I realize some of my answers are a little long, so I made a TL;DR version
I'm going to ask you a few rhetorical questions and I don't want you to be offended, but they are things you need to be thinking about.
- What was your plan going in to this game?
- When did you plan your timing push?
- Why did you build 3 Barracks?
- What did you think when you scanned a Factory with a tech lab and a Starport building?
In my opinion these were the three major mistakes you made. By 7:30 it had become your opponents game to lose before a single shot was fired.
Looking at your BO I saw:
- 3 Rax (1 tech 1 reactor)
- 1 Factory, all before the 7 minute mark.
If you can cut the produce of the factory, and done an MM timing push at 6:30 (which is the usualy MM timing push) you would have easily won the game. At that time your opponent had 5 marines and 1 tank (no siege mode). The normal MM push there is 4-5 of each Marauders and Marines. You would have steam rolled him.
If you had done so your answers would have been:
3 Rax timing push, heavy on Marauders at 6:30
Instead, you chose to go 4 unit producing structures off 1 based (which you can't really afford as Terran). This meant that your Barracks sat idle, you didn't produce Marauders and you didn't have a good timing push. Its because of this I asked my first 3 questions.
You don't really seem to have a plan.
Strangely this wasn't what lost you the game. Not having a plan, while hard to over come, is not crucial, especially since your opponent didn't really have one either (there is no good reason he builds that second Barracks). The problem became your response to what your opponent was doing.
At 6:30 you saw a Factory with a tech lab, two Barracks and a Starport being built. The second Barracks is really the red herring here, so let's ignore it for 5 seconds. What does: 1 Barracks, 1 Factory, 1 Starport mean? In TvT this means Marine/Siege/Viking.
In response you throw down an Engineer Bay (for Turrets, which you build) and a Starport for Vikings, and continue to build Marines (and a single Marauder). Which of these things is supposed to counter Siege tanks using Vikings for sight? Well Viking vs Viking is key, but what about the Siege tanks?
By 11 Minutes you'll have built 2 Vikings and 3 Marauders with another one of each on the way. Ultimately there is nothing you can do about the Siege Tanks and they roll your Marine heavy force. They box you in and that's game.
In theory you probably could have done something clever with Dropships around 9-10 Minutes and caught him with his pants down, but really you don't do anything to stop him.
Before you play your next game (before you even load up Starcraft) I want you to have an answer to the first three questions I asked. And next time you scan Factory/Starport I want you to think "Great! My timing push should arrive right before he gets Siege Tanks!"
A plan is like a story, it has a beginning, a middle and an end. Turtling and finding the right moment to attack isn't a story, its like a blurb you'd find on the cover. Let me tell you the story of Bio into Biomech:
I'm going to open up three Barracks into Marine/Marauder. Marauders will work well as a meat shield and the Marines will provide the real fire power. I'll push just before stim finishes so that I arrive with it. The goal of my push is to stop early expansions and punish heavy teching strategies. I know that I can support 3 Barracks on 1 base and still have a little extra income to plan for expanding.
Mid-game I'm going to transition into MMM and Medivac drops. This will keep my opponent contained and force him to build a lot of defenses he won't be able to use to attack me. Additionally, Medivacs will let me really take advantage of Stim and keep me mobile. I know I can support Medivacs on top of my three Barracks, but nothing else, so I will make sure to have a Command Center up first. My goal is to gain map control and keep my opponent boxed in.
Late game I'm going to start adding in factory units like Siege Tanks or (more recently) Thors to break my opponent's defenses. I should be comfortably on 2 or 3 bases by now so resources won't be an issue. I will crack my opponent like an egg
My strongest weapon is my mobility and I will abuse it. I can end the game at any point: early, middle or late. I will restrain myself from over committing and starve my opponent to death. I will end the game when I choose. I am Terran BioMech.
It sounds scary doesn't it?
This may not be the answer you want, exactly, as it doesn't cover how to recover from a situation where you mass up marines before scouting your opponent going for a tech build.
Skill levels between opponents being equal, it is not cost-effective to try to stick to a mass marines build vs an opponent going for marines and siege tanks. Siege tanks are a direct counter to marines, and any resources spent on trying to overwhelm siege tanks with marines are better spent on other tactics.
When you are a Terran player going against a Terran opponent, that should be your first indication to expect siege tanks. It doesn't always happen, but siege tanks are seen often in TvT play simply because they're a great answer to an opponent who might be massing the standard marine/marauder rush or teching up to the marine/marauder/medivac (MMM) ball. Because of this, it is dangerous to enter a TvT match-up and just start pumping out marines without proper scouting of your opponent.
Think of it this way: as a Terran vs another Terran, you have the following outcomes if you are dead-set on massing marines:
- You mass marine, they mass marine: Draw.
- You mass marine, they mass marine/marauder: You win.
- You mass marine, they tech to hellions: You lose.
- You mass marine, they tech to tanks: You lose.
If you are scouted as going mass marine, you'll end up encountering mech of some sort, and that is not good news for you. You're a bit better off if you have marauders as well since they do pretty well against hellions and siege tanks (provided you have concussive shells vs hellions and line-of-sight on the tanks (and stim always helps)).
The reason mass marines worked for you in lower-level play is because you were dealing with players who did not macro/tech as fast. I would suggest you abandon this strategy altogether in higher-level play. I could get away with mass reapers in Bronze, but trying that in higher level play is going to get me killed more often than not. It's better to go with a more traditional build.
Best Answer
Short answer: Scout, detect the roach build before the Roach Warren, and change your build as necessary. Alternatively, start with marine/marauder and change to your hellion build if you detect a non-roach build.
Long answer: Let's assume you detected the Roach Warren 10 seconds after it went up.
If you detect the roach warren early enough, you can immediately throw a tech lab up (25 seconds) on your Barracks and build one marauder (30 seconds) in the same amount of time it takes the Zerg player to build their Roach Warren (55 seconds).
If at this point you see 4 roaches on your doorstep, you'll have 3 marauders complete (assuming a rush takes 23 seconds from when their 4th roach came out).
Statistically-speaking, the roaches will win without stim. If you researched stim, it'll be very close. If you had a bunker, you'd be fine.
Now, if they wait until they have 6 roaches:
Given the rush of 23 seconds, 6 roaches would appear in between your 4th and 5th marauders completing.
You're slightly better off. Without stim, it's close. With stim, you win. With a bunker or two, you are fine.
Note that this is all theory. Going for a hellion rush and having to bail out on it is not good news. Wasted time, resources, and a sense of panic can cause you to falter in this position. Even if you're able to stick to the example above, you won't be in an excellent position. You'll be forced into trying to scout to detect when the Zerg player changes their build to counter it and you'll be in a position where you're constantly reacting rather than being proactive and causing the Zerg player to react.
The best solution is to detect the roach build before the Roach Warren drops and get a head start.
If you watch a standard roach opener, you'll notice that rather than expanding after their 13/14 pool, the Zerg player is forced to save the minerals, wait until 18 to throw out the roach warren, and build up minerals for roaches rather than an expansion. When you don't see that expansion after the pool, it's a good sign that Zerg is going with a roach build. This is especially true if you do not see an upgrade happening at the spawning pool right after it is done. The upgrade happening at the spawning pool, in combination with an extractor being built early, usually hints at a baneling bust build instead.
If you swap over early, you'll be in a much better position than you would be if you waited for the Roach Warren to start building. You'll be proactive, the Zerg player will be reacting, and you'll have the upper-hand.