From https://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/the-starcraft-path-finding-...
> whenever harvesters are on their way to get minerals, or when they’re on the way back carrying those minerals, they ignore collisions with other units
Maybe that's part of the fluid behaviour you noticed.
The blog contains more technical posts about StarCraft 2, so you might find that "special sauce" somewhere else in there :)