On April 28 2012 15:00 tuestresfat wrote:
Sure, not everyone does it, but I thought this was common sense O____o why the need to make a guide on it.

because not everyone does it

tuestresfat

2555 Posts

April 28 2012 06:04 GMT

#22

On April 28 2012 15:02 Alejandrisha wrote:

Show nested quote +

because not everyone does it

so it was to emphasize common knowledge? fair enough.

monk

United States8476 Posts

April 28 2012 06:14 GMT

#23

Players who come from a wc3 background usually don't do this, because location keys didn't exist. The keys were used for heroes.

Stopher

United States38 Posts

April 28 2012 06:34 GMT

#24

I changed Base Camera Hotkey to middle mouse button, I think it fits a similar role, but it's confusing when you're on 4-5 bases.

Rimak

Denmark434 Posts

April 28 2012 08:22 GMT

#25

Thanks Alejandrisha just tried the thing with turning off mouse scroll.
Feels kinda clumsy, but i do see the possibilities you are talking about.
Thanks again.

Andreas

Norway214 Posts

April 28 2012 08:36 GMT

#26

Another advantage to practicing camera hotkeys is it'll force you to move your hand more if you're used to having it in that stationary position near the left side. This in turn may make it easier for you to use more control groups.

Mesha

Bosnia-Herzegovina439 Posts

April 28 2012 09:07 GMT

#27

On April 28 2012 11:44 Alejandrisha wrote:
Disable edge-scrolling in the options if you have to.

This is what i have to do. Because i am dumb. :D

I have my main, natural and third on camera hotkeys, for quite some time now. But somehow, i really can't force myself to use them. I realized everything you wrote even before this guide, and somehow i am still scrolling like a complete noob. The funny thing is i realize in game how much it wears me down to scroll and still do it. But it's all over from now on!
Even if i lose every single game because im not used to using them i will force myself that i use camera hotkeys for everything i need to do in my MAIN, NATURAL, and THIRD ... when i get used to it i will add maybe forth location that is important, hehe.
Nice unusual guide. Very, very important skill to have - yet, i don't think it's used and spread around as much as it should be.

edit: I forgot to thank you, Alejandrisha. ^_^
edit: played one game vs easyAI with scroll disabled. It's soooooo much more effecient and the warm up of the left hand felt really good. I will really enjoy practicing this in my games. I just love the sim city build up inside the screen! I really can't explain to myself why didn't i use this before even though i knew about it. o_O

lahara

Germany140 Posts

April 28 2012 09:19 GMT

#28

thanks for the post. started using them now. rly nice to cover your bases especially against multipronged drops and such

Salivanth

Australia1071 Posts

April 28 2012 12:09 GMT

#29

Because "Ctrl + F3" and "Ctrl + F4" was just SUPER hard for me to do, I came up with an alternative hotkey setup I think will work very well: F1-F4 for selecting locations, F5-F8 for keybinding locations. Only one key!

Surili

United Kingdom1141 Posts

April 28 2012 12:22 GMT

#30

On April 28 2012 12:01 Crushgroove wrote:
Some other things to consider:

Protoss: Camera save your proxy pylons... don't give it a control group. That way, you can hit 'w', 'camera save key', spam units.

I have my 4th mouse button hotkeyed which at the start i use for my natural, and then for the rest of the game (ie exactly when the nexus finishes) i hotkey it to wherever my proxy pylon/ main warp prism is. Other than that i use the tab through bases button, which i rebound to f2, to chrono nexi and everything else around them.

Poopi

France12904 Posts

April 28 2012 12:40 GMT

#31

It completely improved my game once I started to use these, too bad I only use them with my mouse buttons, too hard to reach F& otherwise

. That's still 2 camera hotkeys.

Teoita

Italy12246 Posts

April 28 2012 12:51 GMT

#32

On April 28 2012 15:14 NrGmonk wrote:
Players who come from a wc3 background usually don't do this, because location keys didn't exist. The keys were used for heroes.

Grubby does it though; you can see on his stream he sets his hotkeys for his main, nat and third at the start of the game on the f buttons.

Gladiator6

Sweden7024 Posts

April 28 2012 12:54 GMT

#33

I see many players that do this in the beginning of the game, but as the game goes on they forget about it completely. I tried this for like a few months a year ago or so, but it didn't really improve anything for me, considering that I could do the same but with hotkeys instead for proxy pylons and such.

SwirlQ

United States148 Posts

April 28 2012 12:58 GMT

#34

What do you guys think would be more optimal for zerg?

Putting all hatches on 1 hotkey, then using cam hotkeys for each individual base and f1 for rally.
Pros: This method I think you save time on injecting, you only need to press the hatchery hotkey once and more hotkey keys available.
Cons: You lose the ability to quickly and efficiently change individual rallies for a base and going to inject a base you might have to stretch to f5-f8 often.

OR

Putting each hatch that your gonna be injecting on its own hotkey, then spreading camera hotkeys throughout the map.
Pros: Quicker army movements, efficient control of rallies and drg uses this method so its a obvious plus.
Cons: Injecting is maybe 1 or 2 sec slower( on high base count ) then above method, and when making units you have to cycle through approximately 4 diffrent hotkeys.

Kambing

United States1176 Posts

April 28 2012 13:11 GMT

#35

On April 28 2012 13:56 Cycle wrote:
I've been advocating this for months and months

I just recently put a twist on this though, and here's my current screen key setup:
F1 main
F2 natural
F3 third
F4 fourth
F5 fifth
F6 sixth
F7 seventh
space rally point

Since I wasn't using the space bar for "most recent action", I changed control+space to set a new screen location, and space bar jumps to it.

Echoing this. Bases are one thing, but having a camera key dedicated to your rally point/proxy pylon and on an easily reachable key like space helps your macro and responsiveness to surprise drops greatly.

(And I strongly recommend that zerg do in addition to rallying non-OL/worker eggs as they are created. Both styles have their place in a game.)

Madera

Sweden2672 Posts

April 28 2012 13:21 GMT

#36

Screen hotkeys are amazing. Once I got used to them a while back my play improved a ton. It makes everything from maynarding workers to dealing with harass so much easier.

I use F2 for my main, F3 for my nat and F4 for my third. When I place my building down I go Ctrl + F to center it and then Ctrl + F2-4 to save the location. For those of you saying the F-keys are hard to hit, try resting your palm on the Ctrl key and hit the F-keys with your fingers. Works for me at least.

Nhed

France14 Posts

April 28 2012 13:37 GMT

#37

Someone else use them to control xel naga tower?

Fenneth

Australia354 Posts

April 28 2012 13:54 GMT

#38

Yeah they're really useful, I switched recently and there's absolutely no reason to go back.

On a vaguely related note, does anyone use middle mouse button drag-scrolling?

Kambing

United States1176 Posts

April 28 2012 14:01 GMT

#39

On April 28 2012 22:54 Fenneth wrote:
Yeah they're really useful, I switched recently and there's absolutely no reason to go back.

On a vaguely related note, does anyone use middle mouse button drag-scrolling?

I do both out of habit from casting/obsing games. But it doesn't offer any significant benefits over drag-scrolling.

CakeSauc3

United States1437 Posts

April 28 2012 14:52 GMT

#40

On April 28 2012 21:58 SwirlQ wrote:
What do you guys think would be more optimal for zerg?

Putting all hatches on 1 hotkey, then using cam hotkeys for each individual base and f1 for rally.
Pros: This method I think you save time on injecting, you only need to press the hatchery hotkey once and more hotkey keys available.
Cons: You lose the ability to quickly and efficiently change individual rallies for a base and going to inject a base you might have to stretch to f5-f8 often.

OR

Putting each hatch that your gonna be injecting on its own hotkey, then spreading camera hotkeys throughout the map.
Pros: Quicker army movements, efficient control of rallies and drg uses this method so its a obvious plus.
Cons: Injecting is maybe 1 or 2 sec slower( on high base count ) then above method, and when making units you have to cycle through approximately 4 diffrent hotkeys.

When I play Zerg now in SC2, I prefer to put all my hatchers on hotkey 4, and then my queens from 5-8, just so I can go through and inject super fast.

I then use the camera positions for my main, nat and third (I could add more for additional bases, but it's not a habit as of yet) and also for rally points and the enemy's natural (wherever the point of most conflict will be so I can be quick to do runby's and stuff).