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Mass contaminate change?
 

Does the pending 1.4 update actually change much about the mass contaminate? For those of you who dont know, mass contaminating is when you continually contaminate a building so it cannot actually produce anything.

LETS DO THE MATHS!

So, according to liquipedia 2 (I also checked in sc2 to be sure), "Every unit type has a fixed maximum energy value of 0 or 200 and a natural energy regeneration of 0.5625 energy per game second".

The 0.5625 energy per game second part is relevant to this.

Currently, you need 5 overseers to continually contaminate a building, without it ever being able to produce a unit or research an upgrade. The current energy requirement for contaminate is 75. The time that contaminate halts production is 30 seconds.

This is the part where Im not super good at explaining the reasoning, but I know it all fits into place because I tested the first part with the current overseers. I also want to believe Im good enough at maths to do something simple like this.

So, 75 (Energy required) / 0.5625 (energy per second regen) = 133.3333333333333 (I dont know the right way to explain the figure)

133.3333333333333 / 30 (contaminate time) = 4.444444444444444 overseers required to continually contaminate a building,

But because we cant build 4.444444444444444 overseers, we build 5, otherwise there will be a period of time where you'll run out of energy and have to wait.


So, we can do the same for what it'll be like in patch 1.4.

125 / 0.5625 = 222.2222222222222

222.2222222222222 / 30 = 7.407407407407407

Therefore, we need 8 overseers to continually contaminate something.


So, now to work out if theres actually much of a change, we just compare the price of overseers before and after. Of course, theres going to be differing levels of effectiveness in actual practice with use of before and after patch 1.4 because of other variables such as the difference in health of all the overseers or how you can micro them.

Before patch:

Overseers cost 50 minerals, 100 gas.

50&100 x 5 overseers = 250 minerals, 500 gas

After patch:

Overseers cost 50 minerals, 50 gas.

50&50 x 8 overseers = 400 minerals, 400 gas

So, before patch its 250 mins, 500 gas. After its 400 of each.

Total resources for before patch is 750, total for after is 800.

So basically, they will only be more useful for scouting (due to cheaper cost (duh)), and the occasional contaminate you'd do while scouting. The mass contaminate difference is negligible. Btw, I did this just to see how many overseers it'd take to continually contaminate something, not to find overall cost. The overall cost is just something else I threw in.