I was wondering what the best way to practice making sure you use your Control Groups, whenever it gets to be later in a game. I find myself switching back to clicking around furiously trying to macro. Which is just killing my game, but every time I forget to use my control groups (if i even bind anything to them in the first place).

So, TL what did you do to first master the use of Control Groups?

Carras

Argentina860 Posts

January 04 2011 06:31 GMT

well , have some organization , dont just improvise your groups

for example.. i use.. 1 army 2 harras,mutas or corruptors 3 all queens 4 all hatches

esp

Australia109 Posts

January 04 2011 06:36 GMT

Yeah like the guy above me said, use consistent control groups. If your nexus is on 4, then always have it on 4. If your zealots and sentries are on 2, always have them on 2, etc. You'll get the hang of it if you just force yourself to use them. Soon enough it becomes second nature and you don't even think about it.

Kaitlin

United States2958 Posts

January 04 2011 06:47 GMT

I'm Bronze, but once I started using control groups, they helped SO much. Whatever race I play, my base is 1, Army Production structures are 2, Scout and later casters is 3. Air, harass, or alt army is 4. Main army is 5. Etc. Anyways, whenever I throw down a building, I immediately shift+nbr to add it to my group, same as when I warp in units. It's just become automatic now. Now I'm working on my "mental checklist" to always make workers and units.

Bygone

United States58 Posts

January 04 2011 06:49 GMT

Think it may be helpful to know what leauge/race you play in the first place. However, the two comments before mine are accurate, establish a set of keys that is comfortable FOR YOU, my controls groups for example vary on the type of build that I plan on using the game (i.e 5 hatches 6-8 first 3 queens, 0 evo chambers to keep up on upgrades, and then w/e you want for army)

DanceSC

United States751 Posts

January 04 2011 06:50 GMT

play without a mouse...
if you use a laptop, use the touch pad...

Taerix

United States41 Posts

January 04 2011 07:02 GMT

You should really put some thought into your control group layout. Figure out a system that works well for you, and do it every time. STOP using your mouse for anything you don't have to. Practice with your keyboard hand and you'll get used to it fairly quickly.

Here's what I do as Terran:
1. CC
2. Scout/Casters
3. Main army
4. air units
5. Barracks
6. Factories
7. Starports

colanderman

United States66 Posts

January 04 2011 07:07 GMT

I've gotten into the habit of constantly regrouping my army units with ctrl+1. I started doing this because I had a nasty habit of *mis*grouping my units due to bad keypresses (think Hatchery + army + 3 Overlords on same control group... yeah). This has the nice side effect that it ensures that newly spawned units end up in groups sooner rather than later.

Other helpful habits I've developed:

new army units out? --> shift+1
important unit I don't want to lose track of (e.g. Observer)? --> into its own control group before it goes anywhere
started a building? --> shift+5 (or whatever) as soon as it starts building

Also, my buildings (as Terran) are hotkeyed to similar-sounding numbers. Factory -> 4, Starport -> 6. Barracks is 5 for some reason. This way, in the heat of battle, I can remember which hotkey my factory's on by thinking "factory four-ctory! six-port starport!" When I play Protoss I keep the analogous buildings on those same numbers since I just think of them in terms of Terran buildings anyway.

ledarsi

United States475 Posts

January 04 2011 18:43 GMT

As other people have said, plan how you're going to use your control groups and always use that configuration. However you need to put a bit more thought than simply arbitrarily assigning which keys are what. Take into account factors like keyboard distances for common key combinations, movement of your hands over the keyboard, and what units or structures you need ready access to.

For example, it's probably a bad idea to put your command center on 0 because 0-s (for scv) is a long distance on the keyboard. Similarly, 1 is probably also a bad idea because it's going to be a very common key combination and you're relying on your pinkie and ring finger in an unusual shape, or else you have to move your entire hand to bounce between the two keys efficiently. 2 is even worse since you would use the ring finger for both 2 and s. Most people use a middle number control group for their bases because it's easy to go 4-s-4-s, or 5-s-5-s without moving your hand much.

Typically most players use the lower number keys for military units since they are the fastest to get to. I use 1 for my entire army, and 2 and 3 for specific types as needed, such as tanks or ghosts or whatever.

For me it makes sense to arrange my production structures by type, after the command center. So I do barracks on 5, factories on 6, and starports are 7. 8, 9, and 0 I reserve for other stuff, like random units around the map, upgrade structures, maybe nuke silos, whatever.

Issue I am aware of with this setup is that I have basically 2 subsets of units I can get to easily. I don't build compositions like marine-ghost-tank-raven because I would need 3 military unit subgroups to be able to satisfactorily control my units. This is typically not an issue, but it's a limitation I wish I hadn't practiced into. I can use 8,9,0 if I need to, but those take a relatively long time to get to compared to the 1,2,3 keys. I would prefer to use 1 through 4 for military, 5 through 8 for production, and 9,0 for miscellaneous.

I've been trying to retrain myself to use 5 for the command center to free up another group with the production facilities after, but it's frustrating to try to break a habit of 4-s or 4-c for scan, then 5 for rax, 6 for factory, then 7 for starports. Put some thought into it and get it right the first time before you really start practicing it.

numLoCK

Canada1416 Posts

January 04 2011 18:54 GMT

#10

I've never used that replay tool for SC2 (sc2gears? i think its called) but perhaps it has a function similar to BWChart where you can see your hotkey usage throughout the game?

Example:
[image loading]

(image stolen from google)

This sort of thing gives you a visual representation of how well you are using your hotkeys and you can more easily track your progress with it. I do not know if SC2 has such a thing but its worth checking to find out.

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