EPT[G] Terran Mechanics/Improvement Guide - Page 5
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gfever
United States180 Posts
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ShaneFeit
92 Posts
I just got into GM for the first time this season, but I still feel that my horrible mechanics is holding me back. I have been spending weeks trying to improve my APM by spamming vs easy AI and practicing my macro cycle. But once I get into a real game I go back to my slow playing habits, since spamming causes me to be inaccurate, forget to look at minimap, missclicks etc. Do you have any suggestions on how I can improve my raw speed in real games? I also want to focus on optimizing SCV base saturation, which I have basically ignored up until now. Do you have a solid example of how you manage this in a game? How often do you check the saturation and do you have any good benchmarks for when to start cutting? | ||
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gfever
United States180 Posts
Playing the game more will increase speed, but there are some things that can help spend your time wisely. For more advanced keyboard usage, theirs a few things you want to keep in mind. If you lift your fingers high after pressing keys and don't have your fingers always on the keys that isn't optimized. When playing the piano or violin for instance, it was a technique to learn to have your fingers positioned so you are always ready to hit fast strokes of key combos quickly and efficently. Same thing can be applied to the keyboard. Keyboards are like 20 years old so I don't think we have learned the best way to play our games efficently compared to 500 years of the piano or violin but hope you get my drift. I've listed all that I know that could help players in my guide or atleast what helped me improve my speed. Only way to monitor scv saturation is using your location keys a lot and boxing your mineral line often. You need to create a habit of this inorder to optimize your macro. In HOTS there will be a number to monitor your line so its a toss up if you want to "waste" your time on learning this. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10382 Posts
On June 25 2012 20:54 gfever wrote: Probraly the biggest problem is that people want to play to win, which is why you go back to what you know is comfortable for you but at the same time you know its inefficent. How I go over that hurdle is pure forcefulness. You have to let the game go. One thing that I did was get a new account and break my game on that account so that I wasn't worried about losses. Once that factor is out of the way you can focus on improvement and not your winnings. Playing the game more will increase speed, but there are some things that can help spend your time wisely. For more advanced keyboard usage, theirs a few things you want to keep in mind. If you lift your fingers high after pressing keys and don't have your fingers always on the keys that isn't optimized. When playing the piano or violin for instance, it was a technique to learn to have your fingers positioned so you are always ready to hit fast strokes of key combos quickly and efficently. Same thing can be applied to the keyboard. Keyboards are like 20 years old so I don't think we have learned the best way to play our games efficently compared to 500 years of the piano or violin but hope you get my drift. I've listed all that I know that could help players in my guide or atleast what helped me improve my speed. Only way to monitor scv saturation is using your location keys a lot and boxing your mineral line often. You need to create a habit of this inorder to optimize your macro. In HOTS there will be a number to monitor your line so its a toss up if you want to "waste" your time on learning this. Just a small correction, the number will only be for observers, so players will still have to box :D http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=343490 | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10382 Posts
TvT: Around the time I get my third going, I have a looot of minerals. Even when I make a fast 4th/5th and put turrets around, my minerals are usually get back up to ~2000. I see that you don't seem to get more than 1 reactor factory. I used to get just 1 reactor factory but often times I mess up my army a bit and siege a second late or so and lose more than I needed to. Let's say though that you play perfectly -- is an army made out of 1 reactor fact and 4 tech lab facts a better composition than if you had more reactors for more hellions? If so, do you burn your money on orbitals/turrets? I find that at my level making 2-3 reactored factories makes mech a lot more forgiveable and a lot harder for marauder heavy armies to kill my army. I also have more hellions to poke around to try to kill SCVs. I realize that hellions aren't as food efficient as thors in terms of tanking so I'm assuming that's one reason why you say you should ideally have no hellions in the late game, and so making more than 1 reactor factory may be a waste. (Though, 6 supply of hellions and 6 supply of a thor is 270 HP vs 400 HP, the 3 hellions would be slightly tankier vs marauders. Are thors more important because of things like drops and AA?) Also, on big 4 player maps with all spawns possible, when do you scout? Sometimes on ladder I don't scout at all and just wait for my hellions to find out his position, since even if I do scout what he's doing I still should be able to fend almost everything off, so the scout is a wasted 100-200 min? Thanks in advance! | ||
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gfever
United States180 Posts
On 4 players maps i scout after rax. If you gas after rax and scout with hellions it may work. I use thors for drop play, reason why i make like 6 of em. Snipe expos with their cannons. Thors to counter BCs with turrets. Thors are better for breaking tank lines vs another mecher. Hellions are more perfered if vsing a bio mecher. | ||
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Yoshi Kirishima
United States10382 Posts
On June 30 2012 07:10 gfever wrote: not scouting isn't good in competitive play, I don't care what people say or what you see. There is a reason BW pros scout all the time because at very high levels its all about mind games. Both players exceute the builds 100% and the game has been figured out to the point if you don't scout build A beats build C if not modify and so on. SC2 is't there reason why you see ppl getting away without scouting and stuff but no scouting and certain maps or if you have a certain build on a certain map is viable. But you can't ever not scout in competitve games, your opponents will know you don't and abuse that fact. On 4 players maps i scout after rax. If you gas after rax and scout with hellions it may work. I use thors for drop play, reason why i make like 6 of em. Snipe expos with their cannons. Thors to counter BCs with turrets. Thors are better for breaking tank lines vs another mecher. Hellions are more perfered if vsing a bio mecher. Happy Birthday! And thanks once again, I noticed Forgg (when opening reactor hellion) would often wait for his hellions to scout the zerg on 4 player maps, so I wasn't sure if that was something he just wanted to get away with on ladder or not, and recently on 2 player maps I've been scouting with the first marine instead of an scv, just to see if he has an expansion or not so I know if some kind of 1 base rush is coming or not. I forgot where I got that idea from, maybe day9 or something X) | ||
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Scoobasteve
United States32 Posts
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Coletrain_
Canada15 Posts
On June 30 2012 05:01 Yoshi Kirishima wrote: gfever, I have a question ^^ TvT: Around the time I get my third going, I have a looot of minerals. Even when I make a fast 4th/5th and put turrets around, my minerals are usually get back up to ~2000. I see that you don't seem to get more than 1 reactor factory. I used to get just 1 reactor factory but often times I mess up my army a bit and siege a second late or so and lose more than I needed to. Let's say though that you play perfectly -- is an army made out of 1 reactor fact and 4 tech lab facts a better composition than if you had more reactors for more hellions? If so, do you burn your money on orbitals/turrets? I find that at my level making 2-3 reactored factories makes mech a lot more forgiveable and a lot harder for marauder heavy armies to kill my army. I also have more hellions to poke around to try to kill SCVs. I realize that hellions aren't as food efficient as thors in terms of tanking so I'm assuming that's one reason why you say you should ideally have no hellions in the late game, and so making more than 1 reactor factory may be a waste. (Though, 6 supply of hellions and 6 supply of a thor is 270 HP vs 400 HP, the 3 hellions would be slightly tankier vs marauders. Are thors more important because of things like drops and AA?) Also, on big 4 player maps with all spawns possible, when do you scout? Sometimes on ladder I don't scout at all and just wait for my hellions to find out his position, since even if I do scout what he's doing I still should be able to fend almost everything off, so the scout is a wasted 100-200 min? Thanks in advance! I also end up with a shit-ton of minerals, I have been building extra barracks and going marine-tank as I feel hellions are not nearly as versatile as some extra marines with stim. | ||
HanzTryz
United States1 Post
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EpeenKingPrime
Netherlands61 Posts
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xAdra
Singapore1858 Posts
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toadahlmn
10 Posts
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vaderseven
United States2556 Posts
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monk
United States8477 Posts
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firehand101
Australia3152 Posts
And you leave games if you are offset early? I think that is a horrible method to learn. SC2 is all about adapting to change and if you are so caught up in a build that you can't work with a variety of situations, then you will disadvantage yourself every time you have an odd situation | ||
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monk
United States8477 Posts
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gfever
United States180 Posts
On September 30 2012 10:52 firehand101 wrote: goes through macro cycle in a second...wow you're quicker than most pros! And you leave games if you are offset early? I think that is a horrible method to learn. SC2 is all about adapting to change and if you are so caught up in a build that you can't work with a variety of situations, then you will disadvantage yourself every time you have an odd situation I only do this if it could've been prevented. Or usually a personal mistake on my part. | ||
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xrapture
United States1644 Posts
4. Execution time for keystrokes. You want to have the miniuim amount of strokes to do each action and the fastest way to do it. is pretty deceptive. Sure, it's optimal, just like playing on 4000 dpi with good accuracy, but it increases likelihood of carpal tunnel. | ||
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Juustokalle
Finland31 Posts
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