When I'm building up my base, I sometimes find myself wasting time trying to get a single worker off of my resource line so that I can build something. I often miss or have to chase after them if I'm trying to single click, and dragging often selects more than one, at which point I have to try again or click on one in the selected units list. It seems like it would be best to grab one right after it's returned its resource and is heading back for another, but they're also moving the fastest at this point. It's easier to grab them while they're mining, but then they're carrying resources around and this feels wasteful. Is this minor optimization unnecessary, or am I missing something? Should I just keep a dedicated builder idle for easy selection (as terran or protoss)? Put one on a hotkey?
Starcraft – What’s the most efficient way to select workers to build things in Starcraft 2
starcraft-2
Related Solutions
I know some people have answered this but I thought I could add a little data.
For gas, full saturation is 3, however the third isn't worth as much as the first two. As a result its worth getting a second geyser before putting a third worker on the first.
This is also true for minerals as shown by this graph:
As you can see after your first 16 workers the gain per worker starts to decrease dramatically. As a result when you start an expansion you should shift any excess workers (over 16) to the new expansion.
The original research can be found in this paper: Worker Income Efficiency in Starcraft II By Chet 'Cheticus' V. The paper reports original data collection and methods, as well as the formula's uses for the 'least squares regression.'
With the TAB key. You will go to the next group of units. SHIFT+Tab will go the opposite direction (so, previous group of units)
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Best Answer
So obviously selecting 1 is better than a group, but a little known fact:
Workers smart cast!
This means if you select a group of workers and try to build something, the nearest worker (and only him) will go to build the building. Additionally if you build more than one thing, the two nearest will go to do the task. This means you don't need to worry about selecting more than one (provided you don't issue any move orders), just select the group and build away!