im.ho

Computex 2011

COMPUTEX Taipei is a computer trade expo held annually in Taiwan. It’s the second largest gathering of computing manufacturing professionals in the world, and companies take the opportunity to show of their new prototypes in hopes of luring the buyers that attend to, well… buy!

Normally, you’re supposed to be either a vendor or a bigshot buyer to be able to get access into this fair, but I checked around online and they said you could just say some English and pretend to be from some major company. I threw on my Facebook shirt and showed my passport and they didn’t ask too many questions (evidently if you’re non-asian, it’s even easier - they really want to make sure overseas buyers are in there getting impressed and everything). I get the feeling that security isn’t exactly big there though, one of the registration people even pointed to my ghetto DSLR and asked if I wanted a press pass T_T.

Oh, I should mention cruised around with this guy that’s enjoying omurice for lunch. OMNOMNOM

The first thing that hit me about computex as it’s huge-ness. This is just one of 4 halls stuffed full of vendors trying to sell their stuff. Buyers wander around and make deals while collecting free stuff and oogling the booth babes.

This picture probably best represents COMPUTEX’s booth babe system. Companies hire girls to hold their new products while buyers/press take crazy amounts of pictures. Said girls also make attendees do things like repeatedly shout the name of the company by promising free stuff. The companies with more money will have the girls dance every once in awhile to Ke$ha or “Like a G6” for more mob-attraction.

Most companies bring one or two girls to hold their stuff and hand out flyers. The bigger vendors might get like 5 or so and have them do a dance routine. Intel? Intel shall not be outdone. They brought an army of girls. 15 total. 3 of them wear i3 shirts + 5 wear i5 + 7 wear i7 = 15 (Intel, you think you’re so clever). Every like 30 minutes or so they patrol around the hall, followed by a trail of cameras, back to the Intel complex to dance/throw stuff to the masses.

The other side of COMPUTEX is actually showing off the tech that the girls hold. There were some pretty nifty stuff there: I took pictures of some of the wackier things - computerized bike, hugeass laptops, waterproof/dropproof notebooks, and tons of hardware stuff that just runs a bit faster or costs a bit less than last year. 3D seemed big, as well as tablet technology.

SNSD is the default video here. On almost every monitor, if you’re not letting people playtest a game, you’re playing Mr. Taxi on loop. Intel, in particular, had SNSD plastered EVERYWHERE

Thermaltake - my favorite booth. They heavily support esports in Taiwan, and sponsor the Apollos team playing in the Taiwan Esports League. Every 2 hours they have live SC2 matches. We missed seeing WhiteRa play (evidently he lost D:), but here’s him coaching one of the girls in Starjeweled (Not really, I think he was asking when he’d need to be back or something) [karmawhoring]. 

SC2 nerdout: The matches we spectated were pretty out there. There was a blink stalker rush, drone+zergling allin, and this crazy game that went MM into banshee into 4 expansions into battlecruiser/marine o.o Too bad templar/stalker raped it D: The huge crowd of people watching gave an indication that SC2 is sort of big here - not as big as Korea, but still pretty srsbiz.

Here’s some pictures of Softball (best Taiwanese Zerg), after getting pwned by blink stalkers. Poor dude.

Overall, COMPUTEX was a blast. I wouldn’t advise going for fun, though, unless you’re willing to geek out over computer equipment. There’s some social commentary that could be done here on the booth babes, but honestly, when your target audience is 90% middle-aged men… girls in skimpy outfits holding your tech is a pretty darn effective way of grabbing attention. So yeah, def would recommend if you’re geeky, def would advise you to stay away from the mobs of shouting dudes if you’re not. We were able to see all the major players with all their fancy events and attractions in about 4 hours or so, and also spent some time browsing the local Taiwan vendors. Good times!

The full gallery of pictures can be found on Facebook and I’m giving SmugMug a shot.

Fix for No SSL, Google Services with Far EasTone SIM

So I’m in Taipei yay! Wandered around town, got fitted for a suit/shirts (so cheap!), and bought the 18-55mm Canon IS mk II (also cheaper than US) to play with… but more on that later. This post is for troubleshooting 3G issues.

My cousin Bob was kind enough to lend me a 3G enabled SIM card to use with my Nexus One while in Taiwan (thanks, Bob!). Makes everything so much easier - I’m never lost, can look up Chinese that I’ve totally forgotten, find fun places, and check prices of stuff in America… all on the go. So simply plugging it in let me access 3G, no problem, but for some reason I wasn’t authenticated through Google Accounts, meaning no access to Google Maps, no contact sync, no push email. Major PITA. (You can tell if this is happening on Gingerbread if your 3G icon is white/gray instead of green)

The root of the issue was that the phone wasn’t properly configured to access SSL sites. After combining the magic found through googling around with some tips on the Nexus One support site, I finally got it to work! The magic code is Far EasTone specific, but if you’re using a different carrier you should be able to google for “APN GPRS code” and your carrier name to find the relevant code or settings that you input manually.

1. Call the magic code ＊＊100＊202＊000＃ to automatically set up the default APN settings
2. Navigate to Settings -> Wireless & Networks -> Mobile Networks -> Access Point Names
3. Check off Far EasTone Internet, instead of Fetnet01
4. Select Far EasTone Internet to enter the settings
5. The “Proxy” and “Port” fields should be <Not Set>. If there’s something different, select the field and clear it out.
6. Menu -> Save.
7. SSL should work over 3G! Sit back and watch that gray/white turn into green!

Belief and Truth

We’ve been having heavy philosophical/epistemological discussions in the apartment thinktank, and I thought it would be a good exercise to condense some of the more relevant thoughts to words and put words to digital paper.

But first, I need a moment to mention that these discussions are what I’ll be missing most from my apartment-mates when we split off to all across the US soon. With our backgrounds drawn from the diverse socio-economic pool that is suburban Texas, we somehow still manage to have different opinions on everything that isn’t really important in a roommate arrangement (so things like Taylor Swift, games worth playing at 3AM, and pizza toppings we are required to agree upon… but God, politics, economic theory… nope) and that has made the past 4 years infinitely more interesting. I hope that in the future, even though we’ll be in different timezones, we can continue to argue about things like the relative merits of Starcraft 2 patch changes, whether trickle-down economics makes sense, and if historical Jesus could ride dinosaurs. Ah, the magic of the internet. And Facebook. Gotta plug Facebook.

Back to the topic at hand, I’ve realized a few things from these discussions, as well as from reading a great deal of lesswrong.com. One of the most applicable to my day-to-day social interactions is the concept of belief and truth. Whether the topic is religion, politics, or “Dustin, going with your friends to Japan this Summer is going to irradiate our potential grandchildren” (thanks, Mom), I often find that the discussion degenerates into a situation where neither party can understand why the other believes what they believe. Since I happen to think that the people I talk with are (mostly) logical, and (mostly) reasonable people, it was confusing to me why it is often very hard to understand the foundations of a person’s belief - how some evidence is just so very obvious to one party, but given no credence by the other.

Belief, according to Wikipedia, is “the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true”. So far so good, but unfortunately, Truth is far less well defined. In fact there’s an entire freaking list of ways one can define truth. Reading through that list, I’m sure you can think of a few people in your life who subscribe to different criteria for truth, whether consciously or unconsciously. 

For example, mother dearest frequently tells me of wacky Taiwanese health ideas that I should most definitely follow to fix my terrible vision or help me live a longer/more prosperous life. Appealing to scientific studies in this situation did not help me much during my childhood, and I would be forced to stare at trees in between computer sessions to “let my eyes rest”. It did not matter to her how numerous or widely accepted the studies are - fundamentally, she believed those things because her friends all believed in them or it was something “everyone knew (in Taiwan)”. Arguments of scientific (Pragmatic) basis do not shift her belief indicators.

Another example is religious discussion. Religion is a touchy subject for most, as no matter how much you talk, the probability that you reach consensus is close to nil. An atheist’s requirement for scientific proof of God seems ridiculous to most theists, precisely because the basis of theistic truth is by the Revelation criteria (“Because God said so”), or by the Intuition criteria (“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”). And similarly, describing the love and compassion of your favorite diety or the beauty of the physical world is not going to impact the beliefs of a rationalist who judges by Correspondence or Pragmatism. Neither party is going to be able to agree on who is right, and who is wrong - because their definitions of “rightness” and “wrongness” are completely different.

It’s important to note here that the definition of truth is something that each person defines for themselves. Arguing for someone to change their truth definition is a circular process that, as far as I can see, is futile. It may be worth my time to explore truth-criteria-criteria, but for now that’s an avenue I’ve yet to explore.

So, next time you find yourself in a heated debate - take the time to consider the other party’s truth criteria. Agreeing to disagree is not rational, but you can do even better by agreeing that the conclusions you would make would be the same with their definition of truth.

Thoughts, comments, critiques are appreciated.

Zerg Baneling Build Order in ZvT and ZvZ

In the month or so since I’ve posted (too many projects x.x), a few iterations of standard strategy for Zerg have occurred, and the one I’ve found to be most interesting is the rise of the Baneling as a dominant force in the early game. I thought I’d just share a few of the key moments of this trend here, as well as provide a build order for people to use and abuse =)

Youtube example: (Jump to 4:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDyYLkpmoS0) though the ZOTAC replays are better.

But first, a pretty picture of Banelings going boom. (source: liquipedia)

A few of the factors that have motivated the Baneling trend:

• Dimaga’s devastating Baneling/Speedling timing attack in the 4th ZOTAC Cup where he demolished every Terran player in the early rounds. Replays at the link.
• Inital success of FE speedling openings by players in patch 7 as an alternative to the standard Roach builds.
• The Roach -1 armor nerf of patch 8 - this sealed the deal. ZvZ instantly went from being a Roach dominated game into one where Zergling/Baneling has started to become common.

A quick review of the baneling:

• Cost is 25/25 per baneling, and morphed from a zergling. 
• Health is 30 and unarmored.
• Damage is 20 (+15 Light) in an AoE, and 80 against buildings

It’s pretty easy to see that baneling has the potential to cause TERRIBLE TERRIBLE damage against both clumps of light armor units (Zerglings, Zealots, Marines), clumps of harvesters (light armor), and buildings. It’s main weakness is it’s low raw hp and lack of mobility. We’ll exploit the lack of units in the early game to overcome it’s HP weakness with a speedling shield line in order to destroy 1) Supply Depots in order to prevent production of more T1 units and 2) Harvesters to give us a permanent edge in economy if we don’t win outright. Now that we’ve got the basics, lets jump into the build.

Zerg vs. Terran Baneling Bust BO

• 14 Pool
• 14 Extractor
• Kill drone production at 15.
• 15 Queen
• 17 Zergling - and then continue to pump Zerglings with every larvae
• First 100 gas - Upgrade Zergling Speed
• Next 50 gas - Baneling nest
• Morph 5-6 banelings when nest pops.
• At around 31, queue hatchery to their base, make banelings attack the supply depot at the choke, and rush zerglings in. Continue queueing up Zerglings into the base.

If all goes perfectly well, the banelings will take out both a Supply Depot as well as damage some the of units at the choke. The zerglings will run in and proceed to demolish the base.

So what can go wrong? Even if the Terran has amassed a large amount of T1 units, well placed banelings in the SCV line are more than adequate to secure you an advantage. The true counter to this build is simple: if the terran blocks off their choke with high HP buildings such as Barracks or Factories, there’s nothing you can do. You may be tempted to morph more banelings and try to break the wall, but it’s cost and time prohibitive. By the time you have massed enough banelings (remember your economy is significantly behind!) a smart Terran will have hellions to chew through your zerglings and kite the banelings! Make sure to scout ahead with your overlord and immediately transition off this build if you don’t see the telltale supply depots at the choke.

Note that this is a very “all-in” build. Either the attack goes successfully and your opponent is dead or completely crippled, or your attack is easily repelled and you’re very far behind in economy. Here’s a slight variation that is less committing, but still very effective, especially against Zerg and Protoss who didn’t block. I actually lost to a variant of this in the recent GosuCoaching tournament - very embarrassing!

Zerg vs. Zerg Baneling Harrass

• 14 Pool
• 14 Extractor
• Kill drone production at 15.
• 15 Queen
• 17 Zergling - and then continue to pump Zerglings with every larvae
• First 50 gas - Baneling nest
• Morph 3-4 banelings when nest pops.
• At around 26, move in with your force of zerglings/banelings.
• Depending on the situation, either proceed to pressure or transition to a standard opening line.

Your goals are to 1) Kill the enemy Queen and 2) Detonate as many banelings as possible in the worker line. Afterwards, the Drone count should look something like 15 to 8, and you can proceed with Roach build, or transition into fast Mutalisks in order to seal the game. 

Counters? That’s actually what I’ll be practicing on today - going to try a fast roach build and see how it plays out. I’ll share the results sometime soon =)

Zerg v. Terran - Fast Expand and Infestor play

In the beta, probably the most interesting matchup for me has been ZvT - simply because of all the things you can “get away with” and the amount of mid-game push strategies employed by both sides. I’ve been trying out a variety of openings and unit comps and thought I’d share a few of the most successful I’ve found.

Also - must say http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=115102 is a very pretty good article, but I feel it still fails to do the match justice (the replay is here: (http://omploader.org/vM3Q0MQ watch it! A commented youtube version is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs6Ljkyd7io but I feel like there’s a lot of little things KHB does that makes downloading the replay worth it.) It completely changed my view of the infestor in this matchup and showed that FE v Terran seems to work (even on Steppes, which I think is the smallest map).

Early Strategy:

• Fast Expand at 14. I haven’t seen a Terran who can stop it, even on the smallest map, without the Zerg making a very obvious mistake. Your pool is going to want to come immediately afterwards, and then comes a delicate balance of zerglings/power econ/and spine crawlers to ward off the first attack.
• Early game should be Zerglings/Banelings with speed upgrade and burrow to hold of the +1 M&M Timing attack. You can also use the banelings to break his wall and rush in speedlings if you suspect fast-tech.

Mid-game

• Around this time is when your FE kicks in hard, as long as you held off wave 1. You have the freedom to choose the flow of the game with your extra income and there’s two endgames you can aim for.
• One is to transition to a few mutas if you see a hellion build, but don’t stick with them as a mass viking strategy can dominate it. The key is making a few for scouting and make him transition away from hellions to vikings without a slowdown to your build.
• Second is Roach/Hydra, especially if he’s still pushing bio. Keeping a few banelings around is still good though, as they tend to make T paranoid and waste scans. Speedlings are still required, especially if tanks are incoming.
• On every unit comp, go fast infestors. You need to get them out quickly in T2 to store up energy. Why? Fungal. Creep. Is. Overpowered. 6 seconds of snare and sick damage. Absolutely melts bio, and is the perfect counter to a Thor build.

End-game.

• If you went for the Spire, start pumping Brood Lords. These guys are sick. Once their damage ramps up, it’s equivalent to 200dph. Yeah. Ridiculous. Make sure you have Hydra/Corruptor backup if you encounter mass vikings, and Infestors for Thor/Marine counter.
• If you went roach/hydra, your endgame is fully upgraded Ultralisks. Slams through a bio line, but you need solid amounts of hydras to ward of the air. Infestors are again key for holding shit still and mind-controlling anything annoying.

Tips:

• Scout! Overlord sac to keep ahead of his tech. An overlord is 100 minerals - he’s using 200+ minerals on EVERY scan.
• Map control! Burrowed zerglings at expansion points, overlord spread and vomit for even more control (until he makes vikings - PULL as soon as you see that starport up). Burrow Banelings along unit paths - keep him on edge, try to make him waste scans (There’s no real detection for T until T3 Ravens, and again each scan is 200+ minerals). 
• Make a queen spawn a creep tumor and then leapfrog tumors all across the map. This is something that should be done whenever you have a free moment of attention.
• Mind-control goes on their most crucial units. Ravens and Thors are a great use, but don’t be afraid to mc vikings if AA is getting hairy.
• Spam fungal creep. SPAM. FUNGAL. CREEP.
• For your FE, he might try to build a bunker next to it while the sight range is low. Don’t be afraid to PULL ALL DRONES. 
• Wall up with spine crawlers, especially if you see double/triple rax. Make sure your ramp is fully blocked, or else a hellion rush will incinerate all your drones before you can blink. You don’t want this to happen to you. I learned this the hard way (and so did KHB in that replay).
• Similarly, one or two spore towers in each drone line will save you vs banshee harrass. Make sure to upgrade a overseer in case you see double-starport cloak strategy.
• Upgrades are critical - I’ve been experimenting with double evolution chamber in T2 and it seems worth it, especially once your econ gets rolling.
• Expand often. Especially in the T3 transition, when you pretty much have full map control and tons of minerals to spare. Gas is going to be your limiting factor for the rest of the game.

That’s it! More and more waves of SC2 Beta are coming out - hope this helps and look forward to seeing more of you online =D

SC2 Beta Patch 3 - Yet another Terran Buff, Protoss Nerf

StarCraft II Beta - Patch 3 (version 0.5.0.14219B)

Balance Changes

• TERRAN
  • Engineering Bay
    • Infantry Armor: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Infantry Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
  • Armory
    • Vehicle Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Vehicle Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Ship Plating: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
    • Ship Weapons: The time required for each upgrade has been reduced by 30 seconds, decreasing each upgrade time from 190/220/250 seconds to 160/190/220 seconds.
• PROTOSS
  • Zealot
    • The maximum shield capacity of this unit has been decreased from 60 to 50.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where the Infestor’s Neural Parasite ability could cause Reapers to lose the ability to move.
• Fixed an issue that could use an incorrect HDR format on some ATI cards.
• Fixed a crash that could happen on some ATI cards.

Yet another buff for terran, nerf for protoss, aaaaand nothing new for Zerg. Checking the upgrade times on Terran, I’m surprised Blizz decided to make Terran upgrades 190/220/250 in the first place, seeing as how Zerg and Protoss are both 140/180/200. Still not sure about their rationale to have a +20s on them anyways… but who am I to question the patch.

It’s interesting to see that these patches are such small balance changes though - gives me high hopes that the game will be released on time.

Oh and in other news, Shrews/I are #1 in our Bronze league division, woohoo. We’re not TOTAL scrubs anymore. Beating up Bronze is getting too easy, here’s hoping we get moved to Silver soon. This is, of course, assuming I stop losing to warp ray rush - it seems to be the new cool thing to do as Protoss when they see that roach warren go down. Every match I played today has been against Protoss - and every loss (or close win) was because of early warp rays T_T”

Terran +1 Timing Push

Seems like a good BO - Shrews is trying it out. The idea is to have your M&Ms show up at their doorstep the moment your upgrades finish. I think it’s a solid opening for T, but as he mentions, banelings are pretty much hard counter to mass bio.

Source: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=114168&currentpage=2

On February 22 2010 23:30 Fallen wrote:

This is my TvZ timing push.. its quite simple ^^

10 supply
11 rax
13 refinery
15 orbital command
~1-2 marine to fend off fast lings
16 supply
17 engineering bay/reactor on first rax
18 rax #2
20 rax #3
21 upgrade weapon damage in engineering bay
22 supply
25 Tech lab on rax #2
30 reactor on rax #3


so by 7:30 +1 damage finishes, you have a control of about 25-30 units and you attack move teh zerg base! by 8 minute you’ll have the marine +10 hp buff researched as well and about 35-40 units. You make marauders from the tech lab barrack, and always double marines from the reactors ones.

Always have a supply depot queued as this build is supply intensive. Always use the mule when you get 50 mana. If you macro well, you’ll have an endless stream of marine/marauder coming to support your push.

This beat mass roaches/mass lings/hydras/fast expand and whatever teh zergs have thrown at it so far. The only threat to this build is banelings/lings. If you play smart, you should be able to fend that off pretty easily as well.

You have to stay inside your walls until you get one or both marines upgrade done.

I’ll add replays when I wake up later, not sure where I can host them.

heres a replay against #1 in platinum division 6 edit: took out the replay as it seems theres a virus on that upload site =( sorry guys

Starcraft 2 Beta - Patch 1 Opinions

http://www.starcraft2.com/launcher/patch-notes.htm

Beta Patch 1 came out last night and the full notes are linked above. Comments are below in italics.

• TERRAN
  • Viking
    • The armor value for this unit in Fighter Mode has decreased from 1 to 0.
    • The damage done by this unit in Fighter Mode has changed from 6 (+8 armored) to 10 (+4 armored).
    • Seems reasonable. They were losing 1v1 fights against mutalisks - this bumps their damage up over muta (10 base v 9 base).
  • Reaper
    • The damage done from D-8 Charges has decreased from 40 to 30.
    • The delay between attacks for D-8 Charges has decreased from 2.5 to 1.8.
    • Looks like they’re trying to weaken the reaper’s kiting power. I haven’t ever had much of a problem dealing with reapers with some good scouting, but this has been a big complaint in the forums.
  • Orbital Command
    • The build time for this upgrade has decreased from 50 to 35.
    • Flat out buff. Shrews likes this xP.
• PROTOSS
  • Observer
    • Gravitic Boosters: The cost of this research has decreased from 150 minerals and 150 vespene gas to 100 minerals and 100 vespene gas.
  • High Templar
    • Phase Shift: This ability has been removed from the game.
    • New ability: Feedback - Drains all energy from the target unit and causes damage equal to the amount of energy drained.
    • This is really interesting, taking out an ability that noone ever uses to make high templars a hard counter to units like the raven, who require energy to do anything useful, as well as some top-tier units with energy like BCs and Mothership.
  • Colossus
    • The building pathing radius for this unit has decreased from .75 to .5625.
  • Mothership
    • Vortex: The energy cost of this ability has increased from 75 to 100.
    • Vortex: The target radius of this ability has decreased from 3.0 to 2.5.
    • Temporal Rift: This ability has been removed from the game.
    • Wormhole Transit: This ability has been removed from the game.
    • New ability: Mass Recall - Teleports all of the player’s units in the target area to the Mothership.
    • Well, Motherships are killable now, yay. I like Mass Recall too - seems more like the old arbiter.
  • Nexus
    • Chrono Boost can no longer target allies.
  • Gateway
    • The build time of this building has increased from 50 to 65.
    • Guess this is supposed to make double-gate proxy a little harder.
• ZERG
  • Infestor
    • Fungal Growth: The damage done by this ability has decreased from 48 to 36.
    • Fungal Growth: This ability now prevents affected units from burrowing.
    • Neural Parasite: Functionality changed - The Infestor now channels this spell, which lasts 10 seconds or until the Infestor is destroyed. You can now target all units with this ability.
    • Woo - I can finally reasonably dominate SCVs.
    • Terran Infestation: The ability’s energy cost has reduced from 50 to 25 and Infested Terrans now spawn 1 at a time.
    • I still haven’t used Infested Terrans, but this might at least make me consider them.

In other news, I’m branching out in races TANKING MAH RATING, since I’m feeling pretty decent with Zerg basic BO and units. I’m going to at least get settled in with all the races before making a decision on which to play.

Starcraft 2 Beta - Zerg Build Order and General Strategy

Just leaving some notes - someone as bad as me might find this interesting or (maybe) useful while playing the Starcraft 2 Beta. It should at least give someone a place to start off while playing Zerg and heading off to the Bronze League (awwwyeah). I think I’ll also try to write a build-order simulator to search for optimal builds given different utility functions when I have the time. Also keep in mind this lolnewb theorycraft. Helpful critique is gladly accepted though.

Key Ideas:

• You are larvae-constrained at the beginning of the game. Each larvae should be used ASAP.
• You are vespene-constrained early game. The extra minerals you get should be used for 1) Expansion and thereby more larvae, more vespene 2) Base defense 3) Zerglingslololol if you want to maintain pressure

On to the build:

Roach Rush BO

• 10 Overlord
• 13 Spawning Pool
• 14/15 Extractor (Basically whenever all your larvae are used up)
• 15 Overlord
• SP finishes, Queen, Roach Den, one pair of zerglings for scouting purposes
• Pump out Roaches

Edit: safer alternative on small maps, where you might see really early rush or proxy bases.

• 14 Extractor
• 14 Drone
• SP finishes, Queen, 2x Zergling

At this point, you should have 6 Roaches popping out. This will be enough against any early rush (though if I see double reactor barracks or triple stargate or something dumb, I’ll lay down a spine crawler or two to use up extra minerals) AND fast enough to send against a fast expand or fast tech for at least a little harassment.

If you think you can win the game from there, keep pumping out the roaches and zerglings when you don’t have enough gas.

If you can’t take them out and see some higher tier stuff that needs countering, upgrade to Lair and head to your mid-game, usually Roach/Muta or Roach/Hydra. you can probably look to expand at this point as well if they seem to be passive.

If you fail at taking them out and see shittons of low-tier units, pull back, get some spine crawlers up and get that baneling nest going. It’s what I’ve found to be most effective against large amounts of M&M early, though you’ll want Mutas eventually.

Win conditions/Goals for early game:

1. You’re safe and have a expansion, they dont. (Safe as in they’re not showing up at your base with void rays and all you have are roaches. Safe as in there’s not 20 M&Ms airdropped in your drone line)
2. You’re at a higher tech level, they don’t have an expansion, they don’t have the counter in place for your tech unit (Usually Mutalisks, esp. vs Protoss or Zerg)
3. You’ve just completely f*cked up their base.

Few additional notes:

• Do you have more minerals than you know what to do with? EXPAND
• Scoutscoutscoutscout. Sacrificing a zergling or even an overlord is worth it to see what you’re up against.
• Banelings will keep you alive v M&M
• Mutas early will wreck Protoss and Zerg who don’t see it coming. Though be careful of phoenixes or hydras.
• Hydralisks early is a flexbile option against Protoss/Zerg
• NYDUS WORMS ZOMG. Dumping Roaches or Banelings directly into their supply line can single-handedly win you the game.

Edit:

• Your safest route for ZvZ is Roach/Hydra since Roaches counter zerglings and Hydras counter Mutas. This is going to be a macro game - you need to out-expand or mass enough units to kill his expansion. There is no middle ground.
• End-game Muta+Corruptors+BroodLords seems to be stronger than Ultralisks

I’ll edit this as I find things out. Also want to try out David Kim’s 13Hatch BO and I’ll post something about it when I dooooooooo.