EPTOne was that nothing really eventful happened aside from general practice against the computer,
and the other is because I didn't have much time to type an entry. I was supposed to play in a practice game with some members of a clan i joined, but it turns out we're playing Archon. I don't have any interest in the mode whatsoever, so I didn't participate. Plus today wasn't exactly a good day irl anyway so I really didn't want to interact with any more people than I already had to.
For my practice regimes, I've been doing two types: speed building by myself, and practice building against the computer on Elite mode. Yesterday consisted of Elite practice, today consisted of speed building.
For Elite, I play against Protoss, who builds economy and builds Stalkers and Colossus.
While I have been getting my ass kicked in the mode, I think it is helping alot; its forcing me to think more about my unit composition, as well as how to defend my bases. Still, I have yet to take a game from it.
For speed building, I have been going with these benchmarks:
6:00 - Second Base
12:00 - Third Base
17:00 - Fourth Base
22:00 - Fifth Base
At first I had quite the hard time doing it, however I am finding that I'm getting closer to getting it right. Doing this practice is really forcing me to think ahead when it comes to building. Keep in mind that I am not practicing a certain build order; I'm simply trying to pump out as many units and build as many structures as i can.
Another benchmark that I have is to aim towards reaching max supply by the 17:00 minute mark. Thankfully this hasn't been as difficult; by that point I already have a large number of rax, starports and factories pumping out units.
Part of this practice also involves making sure that I spend as little time as possible supply blocked, while also making sure not to spam supply blocks simply because I am getting supply blocked. The goal of this is so that I can slowly gain more knowledge of supply usage, and know how much supply i should have relative to the number of buildings that I have.
I am however beginning to find a problem that is hampering my ability; I take far too much time setting up my hotkeys. This is all fine when I have one base, 2 rax, a factory and a starport, but once I get to my second and third base I spend quite a few seconds trying to navigate around my base, shift clicking all my production units to one control group. Sometimes I even accidentally put them in the wrong control group and have to spend a few seconds fixing everything back. Those few seconds add up to my production facilities standing quiet and my bank reaching 1k. I need to find some way to speed up my hotkey procedure.
Another problem I also notice that I'm doing is not using the mini map to find my way around my bases. I continue to scroll slowly by just putting my mouse to the end of my screen. I have to remember to put a mental stop whenever I'm looking for something to use the minimap to find my way around.
Overall I do feel as though I'm making small improvements here and there, but a big problem still seems to be getting accustomed to the interface. Hopefully once the weekend comes and I'm free work to practice more, I can do some more seriously focused practice and see some better improvement.
