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[H] Hotkeying a bunch of units quickly. - Page 2

Forum Index > Brood War Strategy
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Grobyc
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Canada18410 Posts
January 11 2010 18:43 GMT
#21
Try regrouping your units as soon as they spawn so that there is not as many to add to hotkeys. The longer you put it off the more of a problem it becomes
If you watch Godzilla backwards it's about a benevolent lizard who helps rebuild a city and then moonwalks into the ocean.
love1another
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States1844 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-01-11 19:07:23
January 11 2010 19:05 GMT
#22
Use the "shift" key if you don't care if a marine leaks over to the medics or if a zealot leaks over to the dragoons. (when you add zealots to a full control group they leak over to the next control group. i.e. full 1 adds to 2)
Most people decry this as a bug, but let's say you've got marines 1 to 3 and medics 4. Shift add to 1 until it's full then 2 and 3. Very minimal on the keystroke side.
"I'm learning more and more that TL isn't the place to go for advice outside of anything you need in college. It's like you guys just make up your own fantasy world shit and post it as if you've done it." - Chill
MorroW
Profile Joined August 2008
Sweden3522 Posts
January 11 2010 19:05 GMT
#23
when im about to hotkey my mech army before i move out i just ctrl click tank siege mode then i can ctrl click rest of the tanks

and when i move on to goli i can simply hotkey them with ctrl also cause i have under 12 of them

and vultures i usually have spread out on many locations where ive put antirecall

in not sure how i do with bio tho. i usually hotkey medics tanks and vessel first then move that stuff away some so i just have marines. then i manual select 12 rines on the right side and hotkey them plus move. then i have a halfmoon of rines left where i hotkey rine from left side. then i have a few leftover rines that i can simply manual select.

however hotkeying this stuff is all situational and sometimes the units doesnt move like u want then u gotta shift add 1 by 1 unit and etc. just play alot and be fast with ur mouse then ull do this without thinking of how u do it
Progamerpls no copy pasterino
skypig
Profile Joined November 2009
United States237 Posts
January 11 2010 19:08 GMT
#24
As everyone else has been saying, there's no "magic trick" to hotkeying units perfectly and easily the whole time. StarCraft is a game where you're constantly switching between different tasks, and you'll have to learn to find time to assign unit groups while managing everything else.

Personally, I recommend positioning your rally points so that they're spread out from one another so you end up getting little "clumps" of units that can be easily box-selected by the mouse and then grouped. Also, NEVER do all your hotkeys "at once" before an attack; hotkeying should be a continual process, starting with the very first group of units that you build; i.e. your first group of tanks/vultures should be hotkeyed as soon as they're out. Then you just keep adding groups as they're produced, and once you're ready to attack (or are attacked), you already have your groups set and ready to go. This is also advantageous because, if you're attacked unexpectedly, you've already been assigning groups and can thus control whatever you do have when you're attacked with those hotkeys.

Again, just to re-emphasize, hotkeying is something that takes practice. Develop a consistent method that makes sense and stick to it. I really recommend making it a continual process as I described above, rather than a "hotkey-all-at-once-before-I-attack" process; it's much safer to build up your unit hotkey groups continually. Plus it'll keep your mind at least partially focused on the task of assigning hotkeys since you'll be doing it continually rather than just once before a big attack, which will make it easier for you to keep track of your hotkeyed groups in general.
hyst.eric.al
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United States2332 Posts
January 11 2010 19:27 GMT
#25
you can set rally points not in one spot, but in 3 spots close to one spot. that way there are smaller balls of units instead of 1 extremely large ball, and then hotkeying them is significantly easier.

ex: if you have 6raxes pumping mnm, set 3 separate rally points between the 3. your mnm will accumulate in different spots and selecting a group of 12 will be alot easier. same goes for TvP and TvT; the units will accumulate in smaller balls (tanks, goliaths, vults, etc) and you can select a group of twelve without having them overlap.
Leta , BeSt, Calm fan forever! 김정우, I am sorry I ever lost faith in you.
coltrane
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Chile988 Posts
January 11 2010 19:28 GMT
#26
i usually move them from the rally to the push without hotkeying them. I add hotkeys as they arrive to the actual push.

When i am meching terran:
I use 1 and 2 for vultures, 3 for tanks and from then just mixed units.
What i do is that i have my leftover vults after a fight in ctrl1, they dont have mines. In 2 i use new vults, full of mines, 3 for siege 12 tanks, then 4a5a6a and start manually controlling them, adding them to groups with shift select, etc, then back to macro, back to rally and back to the push.
Jävla skit
love1another
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States1844 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-01-11 19:31:03
January 11 2010 19:30 GMT
#27
On January 12 2010 04:05 MorroW wrote:
when im about to hotkey my mech army before i move out i just ctrl click tank siege mode then i can ctrl click rest of the tanks

and when i move on to goli i can simply hotkey them with ctrl also cause i have under 12 of them

and vultures i usually have spread out on many locations where ive put antirecall

in not sure how i do with bio tho. i usually hotkey medics tanks and vessel first then move that stuff away some so i just have marines. then i manual select 12 rines on the right side and hotkey them plus move. then i have a halfmoon of rines left where i hotkey rine from left side. then i have a few leftover rines that i can simply manual select.

however hotkeying this stuff is all situational and sometimes the units doesnt move like u want then u gotta shift add 1 by 1 unit and etc. just play alot and be fast with ur mouse then ull do this without thinking of how u do it

Alternatively, you could think of how you do it and thus improve faster when you play! <3
On January 12 2010 04:08 skypig wrote:
As everyone else has been saying, there's no "magic trick" to hotkeying units perfectly and easily the whole time. StarCraft is a game where you're constantly switching between different tasks, and you'll have to learn to find time to assign unit groups while managing everything else.

Personally, I recommend positioning your rally points so that they're spread out from one another so you end up getting little "clumps" of units that can be easily box-selected by the mouse and then grouped. Also, NEVER do all your hotkeys "at once" before an attack; hotkeying should be a continual process, starting with the very first group of units that you build; i.e. your first group of tanks/vultures should be hotkeyed as soon as they're out. Then you just keep adding groups as they're produced, and once you're ready to attack (or are attacked), you already have your groups set and ready to go. This is also advantageous because, if you're attacked unexpectedly, you've already been assigning groups and can thus control whatever you do have when you're attacked with those hotkeys.

Again, just to re-emphasize, hotkeying is something that takes practice. Develop a consistent method that makes sense and stick to it. I really recommend making it a continual process as I described above, rather than a "hotkey-all-at-once-before-I-attack" process; it's much safer to build up your unit hotkey groups continually. Plus it'll keep your mind at least partially focused on the task of assigning hotkeys since you'll be doing it continually rather than just once before a big attack, which will make it easier for you to keep track of your hotkeyed groups in general.

Obviously, I resent that. I offered a magic trick and it should be used! >
"I'm learning more and more that TL isn't the place to go for advice outside of anything you need in college. It's like you guys just make up your own fantasy world shit and post it as if you've done it." - Chill
BraveNewWorld
Profile Joined December 2009
United States229 Posts
January 13 2010 04:00 GMT
#28
you only need to hotkey cc's early game

in mid-late game u use the F-# keys to quickly rotate through each base, it's much more effective this way

i generally reserve #4-9 as hotkeys for my raxes/facts

1-3 either for comsats or important units

in mid-late game hotkeying units bcomes much more tedious due to your eventual macroed army, so you will have to use the spacebar much more often

it takes a while to get used to using hotkeys but once u use them u cant play w/o
"who is bisu anyway" - torm3ntin (Jan. 19th, 2009)
Mastermind
Profile Blog Joined April 2008
Canada7096 Posts
January 13 2010 04:04 GMT
#29
On January 12 2010 00:49 r.Evo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On January 11 2010 23:57 Necosarius wrote:
Select a bunch of units and click shift+# and they will be added to the group. For example, you've got 4 marines on hotkey 1, you select 8 (or more) marines and press shift+1 and 8 marines will be added to group 1.


I never knew that this works this way around. Personally I'd do the above with pressing 1, shift, doubleclick rines at rally point, ctrl 1.

Your way is less efficient because it requires more button pressing.
Sharp-eYe
Profile Blog Joined August 2009
Canada642 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-01-13 04:16:46
January 13 2010 04:15 GMT
#30
You dont even have to hotkey EVERY single one of your units. Ask yourself first what the point of hotkeying, which is to recall units instantaneously. Now you probably have a lot of groups filled with buildings correct? So, do you REALLY need to recall your tanks, which is go into seige mode? Do you want to waste your time putting them into hotkeys? Why not just send them somewhere and tell them to seige instead of trying to be "pro" and using all those shift and ctrl shortcuts. At some point, you will end up using so many shortcuts that the point of using the shortcuts is destroyed.

Now you might want to dedicate, lets say, 1, for ONLY vultures, because they are pretty are to ctrl click during battle. This way you can pull back your vultures slightly with 1, macro with 567 (just assuming here) and if you feel the need to recall anything else, then assign them a group. This analysis comes from analysing numerous FPVODS and charts of pros. I was reading the list for "4" in bwchart for some Bisu rep against hyuk (found on TL), and he put only 1 high templar in 4. Why would you want to put ONLY 1 unit when you can put 12? what if he doesnt feel the need to?

Maybe your slow at hotkeying because your conscious doesnt feel the need to hotkey them. Jaedong uses 1-7 only, and most of those are hatches, and that guy has some amazing micro (no kidding, hes a golden mouse winner!). Savior only used 1-4, NaDa doesnt use all of them either.

I hope I gave you another perspective on this.

EDIT: lol I forgot to mention this is from personal experience as well
Are you truly so blinded by your vaunted religion, that you can't see the fall ahead of you? - Zeratul III AKA WikidSik ingame (anygame)
Malongo
Profile Blog Joined November 2005
Chile3472 Posts
January 13 2010 04:24 GMT
#31
I dont remember the player but it seems to me that the player goes to his choke and ctrol+click on unit selects a type of units, hotkeys them, moves them a little outside the big group and the screen, then click on another type of units in the big group and so on. May be wrong though.
Help me! im still improving my English. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. M. G.
kineSiS-
Profile Blog Joined September 2009
Korea (South)1068 Posts
January 13 2010 05:53 GMT
#32
On January 12 2010 03:40 yoden wrote:
Hotkey your units as they come out of production buildings.

They're all spread out, so you can easily add to correct groups.
You will immediately reinforce your army this way; make your macro look like BeSt


Nono Yoden, you got this all wrong. Make your macro look like the baby of Best and Iloveoov.
Metaspace
Profile Joined November 2006
Austria670 Posts
January 13 2010 09:35 GMT
#33
On January 12 2010 04:05 love1another wrote:
Use the "shift" key if you don't care if a marine leaks over to the medics or if a zealot leaks over to the dragoons. (when you add zealots to a full control group they leak over to the next control group. i.e. full 1 adds to 2)
Most people decry this as a bug, but let's say you've got marines 1 to 3 and medics 4. Shift add to 1 until it's full then 2 and 3. Very minimal on the keystroke side.

Wow I have been playing for 10 years and never knew that.
Wir haben zuwenig Vespingas!
Noah
Profile Joined June 2008
Norway164 Posts
January 17 2010 05:22 GMT
#34
While I was in my bed trying to sleep I was thinking about Starcraft as usual untill I came up with an idea to something that can help me with what I posted in this thread.

I edited a random map to have lots of sunkens instead of an enemy and played it as UMS. With all the cheats on I made 8 factories and made like 3 groups of both tanks and vultures. I then practiced switching the hotkeys around, like adding all the vults to 1, 2 and 3, and then adding all the tanks to 4, 5 and 6. I then hotkeyed the vults to 7, 8, and 9, moved tanks to 1, 2, 3 and then I put the vults on 4, 5 and 6. I did this over and over untill it started to go automatic (I think it took 5 minutes of non stop practicing). This will make it easy to organize my control groups from now on as I macro out more and more control groups of different units, and also see which groups isn't full yet. If a group fills up I can quickly put it in the next control group using this technique.

I then practiced putting the F2 view on my macro area and F3 and rally point, while I selected each factory, pressed f3 and right clicked, and then pressed F2 again to repeat the cycle through all 8 factories (you've heard this before). This also started to feel smooth after a few minutes of nonstop practicing. So now I'll also have good control over where I rally my units, where to find reinforcements.

Combined these two lets me hotkey and macro immensely much better.

I decided to post this because I know there are tons of newbies out there like me who is having problem, and I feel this helped for me ALOT. This gave huge results in a short period as it helped me understand HOW this is done. Going to keep doing each "practice" once per day untill it is automatic between playing games on ICCup. I also want to thank everyone on ICCup for their great help!
synapse
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
China13814 Posts
January 17 2010 05:35 GMT
#35
in TvZ if i have a bunch of mnm in a clump and i need to hotkey them, i kind of split them up first (select 12, move them upwards, select 12 more, move them somewhere, etc.) then add them into my current hotkeys.

1 shift+lasso ctrl+1
:)
Eiii
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States2566 Posts
January 17 2010 05:38 GMT
#36
On January 12 2010 04:05 love1another wrote:
Use the "shift" key if you don't care if a marine leaks over to the medics or if a zealot leaks over to the dragoons. (when you add zealots to a full control group they leak over to the next control group. i.e. full 1 adds to 2)
Most people decry this as a bug, but let's say you've got marines 1 to 3 and medics 4. Shift add to 1 until it's full then 2 and 3. Very minimal on the keystroke side.


Just tested this, and unless I'm seriously misunderstanding what the poster means it's entirely false. >.>
:3
benutbutter
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
United States66 Posts
January 17 2010 06:22 GMT
#37
Personally after each round of production, I use shift-select on the units headed to the really or the units at the really to add the new units to a control group. If I fill up a control group I start a new one, etc, etc.
LF9
Profile Joined November 2009
United States537 Posts
January 17 2010 06:32 GMT
#38
Personally there is no right or wrong way to do it, and things like this won't make or break a player, although if your technique is REALLY bad it might slow down your progression a little bit. Whatever you do, just make sure you feel comfortable with it, that's what is most important. And don't obsess over hotkeys too much. When it comes down to it, just get all the units into the right spot and you can use mouse micro to do all the nitty gritty stuff. You only need really specific hotkey setups at a relatively high level to pull off certain builds.
Noah
Profile Joined June 2008
Norway164 Posts
January 17 2010 14:43 GMT
#39
On January 17 2010 15:22 benutbutter wrote:
Personally after each round of production, I use shift-select on the units headed to the really or the units at the really to add the new units to a control group. If I fill up a control group I start a new one, etc, etc.


Yeah same here, I am actually managing to have ALL my units in control groups now.

I did this another round today, and it pretty easy to set 12 rally point with this technique. I even spread the rally points out so my units had space to maneuver out of my rally point quickly. I can put siege tanks to the left of the screen, vults in center and goliaths far right.

Before I did this yesterday I used to click each factory, click R and the semi blindly clicking the minimap offering me no control at all.

Also with the groups organized and being able to move control groups around quickly it's actually quite easy to reinforce your army and bolster your control groups.

When my hangover fades of I'm going to ICCup to I drop! Hopefully I can focus more on micro and learn how to do that properly from on!
celeste
Profile Joined January 2010
England45 Posts
January 17 2010 15:12 GMT
#40
On January 11 2010 23:57 Necosarius wrote:
Select a bunch of units and click shift+# and they will be added to the group. For example, you've got 4 marines on hotkey 1, you select 8 (or more) marines and press shift+1 and 8 marines will be added to group 1.

wow can't believe I didn't know this
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