1) All hatcheries
2) Early game: scouting overlord
Later: New expo Hatch
3) Early game: scouting drone
Later: all inject queens
4) Zerglings/Banelings
5) Early game: spawning pool
Later: Roaches/Hydras
6) Early game: 3 drones for quick gas mining
Later: Mutas or Infestors
7) (Q) Evo chambers
8) (W) Creepqueen/Overseer/Roach Warren
0) (~) single hatch for inject timing

Also using both thumb buttons on the mouse, one for cycle hatches, other for hotkeying a screen location.

As you might have guessed, I play zerg

Since the last patch, I would really encourage people to mess around with the hotkeys. There are a lot of possibilities. I remapped almost all zerg hotkeys in order to make stuff faster/easier. Strive to make the mechanics as easy as possible.

Adrenaline Seed

United States194 Posts

February 16 2011 16:56 GMT

#23

Ok so this has been a real problem for me. I am a 2300 diamond. After watching day9 talk about the tap I decided to try and quit using one control group for all unit producing structures. I stopped laddering for 2 weeks and just played custom games, it was terrible, now I am used to using 3456 for CC, rax, fact, star and can ladder with it.

The problem is exactly what many have said. Once you get 2 of the same building, which happens fast when your good at macro, you lose the advantage of the progress bar. Besides I had a decent imaginary progress bar in my head.

And pressing 3 keys is much more distracting than pressing 1 key to check your macro when your in battle. The largest reason being that you are preparing to press the make unit key as you press each key, with the tab overview you know after you press tab if you are going to need to press the make unit key.

I also like to move my rally point constantly, and this is a bit more distracting now.

Anyone know if any pro gamers use tab for structures. Especially Terran, since it is the race with the most complex structure management.

Krikan

Norway520 Posts

February 16 2011 17:06 GMT

#24

I've been watching some of the korean pros on the restream here on TL and honestly, alot of them are just using 1 or 2 keys for their army, and then they just box shit, click the minimap or tab.
Personally I got
1 for main army
2 for anything that needs to be on 2
3 is barracks
4 is factory and starport
5 is CC 1(I will add all CCs to 5 as i get them)
6 is CC 1
7 is CC 2

Mostly these are just a way to get around not having camera locations figured out on a mac with a USB keybord for windows and I kinda want to move everything one number to the right to get more unit control, but it's so hard getting used to! Ideally i'd have
1 army
2 army
3 army
4 rax
5 fac/SP
6 all CC
7 engi bay
8 armory
F1 main CC
F2 natural CC

I'm also considering having every unit producing on 4, and free up 3 for army this way, still haven't figured it out. Anyone with tips on how to get F1-F4 to work on macs would be awesome. =)

SecretA5DC

Korea (South)225 Posts

February 16 2011 17:09 GMT

#25

Any laptop players? I know for me, my keyboard is pretty small so I often have to use 1 as my CC's and 2 as Barracks 3 as Factory etc.

It's just really awkward to move my left hand across the middle of the keyboard to do 5S 5S constantly.

Eeryck

United States184 Posts

February 16 2011 17:14 GMT

#26

Silver Terran here.

I was keeping factory and starport on same hotkey and liked the ability to tab and produce from them. With raxes on a separate hotkey. The thing that it started to cause a problem for me was when wanting to set a different rally point for each structure. So now they each have their own hotkey.

This change was driven by the desire to set different units on different hot keys. When they all pile up in a huge clump it was my instinct to just box and go 1a. Now it is 3 boxes at slightly spaced out rally points, while still focusing on macro.

jnkw

Canada347 Posts

February 16 2011 17:21 GMT

#27

Laptop player here. It's very awkward for me to reach past 5 so:

1: Army glob (I should really work on splitting this up into unit groups)
2: Observers / Spellcasters
3: Production buildings (Robo)*
4. Production buildings (Stargate)
5. Nexus
6. Expansion 1
7. Expansion 2
8. Expansion 3
9. Expansion 4
0. Temporary (eg. Pylon to block Zerg FE that I intend on cancelling)

* If I need the 3 hotkey for units I sometimes bump all production buildings to 4 instead

Platrius

Sweden2 Posts

February 16 2011 17:48 GMT

#28

Like Morphs I'd encourage players to mess around with hotkeys and importantly, don't limit yourselves to just 1-0. You can set custom hotkeyes that will significantly improve your play.

I've got small hands and I think it's hard to find my way over to say, 8, 9 and 0 without looking at my keyboard. Thus I've remapped 8 to caps lock and 9 to § (or whatever is to the left of 1 on your country's keyboards), where I keep CC and unit producing buildings respectively. Also I obviously use tabbing but I'd like to change that eventually as I believe multiple hotkeys for unit production is actually advantageous.

Gridline

United States41 Posts

February 16 2011 17:50 GMT

#29

Heres a weird one for ya, I play Z and I'm left handed so my keys are mapped to the numberpad.
Just set it up this way recently, was sitting at an average of 90 apm while trying to play with standard keys.. Now I average 140+ apm and it feels much more comfortable.

Numlock. main army
/. micro intensive units
*. Hatches
-. Queens

iHirO

United Kingdom1381 Posts

February 16 2011 18:23 GMT

#30

As Terran, I've had all my production facilities hot-keyed for several months and find it intuitive to tab through while microing. My rally points are usually set to a unit to allow continuous reinforcements during a battle. One downside however, is that a Medivac will pick up the unit its rallied to... theres nothing worse than finding an expensive Thor suddenly being picked up during a firefight!!

My suggestion would be to hotkey the barracks and factories together, while the starports are on another key (starport rally points can then be set to another air unit).

Im currently experimenting with customising the "F1-F5" hotkeys for my units, while using "1-5" for production/tech/CCs as this should be easier with one hand and increase my APM.