Is there a point to NOT building as soon as you can?

Hey guys,

So I'm a terran player and I love the 1-1-1 build. I saw some tutorials and build orders that say to get Gas at 15 and 16 respectively.

I'm confused as to why you would bother waiting to get gas that late?

If I go 10 supply, 12 barracks, I can get my gas at 13 and 14 while my barracks builds, and then continue pumping SCVs. Its probably a marginal difference, but I'm wondering if it matters.

For example, in HDStarcraft's build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XUUpXPkfGY
He's spending 50 minerals by queuing up a second SCV. Generally, I like to keep my cash flow as available as possible.

So is there a point to "holding" onto minerals, or should players be spending as fast as they can according to their build? Thanks

 

Yeah, if you can get your gas earlier without cutting any SCV production, go for it.

 

If your rich, your losing.

 

My thought is that every scv you have on gas is one less scv that you have mining minerals.

 

There are situations where you want to save some minerals for buildings, especially when the build order involves fast teching.

But holding off til 15-16 supply for gas is a little late for me. I normally do 9 supply, 11 barracks, 11 gas

 

Ofcourse you should not delay your gas just to queue more SCVs. Ideally nothing should ever be on queue. The only times I can think of when you want to hold on to resources is when you are waiting to scout the enemies base to decide what to go for or when you want to kill the enemy scout before you put your buildings up. Sometimes you may even want to see what unit composition the enemy has in its army before you start producing your own units but I think this only goes for zerg as the only race that can create an army from nothing in 20 seconds .

 

Na, keeping your minerals in your bank is what all the cool kids do...

 

Terran should almost never have idle resources. We can make 1 unit at a time and thats final so theres really no point in holding onto excess money unless theres a high cost unit you are saving for (ex: thor/battlecruiser)

Zerg, and, to a degree, Protoss can hold onto resources because they can just spawn/warp units in bunches as they are needed, which is why terran need to be constantly churning out units to never be caught off guard.

 

only protoss and zerg should hold onto minerals because they can produce really fast, terran you need to spend and hold your ground and move up slowly to their base.

remember:
expanding means more minerals per minute which means more units per minute.

 

This isn't always true. In general, it's the money you spend, not the money you harvest that counts. But, someone who has harvested 10,000 minerals and 5000 gas, but has only spent 5000 minerals and 2500 gas is "rich," but is still beating someone who has only harvested 5000 minerals and 2500 gas.

If you're teching, you do want money in the bank. If I am doing a Void Ray rush, how does spending money on zealots stalkers early help me? If I am going to spend my money, I want to spend it on something that is going to help me. i don't want to spend it just to spend it. Now, once I hit the tech mark that I was aiming for, I drain the bank on stuff that is going to help me. At this point, it's the money I spend, not the money I've harvested, that helps me.

 

I try to keep money out of the bank but im still a novice, i get distracted or caught up in what im doing later in the game and look up to notice I have 1k minerals sitting there. Its fun to spend.