Very true. I tend to take this idea for granted (why on Earth wouldn't you want something that pays for itself in about a minute?), but most players up to Gold league seemingly don't, and it cripples them. It's like playing Monopoly and just not buying more than a couple properties. It makes no sense, and you will auto-lose to anyone who understands that.Aphelion wrote:While its true that 3 workers / patch (24 workers per base) saturates it, thats beside the point. You never want to stop worker production even at oversaturation, because you want to be ready for when you expand. Therefore when I am at one base, I don't stop at 24 probes. I keep making so that I can saturate my second base immediately when I do expand.
While there are exceptions to this rule (such as when you need to cut troops for a timing push or you are behind and need to do a lot of damage immediately), that is advanced play. Its similar to the "empty triangle" rule in Go. There are situations where cutting workers maybe good, but if you need to ask, don't do it. When the time comes that you can get an edge in your play by cutting workers at specific times, you won't need to ask such a question.
The best use of the knowledge of mining efficiency is probably for deciding how to distribute your workers among multiple bases, especially if one is vulnerable or far away. For example, you might choose not to put any Drones on a new Hatchery right away if the existing ones don't have more than 16 on minerals each. Other than that, it just helps to know when to stop making workers in the very late game when you start getting 80+ of them (although at that point, players start to get 200/200 armies, so you're probably more concerned with leaving enough food for your attack units).
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