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Patrol Micro to Avoid Clumping
The aim of this thread is to introduce a form of patrol micro to avoid units clumping. I haven’t read about it in the forums or the TL wiki before, but I thought it would be something that’s worth discussing.
Clumping
Firstly, I believe it would behoove me to define clumping in the context of StarCraft(SC). Essentially a clump is a cluster of tightly packed units which minimizes the surface area of said units. Clumping occurs naturally in SCii due to improved path finding and AI as suggested by sluggaslamoo ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=132171). There are instances in which it would benefit a player to clump their units. For example: a clustered ranged army (e.g. terran bio-ball) is more effective against melee army (e.g. zealots or zerglings) for the following reasons:
- Melee units cannot effectively surround units (i.e. have multiple units attacking a single unit)
- Units at the core of the clump can still shoot, whereas melee units will queue up. In other words the ranged army will be more effective because more of their units can attack at any given moment.
On the other hand clumping could also be detrimental to an army. One such example is a clustered army versus any unit which causes splash damage (e.g. templars, tanks, banelings). The reason is simply because a clustered army is so tightly packed that the splash damage from the aforementioned units will likely hit more targets than ideal. Having said that, I think we're good to discuss the meat of the thread...
Patrol Micro
It is known that if a unit is commanded to patrol a nearby position it would begin to move very rapidly between its current position and the patrol position, i.e. the units will enter an ‘epileptic seizure’ as described by Day[9].
And here’s a few example of such behavior by Husky,
+ Show Spoiler +
Now if a similar command is given to a control group of unit a fascinating unit behavior emerges. Instead of having epileptic seizures the units begin to draw themselves away from each other in what seems to be a random pattern, which effectively scatters or disperses them.
+ Show Spoiler +
Now, is there a practical application of this? Well to be honest I’m not sure… But I can think of a few scenarios on top of my head where it would be handy.
Typical clumped army
+ Show Spoiler +
Scattered army using the patrol micro
+ Show Spoiler +
Another interesting aspect of this technique is that you are able to do it while moving. Again, I’m not sure if there is any practical aspect to it, but it allows an army to scatter and clump on the move.
+ Show Spoiler +
To finish off, I did a few tests using zealots vs tanks in the Unit Tester by XGDragon (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=124763).
+ Show Spoiler +15 Zealots(Clumped) vs 12 Tanks 15 Zealots(Scattered) vs 12 Tanks
Execution wise it's actually not hard at all, though doing the patrol micro on the move is a bit tricky because you have to patrol click a certain distance away from your units otherwise they'll still clump up. So I dunno… do you think we’ll see any of this in high level play or is it one of those funny things people do like making an overlord dance over your opponent’s hatchery.
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hmmmmmm
not sure what to say about that yet. interesting though. definitely has some promise.
edit: good post
edit2 (after seeing post count): great post - good job
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wow nice post! thumbs up, i want to test this out!
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Pretty neat, I bet it will be one of those things used in the future as the game gets those little perfections that makes it awesome.
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It definitely seems useful, very useful. Thanks for the suggestion.
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verry nice post. I think it might become a standart for easy unit spreading i find it verry usefull i'm defenitely gonna abuse it when beta comes back :o)
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United States6046 Posts
This is just amazing. It seems like as people find out these little tricks, SCII will get closer and closer to the spectating value of Brood War. Maybe even surpass it? Who knows?
And I think this will be very useful once the pro players get good APM to manage their economy and micro units simultaneously. Late game, lots of core units have splash such as Siege Tanks, Infestor's Fungal Growth, Thors, Colossi, High Templars, and maybe a few others. This could help people who can execute this effectively close the gap to long range splash units.
It will just be a matter of time before people find more tricks like these and have enough hand speed to execute it while macroing. I think it would be exciting to see a pro SCII player to patrol micro their units in range of a Siege Tank, harass the economy, and pump units simultaneously.
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Units also attack whilst on patrol, so I doubt it will take away from attack moving, and if it has any advantages for bio vs banelings then I will definitely be using it as much as i can 
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I wonder if anyone could test this with a mixed army as you usually end-up having. Let's say zealots, stalkers and a couple of sentries.
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this has so much practical use its rediculous. Of course we'll see once the game goes back up how practical but units spread out vs clustered and how to manage those different scenarios is definitely gonna be one of many things that will determine the outcome in battle(as your example with zealots vs tanks clearly showed).
The bad thing about this is that it made me wanna play so much more, as if withdrawls werent bad enough already
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Hey thanks for putting this together. I found something out that may help out. I was experimenting with how mutalisks could remain spread out against Thors.
If you have a group of mutalisks already spread out, you can click far away (mini-map or otherwise) and they will remain in that formation and won't clump up at all, or only when they are close to where you clicked on the mini-map.
I haven't tested any ground units however, but it's something to look into as you don't have to worry about patrol commands and they can move into position and you can tell them to attack whenever.
Hopefully it will be something zergs can use to make thors very manageable :D
p.s. if i wasn't clear enough, you would aim to click past the enemy base to keep the units non-clumped for the attack (in the case of mutas)
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Thanks for your explanation but I'm sure If there's application for this.
Btw what's name of the map in the video?
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This could def be helpful, assuming it doesnt require too much focus to pull off (taking away from other important things). Could be great against emp, storm, fungal growth, the aoe stuff. And Def banelings as well as people right click through instead of attack move
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On June 25 2010 19:18 Wr4ith_Bl4d3 wrote:
do you think we’ll see any of this in high level play Yes, they are using it; that's why sometimes "epileptic seizures" also occur in these vods. Combined with magic boxes (which unfortunately are a bit smaller in SC2), it allows you to move small groups in sparse formation, without having to arrange the units individually.
Good post, well illustrated.
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This could be very helpful indeed to make your hydra's spread out a bit to start off with a big concave. Or in baneling-zergling situations. Thanks for finding this! Will definitely fiddle around with it once beta starts back up again =) .
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very interesting, I will definitely use this since my APM is so low
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This is interesting to know, but I don't think it's very useful. It'll take about the same amount of apm to just select a handful of your units and spread them manually, and gives you greater control over where they go rather than just semi-random spread. Grabbing 4-8 units and clicking right, and doing the same to 4-8 more and clicking left spreads them much better than using this patrol method.
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Russian Federation4235 Posts
Poll: Voodoo magic to make the game perform normally?It rocks, I will pwn noobs that don't know of these tricks. (124) 76% It sucks, units should behave like that on A-move. (29) 18% I don't have an opinion. (10) 6% 163 total votes Your vote: Voodoo magic to make the game perform normally? (Vote): It sucks, units should behave like that on A-move.
(Vote): It rocks, I will pwn noobs that don't know of these tricks.
(Vote): I don't have an opinion.
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Grabbing 4-8 units and clicking right, and doing the same to 4-8 more and clicking left spreads them much better than using this patrol method.
And when it's 20 units? or 30? or 50? At some point using the patrol micro is going to help spread out units more so than manually doing it. Plus the method you describes gives you 2 clumps of 4-8 units, not spread out units. So splash damage will still hit 4-8 units pretty consistently.
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You can achieve the same thing better by haveing one control group with everyone in and two additional with some in.
simply click group 2 -> left group 3 -> right group 1 -> forward attack!
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/Wr4ith_Bl4d3/zunclumpedvsemp.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/Wr4ith_Bl4d3/mclumpedvsstorm.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/Wr4ith_Bl4d3/zclumpedvsemp.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y34/Wr4ith_Bl4d3/munclumpedvsstorm.jpg)
