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Hey everyone I just thought I'd share my new method of larva injecting with you all. Hopefully it hasn't been discussed in depth elsewhere. It's neither new nor uncommon knowledge but I feel like many overlook this method.
The idea is use the in game clock to time your larva injects.
Example: Inject at 12:20 -> go back to base by 13:00
Disregard the minutes on the clock and just time your injects using seconds.
Example: Injected at 20 next at 0
I was inspired to use this method by Quake Videos. I know nothing about quake and have watched maybe 4 or so matches ever. However, I ran into this video recently and I was inspired by the players ability to time items simultaneously all the while aiming perfectly and planning strategies.
+ Show Spoiler [ Video] +
If these players can time items with different spawn times why can't we
time larva injects? Well we can.
Pros:
-More efficient use of attention and practice.
When I play zerg, I find myself constantly cycling through all my hatcheries in hopes that I find one that needs a larva inject. 445566 all game long. A majority of the time, the constant cycling between hatcheries is wasted attention. The belief then is that if a player cycles through hatcheries enough in thousands of games, the 40second timer will become ingrained in their heads and will eventually lead to perfect injects. I feel that method is too inefficient compared to using the clock. This method gives you a purpose in your practice.
This method also forces your eyes to the bottom left of the screen constantly which coincidentally holds the mini map! If you connect the constant watch of your clock with the mini map, you can address two potential issues at once!
Cons:
Requires attention to do the calculations. This is probably the reason why most players overlook this method. My thought was, if quake players can do it with multiple timers while simultaneously aiming perfectly, executing complicated tactics, and just generally being awesome, we Starcraft players can do it as well.
Calculations are also extremely simple. I'll lay out all the addition you need here.
Seconds timer:
0x ->4x
1x-> 5x
2x ->0x
3x -> 1x
4x -> 2x
5x -> 3x
Example: Hit inject at 05, next is at 45. Pay attention to the first digit (in this case 0 and 4). As shown above, all times that start with 0 will result in your next spawn at a time starting with 4. Carry the second digit (the 5 in this example) and you are done
How fast do you think you can do these additions now?
Other:
Syncing larva injects of all your queens. To make this method fairly simple, I sync all my queens so they inject larva at the same time.
Example: My first queen injects at 00 resulting in larva spawning at 40. My second queen pops at 10 resulting in spawn at 50. I use the second queen to sync my larva injects. Halt first queen inject until 50 so my spawns are now synced for the rest of the game.
When I can use this method perfectly, I'll attempt to move up to two timers running simultaneously (quakes players do several). However, the sync method I currently utilize is already really close to perfect inject potential.
Help I missed an inject with one of my queens and I didn't notice until 20 seconds into the cycle, what do I do? Creep tumor or eat the 20 sync period to get your injects back in order. Once you can keep 2 timers going in your head, this won't be a problem. Until then, I feel creep tumor is the correct choice.
Small note- You can actually plan battles around larva inject cycles.
Example: You set up a roach bane attack on the terran 3rd base. Current time is 53. Next spawn round at 00. Halt the attack for those few seconds. Inject at 00 then attack. Don't worry about injects while your battle is raging. Once the battle winds down, check the timer again or if you really feel like you are up to it (ideal once you start practicing the method more), check while the battle is still going on.
I think that is all for now. Hopefully this will help someones game as much as it did mine!
Oh ya put this as discussion because I want to get everyone's first thoughts. Try it once or twice and see how it goes. Took me only 4 or 5 games for it to completely inspire me.
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I do this! it's really easy just ad 40 in game seconds to your clock and that's when you need to inject next example: ingame time - inject @ 8:34 then next inject will be @ 9:14
inject @ 13:20 next inject will be @ 14:00 then next will be @14:40 and so on...
sometimes I miss the time exactly but it's just in my subconscious to feel a need to inject right around the time the previous inject pops
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It took me 2 weeks of playing Zerg to work the timings for larvae injects naturally into my play. I think most high level players are the same. This would work well for people who struggle to do this, but it seems to me to require a hell of a lot of effort and thought to do something which should be an instinctive, automatic part of your play.
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Was about to say this reminds me of Quake item timing before I started reading 
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Whatever works for you I guess, by the end you get used to the timmings and won´t need the clock that much anyways.
Sounds like a good plan
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Very interesting idea to use the ingame clock. With me personally, and many other Zergs, we just naturally have gotten used to the timings, and they are pretty much spot-on, except for when we are microing mid or late-game armies, where our APM and attention has to be spent somewhere else. But I can definitely see how this would help somebody who has troubles adjusting to timings.
In the end of the day, I feel that internal brain clocks are best for timing, since they require the least amount of visual distractions.
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I do this for a LOT of things ... old quake habit of timing things out I guess 
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good idea
i'm thinking how this could be used by Protoss and terrans players
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On September 25 2011 11:47 NasKe_ wrote:
good idea
i'm thinking how this could be used by Protoss and terrans players
It actually could be the exact same thing. Just make a custom game and throw down a Mule at any :00 mark. Check when you get 50 energy again, and then that's your timing. The exact same thing applies with Warp gates IF you warp in the same types of units.
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On September 25 2011 11:21 naggerNZ wrote:
It took me 2 weeks of playing Zerg to work the timings for larvae injects naturally into my play. I think most high level players are the same. This would work well for people who struggle to do this, but it seems to me to require a hell of a lot of effort and thought to do something which should be an instinctive, automatic part of your play.
2 weeks? I've seen progamer zergs that have been playing seen beta that don't have the inject timings down. General timing and exact timing are two different things. A random masters zerg on any server will have the general timing for larva inject down. No progamer I've ever seen has the exact timing. I'm hoping that gap closes
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I like it. I have a saying already in my head: "If you inject at 2 or more subtract 2. If you inject under 2, add 4" when speaking about when to next inject ;P
I'll try it out in practice
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I just put a single hatch on a hotkey and tap so I can see the bar. Once its full time to inject.
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Good method, but not the best.
With all queens hotkeyed on 4, all you have to do is keep tapping your "4" button to see if there's energy (either check the larvae inject icon with your peripheral vision, or look at the energy, probably the first first, then do the latter so you can see how much longer you have to wait, or just press 4 again to go to the queen to see the hatch's progress bar instead of looking down at the small energy numbers), and if there's enough energy, continue on to inject (backspace method).
the timer strategy may be easier for some, but it requires unnecessary work
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On September 25 2011 12:11 kNyTTyM wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 11:21 naggerNZ wrote:
It took me 2 weeks of playing Zerg to work the timings for larvae injects naturally into my play. I think most high level players are the same. This would work well for people who struggle to do this, but it seems to me to require a hell of a lot of effort and thought to do something which should be an instinctive, automatic part of your play. 2 weeks? I've seen progamer zergs that have been playing seen beta that don't have the inject timings down. General timing and exact timing are two different things. A random masters zerg on any server will have the general timing for larva inject down. No progamer I've ever seen has the exact timing. I'm hoping that gap closes
Nonsense. I've never seen a single pro-gamer that needed to use a method like this to keep their hatcheries constantly injected. It's Zerg 101. Even with this method it's impossible to keep your hatcheries injected absolutely 100% of the time, as the only times my hatcheries aren't injected is when things of higher priority are happening, in which case it's intentional.
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alternatively, i have taken to watching all the random things that popup on the left side of the screen. Units, larva, upgrades, etc. It's a lot more visible than the clock, and you don't have to keep track of anything. In turn it helps with rallies and other things as well.
Not to discredit your method, but i feel like there are better ways.
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On September 27 2011 15:59 naggerNZ wrote:Show nested quote +On September 25 2011 12:11 kNyTTyM wrote:On September 25 2011 11:21 naggerNZ wrote:
It took me 2 weeks of playing Zerg to work the timings for larvae injects naturally into my play. I think most high level players are the same. This would work well for people who struggle to do this, but it seems to me to require a hell of a lot of effort and thought to do something which should be an instinctive, automatic part of your play. 2 weeks? I've seen progamer zergs that have been playing seen beta that don't have the inject timings down. General timing and exact timing are two different things. A random masters zerg on any server will have the general timing for larva inject down. No progamer I've ever seen has the exact timing. I'm hoping that gap closes Nonsense. I've never seen a single pro-gamer that needed to use a method like this to keep their hatcheries constantly injected. It's Zerg 101. Even with this method it's impossible to keep your hatcheries injected absolutely 100% of the time, as the only times my hatcheries aren't injected is when things of higher priority are happening, in which case it's intentional.
Oh come one, most of zergs are pretty bad at injecting. We are not talking here about first 5minutes in to the game - everyone can inject in that time. But later even pros are forgetting injects.
And your 2 weeks for learning timings is complete nonsense..
On topic, I couldn't use this method because when a lot of stuff would be happening I would just forget looking at clock :D But I may give it a shot.
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I have been slowly incorporating clock timings into my play like you do in Quake live. It is just so satisfying to have the timing down on Mega and Red Armor and to be there right as it spawns.
Especially in my ZvP play, where you can add roughly 30 seconds to the last warp in where the warp gates are able to warp in again. This gives you an estimate about how much time you have to snipe the proxy pylon.
And in ZvT when you do a gas steal, you can see from the amount of marines that are coming out if the Terran is building add ons and what add ons they are making simply from the timing of the second marine coming out. If it is slightly delayed, he has built a tech lab. If it is really long its probably a reactor ( which can indicate a reactor hellion play ).
Although in regular Zerg play, I just rely on my internal cycle to hit my injects. Timings are great, but it is really hard to have multiple timings in your head ( I had trouble having Mega, red and one yellow armor in my mind after the first spawn , let alone when someone got it before me ) at the same time. I would say using this as a tool to get your internal timings is great, and you learn to look at the clock at the same time which is an additional information resource that didn't exist in SC1 but can be so important and easily overlooked.
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EPT
