Hello, first of all, I've tried each of the races for atleast a week, and I prefer Terrans the most, so don't go "protoss is for noobs" and stuff like that, please. I've got a few questions, so if you could please help me with them, thanks in advance.
1, How to improve APM? I mean, spamming at beginning seems very pointless to me, my first hotkeys are CC + scout, and then I only hotkey units, because I can't hotkey each factory I make, so I just minimap click the place with factories.
2, Space management I've got some problem with managing space. I divide it to like "here supply, here factories", but after filling my main with 7 factories, and my expo + main with supplies, I just can't find any more space, and I'm too afraid to start making stuff at other places.
3, How and where properly should I move with siege tanks to camp/attack? Like in TvP, I just take my tanks and go in front of his base, but, he has obs there or something and kills everything before I manage to unsiege/plant mines/make turrets, then he attacks instantly and gg.
4, New expos If I go to make a new expo, the opponent usually scouts it out and kills it, is there any way to prevent that?
5, Resource management If I have a good day, I manage to have <500 minerals, but sometimes I find myself having 5000 minerals and 6000 gas, but that's about practice I guess? Also, what should I do if I have 400 minerals and 1700 gas?
6, Is there a trick to moving while camped line? I usually do it like, I plant a few mines ahead, then I make turrets, and then I move the tanks from the back line to the front, and move like this.
7, How should I take down enemy expos? When I go to an exp with some tanks, I never manage to take it down, because he else comes with half his army and takes me down, or comes with air units, as I don't have turrets there. So, how should I take out expos?
8, Shall I bring any antiair units with me? If I play like TvZ, and I know the enemy goes hydras, and also has some mutas, so what should I do if he muta harasses my camp before I manage to make turrets there?
9, Scouting What is the best way to scout around the map with terran? I just plant mines around the map, but they get destroyed quickly and then I dont know s*it.
That's all I can think of for now. Thanks in advance.
I don't play terran but I know that about APM...instead of lcicking on the minimap hotkey one of your factories to say 5... and put the rest around this one...when you need to macro pres 5-5 and your screen goes there...much more efficient.
On July 15 2010 21:35 swanized wrote: I don't play terran but I know that about APM...instead of lcicking on the minimap hotkey one of your factories to say 5... and put the rest around this one...when you need to macro pres 5-5 and your screen goes there...much more efficient.
As well as the numeric hotkeys, you could always point one of F2-F4 at your factory/gateway cluster; it's similarly efficient, but leaves the numbers free for other things.
Have some of these problem my self, especially the APM and properly microing pushes but here are some of my tips.
1) Search forums there is a ton of post on this. 2) Make depots in the back of your base very tightly packed and later on in the game you can make them outside your base to make walls and strengthen your push at the same time giving you more free space in your main. Also try to make your factories as closely packed as possible without clogging units. 3) You need to scan or use vultures to scout where his army is, if he spawned in close position you can do slow push more easily to his natural and try to contain. If he is cross map I usually do a slow push to his closest expansion. Fast pushes only work when you have a good timing window, eg. you have more units than him b/c he expanded early or b/c he is teching. 4) Secure the area before building CC or floating it over. Abuse the terrain of you expansion, eg, in fighting spirit I first scan or send scv to area to see if he has an army there, then clog choke with marines or scv and put 3 tanks in the back that way if he does a gay harass on my third he will probably lose a lot of troops b/c of high ground advantage + clogged choke. If there is no real abusable terrain just make a ton of tanks and make a siege line with mines and turrets in front of path of your expo. 5) Improve you macro, no other way around it. If you build up gas, tech to gas units like science vessels or make more machine shops, alternatively can pump mix of goliaths and vultures rather than just vults and tanks. 7) Look at flash play, for example flash vs Jangbi on Colosseum. Basically engage his army while sending like 2 tanks to different expos to kill them. 9) Scanning a lot + vults.
Mostly TvP advice, I'm a Protoss player. It would also be easier to answer your questions if you posted a replay (as it says in the guidelines).
1 - Forget about improving apm, it will naturally become higher the more you play. Just focus on what you have to do and you'll get faster. Hotkeying your cc and scout is great. That leaves you with 8 keys unused, start hotkeying factories, comsat, armory, etc. When you have more factories than hotkeys and you need the hotkeys for other important things like units or another building then hotkey a factory amongst a cluster of factories. That way you can double tap the hotkey and it will bring you to a bunch of them and you can macro quickly. Mind you, you need to build them close together for this to work otherwise you're moving your screen all over the place. You could use the Fkeys (location keys), but I recommend you use those for your CCs
2 - Without a replay I really don't know how you're placing your buildings, generally keep everything as tight as possible. Don't be afraid to build buildings at your other bases if you have a large surplus of money.
3 - A replay would help here because I don't know what you're doing and your description doesn't give too many details except all your units die and gg. In TvP you want to always know where the protoss army is. Use your vultures to keep tabs, always have vultures running around. They have mines, plant them everywhere, in places you think he'll move, at expansions you think he'll take. If you're lucky he might move in army into your mines and lose some units (it also slows his army down because he has to disarm them first). Always use your scan (try not to let it build up to 200), it's the best scouting tech you have. If you don't know about magic boxes, learn about them here, it'll make laying mines easier and quicker.
4 - Yeah there are ways to prevent them. Such as using supply depots to block entrance if there is a ramp with 1 or 2 tanks behind (this isn't always the best idea though). Mines help also, they slow the Protoss army down giving your army a chance to defend it before your expansion is down. Also, where you are expanding is really important.
5 - I would say build more gas units?
6 - If he has a shuttle or some dts then make turrets if you're worried, otherwise I wouldn't. Those 75 minerals would buy you another vulture and three annoying mines. But it sounds like you're leap frogging. Don't place mines along where you want to go, that's just asking for mine drags into your army. Place mines where he would flank you. Post a replay so I can see what you're doing.
7 - Post a replay, it sounds like you don't have enough units when you attack. If you know his army is and you know the direction he'll be coming in to defend his base/expansion, lay some mines there, gives you more time to take down buildings. You shouldn't be surprised when he makes air units because you would have scanned his base to see a starport. You also should have an armory so building goliaths won't be a problem.
8 - You should have marines in TvZ to defend against mutas, also scan his base to see spire timing and build an ebay so you can build turrets. In PvT don't build anti air units unless you know he's building air units. You can build one or two goliaths if he has a shuttle, but that's up to you.
9 - Run your vultures around, use your comsat. When you get fresh vultures, lay more mines (they're really annoying).
On July 15 2010 20:42 Argoneus wrote: 8, Shall I bring any antiair units with me? If I play like TvZ, and I know the enemy goes hydras, and also has some mutas, so what should I do if he muta harasses my camp before I manage to make turrets there?
9, Scouting What is the best way to scout around the map with terran? I just plant mines around the map, but they get destroyed quickly and then I dont know s*it.
I'm a zerg, so I can answer 8 for you, but before I do that....
9). Comsat (unless you're saving the scans for something specific)
8). It depends on the strategy you're using. I play 3 hatch muta openings and vary my opening based on a mech or bio strategy. All standard bio builds should have timings where you place turrets. If scanning shows they're going lurkers you can take it easy on the turrets and put down some bunkers.
Since your question focuses on muta/hydra, I'm assuming you're doing a mech build order since that unit composition is a lot more common against a mech strategy. Mutas are there to destroy tanks, absorb goliath damage, mobile harassment, etc. If you don't have any turrets and you know there are muta, keep a handful of goliaths and start building a few turrets. 3-4 around the mineral line plus goliath fire would be enough for me to fly my group of 12 muta away.
Beyond that I don't feel comfortable giving advice seeing as I'm D+
5. I believe I'm one of the few players who has the opinion that you should regularly be putting SCVs on and off gas to keep it as low as possible. I've watched pro-replays and even people like bisu often get up into 700 or 800 gas. You could say that pros do this to save gas for when they start to need it to make things like high templars and other gas-heavy units, but in my opinion, they should just wait until just before they need them, and then put 3 scvs on gas for every single base they have.
I think it's a good idea to extensively plan a build order before hand so that you know when you can afford to take SCVs off gas.
I think it's a bad idea to make your unit composition worse just so that you can spend gas.
1) APM will improve when you get a feeling of what you should do and when you should do it. If you want to improve quickly you have to force yourself to play faster, there is no other way.
2) You should build supplies at other places, haven't you watched progamers use supply-walls as defense? Play against a comp or something and figure out some buildingplacements. Don't be lazy.
3) I guess you are asking where to push? Push towards his nat or expo, depends on which is closer. Plant mines as you push and as soon as you see the very first pixel of his army you siege your tanks.
4) This really depends. If you are playing flashstyle on fighting spirit and wants to take our third you can plant mines on your bridge and leave 2-3 sieged tanks and move the rest of your army to your third. If you want to take your fourth you should take an expo that's in your path when you are pushing. If you spawn at the bottom right and the toss at top right you can take the middle right as your fourth expo.
5) Is this when you have a maxed army or when you are trying to max your army? Either way, you can build more factories to build reinforcements faster. If you have 400 minerals and 1700 gas you are already too late, you should have done something earlier. Like.. more tanks/vessels/goliaths/upgrades. Since you mention turrets when you attack I think you are low on goliaths.
6) I don't get this question, is he talking about slowpushing or moving his defenses?
7) This depends as well, are you doing a fast timing push or are you playing flashstyle? Are his nat or expo closer? If you are doing a fast push like a 4fact and his expo is closer you kill it with your army, if his nat is closer you push and camp outside his nat and send a small force to kill his expo.
8) You get those turrets up or move out from there. Simple. And of course you bring anti air, why wouldn't you?
9) Scan. And you are already doing it right by placing mines everywhere. And if they get destroyed you do know shit, you know some of his army is there.
Im a C- terran so don't take this as an absolute truth. What I'm saying is working for me but it's still probably bad advice. Also:
On July 15 2010 23:23 Argoneus wrote: The "how to improve" I read that, and it just tells you the basic ideas, but not how to deal with specific situations IMO.
How to improve answers at least 3 of your questions. You should also read the part "wrong sources" in How to improve.
On July 15 2010 20:42 Argoneus wrote: 2, Space management I've got some problem with managing space. I divide it to like "here supply, here factories", but after filling my main with 7 factories, and my expo + main with supplies, I just can't find any more space, and I'm too afraid to start making stuff at other places.
If you posted a replay it would be pretty easy to point out ways to improve.
Some general tips: (1) There is space for supply depots behind mineral lines and against the edges of the map. This can help to prevent enemy scouts from running circles around your base. (2) Placing supply depots and academy/armory adjacent to your CC (make workers come out faster) and refinery is a good idea, since it's difficult to pack larger buildings close to your workers. (3) Place depots away from the entrance to your main, and place your production buildings closer to your entrance (most ramps accommodate this kind of layout). (4) Try to reserve enough space in advance for most of your production buildings to fit on one camera screen so you do not have to scroll as much. (5) There is no rule that all of your buildings need to be in your main. There is plenty of free space at your natural, and if you're making a defensive push across the map, placing some depots along the way can help defend and spot. (6) Be aware that adjacent buildings die faster to scarabs. (7) Be aware that there is simcity to defend against scarabs. :p (8) When placing depots to block edges of bunkers or turrets (from zerglings, zealots, and DTs), make sure you block off surface area facing your enemy, and leaving space for your SCVs to repair.
if you've looked at Ver's guide, obviously you have not read it closely enough first you shouldnt be asking how to increase your apm, you should be asking how to make your build more efficient. You should post a replay, which will probably contain a game where macro is not nearly perfect, build order nonexistent, bad scouting(bad reactions) etc
and really, those are the things you should work on most, because with those all your problems will go away. when you know exactly what you want to achieve with your BO you will know exactly when and how to take out his expoes, when and where to move out, and on top of that your apm will improve as your build gets more efficient. Dont ask vague questions like "shall i bring any antiair with me?" This implies that you obviously don't have a solid build order or game plan.
Work on macro+ build order before anything else, and practice in single player mode.
You should have mentioned that in the OP. I don't know much about 2v2 but I will look at it anyway.
Send scvs to the minerals quicker, don't let them walk to the rally point and then send them. Make your supply faster, your scv was idle for a while. Make your gas faster. You could have built both your rax and gas at 10, you built them at 12 and 14. You built 2 supply depots at 16, one should've been enough. As I said, I don't know much about 2v2 but you made a really fast academy and it seems your are not going for bio play. And you made a supply when your food was 21/34. And another supply depot at 26/42. Your second factory was late because of your depots. Seems like you went for a fast scan. You made 3 marines but didn't go for a push or something, since you walled your choke one marine would have been enough. But since they didn't get a scouting scv in your base you could skip the marine. No scv production after your scan is finished. 3-4 idle scvs and you made lots of turrets, 4-5 would've been enough. Two tanks were made from one factory but only one scv was made during the same time, you need more scvs. You could have lifted your ebay and scouted with it since you wont be upgrading from it. Idle factories, idle CC, idle starport, 965 minerals and 450 gas with 39/50 supply 8:16 minutes in the game. Everything stops in your base when you walked outside your base with your vultures. 30 seconds passed without you producing anything. You made a early dropship but didn't use it for some time. When you started using your dropships everything stops in your base again. Nothing is being made at all. 11 minutes in the game and you have 44/60 food and only 4 of your vultures have died. You've got 1.9k minerals and 548 gas on one base. You have a second cc but you have not landed it at your natural. 12:30 in the game and you still haven't made anything in your base, your food is still 44/60 and you now got 3.5k minerals and 1k gas.
I stopped watching now, it's quite clear that you need to work on pretty much everything. Don't go fancy with dropships, you are clearly don't have the multitasking to handle it. Focus only on building units, if you had done that in this game you could've rolled both terrans easily. None in the game is over 60 food 12:30 in the game. That's when progamers are ready to push with a 2/1 and almost maxed army in TvP.
So yeah, practice your build and make more units, specially scvs. You could have killed both terrans on your own if you only kept up with your macro.
Oh well.. first of all, thanks a lot for the answer. You are absolutely right, when I attack / drop / do anything else than focusing on macroing, I just dont macro at all. I read and I know that while theres a battle going on, I should macro and not watch the battle, but something inside me is just "forcing" me to watch the battle and I can't focus on anything else.
Just a quick question, what's a 2/1 push? And about the turrets, are turrets supposed to inform of me that a drop is incoming, or are they supposed to take out the drop before it actually drops? And is it true that I need to pump SCVs all the game until I reach limit? Or is there a point where to stop?
2/1 Push is the flashstyle in TvP if you are familiar with that. You get 3 bases and macro up and Push out when you have a big army with +2 weapon upgrade and +1 armor upgrade. Read this if you want to learn: http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Flash Build
And you need to force yourself to not watch the battle, you could try vs a computer. After a few games you wont feel the need to watch the battles anymore.
You prevent drops with turrets but you don't want to overdo it either. You could've spread the turrets more and saved probably 4 turrets, maybe more. In TvT they are mostly used to fight against wraiths in the early midgame, a single dropship wont harm you that much if you already have your army in your base. To fight against early dropships you can use goliaths instead. Scouting is the key.
Of course there is a point when to stop producing scvs but if you need to ask when to stop you probably need to work on your macro anyway so keep pumping scvs through the game. It can't be bad unless you end up in a 40 min long game.
1. Don't bother with APM. APM is a reflection of how good u are, it doesn't make you better. Telling yourself "shit I need to click faster" is useless. First say "shit I need to do X and Y and Z". When u know wat ur doing and what you hasve to do APM increases. As for hotkeys, I use 5 6 and 7 for my first 3 CCs, 1-4 for army, 0 9 8 for scan, f2 to go to macro area, and f3 for the natural.
2. Factories in 1 area, everything else in the next. If this still bugs u look at pro videos on youtube and note their placement.
3. Use cliffs, edge of the map, etc etc. Basically make it hard for him to have a large surface area to attack you with. Mines are awesome (I place them before I push around the map to know where toss is), and just siege before he engages. Theres really not much to say here. Develop your own style and watch pro reps to see how they do it.
4. Mine, turret, and tanks. If your vultures still have mines in them ur doing something wrong. Also turrets are more valuable vs toss than ud think cause they keep observers away which makes it hard to detect mines. If you have absolutely no semblance of map control then build a cc in ur main or natural and slow push to the expo u want to take. The just float the CC.
5. If you have excess minerals add production buildings. If u have waaaaaay more gas then ur not upgrading and teching enough. If u still think u are then temporarily pull SCVS from one or 2 refineries.
6. Vultures help ur push moves forward and they take a ton of hits from dragoons so they usually help u not get caught too unsieged. Leapfrogging works but i think your way might be a bit too slow. Its all about knowing where his army is and then siege just in front of it. You way is slow as fuck but works if ur like inches away from his nat and u just need to creep in to be in range of the nexus.
7. Terror push to contain and then like 2 tanks shelling other nexus' around the map. If u cant contain his army then more often than not ur gonna be relying on vulture raids to stop mining in bases that ur main army can't be close to.
8. TvZ if ur going mech make goliaths if ur going bio then marines know how to attack air. In TvP its a pain in the ass but u gotta hide under turrets from zealot bombs until u get an armory. Once arbiters are out definitely make goliaths with ur army.
9. Mine expansions run vultures and use the maphack ability of ur comsats
EPT
http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/Flash Build
