News

10/16/04 BWChart 1.03B : Micro and Macro APM

BWChart 1.03B introduces a new APM chart that can display both Micro APM and Macro APM. The new APM curve can be displayed by checking the "Macro" option at the top of the screen, when watching the APM chart. It is now a standalone chart. Resources are drawn on a separate chart.

Here are a few screenshots to make it clear (hopefully). The first screenshot shows the regular APM curve as we know it. This curve takes into account all the actions of the players.

This second screenshot shows the same curve with the Macro surface added to it. The regular APM curve is still there, but there is an added surface below it. The extent of that surface represents macro. The next screenshot will explain it better.

To better read this new APM curve, you must understand it contains 3 pieces of information :

- the regular APM or total APM (counts all actions) in red on the screenshot,
- the Micro APM (counts only actions that are considered Micro) in blue on the screenshot,
- the Macro APM, which is the surface inbetween the red and blue curves.

The arrow labeled 1 shows a period of the game where the total APM is rising fast to a peak at 256. The interesting thing you can see on this new APM curve, is that the surface is getting very thin, which means the Macro is getting almost null. The player is spending all his APM on Micro.

The arrow labeled 2 shows the period right after this APM peak. You can see that the overall APM goes down (red), the Micro goes down (blue) even faster, and therefore the Macro surface gets wider again. In other words, after a Micro APM peak, probably during a battle, the player is concentrating again on Macro to train units or make some buildings.

Here is a little figure to summarize which actions are counted as Micro or Macro :

Micro	Macro
Select Units Hotkey Units Attack / Move Set Rally Clear Rally Stim Lift Burrow / Unburrow Hold Position Unload Unload All Siege / Unsiege Cloack /Decloack Shift Select / Deselect Return Cargo Arm Comsat Scan Lay Mine All spells	Select Building Hotkey Building Build / Morph / Warp / Evolve Train Cancel Train Hatch Merge Archon Merge Dark Archon Research Upgrade

Have fun and thanks to Lasgo for the idea ;-)

All news...