On January 01 2009 08:43 Delirium wrote:
Great guide! I love to see guides that help efficiency around here.

Another thing I find useful (particularly in TvP's after backing off an engagement) is when you have 3-4 hotkeys of units, engage, pull back and only have 3-6 units in each hotkey. Instead of moving the army together and re-hotkeying, simply hit a hotkey (for example 4), hold shift, hit 3. Then follow up with 2, shift, 1. Now you have all your units in 1 and 3. Now, hit 3 and ctrl+2 and you've got your units all back in order.

Of course, you could 4, shift, 2 then 3 shift 1 etc etc... I've found it quite useful and time-saving.

OmG FAcK! This one's knew to me.
The interface just got 100 times cooler.

pangshai

Chinatown5333 Posts

January 01 2009 11:15 GMT

#43

Thanks for the comments so far. I've added a bit on the shift adding of units to existing hotkeys, but I can't seem to edit my original post. I'll try again later.

Azrael1111

United States550 Posts

January 01 2009 11:24 GMT

#44

My problem is when i have like 36+ lings at my choke and i need them all hotkeyed, so i do ctrl + click to get 12, but now i have to send them somewhere else and come back once they have all left to get another hotkey using this method. Any better way to do this? (usually other things beside lings mixed in too).

Zidane

United States1686 Posts

January 01 2009 11:33 GMT

#45

Simple stuff, but not a lot of people know it. Thanks for the guide. I like it.

ProberoO

United States88 Posts

January 01 2009 11:57 GMT

#46

I learned a little from it, nice job.

Divinek

Canada4045 Posts

January 01 2009 12:51 GMT

#47

On January 01 2009 17:16 sqwert wrote:
u guys never knew this?

That is an excellent question. I'm not sure whether to be shocked or astounded. To think that people other than yourself might not actually be aware of something you are!

This is pretty cool stuff that I was never aware of. It's never really needed, but seems to make things alot easier.

Ludrik

Australia523 Posts

January 01 2009 13:39 GMT

#48

I find it incredibly surprising that some people here don't know this stuff. When you put your mouse over a wireframe it clearly says it.

Anyway my personal favourite is alt + # to center the screen on that group of units. It's probably only marginally quicker then hitting the number twice but every bit adds up.

ZhenMiChan

Netherlands1181 Posts

January 01 2009 17:12 GMT

#49

nice stuff, thanks

Raithed

China7078 Posts

January 01 2009 17:43 GMT

#50

the shift + double click is weird, in your screen i see 3 tanks yet you selected a lot, are they near the ramp or something?

Carkling

Germany169 Posts

January 01 2009 17:44 GMT

#51

wait so what did this guy mean about the alt key?
i never used it before and didnt even know it has a function in the game.

xhuwin

United States476 Posts

January 01 2009 17:55 GMT

#52

As WhenHellFreezes mentioned, holding ALT and clicking a unit will give you the last group the unit was in. So say you have zealots A, B, C, D and dragoon E, F, G. If you select them all and tell them to move some where, then go macro, then come back, alt leftclick on any (A through G) of them will get you the entire group. If before that, you selected just the goons only (EFG) to micro them, then alt clicking on E,F,G will give you the entire last group that unit was in (all the goons, EFG).

My experience with alt has been poor. I fiind that it's inconsistent and for whatever reason sometimes it doesn't work for me. But the worst thing is that it's only SOMETIMES so I don't even know what causes it to break down; because of the chance that it'll mess up in a critical battle, I hardly use it.

Also, in the OP, the first situation, with all the drones clumped together surruonded by other rally units, you can ctrlclick all drones then shift click the minerals, and only the non-mining drones will follow that command.

pangshai

Chinatown5333 Posts

January 01 2009 18:09 GMT

#53

On January 02 2009 02:43 Raithed wrote:
the shift + double click is weird, in your screen i see 3 tanks yet you selected a lot, are they near the ramp or something?

I had 8 tanks initially selected in the middle of the map. Shift + double click on the tanks at my choke causes the tanks at the choke to be added to the 8 already selected.

pangshai

Chinatown5333 Posts

January 01 2009 18:13 GMT

#54

On January 02 2009 02:55 xhuwin wrote:
As WhenHellFreezes mentioned, holding ALT and clicking a unit will give you the last group the unit was in. So say you have zealots A, B, C, D and dragoon E, F, G. If you select them all and tell them to move some where, then go macro, then come back, alt leftclick on any (A through G) of them will get you the entire group. If before that, you selected just the goons only (EFG) to micro them, then alt clicking on E,F,G will give you the entire last group that unit was in (all the goons, EFG).

I don't understand why you would want to use alt though. So assuming that A B C D are zealots and E F G are dragoons, and you select the dragoons using control click to micro them, why can't you just use 1 (or whatever the hotkey group that all the units were in) to select everything again?

On January 02 2009 02:55 xhuwin wrote:
Also, in the OP, the first situation, with all the drones clumped together surruonded by other rally units, you can ctrlclick all drones then shift click the minerals, and only the non-mining drones will follow that command.

The problem with that is that when you control click the drones, not all 3 drones that are not mining will necessarily be selected, since the selection is random, ie you might get 2 drones at your rally point and another 10 drones already mining.

GinNtoniC

Sweden2945 Posts

January 01 2009 18:53 GMT

#55

This guide is fantastic. It's easy, I've thought about a lot of the stuff before.
But walking through it step-by-step with pictures + discussions.
Priceless.

You sir are today's hero.

Carkling

Germany169 Posts

January 01 2009 22:09 GMT

#56

can we have more information on the ALT things? :D

b3h47pte

United States1317 Posts

January 01 2009 22:30 GMT

#57

Nice guide. will helps me lots with my epic line lurker burrow :\

bluemanrocks

United States304 Posts

January 01 2009 23:34 GMT

#58

also just something to be noted which i think is right though im not entirely positive: when you double or ctrl-click it will select all of that type of unit on the screen as well as (if there arent 12 on the screen) any that are JUST covered by the infobar at the bottom of the screen.

dhe95

United States1213 Posts

January 02 2009 00:02 GMT

#59

Lol I learned the shift one from Combat-Ex and the Control one I learned from putting my mouse over the unit picture and it saying Ctrl-Click - select all or something, and shift-click - remove or somethin =P

SuperJongMan

Jamaica11586 Posts

January 02 2009 01:25 GMT

#60

I actually really like guides like these cuz they are the ones where you discover that you missed some key amazing features in a game. Like some new patched features or such.

And yeah, nice basics.