1) you do not press Alt+Ctrl on a German keyboard. It is just the right Alt Key or AltGr as it is labeled on German layout. So this also answers your last question. It is possible to just press Alt to create the locations - in fact this is exactly how it is done in TheCore
2) This feels weired at first but it works just perfectly fine if you get used to it. Keep practicing the beginiing of the game where you add your first hatch and set the locations. Also there is one big thing: you barely ever "create" control groups you just "add" to control groups. The only time you really "create" them is when you mess up and have to remove units from a control group. So ctrl+H is rarely ever necessary to press. To stress this point even further: If you do not have control group Y but want anything in that conrtol group (unit or building) you do not create it first and then add stuff you only have to add your stuff and it is automatically created. If you understood this already - good. Just have a feeling this might be part of your problems.
German: 1) Du musst nur Alt Gr drücken - nicht Alt + Strg. Alt+Strg = Alt Gr auf deutschen Tatstaturen Also keine Finger brechen, einfach den Daumen benutzen um AltGr zu drücken.
2) Mir ist klar, dass das vielleicht seltsam aussieht aber wenn du damit ein bischen geübt hast, ist es sehr leicht und sehr schnell. Hier ist aber eine sehr wichtige Sache: Erstelle keine Kontrollgruppen. Du brauchst einfach nur Einheiten hinzufügen. Selbst wenn die Kontrollgruppe noch nicht existiert kannst du Einheiten hinzufügen und die Gruppe wird automatisch erstellt. Wenn du also am Anfang deine Hatches hinzufügst und Locations setzt, dann halt einfach nur AltGr; mit dem kleinen Finger fügst du die Hatch als Kontrollgruppe hinzu (altGr+j) und erstellst gleichzeitig die Gruppe und du hälst immer weiter AltGr und mit den anderen Fingern setzt du die Locations (altGR+ k,l,ö...). Ganz einfach. Falls du das schon wusstest - gut! Dann würde ich vorschlagen mehr üben und dann eine Entscheidung treffen, ansonsten könnte das Teil deiner Probleme bisher sein. Viel Glück, viel Erfolg!
Update: so i am building my own version of the core now. as far, i made a picture i want to show you guys. my keybindings will be based off this finger placement: + Show Spoiler +
http://oi57.tinypic.com/9lbub4.jpg
J I O P will be my resting position.
i need to ask you pros something: what movement do i need for my units?
i am still kinda confused about some stuff. as far as i tested the layout, there where no use on [ + ], [ # ] for control groups and stuff. what gives me some hard time is being fast clicking the camera positions (K, L, Ö). i will try to solve this problems, and will be back soon TM
EDIT: heyoo. what i would love to use / make is the following:
10 Control Groups 10 Select Control Group Keys without modifier 10 Add to Control Group bindings 8 Create Camera Locations 8 Jump to Camera Locations
---> i am planning to locate my camera postions to [ 9 ], [ 0 ], [ ß ], [ ´ ], [ P ], [ Ü ], [ + ], [ Ö ] what that should do is let me clikc trough all these locations using my index finger (except one). i dont think it will slow me down, because i dont click location and aomething right after that. f.e. if i build a building with my drone, i can speed things up using the core method, and click after click needs to use a different finger. i dont think checking for locations need this.
to create, i want to use alt modifier. should work fine. testing coming soon.
--> for control groups, i want to use same keys, but adding 2 more: [ 9 ], [ 0 ], [ ß ], [ ´ ], [ P ], [ Ü ], [ + ], [ Ö ], [ Ä ], [ # ]
to manage these groups i want to use the default sc2 style: creating using ctrl adding using shift selecting using no modifier
i end up creating locations with ctrl + shift XX and jumping to locations with alt + XX
and so at this point, my pinky, ring and almost 100% of my middle fingers is free for tasks just using for building, using spells and just controlling the "grid". to add, i will use [ , ], [ . ], [- ], to add fast commands for these things, like in standard thecore setup.
using this would be easier for me to get into my brain. yeah, i know, learning this could be hard but will payoff. but in my opinion, a lil bit sacrificing the ergonimic stuff should pay off, at least for me. i need to get my keyboard a lil bit sorted, you know.
i would appreciate to read some thoughts from you guys, so what do you think ?
update: i am working with the absolute standard thecore hotkey setups again. seems like i am getting the hang of it, and it seems to let me improve. i switched to protoss some minutes ago, and i was kinda surpised. why is building with your worker on protoss so different to zerg and terran?
After using The Core for a while I DO realize the whole layout makes sense and it requires a bit of practice to get it right. I still mess up with the modifiers a bit but my hand is start to move alone Thanks to the harrass defence drill I am getting used to use the cameras aswell. Thanks a lot JaKaTaK ^^
TLO has not had the time in his busy schedule to switch. And he doesn't think he will in the future so he has put it out of his mind unfortunately. He still strongly advocates for players to use TheCore.
When did you guys last change the core? It seems you updated the suggested control groups since I was last here. For example, the location hotkeys I'm used to are O = main, ; = nat, L = third, - = 4th. I use [ for msc and L for templar.
Or, maybe the spreadsheet for Protoss is messed up currently. I don't see Protoss hotkeys when I click the P spreadsheet. I do see P hotkeys when I click the spreadsheets for other races
I hope the new version is available soon <3 Will there be major improvements and changes? So far I'm really getting used to the core and think I play a bit better than before and my hands don't get so tired, because the fingers don't have to strech so much :D Thanks for your work on this!
I came across your videos via the redditthread and I have to say they are very good! hight quality, very informative and well structured. however Id like to point out two things i noticed while wathing many videos after another: 1. your videos have differeint mic-volumes. nothing big and I dont know anything about videoediting, but maybe you can have an eye on that 2. from time to time you tend to talk very fast. as a non native speaker I had difficulties to get all the information by the first time watching im very sorry that those two points sound so negative, i really enjoied watching your videos. but since you ask for critique at the end of the videos, i thought i might aswell share my opinion.
now to TheCore: i downloaded it and played some games + did some hotkeytraining and finally slowly getting used to it. i have to say it feels pretty good. as i laddered some, i noticed that the hotkey for the attackupgrade in the armory is bound to E (im using german TRM). i think it should be J?
im sorry if this was posted bevore, i didnt read 316 pages of comments ^^
On March 22 2014 04:46 Silentce wrote: Does this reflect on the core, or is he doing something wrong. How do I avoid doing the same thing wrong if so?
I think you would have to make a purposefully bad setup for it to be the sole reason for not getting out of silver league. People are in the lower leagues for various reasons, and using bad hotkeys usually isn't one of them (most are related to macro and execution instead).
How do I create and add to control groups, or am I not supposed to do this? I've been playing the different arcade games to get used to the new keys for hours.
However I don't see how to set a hatch to a ctrl group, and then add others with shift (ctrl group number) later? Am I not supposed to do it this way, or can anyone tell me how to set these up as well as setting screen hotkeys?
Where i can get the chameleon layout because i saw the 1 i find is kinda old. And problem for me is that i need to stretch my hand a lot to hit ctrl+shift+o etc. to make new group. any suggestion how to fix it? i am using EU keyboard in RL and in-game US/qwerty
However I don't see how to set a hatch to a ctrl group, and then add others with shift (ctrl group number) later? Am I not supposed to do it this way, or can anyone tell me how to set these up as well as setting screen hotkeys?
No ctrl = add to group and ctrl+shift = create new group. That's because you normally want to add more often that create a group.
Thanks for the help Varsovie. When I make GM (bronze now) your first round is on me.
Anyways I had another question. I am just starting to go through all of the ctrl group information and camera setup. I had a suggestion I would like to get Jak or anyone's feedback on.
Are you going off of the assumption that most people only have two keys on their mouse with the core? Most people do, I have just noticed that pressing ctrl and shift at the same time plus some of the other keys seems a bit awkward. My mouse has quite a few extra keys, and I was thinking that binding shift to one of them might make this much easier for me to program control groups as well as camera binds (since shift is required for them as well)
However due to the fact that you seem to have tested out these key combinations extensively (and the fact that some of the pros mentioned that you test every possible option countless times over) makes me wonder if you had already considered this, and after testing find it to be not as efficient as your way.
This might seem to be common sense, however I generally try not to assume anything when there is a subject matter expert who might have already accounted for this.
On second thought I am wondering if just straight up binding some of the cameras to these extra mouse keys might be an option. This might be slower than your option as well. I remember you pointed out how having to press the same key twice normally isn't as quickly accomplished as pressing 2 different ones.
Either way if you could bind 2 or 3 of the keyboard keybinds to the mouse, would you? If so please let me know which these would be. I am still much too new to this game for the common sense of which keys I should transfer over, to kick in. I know you were mentioning that your goal is to have eventually 40+ different versions of this...one with more mouse keybinds might be an option in this case.
I follow this thread for some weeks now and I always see the same questions occur. So I figured it would be a good idea to add some basic information, about the hidden gimmicks/synergies of TheCore and explain, why some hotkey are as they are. As I play Zerg and use ZRM, I thought I would start with an explanation about this setup, as far as I understand the TheCore. Feel free to add stuff I did not realise so far. And as always, thank you all a lot for all the time you have already put into TheCore.
Acronyms: Control Group - CG Screen Location - SL
1 Control Groups (CG):
1.1 The Order of CG: The CG are ordered after how easy they are to reach. So normally it is easier to select CG 3 instead of CG 7, as the key is closer to the home position of your fingers and more comfortable to reach.
1.2 CTRL to Add Units to a CG: You are more often adding units to a CG than creating a new CG. So this makes it easier to add units during a game. Keep in mind, you do not have to create a CG to add a unit to it. By adding a unit to a non-existing CG, it is automatically created.
1.3 CTRL+SHIFT to Create a CG: You mainly create a CG to remove units from an existing CG. This is easy to do by using CTRL+SHIFT. Sequence: Select the CG, hold down CTRL+SHIFT, click on the unit type you want to remove from the CG (they get deselected), hit the button of the CG, release CTRL+SHIFT.
There are 2 Control Groups that are special, and do not fit into this scheme:
1.4 Control Group 1 : Control group 1 is reserved for hatcheries. Adding to CG1: This is done by pressing ALT+J. The ALT key is used as modifier instead of CTRL, because you normally want to also create a SL for the hatchery after adding the hatchery to the CG. The creation of SL is also done with the ALT-key as modifier, what makes it easier to perform both task right after each other. Sequence: Select newly build hatch, hold down ALT, press J for adding it to CG 1, press SL-key for creating SL, release ALT. Create CG1: Sometime you add units to CG1 by accident. This should not happen that often. But if so, you can remove those units from the CG by using the following sequence: Sequence: Select the CG, hold down CTRL+SHIFT, click on the units you want to remove from the CG (they get deselected), press H (like hatchery ^^), release CTRL+SHIFT Select CG1: P is the key your index finger normally rests on. So it is very easy to select all hatcheries and build units. (e.g. Drone: P,O,O; Ovi: P,O,I)
1.5 Control Group 2: Suggested Use: It is suggested to use this CG for all your injecting queens. This enables an easy style of larva injecting, because the SHIFT-modifier is used to select CG2 (SHIFT+P) and also to jump to a SL (SHIFT+SL-key). SHIFT also is used to queue multiple commands, so you do not have to press O for every inject you want to perform. Sequence: Hold down SHIFT, press P to select all queens, press O to start larva inject, press SL-key to jump to a hatchery, LEFTCLICK to inject, next SL-key for next hatchery, LEFTCLICK to inject etc. So, by using CG 2 for the queens you can hold down SHIFT for the entire process. There are other methods that are faster or more flexible. Check out this video for more information:
2. Screen Locations (SL):
2.1 STRG+ALT on German Layout: STRG+ALT = AltGr on the german keyboard. That is the ALT-key on the right side of the spacebar. So there is no need to press the AltGr key and Strg. German for Germans^^: STRG+Alt entspricht der rechten ALT-Taste auf der deutschen Tastatur (AltGr). Es muss also nicht AltGr und Strg gleichzeitig gedrückt werden, AltGr allein genügt.
2.2 ALT to Create a SL1-6 and Centre the View on Selection: The first 6 SL are suggested to use as base cameras. You normally want to have those SL centred on the hatcheries for easy larva injects. So when building a new hatchery, you create a SL for it. Sequence: Select newly build hatch, hold down ALT (centres on hatch), press J for adding to CG 1, press SL-key for creating SL, release ALT. When starting a new game, you want to create the SL for all expansions at once, so you can jump to them in the later stages. Sequence: Select Main Hatch, hold down ALT, press J for adding to CG 1, press K for 1st SL, keep holding down ALT, click the minimap on the location of the natural, press L for 2nd SL, click location of next expansion, press ; for 3rd SL, and so on until all SL are set, release ALT.
2.3 Screen Location 7: This SL is suggested as rally point cam. CTRL+J to create: CTRL+J is an easy to access key combination CTRL+I to jump to SL: It is easy to press this combination and add units to a CG: Sequence: Hold down CTRL, press I to jump to the rally point, click a unit (all units of the same type get selected), press the CG-key you want to add them to, repeat for all units, release CTRL.
3. Rapid Fire:
3.1 Rapid Fire is used on the O-key. This means, you can cast any ability that is bound to O by just hold down O, because O simulates a mouse click. E.g. Infested Terrans: Hold down O and move the mouse until the screen is covered in pulsating eggs. Spread Creep: Select existing Creep Tumors and hold down O to quickly spread them at the location of your mouse courser.
3.2 Rapid Fire Injects: This is the fasted method to inject larva in all hatcheries, if your keyboard supports the pressing of 2 buttons simultaneously. For more information, check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIbo94IWeu8
EPT
