[PvT] Speed Shuttle – 3 base bust and other variations

PvT Speed Shuttle – 3 base bust and other variations

This guide is based on the 23 nexus guide which you can find here: https://cplbw.com/cpl/view_note/DoodleDoodle/pvt-23-nexus-basic-build-order-and-scouting-tips/

We will continue from the last bullet point in the 23 nex guide. • Between 6:00~6:30, take 3rd nexus at around 57 supplies. You should have 8 goons out in total.

Shuttle and support bay timing will slightly vary depending on what you scout with the 1st obs and how many obs you prefer to make.

1) If your 1st obs sees terran units moving out (most likely 3 tanks push), it’s better to make 2 more goons to be safe (10 goons in total).

• If you make 2 more goons here, your supply will be about 62/66. You can’t afford shuttle and support bay unless you cut probe and pylon.. but cutting probe is NOT what we do.

• Add a pylon and keep making probes here. You can also make 3rd obs if you’d like to.

• After that make a shuttle and support bay roughly around 7 minute. Start shuttle speed upgrade as soon as the support bay is finished. If you made 10 goons and 3rd obs, gas might be tight around this time. Take nat gas.

2) If your 1st obs doesn’t see anything coming, you can stop goon production after 8.

• You can still make 3rd obs even in this scenario. Having an extra obs will let you keep track of what your opponent is doing. Early-mid game of PvT is mostly about scouting the opponent and trying to find a room to prioritize your econ over making units if possible. Having more information on your opponent makes this much easier.

• After 2nd or 3rd obs, make shuttle and support bay. Start shuttle speed as soon as you can and get 2nd gas if you’re low on gas.

• In both scenarios, making probes nonstop without getting supply blocked is your number 1 priority. Always pay attention to your supply count and add pylons in advance. As an example, if you’re on 2 base and 2 gateways, you need to add pylons at least 6-8 supplies before getting supply blocked.

3) When your reaver is about 50% done, make 2 zealots and they will be ready precisely when your shuttle picks up the reaver. While you’re waiting for your reaver and zealots, add 2 more gateways in advance. Your 3rd econ will start kicking in shortly so it’s better to add them before you start floating minerals.

4) Your shuttle with 2z and 1 reaver will be ready approximately at 8:30 (± 10 seconds depending on how crisp your build was up to this point). You resume goon production and make the 2nd reaver. Make citadel and forge. - Citadel and forge are combo deal in PvT. The only exception is when you’re playing against 2 base 5 fact rush without armory.

5) When your 4 gateways are all up at 8:30, make 4 more units and throw down 4 more gateways (8 gateways in total). If you’re confident that the opponent isn’t going to move out right now, you can add gateways first and then make units. This is when you reach 100 supplies if you were on point with making probes (roughly 60 probes here before 9:00 mark). We will stop probe production and focus on making units from now on.

These are the little chores you need to do:

• Start +1 weapon and zealot speed when forge and citadel are finished.
• After the 2nd reaver, continue making shuttles (3 in total).
• Keep making goons until you have 1.5 ~ 2 control groups of them. 1 group of goons should be clearing mines, especially your 4th location and the route your army will take in a couple of minutes. Once you have enough number of goons, start spamming zealots from all 8 gateways.
• Leave another group of goons at your nat and third to defend vultures. Zealots without goon’s protection are vulnerable the vultures (even with speed).
• Pay close attention to your supply count. Every time you queue 8 zealots, you need to add at least 2-3 pylons to keep the macro cycle going.
• Add cannons at each mineral line as your army need to move out and be in position to attack at 11:00.
• Send a probe to your 4th and make templar archive.

6) At around 10:30, you should have roughly 160 supplies: 1.5+ group of goons, 3 shuttles with 2 reaver and 8 zealots and another group of speedlots. Once your units are in position, gently a move them.

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So how do I control my units when attacking?

• When you a move, the 2 shuttles with 8 zealots should lead the way. Press unload and click the shuttles to drop the zealots while moving. Those zealots should be tanking the initial tank shots and hopefully clear off some mines too. Once the mine field is cleared, pull your units closer to the tanks. Also your goons will block your zealots from getting onto the tanks. You need to move them aside a little to clear the way.
• Usually your reavers won’t get to attack more than twice since good terran players will target fire the reavers as soon as you unload them. If you get to hit the middle of clustered tanks, that’s your dream scenario. If the tanks are all spread out well, killing the vultures is also a good idea because it lets your zealots jump on the tanks.
• Try to drop your reavers right after the tanks attack to abuse the tank’s attack cooldown. Drop the reavers, box select shuttle and reaver, right click the target and right click the shuttle immediately to pick up the reavers before they take damage from the tanks.

I invested in reaver tech. Shouldn’t I try to do damage with it? Fly in and kill scvs and what not?

• If you see lack of anti air, you absolutely can. However, it is more of an option rather than a must. You went reaver after going 3rd. You will have healthy econ, so you don’t really have to make something happen with the first reaver.
• Still, I would recommend giving it a try. Testing your limit is an important part of practice. I’ve seen people make the 2nd shuttle before 2nd reaver before. What exactly triggers that decision?
• 2nd shuttle would be most effective when your opponent’s units are outside of their main. For example, if the opponent takes early 3rd on site, they need to defend the front so their defense in main won’t be as good. Another example would be when terran is doing 2 base attack. However, you need to wait until their army leaves the base. Shoving those shuttles in when all their units are waiting in their main is just throwing your precious robo units away.

Why 3 base bust again? I wanna do 4 base!

• If the situation allows, you can make 4th nexus on 4 gateways or even 2 gateways. If you confirm that it’s upgrade style terran, you can take your 4th very early. In the past, you could’ve just started the 4th if terran has goliaths out when your 1st obs arrive (Academy and armory used to be a dead giveaway for upterran). With the 5 fact 1-1 build being meta these days, it would be better to wait until you confirm starport or 3rd cc just to be safe.
• Even if you’re doing 4 base bust, your build path would be pretty much identical to the 3 base version. Key difference is that you take 4th nexus before adding gateways. Believe or not, you will still have 160 supplies and 8 gateways ready at 11:00 (with more money). Since you took your 4th earlier, you could have 12 gateways even.

Pfff.. I’ve seen these crazy constant shuttle drops with double robo. What about that?

• Mass shuttle harass style is probably the most fun way to play PvT. However, bust is still a more straightforward win condition, so that’s why I picked the 3 base bust as the main topic of this guide.
• I’d suggest following the build path at least until 4 gateways and citadel/forge. The sooner your 4th is, the better your game state will be.
• You won’t really win the game with just shuttle drops unless you do unrecoverable amount of damage. You’ll still need to fight the terran army at some point to finish off the game, so you can’t just skimp on gateway units.
• 2nd robo timing is totally up to you. Some might find this answer a little too vague. Getting your 2nd robo after 4 base/ 6 gate/ citadel&forge would be an acceptable guideline to follow in my opinion. Until then, making shuttles from 1 robo should be sufficient.

Some other tips..

• With this style, it’s very important to hotkey your robos to make sure there is no downtime. You should have at least 2 shuttles ready to go all the time. Hotkey your robos and make shuttles before your shuttles depart.
• You also need to have at least 4 high templars ready all the time. You will be constantly using them to harass or fight the army. After templar archive, start mining the 3rd gas so you can pump out those templars.
• Some might find it hard to click the high templars and cast storms after unloading them from shuttles. If that’s the case, you can just have them walk with the rest of your army and fill the shuttles with zealots.
• When you’re sending in 2 shuttles to harass, the shuttle with zealots lead the way.

This should give some idea about the speed shuttle style, I hope. The build order I wrote above is if your opponent let you focus on your own build. Sometimes your build orders might be off or delayed because your opponent didn’t leave you alone. Even if that is the case, you’re gonna be fine as long as you stick to the overall flow of this build/style.

Unlike the traditional arbiter style, speed shuttle style has a lot more room for error as its effectiveness gets heavily affected by your execution. This 3 base bust is probably the simplest way to practice speed shuttle style but there are more to it as you see. My advice is that you really need to try things yourself to learn this style. You can’t learn how to control your shuttle by just looking at it. Keep testing your limit (especially shuttle & reaver), make mistakes and learn from them. Things will look ugly at first. It’s not just the build order. Even the game tempo will feel different and it will take time until things start to click. However, it is a very fun style to play when it works and I hope more people get to experience the joy of blowing up scvs and supply depots left and right.