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Whenever I scout a build that has potential for airborne harassment (e.g. Banshee, Muta, Oracle) my reaction is to build missile turrets to defend the mineral line, however all too often my opponent manages to find a spot where they can still get free shots at my workers. (I generally place my turrets beind the mineral line)

How should I place missile turrets to properly defend against airborne harassment?

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  • See the update EDIT please :)
    – AtlasEU
    Commented Jun 5, 2013 at 7:55

2 Answers 2

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I will always recommend placing the Turret inside your mineral line - for several reasons.

  • It covers the entire mineral line. There is no "sweet-spot" for whatever early harass your opponent might throw at you.
  • Easy to repair placement. The Turret can get a complete suround by your SCVs, repairing the Turret instantly. By this, they dont need to move around the minerals, only to have 2-4 SCVs repairing and possibly fail the repair.
  • It comes at a minor mineral loss, due to a "block", you probably won't notice any difference by having a Turret in your line of minerals.
  • You can manage early harass easily and cheaply by only building 1 Turret in your mineral line.

EDIT:
There is usually a gap between your minerals somewhere in the middle. That is where you would want to place your turret, as it would still protect the entire mineral line and it does not obstruct the workers that much.

Turret placement

EDIT: I added two pitctures from WCS EU showing players placing turrets inside thier mine lines. Like explained, it is the best position. enter image description here enter image description here

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    I hope you dont mind but i added an image for you with the description.
    – Marco Geertsma
    Commented May 7, 2013 at 11:54
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    Hey Marco. Thanks! Execelent screendump! It is the right spot as displayed on the picture. The Turret should be in the center of the line. I would recomment having "Build Grid" active all the time.
    – AtlasEU
    Commented May 7, 2013 at 12:16
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    Solid advice for TvZ, but far less than ideal in TvT. Banshee range is enough to pick you apart.
    – Decency
    Commented May 8, 2013 at 4:24
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    I still find it solid for all match-ups since the Turret keeps your SCVs clear. In 90% of all builds (correct me if I'm wrong) you have the marines to deal with a banshee.
    – AtlasEU
    Commented May 8, 2013 at 7:45
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    @Decency, :) - to back up the theory of placing the Turrets inside the mineral line. If you watch GSL, MLG and so on, you will see that most Terran´s place the Turret inside the mineral line as well, to defend from Oracles and so on. I am not judging, but I think they place it there, be cause it is the logical location, and you only need 1 = 100 minerals, and not 2 = 200 minerals.
    – AtlasEU
    Commented May 10, 2013 at 8:03
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On the Team Liquid forum, there was some research done about this. The research was done in 2010 for Wings of Liberty, but should still be mostly valid.

User Fork posted some replays with math in this thread, and came to these conclusions:

  1. It is better to place turrets next to the CC, not by the minerals.
  2. Placing turrets in your mineral line may lower income by ~6% (50 minerals/minute out of 700-800; this is equivalent to the loss of one worker)
  3. Surprisingly, scooting your CC back 1 space and then building the turrets diminishes the income penalty (However, the income loss from lifting off and re-landing was not accounted for).

Also, here is another thread (also from 2010) which backs up point #1: Even up to 3 buildings placed next to a Nexus had minimal effect on gathering rate (!50 minerals/minute, about the cost of one worker).

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  • You can also place 4-6 Turrets all around your base, and it will by no doubt be more effective. Problem is the mineral costs. 1½ Turret = 1 Barrack or 3 marines. Getting one Turret in the line = Easy repair, only 100 minerals spent and an all over more cost effective play. With all due respect, the links are from oct. 2010, a few months after the release.
    – AtlasEU
    Commented May 10, 2013 at 8:05
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    @AtlasEU I'm not sure of your point. The research simply shows that 1-3 turrets placed next to your CC had a smaller impact on income than other locations. I know it is from 2010, but I don't recall any worker pathing changes since then.
    – Wikwocket
    Commented May 10, 2013 at 20:27

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