating laser: Before 2DMG/NRG; After=5DMG/NRG. Using the same process, f(x)=2x; g(x)=5x - 4000 -> 2x = 5x - 4000 -> x = 1333. That means you need 53 marines shooting with penetrating laser for the bouble to be worth it.      -With overcharge: overcharge doubles the attack speed for 5 seconds, meaning that instead of shooting 25 times in the duration of a bouble, a marine will shoot 37.5 times, so bouble starts being worth it energy wise after 14 marines for no penetrating laser and 27 for with penetrating laser.- Midgame vets with conservation 1, shattering 1 and penetrating laser against armor 2 roaches:  f(x)=5.625x; g(x)=7.5x -11.250 -> x=6000. Veterans energy consumption per shot with conservation 1 is 1.6, so 6000 energy is equal to 3,750 shots fired. With overcharge, it would need 100 veterans for the bouble to be worth it in terms of energy. Note that bouble +3 does not apply to shattering damage, only penetrating laser and armory buff.- Endgame elites fully upgraded against armor 7 brutalisk (bouble on bruta): In this case the bouble "+7" caused by the -7 armor does apply to shattering. f(x)=12x; g(x)=26x-24,000 -> x=1,714.3. For fully upgraded elites, 1,714.3 energy means 1,142 shots fired (energy consumption of 1.5). That would mean it would need 31 elites shooting with overcharge. Without overcharge, the value would be 46 elites. That number only applies to a 100% bruta army coming non stop through a bouble, which is not very realistic, but still is a surprising result that bouble doesnt even consume that much energy if you think about it.Conclusion: The bouble indeed can save energy in a lot of situations. When on early game if you want to push really soon, maybe get penetrating laser, overcharge and bouble your marines to get the structures faster and saving energy (if you have around 30 marines). If you dont have penetrating laser, you defenitely should bouble when you have more than 15 marines. Don't be afraid to use the bouble when you have a lot of units on you, specially if you use overcharge, it doesnt waste 2 charges, it might even save you some.Problem: All of the values are from a perfect scenario in which all marines are shooting at the same target kind. That means it would be a pure bruta army, a pure roach army, or in the case of the spawners, no spawning units while you shoot at the spawners. Still, the results can be useful, considering the numbers should be a bit more depending on how much variaty there is on the zerg army compostion, or in the case of the spawners, if there are a lot of units around.Notes: the DMG/NRG values can be found in one of my previous posts. There is a spreadsheet with all of the upgrades against each armor value.

How many batteries do you need to supply your marines? Now that i spend a lot of time developing this answer, i realize how stupid this question is Metodology:1. First i used the map in Excel and designed a standard base with normal cyard and armory placement. Then i calculated the distances and used the movement speed from the batteries (3.0 and 3.5 for normal and advanced) for 2 different routes, generator>armory>cyard>generator (33.4 seconds for normal and 28.6s for advanced) and generator>armory>generator (24.6s for normal and 21.1s for advanced).2. Then i tested how much energy/second a battery can transfer. For that i used a siege tank that has 4k energy to get more precision. Turns out it is 200 energy per second for both advanced and normal. That didnt make much sense, because marines actually took a long time to charge up, but with this maths it would only take 0.3s.3. With that in mind, i emptied a bunch of marine's energy and put a battery to charge them. It took 20 seconds to fill 20 normal marines instead of 6, so 14 seconds were wasted swiching targets - something that happened 20 times. Therefore i assume it takes around 0,7 seconds  for a battery to swich target.4. For a battery on a route, i created a variable called TTE: time to empty, which is the tame it takes for it to empy its reserves before going back to the generator. So that way i can calculate how long it takes for a full battery to come back empty. Now, marines can hold 60 energy, vets 120 and elites 180, so a full normal battery takes 11.6 seconds to unload to marines, 7.58 seconds for vets and 6.2 seconds for elites, while a advanced battery is 41.6, 27 and 6.2. Note that the time it takes decrases, because the battery takes longer to swich targets than to charge a target, so the more capacity each target has, the faster it will be.5. Now i know how long does it takes for a battery to do a full cycle so i can extract how much energy per second your marines can consume. For plain marines, a full armory route including TTE would take around 36.3s to complete and a cyard route would take 45.1s; a advanced battery would be 62.8s and 70.3s. So for plain marines, that would mean 19.2 nrg/s on short route, 15.5nrg/s on long route and for a advanced battery, 39.8nrg/s and 35.5nrg/s. I'll spare u more text and just attatch a sheet.Conclusion: A normal battery can carry around 20 energy per second on the amory route (the most used) and a advanced battery varies between 40 and 60nrg/s depending on what marine tier you are on. With that you can controll how many batteries you need with your generator upgrades: for every 7 upgrades you would need a aditional normal battery or every 13-20 upgrades for a advanced battery if you are using all your generator's energy to shoot with your marines.Problem: I didnt consider batteries goofing on the patrol routes, sometimes they can get stuck on units, but i guess u can fix that with a precise rally.Next steps: When is it worth it to get power pylons?

Calculating energy efficiencyNow i'll share my maths on what impact each terran upgrade has against each armor value from the zerg units. This allows u to understand what upgrade is more important against each oponent playing style. I used the variable DMG/NRG, which is how much damage can be done with 1 energy for marines, veterans and elites. Note that what i am analyzing is not to kill enemy units faster, but to use less energy on doing so. The % value is how much the DMG/NRG has changed with the upgrade. The attatchment is the result with all the details.Conclusion:- Shattering1 is extremely powerful at reducing energy consumption - even more than conservation 1 with 2 exceptions:normal marines against amor 1 while in range of armory and normal marines against armor 0 outside armory range. Therefore, it is very important to get it if under pressure, because it not only increases your dps, but it also reduces energy consumption by a lot.-Confirmed common knowledge that Shattering 2 is very strong against roaches and primals - more than Conservation 2.-By the maths, i feel like Cons2 kinda sucks, Cons3 is 2.4x more effective even though it only costs 1.6x more.-Elite scope is a interesting upgrade: against brutalisk it can make energy consumption 20% more efficient, which is basically 1/3 of what Cons3 does, and also increases you dps, so its cool Problems: I did not consider "overkilled" units. For exemple, if a fully upgraded elite shoots a 10HP zergling and shattering get 2 more 10HP zerglings, ure basically wasting more then 100 damage, so its kind of complicated. Now that i think about it, strikelings can just suck up a lot of dmg even having only 1HP. For that reason, maybe firebats can be used to kill those tiny units before elites get to waste their damage on that. That is a topic to explore tho, but its not the time for that yet.Next steps: Now that we have all the information for terran units, we can study what zerg unit drains up the most energy from terrans, so movement speed, spawner cap, health, armor, will all be factors to be considered.

I started a quest to develop Zerg Hex science. I'm currently studying economics and i'll use zerg hex to also understand some concepts and maybe try to apply.I'll start sharing something that took me longer than i'd like to admit: I reproduced the map block-to-block on Excel. That way i can calculate distances and stuff on the map. Unit speed is in squares/sec, therefore it also enables us to calculate time for units to get to point A to point B.I'll be making some updates here, if u have any ideas or something feel free to share.

I think i made this in the wrong channel i'll redo it on Builds&Guides. Yes, i know, i'm a forum noob.