Resources
                    In order to build up your army, you will need to collect the raw materials necessary to develop and build your
              war machines. There are two types of resources, Minerals and gas. You will need to procure both in order to
              build your full complement of troops.

              Mineral Deposits
              The planets along the rim are often dotted with clusters of precious Mineral crystals, which
              are collected and smelted to create the armored hulls of starships, vehicles, and personal
              armor. Even the Zerg require Minerals to harden their carapaces and develop strong teeth
              and bones. The crystals take some time to gather, and only Terran SCVs, Zerg Drones, and Protoss Probes
              have the necessary equipment to break off bits of the crystals and return them to the proper building.

              Gathering Minerals
              Each Mineral spot can only be mined by one worker at a time. If there is a free Mineral spot available,
              workers will try to head to it. If there are no free Mineral chunks available, miners will get in line behind one of
              the chunks and wait their turn. Because of this, there is a point where you can have too many miners working
              a group of Minerals, and you won't be able to gather any faster no matter how many workers you add. A good
              rule to follow is to have 2-2 1/2 miners for each Mineral chunk. If the main headquarters is further away from
              the deposits, this rule changes, and you will need to add more miners to bring in Minerals at the fastest
              possible rate.

              Placing Your Command Centers/Nexus/Hatchery
              Try to move your headquarters as close as possible to the Minerals if they aren't pre-placed. Players of all
              species should try to place their resource centers as close to the Minerals as possible to reduce walking
              distances for their workers. The further away from the Minerals gatherers have to go, the longer they will take
              to return the resources. You will notice a difference.

              When given the choice to place the building closer to Minerals or gas, pick Minerals. When you place it closer
              to gas, you have to build more workers for each of the Mineral chunks, but when you are closer to the
              Minerals, you need only build more workers for one gas spot, rather than 5-10+ Mineral spots (since you can
              only mine geysers with one worker at a time).

              Since Minerals come in multiple chunks and do not require a building to extract them they are much more
              plentiful. More often than not, gas is a worry while Minerals are not. Minerals are required for all buildings and
              units but there are many Mineral-only units, consisting of the lower tech tree units like the Terran Marines,
              SCVs, and Basic Buildings; Protoss Probes, Zealots, and Basic Buildings; and Zerg Drones, Zergling,
              Overlords, and basic buildings. While players can survive on Minerals only it is not recommended, since both
              upgrades and high-level units will be unavailable.

              Gatherers bring back 8 Minerals per trip. To see how many Minerals are left in a particular patch, select it
              then look at the status display. A number will indicate how many Minerals are left.

              When you initially start the game, it is a bad idea to select all four workers and right click on a Mineral patch.
              What happens is that all four workers go to the same patch and try to mine it. Since only one can mine at a
              time, the other three wait in line for that specific Mineral. This makes for a very slow start early in the game
              when it's vitally important not to make mistakes. A faster way to do this is to individually select each worker
              and then right click on a different patch for each worker. The fastest way, which requires more micro
              management, is to initially select all four then right click on the same Mineral patch to get them moving, then
              individually select each one as they are moving and move them to their own patch. Either method is a
              significant improvement over simply ordering the entire group to mine one location.

              Vespene Geysers
              Vespene gas has an unusually high potential energy rating, and as such is highly valued for use as a fuel in
              high-performance engines and energy reactors. The Zerg have adapted themselves to use raw Vespene as a
              source of nourishment to drive their greatly accelerated metabolisms. Even the Protoss require Vespene to
              work as a catalyst for their psi-driven machines. Geysers of this powerful green gas can be found on many
              planets along the Rim, and several space stations have been built over Vespene-rich asteroid belts. A Refinery
              of some sort must be built over an active geyser to process and package the gas for its collection by the
              difference species.

              Terran players must build a Refinery to extract the gas, Protoss must warp in an Assimilator, and Zerg
              players must morph a Drone into an Extractor. While an individual geyser has an effectively unlimited amount
              of gas within it, after a certain point the geyser "collapses" and only trace amounts of Vespene can be refined
              from it. Most players would do well to seek fresh geysers to ensure they have enough fuel to maintain their
              military.

              When a geyser collapses, you will receive the message: "Geyser has been depleted" and you'll hear the
              collapse. Pressing the space bar will center your screen on the collapsed geyser. At this point, it is not worth
              it to further mine the geyser unless there are no further fresh geysers available. If you do not find a new
              geyser, you will soon notice a large decrease in your gas gathering. Select all the workers mining the
              collapsed geyser and move them to another spot. When moving workers carrying gas, be sure to right-click
              them on the new geyser so they will start returning from the new gas mine.

              If the gas mine is as close as possible to your headquarters then you don't need more than four workers
              collecting gas from that location. If you place any more on mining gas they will be wasted. If the gas mine is
              further away, you may need an additional worker or two to collect gas at the fastest speed. If you see more
              than one gas miner stacked up waiting for the gas mine to be free, you know you have too many mining it.

              Gas is by far the most coveted resource. It is used for upgrades and to build all the higher tech tree units and
              buildings. One should attempt to get multiple gas mines until gas is not a worry. It is not uncommon to need
              3-4+ gas mines to properly power a high-tech war machine.

              Generally it is not a wise idea to specifically attack workers mining gas. Only 4 workers are usually mining
              the gas at a time, and it is really easy for your opponent to make another 4 workers if they are destroyed,
              then put them back on gas. Target the workers mining Minerals specifically because there will be many more
              workers in that area, and they will be fully exposed while they're harvesting.

              To see how much gas is left in the geyser, select it or the Refinery (Assimilator, Extractor) then look at the
              status display. A number will indicate how many gas is left. A depleted mine will simply read "depleted". You
              might want to select a few units and destroy your own Assimilator, Refinery, or Extractor after the geyser is
              depleted so you know which geysers are still worth mining or not. Just select a few guys and destroy it. With
              multiple towns it can be quite confusing which geysers are depleted and which aren't, and this method can
              help.

The basics of Transports
              Transports are used to ferry your units across vast distances and impassible terrain. Each race has a unit
              capable of transporting ground units. Terrans have the Dropship, Protoss have the Shuttle, and the Zerg use
              Overlords. While Terrans and Protoss transports are designed specifically to transport units, Zerg Overlords
              must evolve Ventral Sacs at a Hive or Lair before they can be used to carry units.

              The Protoss Shuttle with the Gravitic Drive upgrade (researched at the Robotics Support Bay) is the fastest of
              the three transports. The Dropship is the second fastest, and Overlords are the slowest even when after they
              receive the Pneumatized Carapace upgrade.

              Terran Dropships can be repaired very quickly with multiple SCVs. Protoss Shuttles can have their shields
              recharged with a Shield Battery, but they can never repair hit point damage. Zerg Overlords can completely
              regenerate their health, but it takes quite a while. With Dropships and Shuttles, you'll want to make sure you
              repair/recharge them between sorties. Zerg players usually have enough Overlords that they can simply grab a
              fresh, uninjured group and allow damaged Overlords to heal.

              Transports are capable of delivering ground units anywhere where there is room to land. Keep this in mind
              when building your defenses and looking for weak spots in your opponent's towns. If only land routes and
              choke points are defended in a town, it's going to be a perfect target for a transport drop-- Reavers or
              StimPacked Marines are especially deadly. Be sure to keep your entire base protected by anti-air defenses,
              as well as ground troops to kill off any enemies that do manage to drop in.

              Transports unload units one at a time at a very slow pace. It is best to unload units in areas where they will
              not come under attack. You will find that if you send transports into a hot zone, you will only get 1-3 units
              unloaded before your transport is destroyed. If landing in defended territory is the only option, Terran players
              can use Defensive Matrix to protect their Dropships, and Protoss players might consider sending a few
              Hallucinations to soak up enemy fire. Zerg will simply have to rely on sheer numbers, but should be prepared
              for the drop in Control if they lose several Overlords.

              It is very damaging to lose a transport full of units because you're not only losing that transport but all the
              units inside without a fight. If a transport is in danger of being destroyed, or is about to encounter attack, try to
              unload as soon as possible wherever you can. Better to unload and save one or two units than to lose all of
              them. The units might even be able to help defend the transport from attack.

              If your town is extremely cramped, you might have new units occasionally become trapped when they appear.
              Rather than destroying this unit, use a transport to get them out. It's also a good idea to move your workers
              from exhausted resource spots to new ones with a transport, instead of building a new batch in your
              expansions.

              Loading and Unloading (or, "What good is that Load button, anyway?")
              To load ground units in a transport, select them, then right click on the transport. The units and the transport
              will move towards each other. If you have multiple troops spread out over a wide area, this method isn't the
              best to use, as the transport and units will take a while to coordinate. Use this when you want to pick up a
              group of units that are fairly close to each other.

              Each transport also has a Load button on it. Select this button or use the hot key L and click on the unit that
              you want to pick up. The transport will move to pick it up. While this may seem like a more complicated
              method, you can combine it with command queuing to explicitly order your transport to pick up several units
              in order. Select the Transport then hold down Shift. While holding down Shift select Load or hot key L and
              click on each unit you want to load, no matter where they are or how far they are away. Release the Shift
              button when you have clicked on all the units you want to load. The transport will fly to each unit in order and
              pick it up.

              You can also do the opposite if you want to load up several transports at once-- select the units that you want
              to load, hold down the Shift key, and right-click on the transports that you want to load up. The units will fill
              up each transport in order. This is especially useful when loading up large units like Reavers and Siege Tanks.