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On November 16 2011 04:52 Kaitlin wrote:Show nested quote +On November 16 2011 04:36 MasterReY wrote:
Basically you say you hotkey pylons and the camera jumps to the closest hotkeyed pylon with a double tap.
Isnt that basic knowledge?
Should work with every other building aswell... I hope it's not basic knowledge, because it's not how it works.
How is that not how it works? As far as I know, MasterReY's description is accurate.
This is a cool idea, but I have to say that I agree with Cecil on this one. The location keys are better suited to this task. Also, the UI offers more location hotkeys than you really need, but the limit of 10 group keys is actually limiting for me. I already use all of them, and I have several keys that have to be repurposed depending on what I need more, so that I lose my construction Probe or my Stargate key when I start harassing, for example, because every other key is already used up.
Still, I wouldn't be surprised if there are players who have a hotkey free and aren't comfortable using the F-keys for whatever reason, and I don't see why this couldn't be a valid alternative for them. It's absolutely better than mouse-scrolling, and even if I don't find it ideal, I think it's cool that you thought of it and took the time to share the idea with the forum.
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On November 16 2011 04:01 Kaitlin wrote:
When I read this, I believed your assumption about #1 was incorrect, so I tested. Sure enough, it is wrong. It doesn't go to the closest. It goes to the biggest concentration of like buildings. Specifically, I hotkeyed one pylon on one end of the map and two more pylons on the exact opposite side of the map to the same control group. I centered the camera over the solo pylon, and then I double-tapped the control group. The camera popped to the two pylons on the opposite end of the map. They are clearly not the 'closest'. The behavior was exhibited repeatedly without exception.
#2. It doesn't matter whether you add the building or the unit to the control group first. The game apparently looks at the different unit / building types in a given control group, and will center on the type of unit / building with the most in that 'subgroup'. Within a subgroup, it determines the greatest number in close proximity and centers on them. Within that 'closest proximity', it may very well center on the oldest member of the control group.
It's important to note that buildings are not always focused on. If you have 2 buildings and 3 units in that control group, it's going to the units, not the buildings, assuming they are like-units. For example, I put 2 pylons and 3 probes in a control group, and the camera went to the probes in every case.
#4. It's left mouse clicking, not right. Also, it's important to note that there is a hotkey for that feature, which I use frequently for a number of things. It's 'Center on Selection' and it's default is Ctrl + F. Among other great uses, I use it to queue up 'drops on the move' in the following way. Activate my dropship, put the camera on where I want to drop. I actually have a camera location set for this, but it's not crucial. Then, use the minimap to queue up the path up to where I want the drop to occur, then my last right click (move command) and where I want the drop to begin. I hold shift + my drop hotkey, then 'Center on Selection' to immediately zip back to my dropship, where I simply click on it (in the middle of the screen), and the drop is now queued. Without usage of the 'Center on Selection', I would have to either try to click the minimap and find the dropship, or double tap the dropship, which would be ok if it's by itself in a control group, but then I'd need to do the shift + drop command at that point, which is less efficient, IMO.
I'll edit in with more testing of other 'assumptions'.
Thank you for taking the time to actually read the details of the thread and go on starcraft to actually test it. This has been rare among the people who made comments or tried to dismiss the style as ineffective.
I dont have access to a game client in the next few hours but i'll get back to testing as soon as i can. However as far as my testing has gone, it seems like i've achieved my desired results but with the wrong mechanical logic for it.
It appears this technique has trouble with directly adjacent pylons (relevant for 4gate play) and i'm not sure about the exact proximity at which the camera will focus on building clumps. In testing i've had 4-5 pylons in the main, and 2 pylons out as proxies and i've been able to center on the proxies consistently without fail.
In my testing of assumption 2 i know from experience that if you hotkey the queen before the hatchery and try to use centered hatch inject, it will center on the queen and not the hatchery. I will explore this again though. The implications to the actual technique however should be minimal.
As for assumption 4 it must be my mistake then. I often dont think slowly about what i press when using the interface. I will update the thread with the corrected technique.
Thank you once again for actually making an effort to study it before posting.
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camera hot keys are way better. I've been using one of mine exclusively for warp-ins and it is very efficient
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Cool Idea, I really like the ideas people are coming up with using the spare control groups available because as it stands now, pros really don't use all of the control groups to the best of their ability and often leave some or at times many control groups unused. We all know progamers have the capability of using all 10 control groups as it is demonstrated again and again in broodwar, I believe this incorporation is simply a step in the right direction.
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On November 16 2011 04:01 Kaitlin wrote:
When I read this, I believed your assumption about #1 was incorrect, so I tested. Sure enough, it is wrong. It doesn't go to the closest. It goes to the biggest concentration of like buildings. Specifically, I hotkeyed one pylon on one end of the map and two more pylons on the exact opposite side of the map to the same control group. I centered the camera over the solo pylon, and then I double-tapped the control group. The camera popped to the two pylons on the opposite end of the map. They are clearly not the 'closest'. The behavior was exhibited repeatedly without exception.
#2. It doesn't matter whether you add the building or the unit to the control group first. The game apparently looks at the different unit / building types in a given control group, and will center on the type of unit / building with the most in that 'subgroup'. Within a subgroup, it determines the greatest number in close proximity and centers on them. Within that 'closest proximity', it may very well center on the oldest member of the control group.
It's important to note that buildings are not always focused on. If you have 2 buildings and 3 units in that control group, it's going to the units, not the buildings, assuming they are like-units. For example, I put 2 pylons and 3 probes in a control group, and the camera went to the probes in every case.
I'll edit in with more testing of other 'assumptions'.
I tested it ingame again.
This 'cetner on most pylons' mechanic only occurs when the buildings are adjacent to the point of touching each other. If there is even one tile between the two buildings, it will not focus on those buildings as the center point.
I also tried multiple units + single building selected. As long as the units are not clumped and touching each other, it will always center on the building. This includes having the multiple units within the same camera screen of each other.
I tested this repeatedly and the observation right now is that your claim my assumption is incorrect only applies whenever the units or buildings are touching each other.
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Why does everyone want to grade this MECHANIC.
It isn't good or bad, it is. It seems like something an intelligent player could use to speed up their play significantly. However, if you don't use it, you're probably not going to notice a significant disadvantage.
Thanks OP, I'll definitely work on incorporating this into my play.
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This mechanic seems interesting, and at least some player may actually prefer this to camera hotkeys. However, I have tried it and I can confirm that hotkeying clustered pylons gives strange resulst.. and it's not only clustered pylons.. it happens also to pylons not touching each other but being part of a cluster of buildings.. I'm even coming to think that i happens when two pylon are just NEAR each other.
I've however noticed that pylon clusters follow the same rule among them, they just have higher priority compared to lonely pylons: when you double click the group and there are multiple pylon clusters, you get the screen on the closer pylon cluster.
The mechanic itself would be interesting, but unless there is a way to avoid this problem, it seems a bit too much unreliable.. :-/ ..seems like the only way is watch out and avoid binding pylons which are close to each other..
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EPT
