Hotkey setups

Apologies for the density of information. This is the Apple mini keyboard. Scissor-switch keys are just so dang fast! See the next picture below on why minis help out so much.

Teal is the "home row" for all 5 fingers, and the control groups are orange.



^ All 10 control groups are within immediate reach with very few keys for the weaker fingers. Transit times for the time-critical keystrokes are MUCH shorter with this setup. I'd also like to point out how much faster/easier these camera control buttons are than the function keys.

You may not need all 10 control groups as desperately if you're playing P or T, but when you have 5 queens, 3 armies, and hatches...let's just say I'm never going back to a Blizzard-made setup now. I don't know how any zerg manages it without severe compromises.

^ The greatest benefit to both having a mini keyboard AND using its right side of keys is that your mouse hand can now play super close to your left hand. I never knew that my mouse precision/speed would significantly increase just by placing it this much closer to my other hand.

Green: Queens (1 main, 2 nat, 3 third, 4 fourth)

Red: Army

Purple: Collective Hatches

Brown: Creep Queens

Blue (x): Overseer

Black: Rally point Camera save

7-0, Y, H: Camera Saves

The rest is harder to explain. 7-0 are actually all camera saves. However i don't set them by pressing control 7-0. I actually set them by pressing control A-F. For example if i wanted to save an area to 9, i would use control D to set it, but when i want to look at it i would just tap 9. I colored the keys accordingly to show this relationship.

The keys E to Y, and V to H also have this same camera set, to camera save relationship, hence why they are colored the same way. Example: i want to set an active creep tumor not near the queen, control V to set it, tap H to go back to it.


I won't bore you all with where i placed the upgrades and units keys, to make this possible.

Oh yeah, i actually wouldn't recommend the entirety of my setup to anybody. I was fairly new to RTS when SC2 came out and i just tried to make everything as comfortable as possible, for my small hands. Though there may be ideas or parts that can help others with their own, Hot-keying problems.

Attack and hold position are probably the fastest keys in all of Starcraft 2 if you do hit-and-run micro. These 2 keys alone are how my avg EPM breaks 100 during intense games. Alternating between the two fastest keys with the same weakest finger on the hand is the worst possible layout. It's actually the primary reason I abandoned Core.

I do agree that WASD is inapropriate for large hands. Unfortunately I've never had to work with large hands, as my engineering work on this field was solely in Asia (operators all had small hands), so I can't give you specific advice other than to spread the keys out. Your greater span will allow you to hit far more keys.

I'm assuming you mean altitude tilt and not azimuthal. Yes. Mini apple-like keyboards have a very slight tilt, which is far more optimal than having a thicker or more tilted keyboard. Ideally, you want both hands to be "grounded" on the pisiform bone to maximize both hand speed AND accuracy. If you accept that statement, then keyboards should have very little tilt to them. Apple's industrial designers are the best in the world, and their form factor agrees with this assesment.

The pinky should have as little movement as possible and should have macro keys that aren't timing critical. The build keys are perfect for this function, especially since grid layout users are already used to this kind of placement. It's extremely rare for you to need to build and then advance build in a rapid keystroke sequence. Since the pinky (on a small hand) naturally falls somewhere between B and N, this minimizes stroke effort for both keys.

I agree. This is the biggest flaw in the layout. Currently, I hold shift/attack with my thumb. If these minis didn't shrink the left arrow key, it would be far, far easier to perform, but it's definitely a pain and not so reliable. I used to also make the control button a shift key and just hold down both control & left arrow with my thumb to shift attack queue, but that led to muscle memory confusion on which shift key to press at which time, and having the shift button that far underneath my hand was a nightmare for control groups. I don't use the index finger for shift+attack queueing. That brings my hand into a suboptimal position for follow-up strokes.

If you have suggestions on this part, I'd love to hear, as I hate how I have to avoid shift+attack in intense situations.

I've spent a lifetime using keys at a 90 degree angle. Quickly hitting keys at some other angle significantly hinders my accuracy, especially with such low profile keys. Maybe with hulking mechanical keys this isn't as big an issue.

The more curled middle finger caused severe joint paint in my middle finger after doing Core for 5 days. I too initially thought it would be comfortable, but it must transmit a stroke impulse differently to cause that much pain. Perhaps my middle finger is so much longer than my index that it has to be too curled, as I think I needed to be closer to 60 degrees for all fingers to home properly. (That may also be why hitting non-home keys was so difficult) I had my colleague and my brother try positioning their hands, and they had the same issues with an overly curled finger. However, both of their index fingers were also very short.

With JIOP, your fingers are at the top of the keyboard, meaning you have to move your fingers down 2 rows to hit some keys. That movement is extremely slow and awkward. My layout has the same problem with the "," key, and it's quite difficult/tedious to burrow as a result.

This hadn't occured to me, and I wholeheartedly agree. All of my engineering field work with the hand didn't involve optimizing for more than 1-2 speedy keystrokes, so it's no surprise that my layout has a dearth of trilling/alternation options.

This point and the shift+attack queueing are significant flaws in my layout that need addressing.

[~]warpgates (i slide my finger through this key and tab for instant warpin in the set location under tab camera position)
[1] ctrl grp 1 (main army)
[2] ctrl grp 2 (caster type1, scouting unit)
[3] ctrl grp 3 (caster type2 or unit that may require pulling back (colossi/immortals)
[4] ctrl grp 4 (surgical strike units, phoenixes, anti drop stalkers, blink stalkers in army)
[5] ctrl grp 5 (observer)
[6] ctrl grp 6 (Mothership or additional warp prisms or additional observers)
[t] ctrl grp 7 (Nexi)
[g] ctrl grp 8 (Robo)
[v] ctrl grp 9 (Stargate)
[c] ctrl grp 0 (Forges & other buildings with upgrades)
F1-F5 + Tab camera position hotkeys
[Caps lock] idle worker

[q] Primary unit ability (build structure, FF, Feedback, recall, blink, graviton beam)
[w] Secondary unit ability (build advanced structure, guardian shield, vortex)
[e] hold position
[r] patrol
[a] attack
[s] stop
[d] return cargo
[f] tertiary unit ability (archon, hallucination - phoenix set to F so i can just double tap F for phoenix hallucination)
[b] cancel - much faster to reach than Esc

All buildings in the worker build menu's are set to QWEASDF

Ctrl+A rotates camera to the left
Ctrl+S rotates camera to the right
(usefull when targetting SCV's building structure/bunker or when blocking a choke with probe/zealot)

[z] base camera
[space] next subgroup (ctrl+space is previous subgroup)

When I play Protoss:
Immortal on R
Probe on S

When I play Zerg:
Lair on R
Infestation Pit on F
Zerg Speed on B