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On January 21 2013 14:05 SixtusTheFifth wrote:The 5 Stages of TheCore.
- Curiosity.
What is this hundred page thread on hotkeys? Hmm, looks interesting. I'll give this a try.
- Back to School.
So it turns out you have no natural talent. You don't naturally remember dozens of hotkeys. Your fingers don't naturally press the right thing. Your brain doesn't naturally remember the right thing in the first place. It turns out what got you to where you are now is practise. TheCore has robbed you of that practise, worse, it has robbed you of your illusion of natural talent.
- Don Music.
This is the muppet who would scream "I'll never get it" while banging his head repeatedly on the piano. The less said about this stage the better. You need know only the following: It will happen to you.
- Inflection Point.
You have been promised a carrot. Either you are the victim of a horrible practical joke or this will get better. And it does. You build your first few structures and units faster. Then your next few. Then the learning curve decreases. The button for Stim is the button for Siege Mode, and your fingers remember. The buttons for building Zealots and Stalkers are the buttons for researching Charge and Blink and your fingers remember.
- Faster. Closer. Better.
Cycle through 4 bases calling down a MULE at each. Cycle through 5 bases injecting each hatchery. Press one button to see how many units are queued at all production facilities. Sure you could have done all this before, but not without your hand dancing from one end of the keyboard to the other and back again.
This is probably one of the best-written descriptions of what you'll go through switching :D
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On January 23 2013 03:08 Ch3rry wrote:Ok, anyone here willing on taking TheCore on Merc Stealth Keyboard challenge? + Show Spoiler +On the left side there are 34 fully programmable keys, which can be actually used with left hand. Anyone with some ideas how to put TheCore into that? (f.e. Medium layout uses 35 keys, so one key less shouldn't be a mayor problem).
Ok, I'm back with the challenge. (It works only on keyboard from quote above)
Here is what I did with camera and control groups:
+ Show Spoiler +CameraCenter=Control+Space (center on current selection)
ControlGroupAppend0=Control+0 (add to group)
ControlGroupAssign0=Control+Shift+0 (create group)
CameraSave0=Alt+1
CameraView0=Shift+1
SubgroupNext=Tab
SubgroupPrev=CapsLock
As 1 to 11 keys are pretty reachable with ease on side-board (as well as Alt, Ctrl, Shift) I made layered groups/cameras on them. Ctrl+Shift+# - Create a group; Ctrl+# - Add to group; # - Recall group; Alt+# - Save Camera; Shift + # - Recall Camera. I alse used Caps and Tab as separate going forward and backward with subgroup.
Here are my hotkeys:
[Hotkeys]
IdleWorker=C (Easy to Ctrl+C to select all idle workers)
MinimapPing=F9 (labeled as LOAD) (not usable in 1v1)
Cancel=F8 (labeled as SAVE) (pretty close to other keys)
Rest was made by transforming commands in this fasion:
+ Show Spoiler +U -> Q I -> W O -> E J -> A (it is a bit funny, that attack command ended up as A  ) K -> S H -> D 8 -> R M -> F N -> V = -> T , -> G (Load command) C -> B R -> P
In result most command are on QWE ASD central panel with minor used are next to them on the right. Also, You must use your pinky for Ctrl, Shift, Ald, but there are smaller and closer to other buttons on the side-board.
I don't mean to be in any way disregarding towards OP, as TheCore is AWESOME idea. I just wanna put my Keyboard bonus-buttons to some use, and TheCore was the best starting point.
Any MercStealth users or theorycrafters feel free to leave a comment.
PS Unspoiler the Side-board view in Quote to have some idea what am I talking about.
EDIT: I based my work on Zerg, Right Hand, Medium Size, No Mouse Buttons layout.
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Did about 3 hours of testing last night, and I'm excited by the notion of improving my mechanics and EPM with more efficient use of the keyboard once I've mastered this. Reminded me of when I used to play fighting games a lot how my brother taught me to hold the control in a way that I could use my index finger and middle finger to press buttons rather than my thumb.
My only concern from testing last night was that making drones was the same as the "spam" function for larvae. Meaning pressing "O" repeatedly to get the fast possibly larvae production (soon as it pops off the hatchery) would result in building a drone immediately because "O" is both used for larvae selection and drone production. While this is normally good and won't be an issue later in the game (you won't be waiting for larvae to pop nearly as often), I realized I made an extra drone last night at 9/10 supply when I would normally make my overlord. Did anyone else notice this or am I being too picky?
Also, how common is camera location hotkey usage amongst pro level players? I watch a lot of streams and tournaments, but it can be difficult to tell if they're using the last action key (unit/structure finishing, units under attack, etc.) or if they're using the base camera key and what not. I ask because it's going to take me quite a bit of time to get used to using the camera keys for my bases as I used to inject using the method of selecting all queens inject + shift then tab through bases using my mouse key which was assigned to base camera.
Sorry for long winded post, all in all I'm excited and very thankful for all the work you've put in.
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@baustin
If you want to build an overlord quickly by spamming, alternate the select larva key with the overlord  The reason why we have select larva and drone as the same key is for the early game scenario where you are waiting on larva and want to build a drone as quickly as possible. Using the very fast repeat rate on the keyboard (which you should have maxed out), we can make sure that the next drone is being built right away.
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On January 25 2013 01:53 JaKaTaK wrote:@baustin If you want to build an overlord quickly by spamming, alternate the select larva key with the overlord The reason why we have select larva and drone as the same key is for the early game scenario where you are waiting on larva and want to build a drone as quickly as possible. Using the very fast repeat rate on the keyboard (which you should have maxed out), we can make sure that the next drone is being built right away.
As far as justification goes, I think this is a weak one. There's a negligible difference between hitting s-d as quickly as possible vs hitting o-o (p-p in my case). In fact, inefficiencies matter less in the early game because there's not much going on, so you can work around them.
However, I do think the key placement is correct, just not for your reason. Having drone and select larva on the same key helps considerably in the midgame and even lategame in terms of macroing efficiently. That being said, the difference in the early game is negligible at best, and the risk of accidentally building a drone is now higher if you're spamming.
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On January 25 2013 05:33 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:
In fact, inefficiencies matter less in the early game because there's not much going on, so you can work around them.
I respectfully disagree. It is my opinion that this almost could not be further from the truth. Inefficiencies towards the start of the game have incredible impact on the rest of the game because of the 'snow-ball' effect that they have.
Little inefficiencies such as mis-clicking your workers at the start or being 5 seconds late on morphing your first overlord can throw out timings by a lot more than that. Your expansion will be delayed which means the extra larvae will be delayed, thus a whole wave of drones will be delayed, causing you to get those minerals much later than if you had done it perfect etc etc etc. It goes on and on.
On the other side of the scale, small inefficiencies towards the end of a game do not have as great an impact because the 'snow-ball' effect is no where near as big.
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On January 25 2013 08:02 Ishmak wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2013 05:33 sanddbox_sc2 wrote:
In fact, inefficiencies matter less in the early game because there's not much going on, so you can work around them.
I respectfully disagree. It is my opinion that this almost could not be further from the truth. Inefficiencies towards the start of the game have incredible impact on the rest of the game because of the 'snow-ball' effect that they have. Little inefficiencies such as mis-clicking your workers at the start or being 5 seconds late on morphing your first overlord can throw out timings by a lot more than that. Your expansion will be delayed which means the extra larvae will be delayed, thus a whole wave of drones will be delayed, causing you to get those minerals much later than if you had done it perfect etc etc etc. It goes on and on. On the other side of the scale, small inefficiencies towards the end of a game do not have as great an impact because the 'snow-ball' effect is no where near as big.
I think you are overstating the "snow-ball effect". If you build your first overlord 5 seconds late, it can delay your build by up to 5 seconds. Fifteen minutes later, everything will still just be 5 seconds late (probably not even 5 full seconds in this example, b/c your 10th drone can still be on time, and you won't actually waste any larva).
I think sanddbox's point is that it doesn't matter what key "build overlord" is on, you won't be late on your first overlord b/c you have nothing else to focus on. Build overlord could be on the other side of the keyboard but you could still hit it right on time. However, in the late game, when you are trying to build overlords while doing a gazillion other things, it would really slow you down to have it on an inefficient key.
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@above, not quite. Check it:
ingame seconds (5 ingame seconds is about 3 secs, so that is actually quite a significant margin to be using)
9/10
You build overlord 5 seconds later than normal
The next drone you build right after since the mining and larva spawning is unaffected.
5 seconds later than normal, your overlord pops and you begin building the next 2 drones.
You begin building the 13/18 drone at normal time (mining and larva regen unaffected)
5 seconds later than normal, those 2 drones pop and begin mining.
----Those 2 drones were not mining for 5 seconds, which throws off your timing for your 14/18 drone by about 5 seconds.
Your 14/18 drone pops, but you cant quite afford your next 15/18 drone.
This throws off your expo, which equates to lost larva over time and less mining.
You cant get your spawning pool at the crispest time you can
----Which turns into a later queen
--------Which turns into less larva
-----------Which turns into more odd overlord timings
---------------Which turns into less drones
-------------------Which turns into a later third
------------------------Which is even MORE less larva (exponential larva loss, not just 5 seconds across the board)
----------------------------Which is less drones and less larva (@ this point you have probably effectively lost at least 3-5 drones just off that mistake with the overlord)
---------------------------------Which is less units
------------------------------------That throws off your timing attack (11 min roach max turned into 12.5min max. Why not?)
-----------------------------------------Which gives your enemy, who did not make such a mistake, just enough time for more bunkers, sentry energy, get a siege tank in position, cycle in 1 wave from Warpgates, etc
------------------------------------------------Which caused your timing to be thrown off
Starting to see?
The problems of messing up the early game are exponential issues, not linear. Granted these are at such a low margin that it probably wont make a TON of difference unless you are masters -> GM -> Pro, but improving mechanics to a fine crisp can allow you to hit timings you otherwise would not have been able to hit. More tactics are available to you since you have more units faster to play with. Etc.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE SNOWBALL EFFECT. YOUR DOOM COMMANDS YOU! >:}
Also, lategame Its easier when keys are close together, I think we have already established that. :D
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On January 25 2013 09:04 Doominator10 wrote:
@above, not quite. Check it:
ingame seconds (5 ingame seconds is about 3 secs, so that is actually quite a significant margin to be using)
9/10
You build overlord 5 seconds later than normal
The next drone you build right after since the mining and larva spawning is unaffected.
5 seconds later than normal, your overlord pops and you begin building the next 2 drones.
You begin building the 13/18 drone at normal time (mining and larva regen unaffected)
5 seconds later than normal, those 2 drones pop and begin mining.
----Those 2 drones were not mining for 5 seconds, which throws off your timing for your 14/18 drone by about 5 seconds.
Your 14/18 drone pops, but you cant quite afford your next 15/18 drone.
This throws off your expo, which equates to lost larva over time and less mining.
You cant get your spawning pool at the crispest time you can
----Which turns into a later queen
--------Which turns into less larva
-----------Which turns into more odd overlord timings
---------------Which turns into less drones
-------------------Which turns into a later third
------------------------Which is even MORE less larva (exponential larva loss, not just 5 seconds across the board)
----------------------------Which is less drones and less larva (@ this point you have probably effectively lost at least 3-5 drones just off that mistake with the overlord)
---------------------------------Which is less units
------------------------------------That throws off your timing attack (11 min roach max turned into 12.5min max. Why not?)
-----------------------------------------Which gives your enemy, who did not make such a mistake, just enough time for more bunkers, sentry energy, get a siege tank in position, cycle in 1 wave from Warpgates, etc
------------------------------------------------Which caused your timing to be thrown off
Starting to see?
The problems of messing up the early game are exponential issues, not linear. Granted these are at such a low margin that it probably wont make a TON of difference unless you are masters -> GM -> Pro, but improving mechanics to a fine crisp can allow you to hit timings you otherwise would not have been able to hit. More tactics are available to you since you have more units faster to play with. Etc.
DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE SNOWBALL EFFECT. YOUR DOOM COMMANDS YOU! >:}
Also, lategame Its easier when keys are close together, I think we have already established that. :D
Notice how you start with "5 seconds late, then this is 5 seconds late, which means these other things are 5 seconds late." Then you start generalizing. The importance of 5 seconds grows exponentially, but the length of time that your build is delayed remains <= 5 seconds.
Just think about every step you mentioned above, and then add "5 seconds late" to it. The exponential effect can be seen like this:
1:00 into the game, when you have 10 workers and 1 hatchery, 5 seconds behind means 1/3 of a larva and ~50 minerals or so. 15:00 into the game, when you have 85 workers and 5 hatcheries (all injected), 5 seconds means 5+ larva and ~500 minerals or so. That said, it's still just 5 seconds.
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Back to practice today, anyone know any good maps I could practice on? I tried the starcraft master map, but that has units for other races, I'd like to work strictly within my race (zerg).
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On January 25 2013 09:51 baustin wrote:
Back to practice today, anyone know any good maps I could practice on? I tried the starcraft master map, but that has units for other races, I'd like to work strictly within my race (zerg).
I recommend the Hotkey Trainer map. It lets you practice building units + building buildings over and over again.
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Thank you jdub that is helping a ton. While practicing the hotkeys in this map I'm noticing that the M key is harder for me to hit than the L key, wondering why L isn't used for building hotkey? I'd like to avoid using my pinky where possible, maybe switch spore and nydus from M to L?
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Control Groups are hit with the index and middle fingers, abilites (like constructing buildings) are with the pinky and ring finger. This layout will unlock the potential of your pinky. It isn't that your pinky is "bad" at hitting hotkeys, it is just untrained. Once you get used to it, you will begin to appreciate a layout that makes full use of all 5 fingers.
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That makes sense, PINKY TRAINING ENGAGE!
On a side note, I noticed that the upgrades in evolution chamber are O, I, J. I feel like O & and I should be swapped. It's more intuitive for me to think that "I" would be for melee because melee is on the left side, and "I" is to the left of O. Then O would be for range attack because it's to the right of melee and O is to the right of I.
I know this is nit picky but I feel like you've analyzed everything so precisely that you'd want details like this. I'm willing to bet you already have a good reason for having it the way it is though, and I'd love to hear it .
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I just fu**ing *love* this hotkey setup JaKaTaK! I have just started to use it together with TheStaircase (heard about both of them from the most recent GLHF magazine which I heard about from Battle.net SCII blog) and I feel so much more comfortable with the position of my hands/fingers. I haven't misclicked since the first day (have been using TheCore for a few days now) and my fingers are not strained anymore! Also, thanks to TheStaircase, I'm silver and my queens have yet to go above 25 energy which is huge!
One question, though. What should I do with my creep queen(s) hotkey? I have hotkeyed them to "/" (close to L, making it a habbit to creep right after every inject), but that seems to be recommended for Vipers which I agree with. Should I just dedicate one of the harass hotkeys or should I just not use hotkeys for creep queens?
EDIT: sorry, I'm using the dvorak version. by "/" I mean "[" and by "L", I mean "P" in qwerty.
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On January 25 2013 12:13 baustin wrote:On a side note, I noticed that the upgrades in evolution chamber are O, I, J. I feel like O & and I should be swapped. It's more intuitive for me to think that "I" would be for melee because melee is on the left side, and "I" is to the left of O. Then O would be for range attack because it's to the right of melee and O is to the right of I. I know this is nit picky but I feel like you've analyzed everything so precisely that you'd want details like this. I'm willing to bet you already have a good reason for having it the way it is though, and I'd love to hear it .
I do agree with that. Although given enough training, that shouldn't matter. Also, the melee upgrade seems to be used more often than missile upgrade and the middle finger is stronger than the ring finger. By the way, stahp looking at the command card if you know the hotkey, it'll just slow you down! Look at the minimap instead, it will help you more!
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Going to be streaming my progress. After a bit more than an hour of practice last night and about 3 hours of practice tonight I decided to stream my progress. This is mainly so I can see how long it will take me to get back to solid mechanics and a strong understanding of the setup.
To give it some perspective I'm a decently high diamond zerg and have never utilized camera hotkeys. We'll see how long this takes
Anyone who's interested in viewing my progress as I go, stream is twitch.tv/baustin612. The first stream is here:
http://www.twitch.tv/baustin612/c/1864452
Thanks again!
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Is there a rationale behind having the following setup for upgrades for zerg?
Evo chamber
J -> ground carapace
I -> ground missile attack
Spire
J -> air missile attack
I -> air carapace
I was expecting J to be the carapace upgrade in both Evo and Spire and I be missile attack in both too! It's a bit counter-intuitive to swap the two "types" of upgrades, I think!
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On January 25 2013 12:13 baustin wrote:I know this is nit picky but I feel like you've analyzed everything so precisely that you'd want details like this. I'm willing to bet you already have a good reason for having it the way it is though, and I'd love to hear it .
Seriously TL should do something about this. As I said before he is snake oil salesman and what he does to new or struggling players is basically indistinguishable from trolling.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://i.testfreaks.ru/images/products/600x400/178/ideazon-merc-stealth.32757426.jpg)
