Hi everyone,
I am back with another analysis; this time about the discrepancy of gas mining rates from different geyser positions. The phenomenon itself was described years ago in detail in Orek's excellent post. However, as far as I know, there has not been an explanation for that. My goal was to find one.
Basically the phenomenon is that some vespene geyser positions generate more income than others, even if symmetry would suggest that it is impossible. I recommend that if you should not be familiar with it, do read Orek's post, because it really covers everything you need to know about it.
The main idea is that the difference, that is, one gas position generating more income than another when they should yield the same, can come from the following reasons:
The workers spend more time inside the gas in some cases.
They spend more time travelling because they have to travel a shorter distance.
They spend more time travelling because they travel faster in some cases.
All three possibilities seem to be impossible; the first and third for obvious reasons, the second because of symmetry. One of them still has to be the case, though.
To find out which one, I used the Editor once again, as in my previous experiment.
Having compared two gas locations that should generate the same income but don't in fact, it turns out that workers always spend exactly 2 gs inside the gas building, and they travel the same distance approximately. In fact sometimes they travel a longer distance in shorter time to one geyser than to the other one.
This only leaves one possibility for the reason of this phenomenon, namely that units' movement properties depend on the angle they are facing.
That's right, a worker, and any other unit as well, moves faster in certain directions than in others, regarding both maximum speed and acceleration.This is very bad.
For detailed calculations and explanation, here is my usual pdf, and also in the spoiler tag below:
+ Show Spoiler +
Experiments show that units generally move and accelerate fastest around 225° and slowest around 45°. This seems to be the reason for the mining discrepancy between different gas positions. I have no idea why this happens, though.
I, personally, was very surprised to find this, so I wonder what you think about it. Also, any suggestions, criticism and ideas are appreciated .
