Thoughts on Orbital Command, Planetary Fortress

Posted by Lipton on February 28th, 2010 filed in StarCraft News

After installing DirectTV at your command center, your CC gets 50 energy, and three new abilities, all of which conveniently cost 50 energy.

1) Scanner Sweep: Area reveal (also invis units)

2) Call in MULE: Extra harvester, harvests 30 minerals per load instead of 5

3) Supply Drop: Adds an extra 8 food to one of your existing supply depots instantly

For 150 minerals and a 35 second build time, this is without a doubt the best investment in the game, as it pays for itself within 30 seconds of completion. I decided to run some numbers on just how good the mule is, and its cost effectiveness in comparison to the Supply Drop. Here are the results:

MULE: +270 Minerals

During the MULE 60 second duration (you can cast one every 50 seconds btw), it harvests 9 times, giving you 270 minerals (for free). (Note: One SCV harvests only 60 minerals in that minute)

Supply Drop: +135 Minerals (and the supply is instant)

The Supply drop is worth 100 minerals up front, and the build time on a supply depot (~35 seconds from patch to harvesting again) 35 seconds is worth about 35 minerals, for a total of 135.

This presents an interesting problem. Effectively, using your scanner sweep costs you nearly 300 minerals. Keep this in mind whenever you do use it. Also, never rely on your supply drop as a crutch to not have to keep up with supply. If you get caught at max supply with stuff needing to be built, its obviously better to use it than to delay, but in the grand scheme of things you're losing cashflow this way.

It is necessary to have some kind of detection reasonably early, and it might be worth keeping 50 energy on your station until you can put together some ravens.

Planetary Failtress

Marginal ground defense

Can't lift off

Costs 150 minerals and 150 gas to build

Suprised this hasn't been buffed yet.

I suppose this was just a math heads up, as many players already had a feeling for how good the upgrade was, but without the numbers to back it up. Working this into your build at around 15-18 supply, and on every expansion, is key, in the humble opinion of this low end gold leaguer.