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Hi TL, I'm plat/diam terran playing occasionally since season 1. I've been focusing on my macro recently and I am quite satisfied with it for now. Next things I want to improve are army control and multitasking (I'm capable of losing 70 supply lead regularly). What's holding me back here I think is hand positioning on keyboard. I mispress keys frequently (build armory instead of starport, TWICE in a row) and sometimes have to look at keyboard to find out where my fingers are. the latter is especially embarassing considering the purpose of hotkeys is to do things WITHOUT looking... there are other consequences of bad hand coordination too, e.g. using only 3 control groups and not using camera hotkeys, I tried them but since I'm not so sure of hitting distant keys I gave up. I know the accuracy will come with practice but I definetely want to practice good habits. I want to discuss here the best hand positioning possible for standard hotkey setup (only camera hotkeys remapped), i.e. which fingers hit specific keys.
I watched some pros hands and there are extremes like WhiteRa on one side, using only index and middle fingers, and losira, using all fingers so fast you cannot see them. What surprises me is that many pros use pinky only for Ctrl/Shift, which seems like waste for me.
Pros:
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I made this layout based on touch typing with slight changes:
+ Show Spoiler +![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/H4JKE.png) Some notes: - finger positions on first two rows are slightly shifted ( original) - circled keys are default positions of fingers - keys without action or with action irrelevant for playing are cleared
So here are my questions:
Is hand positioning important at all?
+ Show Spoiler +Poll: Is hand positioning important at allNo, just play and it will come! (15) 68% Yes, your layout seems good (with small improvements). (6) 27% Yes, your layout is completely bad. (1) 5% Yes, your layout needs shift to the left (1QAZ for ring finger). (0) 0% 22 total votes Your vote: Is hand positioning important at all (Vote): No, just play and it will come!
(Vote): Yes, your layout seems good (with small improvements).
(Vote): Yes, your layout needs shift to the left (1QAZ for ring finger).
(Vote): Yes, your layout is completely bad.
What keys should I remap?
+ Show Spoiler +Poll: What keys should I remap?only camera hotkeys (6) 35% none (5) 29% everything, default layout sucks! (4) 24% camera + keys without action (~, Q, Caps, Z, ...) (2) 12% 17 total votes Your vote: What keys should I remap? (Vote): none
(Vote): only camera hotkeys
(Vote): camera + keys without action (~, Q, Caps, Z, ...)
(Vote): everything, default layout sucks!
List of terran hotkeys:
+ Show Spoiler +
Interface Hotkeys
F10 = Menu
F11 = Chat
F12 = Help
ALT + G = Map pinger
ALT + T = Show/hide minimap terrain
ALT + F = Alliance options
CTRL + ALT + F = Show FPS
PAGE UP / PAGE DOWN = Adjust view
MOUSE WHEEL = Adjust view height
SHIFT + [any command] = Create a series of commands
SPACE = View last warning area
BACKSPACE = View base
ALT = Show / hide health points bar
Menu Hotkeys
O = Game options
P = Pause
E = Exit game
G = Resume
Q = Quit
C = Cancel
Unit Control Hotkeys
F1 = Select spare SCV / Probe / Drone
CTRL + RIGHT CLICK = Attack while moving (units must be selected)
CTRL + [number] = Group units
M = Move
S = Stop
H = Hold
P = Patrol
A = Move and attack
G = Gather resource
C = Return resource
B = Build basic construction
V = Build advanced construction
O = Unload unit
D = Unload all units to a point
Replay and Observer Mode Hotkeys
A = Compare total mineral, gas and population cost of fightable units
D = Compare units that are being produced, constructions that are being built and technologies that are being researched
I = Compare the amount of mineral and gas gathered within one minute and the amount of workers
L = Compare lost units and their costs
M = Compare APM
R = Compare current mineral, gas and population
S = Compare the total amount of resources that are spent on technologies and units
U = Compare all units
N = Close compare window
E = Show visions of all players
F1-F8 = toggle views among player 1 to player 8
C = Show POV of current player
H = Show / hide HP bar
+/- = Increase / decrease playing speed
P = Pause / resume replay
Terran Buildings Hotkeys
C = Command Center
B = Orbital Command
S = Supply Depot
R = Refinery
B = Barrack = B -> X = Tech lab and C = Reactor
E = Engineering Bay
U = Bunker
T = Turret
N = Sensory Tower
G = Ghost Academy
F = Factory -> X = Tech Lab and C = Reactor
A = Armory
S = Starport
C = Fusion Core
Terran Units Hotkeys
A = Marine
D = Maurder
R = Reaper
G= Ghost
E = Hellion
S = Siege Tank
T = Thor
V = Viking
D = Medivac
R = Raven
E = Banshee
B = Battle Cruiser
Terran Technology (Upgrade) Hotkeys
W = Weapons Upgrade
A = Armor Upgrade
H = Auto Tracking
N = Neosteel Frame
W = Yomato Canon
B = BC Energy
E = Mule
If there is already thread for this topic that I overlooked then pls ignore this post 
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I moved my group hotkeys 6-0 to t,g,y,h,n
use Q, Z and Y instead of O,P and U (even M is a bit of a reach imo)
For some tips on changing your hotkeys to be much closer/grouped try using GRID for a little while (i changed all my upgrades and most of my unit production to match grid)
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It might not be a bad idea to move some of your hotkeys like 7, 8, 9, and 0, to `, Capslock, z, y, and q. It really can't hurt you at all because of the shorter reach. I personally like having a many of my hotkeys on the left side of the keyboard, because it increases accuracy when I don't really have to lift my hand too much.
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I think Max's videos shows good a hotkey setup, its almost similar to what i use. i dont lift my hand any time during the game.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=317561
As far as hand placement is concerned - you've set it, every player uses what naturally comes to him. for me i think it would be extremely difficult to change that - if you think about it, Mouse and keyboard accuracy are both muscle memories. you've probably played a few hundreds of hours until today if you started in season 1, thats a lot of time, i think it would be really difficult to change that but again, its personal, maybe its just me and you'll find it easy.
My bottom line though is - i dont think that you're addressing your problem correctly. initially you said that what leads you change your hand placement is the fact that you are miss clicking. i dont think changing your placement on the keyboard will improve that. there are multiple reasons why this might be happening, the most common one is nerves, stress during game and the need to multitask with high APM. all issues can be worked on without changing your hand placement and improving those will also improve your general gameplay and you're ability to act under pressure. seems worth it to me.
Hope this helps,
hf
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Your reflexion is good, it should make you progress.
I'm not gonna say anything about the hands setup, but as for the " I miss key and need to look where they are" , the only way to really improve that is a lot of typing. ( without looking at the keyboard )
A lot of people still type with one fingers by hands while looking at the keyboard and it's a pretty bad habbits for learning difficults hotkeys in a video ames because you have less awarness of where each key are.
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What I do is that I rebind 8, 9 and 0 to the two extra buttons o my mouse and the middlemouse button. That way I only need to use those three plus 1-5 on the keyboard. Oh and I use the grid layout also, so my hand is always centered by WASD.
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My control groups are 1 2 3 4 5 6 F2 F3 F4 ~, that way my hands don't have to move over
and my base camera is space so i can inject with it.
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As above. Missing keys isn't because of your setup. It's because you haven't adjusted.
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you need to make more use of your thumb
its better to use keys that are lower like 'b' with your thumb
lastshadow uses bw set up keys and he uses his thumb to make marines.
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No idea how you can use b with your thumb lol. I keep pressing the spacebar when I try to press b.
@OP Do you really press both 1 and a with your pinky when you attack move with your army? First of all thats very slow because you have to press 2 different keys with the same finger.. thats like using your index for both 5 and s while producing scvs. And 2nd it feels very uncomfortable when I try to do that. I personally use my middle finger for 1 and my ring finger for a although I prefer to have my army on 2, because my hotkeys are based in the middle of the keyboard and 1 is further away from my normal handposition.
Overall I like your hand positioning, except that you use your pinky so much. In my opinion it is faster to use the ring finger for everything you use your pinky for except ctrl and shift. But if you're comfortable with using your pinky so much you can of course do it. There are many different pro players who have weird habits like HuK using his thumb to press ctrl.
From watching tons videos of progamers playing I liked the way SaSe uses his keyboard the most. I use his controlgroup setup and I really like it, because in my opinion it uses the full potential of the left hand and you don't have to make weird hand movements using this setup. Also I find it very important to being able to switch fast between your nexus/gates or CC/rax with 2 different fingers for fast and accurate macro.
here are 2 videos of SaSe playing
I use 1-2 for army, 3 for gates, 4 for robo, 5 for nexus and 6 for forge. My normal position while playing is having my index on 5 and my middle finger on 3, so I can keep switching between 5 and 3 very easy and fast to constantly produce workers and to not miss any warpin round. I watched a lot of replays and checked the controlgroups of many different progamers and I found these to be the best.
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I don't personally do this, but I know people who do this trick and swear by it:
Use the corner of your hand, underneath your pinky knuckle, for pressing ctrl ( 5th metacarpo-phalangeal joint to be precise).
I don't think it's worth switching to this if you like what you do, but if you're going to change everything up anyway, why not. You can also then add a bunch of ctrl+letter hotkeys, sine you can access them without moving your hand like, at all.
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On March 26 2012 22:53 Noocta wrote:
...the only way to really improve that is a lot of typing. ( without looking at the keyboard )
A lot of people still type with one fingers by hands while looking at the keyboard and it's a pretty bad habbits for learning difficults hotkeys in a video ames because you have less awarness of where each key are.
I disagree somewhat. When typing, your hand positon on keyboard is very different from when you're playing.
In my opinion improving accuracy with hotkeys is though mere repetition i.e. practice. Not a particularly fancy answer, no tricks involved, but it works
You'll make adjustments as you practice. Depending on what race you play, you'll notice that specific keystroke sequences happen more often than others. You want to identify these and then adjust the hotkeys so that you can strike them quickly and accurately.
A commonplace example of this is relocating of your camera hotkeys to F1 through F8.
Personally, I started with grid and then made adjustments from there while playing YABOT maps just macroing up and playing around with the army (spamming forcefields and such).
Also, if you have a shitty keyboard, invest in something more decent. I recommend a Steelseries 6gv2. It makes a world of difference.
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I have question related to this.
For those who have keyboards with G# keys (those to the left of capslock). Is it any good to use those?
I know a friend of mine who loves them, but to me it's feels really weird to bend my wrist that far to the left...
Any experience with this?
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I tend to keep my hand covering the left side of the keyboard. I rest my index finger on 5 (rax), my middle finger on 3 (2-3-4 for army) and ring finger on 1 (CC's). I also rest my thumb on spacebar to jump to notification and my index finger on ctrl. I keep rax on 5, facts on 6 and starports on 7 so for production I run from my default position on index finger to the following two keys the right. I find that this covers me pretty well for most production. Just have problems with some hotkeys further up the right side of the keyboard (ship plating upgrade etc.) I have also remapped camera hotkeys to F2-F5 to make that closer to where I spend most of my time.
If I ever find my hand wandering out of position, I use the ridge place marker on the F key and then move my hand back up two rows to reset myself.
I think I have pretty good touch typing so it is second nature to go for the correct key location most of the time, although sometimes end up with random reapers turning up in my late game bio army (still can't work out how I manage that one...)
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Hey guys, I'm a Terran player and I have been messing around with my hand positioning. Today I found out my keyboard has a Switch Lock function which allows me to swap the Caps Lock and Ctrl. I'm thinking of trying this out as I think it will allow me to position my hand higher up on the keyboard allowing for better reach to F1 to F4 and also to 7 and 8. Has anyone done this? What are your thoughts on it?
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Great diagram, i think this is definitely something that needs to be explored more if sc2 is to become a more legitamized sport. Maybe in a few years it will be figured out what is the best and most efficient. Just look at any other sport, there are only a couple ways to hold a racket, hold a football, any other way is simply wrong.
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I just use grid and have pinky on the control, index on t or 6 (CC) and thumb I use only for spacebar. I can reach 7 easily enough and that's Ebays, 8 is Armory, 0 is all SCV's and 9 is whatever I might need. I also have a number of numeric hotkeys on the extra mouse buttons but I don't use them much because the mouse (Razer Copperhead) is designed such I find pressing the buttons completely impossible.
I wouldn't start switching to any other positioning at this point, it already took ages to learn this keyboard since the last one was one of these banana-shaped things, and now I find I have difficulty playing lol (yes, lol, that 50% speed game), because nothing important is on t, shift or ctrl, and the numeric hotkeys aren't so important.
Anyway. Getting a new keyboard with much smaller and closely-crammed keys was big and it works for me great since I have long skeleton fingers. Don't have much trouble with hotkeys these days.
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EPT
