EPTIn SC1, I had my hatcheries on hotkeys 5-9, my different armies on 1-4, depending on how I wanted to split them. Now, in SC2, I find myself putting ALL my hatcheries on 5 thanks to the new MBS system. The problem I have with this is that when I want to go to a certain base asap, I can't just double-tap the hatch hotkey, because double-tapping 5 will take me the last hatch I added to the hotkey. So here's what I figured out: I hotkey my queens. I put the 1st one in my main on 4, 1st expo on 3, 3rd on 2. Most of my games don't go past 3 bases anyway. This way, I can jump to any base I want to, and I can inject larvae as soon as I hear it pop at every hatch I have in less than 2 seconds so it really helps my macro. Getting the inject larvae ability up is soooo important as zerg that you really have to get the timing ingrained in your skull. Anyway, just thought I'd put all this up for you guys to critique/praise/evolve.
Using Zerg control-groups
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TelesisGQ
United States83 Posts
In SC1, I had my hatcheries on hotkeys 5-9, my different armies on 1-4, depending on how I wanted to split them. Now, in SC2, I find myself putting ALL my hatcheries on 5 thanks to the new MBS system. The problem I have with this is that when I want to go to a certain base asap, I can't just double-tap the hatch hotkey, because double-tapping 5 will take me the last hatch I added to the hotkey. So here's what I figured out: I hotkey my queens. I put the 1st one in my main on 4, 1st expo on 3, 3rd on 2. Most of my games don't go past 3 bases anyway. This way, I can jump to any base I want to, and I can inject larvae as soon as I hear it pop at every hatch I have in less than 2 seconds so it really helps my macro. Getting the inject larvae ability up is soooo important as zerg that you really have to get the timing ingrained in your skull. Anyway, just thought I'd put all this up for you guys to critique/praise/evolve. | ||
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prototype.
Canada4215 Posts
might as well just hotkey your 3 hatcheries to 5 6 7 if you never go past 3 bases. | ||
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BlasiuS
United States2405 Posts
On March 02 2010 03:26 TelesisGQ wrote: So, first off, let me just say that I'm no pro-gamer, I'm not even platinum in the beta. Be that as it may, I've been doing lots of thinking about the control-group hotkeys I've been using in sc2 and how they've changed since sc1. In SC1, I had my hatcheries on hotkeys 5-9, my different armies on 1-4, depending on how I wanted to split them. Now, in SC2, I find myself putting ALL my hatcheries on 5 thanks to the new MBS system. The problem I have with this is that when I want to go to a certain base asap, I can't just double-tap the hatch hotkey, because double-tapping 5 will take me the last hatch I added to the hotkey. So here's what I figured out: I hotkey my queens. I put the 1st one in my main on 4, 1st expo on 3, 3rd on 2. Most of my games don't go past 3 bases anyway. This way, I can jump to any base I want to, and I can inject larvae as soon as I hear it pop at every hatch I have in less than 2 seconds so it really helps my macro. Getting the inject larvae ability up is soooo important as zerg that you really have to get the timing ingrained in your skull. Anyway, just thought I'd put all this up for you guys to critique/praise/evolve. 1-3: army 4: first queen (spawn larvae is very important in early game), later on I simply use this for my army 5: main hatch 6: expo hatch 7: 3rd hatch 8: 4th hatch 9: 5th hatch 0: all current hatches I find this gives me greatest control over worker waypoints, waypoints, queens, unit production, and massing units (and it's very similar to my BW hotkeys  ). I've never gone past 5 hatches, so this setup has worked well for me so far. | ||
Mystlord
United States10264 Posts
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FortuneSyn
1826 Posts
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Blackjackbob
Canada164 Posts
For me I'm using. 1-2: Armies (I haven't found I've needed more than 2 yet, although I might be able to use a 3rd if games start getting way late game) 3: First queen at main 4: All hatcheries (I find 4 easier to hit than 0 or similar) 5: Queen at expo 6: Queen at 3rd etc | ||
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starcraft911
Korea (South)1263 Posts
If the F2-4 keys weren't broken it wouldn't be a problem with ur hatch issues. hopefully they retrofit SC2 with them. | ||
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onmach
United States1241 Posts
I usually build a second hatch in my main and only have a single queen. Since I'm bad at queen macro, I can use the one queen to inject two hatcheries when I have the spare attention and that works better for me. Anyways, for units beyond lair, larvae isn't that big of a deal because the units become so expensive, keeping my money down and having extra larvae is not an issue. And of course, units are 1 through 3. | ||
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BlasiuS
United States2405 Posts
On March 02 2010 03:46 FortuneSyn wrote: how do you guys manage your larvae injections? I cycle through hotkeys looking at the little hatchery reverse progress bar, however you cant see it when the hatchery is upgrading something, so that messes me up sometimes. I don't think there's a way to efficiently track when each spawn larvae finishes other than just looking at the hatch itself. I think after enough games zerg players will start to develop a rhythm for using spawn larvae efficiently. As for using: double-click hatch hotkey to center screen on hatch manually select queen 'R' for spawn larvae, click hatch repeat for each hatch that has a queen | ||
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Deathfate
Spain555 Posts
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reallogic
United States65 Posts
1 -- Army 2 -- First Queen 3 -- Second Queen 4 -- Third Queen 5 -- Main hatch 6 -- Second Base hatch 7 -- Third Base hatch 8 -- Fourth Base hatch 9 -- Fifth Base hatch 0 -- All Current hatches My current thoughts on zerg army control atm is similar BW. I'm trying to set up flanks in open areas by separating my army into smaller groups around the point I want to engage my opponents army at and as such I only need 1 hotkey for my army. So for more specific control drag select and cntrl selecting sub groups of units seems to be working rather well for me at this point. | ||
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RoieTRS
United States2569 Posts
1 - overlord 2 - queen 3 - hatcheries 4 - zerglings 5 - spawning pool (to check when speed is done) Later i transtioin into 1 - 2nd queen 2 - first queen 3 - hatcheries 4 - army 5 - army I haven't experimented with more than 2 queens, yet, though | ||
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Icx
Belgium853 Posts
(this might sound obvious but some people might not do it) If it gets to lategame and you have a lot of hatche's, try to sync your queens with your first one. So instead of having to randomly go check hatche's constantly, just when it's time to inject larva, do it with all your queens, then wait, with all the queens again, etc The downside is that in the first cycle you may have to delay 1 or 2 queens, but you won't delay any larva's by forgetting about macro later on. 1-3 army 4 scout/zergling that I bring to a watchtower/front of opponent base/etc 5 Queen 6-8 hatchery's separate 9 All hatchery's Later into the game if I need it I rebind 5 to another hatchery and use the queens by going to the hatch, clicking the queen, etc Or rebind 4 to another control group if I need it. | ||
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genwar
Canada537 Posts
1 Roach/Lings 2 Hydras 3 small mix of units(when you don't have time to set to individual groups) 4 Queen 5 Main Hatch 6 Nat Hatch don't use 7 and up. 1-3 of course usually changes depending on situations of course, but i try to aim for 1 roach 2 hydra. | ||
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Blackjackbob
Canada164 Posts
On March 02 2010 08:49 FictionJV wrote: If it gets to late game and you have a lot of hatch's, try to sync your queens with your first one. This is what I have been doing and to great success. I'm starting to get the (40 second?) timing down rather well. Sometimes the moment I double click my hotkey and can view the hatchery I literally see the larva popping off the thing. but the moment it does its only a second or so and I have up to 3 hatcheries all re-injected. As for the hotkeys, it might be simple but I find having the queens hotkeys more valuable than the single hatches themselves. If my queen is hotkeyed to 3 then it's: 33, r, one click on the hatch. If my hatch is hotkeyed to 3 and not the queen then it's: 33, click the queen, r, click the hatch. I know its only one click but sometimes the queen may have been pushed around or moved so you could possibly lose valuable seconds. | ||
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SuperXlax
United States197 Posts
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TelesisGQ
United States83 Posts
On March 02 2010 09:48 SuperXlax wrote: Dunno if anyone has noticed this, but you can Hotkey all your hatcheries and queens to one group, if you hit tab until you have the queens selected, you can click Spawn Larvae(R) and just click on the the hatchery boxes in the control group on the bottom. Will this make all your queens inject larvae in all the respective hatcheries accordingly and simultaneously?? OMFG, that would be amazing but I doubt it works like that. | ||
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SuperXlax
United States197 Posts
On March 02 2010 10:00 TelesisGQ wrote: Will this make all your queens inject larvae in all the respective hatcheries accordingly and simultaneously?? OMFG, that would be amazing but I doubt it works like that. It does it however many times you Spawn Larvae on each respective Hatchery, smartcasting takes over and it chooses the closest queen to the Hatchery you clicked on to do the job. :D | ||
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hacpee
United States752 Posts
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Artrey
Germany270 Posts
On March 02 2010 09:27 Blackjackbob wrote: As for the hotkeys, it might be simple but I find having the queens hotkeys more valuable than the single hatches themselves. If my queen is hotkeyed to 3 then it's: 33, r, one click on the hatch. If my hatch is hotkeyed to 3 and not the queen then it's: 33, click the queen, r, click the hatch. I know its only one click but sometimes the queen may have been pushed around or moved so you could possibly lose valuable seconds. I totally agree with that. 1 Zerglings 2 Roaches / Hydras 3 Air 4 Overseers 5 First Queen 6 Second Queen 7 Third Queen 8 ...Forth Queen? 0 All Hatches This works best for me. Some swapping between the first 4, depending on what i build, if I have infestors etc.. On March 02 2010 10:56 hacpee wrote: A question I have is at mid/late, why just not make extra hatches and forget about spawn larva? That way macro is really easy. Queen is 150 mins and hatch is 300 mins. 150 more mins is a low price to pay for getting rid of the macro mechanic. You can stockpile larvae with queens. So if you do not build in a hatch for a while, you will accumulate 10-20 larvae and after a battle, you can quickly rebuild all. This is a huge advantage to a normal hatch. | ||
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