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I have my macro fairly under control after a lot of practice, I followed up the build order of filterstarcraft in his bronze to masters thread, thanx for that. 
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330787
So now I have an army at around 10:00 and I want to move out, and this is realy the point where I get lost.
What are some usefull tips, about hotkeys, movement, hotkeys for actions, stuff like that?
Some specific questions I have allready:
1: do I click on the minimap the first few times I want to let my army travel over the whole map?
2: where do I set the rally point of my 3rax, factory and SP? just set them to one unit?
I do this now but if this unit dies the units rally in my base again.
3: is it necessary to make more hotkey groups for ur units? for example split up marines and medivacs? or Is just one key enough for bronze league?
4: what are good tips to keep doing my macro fine while moving out?
I saved a single player at 10:15 so I can practise over and over again, so all help is welcome.
thx for ur help guys!
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On May 17 2012 17:55 rofllocktree wrote:I have my macro fairly under control after a lot of practice, I followed up the build order of filterstarcraft in his bronze to masters thread, thanx for that. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=330787So now I have an army at around 10:00 and I want to move out, and this is realy the point where I get lost. What are some usefull tips, about hotkeys, movement, hotkeys for actions, stuff like that? Some specific questions I have allready: 1: do I click on the minimap the first few times I want to let my army travel over the whole map? 2: where do I set the rally point of my 3rax, factory and SP? just set them to one unit? I do this now but if this unit dies the units rally in my base again. 3: is it necessary to make more hotkey groups for ur units? for example split up marines and medivacs? or Is just one key enough for bronze league? 4: what are good tips to keep doing my macro fine while moving out? I saved a single player at 10:15 so I can practise over and over again, so all help is welcome. thx for ur help guys!
for the rally points, it all depends on what race your playing against. If your playing vs Z and your not already ahead, dont rally your reinforcements to your army, always rally them to your natural. You dont really have to split up your army as far as hotkeys concerned although it does make seiging up your tank and stimming away alot easier (ex. 2s1t2a1a...)
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Regarding point 4, you should get the habit of "tabbing" through your production facilities. For example I have my CC's on 1, my raxes on 2, my factory on 3 and my starpoint on 4. Then I try to type 1-> 2 ->3 ->4 as often as possible and queue some units if necessary. You can do that while looking at your army. Before you move out it is good to build some extra supply depots, so you won't have to look back to your base for a while.
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When you move out you want to have a goal in mind.
Ask yourself the question: ,, What do i want to achieve with this attack?".
Answers could be:
- ,,I want to deny my opponents 3rd Base"
- ,,I want to take control over the center of the map to achieve..."
- ,,I just want to fear my opponent to not be that greedy."
- ,,..."
If you don´t have a reason for an attack, you will do wrong moves and decisions with your army which will result in a disadvantage for you or even in a loss.
For hotkeys:
Most Pro´s have 1-3 for their army hotkeys. The problem with having all units in 1 Hotkey is, that you have to tab through the different unit types to cast a abillity. To achieve faster access to those abilities you have to split your army up.
Common unit splits for Terran:
1- Marine, Marrauder, Medivac
2- Tanks (TvZ,TvT), Ghosts (TvP)
3 - Vikings or whatever
Your rallypoint:
This depends on your commitmend to your attack. If you just want to take some control you should set the rallypoint between your bases at your nat for example. If you really want to destroy a base you can set the rallypoint to that base, so that you can use your reinforcements. But Rally Points are a though question to answer. It comes with experience and depends on your goas.
Producing units:
The first step is to setup an infrastructure before you attack. If you start a fight, you don´t want to go back to your base to build supply depots or additional barracks. So build some additional supply depots before you move out with your army. And everytime between your clicks you tab thorugh your production facilities and queue up units. You can even queue up units before your attack, but keep in mind that good players are able to just have one unit in every production facility even if they are in a fight.
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One tip is if you really do want to rally your units to your army you can shift click the rally point to upto 5 of the units in your army. That way all 5 units have to die before the new units stay in base.
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Your questions have already been answered pretty well, particularly by Sianos above, but I might just add a couple of things:
I'm not sure exactly what you mean in your first question, but basically you should always be using the minimap to move units across the map. Also, in almost all cases you should have your units on attack move when they are moving across the map so that if they walk into the opponent's army they will fight back and not just keep walking to their death. So, what you should do when moving an army across the map is hit 'A' and then click on the minimap, whether you are moving them to attack or not.
As for rally points, it can be situational as to where you want things rallied. When playing against zerg, for example, it is usually best to rally to one of your bases in order to help defend counterattacks, but sometimes you might want a bigger force with your main push or you might already have enough to defend counterattacks. In that case you would want to rally troops to your main army. If you want a rally point to your main army you have a couple of options: one is to set a rally in your base, hold SHIFT, then right click on a couple of your units. This will make units go to the point you set in your base and THEN to your units. If your units die, your army will rally at the set point in your base (rather than just having no rally point). If you do this, just watch out for medivacs - they will pick up any unit they are rallied to! You will thus either have to have a seperate rally point for medivacs, just keep on dropping units out of them or use a different rally point method. Another option is to just have your rally point set near to where you expect to be engaging. With this method, your units will always come no matter which units in your army die. The only trouble is, if you retreat you will have to send your stream of units back to your base manually and make sure you remember to reset your rally point to a safe area.
For unit hotkeys, put units with different abilities on different hotkeys.
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Also, in almost all cases you should have your units on attack move when they are moving across the map so that if they walk into the opponent's army they will fight back and not just keep walking to their death. So, what you should do when moving an army across the map is hit 'A' and then click on the minimap, whether you are moving them to attack or not.
omg this can save me almost 50% of my game is think :D
Is this the same when i try to attack zerglings, i always missclick them and then my marines start to walk. so if i A-click (missclick or not) my marines will always attack?
and thanx for the second hint, seems like i always keep my troops together then.
what happens a lot is if my attack fails then there are still running marines all over the map and its almost impossible to get them all back.
I think the rally point somewhere close to my attack target seems best for now
thx for ur help guys
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A-moving is one of the most fundamental things you need to get into the habit of doing. If you're going to look away from your units at any time, always A-move them so they attack stuff (actually you should usually A-move them even if you ARE looking at them, that will solve your problem with clicking on zerglings)! Look in the 'command card' in the bottom right of the screen if you want to see other commands you can use to help control your units - hold position, patrol, stop etc..
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I suggest that you don't actually worry about having 3 hotkeys for your army. Two is really enough; ground and air. You can tab to tanks for siege, then hit your hotkey again for stim. Get familiar with how many tabs it takes to get to tanks.
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My problem is usually with ghosts: even if I give a specific tab group for them, I need to be wary of not including any of them in the main army as well, otherwise I mess up with EMP and stim..
Regarding rally points: I usually rally my buildings to the natural and then shift rally to multiple units in my army. This way, as someone pointed out, new units will reach my main army when attacking, but if those units die, new units will still reach the natural, instead of remaining just outside their production facilities.
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Yes, you should NEVER try to attack something by right clicking on it. It's too easy to miss, particularly with something moving as fast as, say, a zergling. Also, when you do use attack move to engage an army, it's usually best to NOT click on an enemy unit, as this will make all your units try to target fire the unit that you click on. I have lost many battles to protoss armies by accidentally A-clicking on a colossus up the back and then instantly losing my entire army as they try to move into range of the colossus. Instead, you should A-click either just in front of or just behind the army.
I suggest that you don't actually worry about having 3 hotkeys for your army. Two is really enough; ground and air. You can tab to tanks for siege, then hit your hotkey again for stim. Get familiar with how many tabs it takes to get to tanks.
The trouble with this is that when the time comes that you want to start focus firing banelings (or anything else) with seige tanks, it will be much more difficult, even impossible, to do so with all ground units on one hotkey. It is ok to have all ground units on one hotkey, say marines on tanks on 1, if you also have your tanks on a separate hotkey, say 2, so you can still easily select just tanks. But I don't really find this necessary. Two separate hotkeys for marines and tanks is best in my opinion.
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BTW, I've noticed that when I stutter step an MMM army, the medivacs tend move with my army instead of keep on healing. Would it be worth it to have them on another group as well, or maybe simply "attack moviming" against my army, without being part of the group as well? Apart from the added complication, a downside could be the they would more easily remain still as my army moves, and they could then be sniped more easily by my opponent... or not?
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You can bind them to another hotkey if you want and if you have one more free to bind them. But normally you just attack-move with your MMM hotkey, stim and then micro your units with your mouse. If you allways use your MMM hotkey for kiting, then your medivacs will not heal what they could heal and most of your units won´t be fireing because not all your units can be in range. So just attack move with your MMM hotkey group and micro your units with your mouse.
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On May 17 2012 22:12 Malhavoc wrote:
BTW, I've noticed that when I stutter step an MMM army, the medivacs tend move with my army instead of keep on healing. Would it be worth it to have them on another group as well, or maybe simply "attack moviming" against my army, without being part of the group as well? Apart from the added complication, a downside could be the they would more easily remain still as my army moves, and they could then be sniped more easily by my opponent... or not?
It wuld be optimal, but almost every pro don't bother with it because it become hard to have enough army hotkeys.
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On May 17 2012 20:01 DrLOAC wrote:
One tip is if you really do want to rally your units to your army you can shift click the rally point to upto 5 of the units in your army. That way all 5 units have to die before the new units stay in base.
Even better is to use the first rally point as a static location, such as wherever your army was being rallied before moving out, or some other desired location, especially where you have a camera location saved. Then you can use the remaining 'queue' locations to rally them to various army units. That way, they will never hang out at the production facilities, but will always at least get to the first specified rally point. Also, don't rally to Medivacs unless you want them to jump in upon arrival.
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EPT
