I left click my nexus, right click on a mineral, and repeat for each mineral there is in my initial base. Not only does it keep my fingers ready but it improves my mouse accuracy

perfectflaw72

Canada94 Posts

July 04 2010 20:15 GMT

#63

if you hot key your hatch and your first overlord
you box your drones and press your hot keys and click on the hatch too
gets your apm to 500

threehundred

Canada911 Posts

July 04 2010 20:21 GMT

#64

it really does help warm up your hands. if you feel your hands slowing you down toward the mid-game/end-game 3-5 base 160+ food supply army then you probably didn't spam enough at the start lol.

wishbones

Canada2600 Posts

July 04 2010 20:32 GMT

#65

i guess im pro, cus i never ever ever ever ever spam to raise apm, i guess after playing this game for five years (BW in this case just noticed the forum section) that you just stop caring about apm, and you are just naturally fast. Anyone wanting to see my play pm me, i hate playing sc now days, but if i must ill try my best to squeeze a game out.

SichuanPanda

Canada1542 Posts

July 04 2010 20:34 GMT

#66

I hotkey as follows initially:

1. Main army
2. Production Buildings
3. Secondary Army
4. Primary Buildings (nexus/cc/hatch) and all upgrade buildings
5. More army
6. More army
7-0. - Observers

So I usually hotkey a probe to 1 at the start and nexus on 4 and spam 1,4,1,4 until I get my other buildings up. Since I played a lot of WC3 another method I use to pad APM to keep myself busy at the start of the game is to simply spam right-click to set rally points, as in WC3 spamming hero altar rally point was a common APM padding tactic. I guess old habits die hard.

Personally I only do this because while my buildings get up aside from probe scouting there isn't anything for P to be doing, so I'm essentially bored. Of course doing this on a regular basis does help you get your hands used to moving at that speed, meaning that when it comes to actually needing micro you can respond quickly and more easily. Also I type about 100 word per minute so my hands were already fast to begin with before I started playing any RTS (with the exception of BW - that game taught me how to type

).

Edit: Note as the game goes longer I'll probably end up dumping all my building into a single hotkey to have more room for army hot keys. (I basically like to hot key by unit role, (i.e. all casters on one hotkey, all melee on another, all anti-armor on another, and so on)) I'm not entirely sure why I have a predisposition for organizing my army like this but it seems to work for me, besides I quite often simply click on single units and control them individually.

Easy772

374 Posts

July 04 2010 21:27 GMT

#67

On July 04 2010 23:52 Mentos wrote:
if you spam anything past early game intentionally just to keep your apm up, you're gimping yourself.
trust me it wont matter how much apm shows up in the replay when you lose due to lack of proper multitask or control, cause you're busy cycling through hotkeys without a clue.

I agree with this.. I had a friend who I played HON with that when he found out about APM he started spamming right click and other functions to get it up. What I noticed is that the more important aspects of his game like last hitting, calling 'missing', map awareness went down.

Corwintt

Bulgaria85 Posts

July 04 2010 21:50 GMT

#68

I select all probes to different controls and spam 1,2,3,4,5. Also at early game when moving spam right clicking million times.
But I actually think spamming can be pretty useful. It warms your fingers and sets your mind for the game. Also as Day9 had noted, spamming your controls with gates/robos/stargates quickly gives you idea when a building is idle.

gdroxor

United States639 Posts

July 05 2010 00:04 GMT

#69

On July 05 2010 06:50 Corwintt wrote:
I select all probes to different controls and spam 1,2,3,4,5. Also at early game when moving spam right clicking million times.
But I actually think spamming can be pretty useful. It warms your fingers and sets your mind for the game. Also as Day9 had noted, spamming your controls with gates/robos/stargates quickly gives you idea when a building is idle.

Well there's spamming to keep your APM up and warm up your hands, and then there's quickly cycling through production hotkeys to see what's being build or researched. I wouldn't really call the latter spam.

NuKedUFirst

Canada3139 Posts

July 05 2010 00:09 GMT

#70

Usually spam while I make boxes or I cycle through my CC rally and rally it to minera;s and workers.
1 CC
2 Building SCV
3 Scout
I don't spam mid / late game (obviously T_T)

freestalker

469 Posts

July 05 2010 00:26 GMT

#71

I cream my hands.. like a pro.. :D

(jk, I wonder if anyone will reply)

rbkl

772 Posts

July 05 2010 00:34 GMT

#72

(5) Select Hacthes
(s) select larva
repeat

adi1133

Romania109 Posts

July 05 2010 00:39 GMT

#73

imo this is a dumb thing to do ... I think many ppl do it only to bolster their ego, I constantly beat 200 Apm ppl with my avg 50 apm, spiking at 170 at battles, i view the replay and see them make bad decisions and spamming clicks jumping the screen like crazy etc ....
LE maybe its a star-craft 1 thing, I never played that game ... im coming from the command and conquer series

ReachTheSky

United States3294 Posts

July 05 2010 00:43 GMT

#74

I make it a habit to switch through hotkeys and and selecting units with my mouse to get into a rhythm. I basically picture it as a big circle when playing and i have to run around the circle doing things. so i start my circle in the beginning and expand it as needed(when more things need to get done)

EliteAzn

United States661 Posts

July 05 2010 01:28 GMT

#75

On July 05 2010 00:22 Liquid`TLO wrote:
I click through all of my starting scvs + cc as fast as I can.

Just tried it. Although it is a good idea...I tend to lose track of my mineral count b/c I'm trying to click on each individual drone...-_-'. I'll stick to random worker boxes...

WolfStar

United Kingdom155 Posts

July 05 2010 09:24 GMT

#76

At the start of the game I try not to forget to build probes or my first pylon.

Vei

United States2845 Posts

July 05 2010 09:28 GMT

#77

When I spam APM I try to make it mimic some action I will actually be performing later in the game, so I just like siwtch from going to my overlord to my hatchery and pretending im gonna inject or scout or blah blah, basically I try to switch my viewpoints a lot so I get used to macroing. I find it more helpful than say, mass right clicking my rally point around -- unless it's to practice accuracy (right clicking only mineral patches as fast as possible).

But I mean, everyone has their tricks, preferences, etc. I do believe though that some sort of fast clicking in the early game makes transitioning into fast midgame macro more easily than going from 5 apm to the triple digits instantly.

Angra

United States2652 Posts

July 05 2010 09:29 GMT

#78

I spam 1234 a lot and I think it's because of Counterstrike, haha. I right click spam a lot to move units as well, and I click/drag boxes off to the side where no units are a lot as well.

Speaking of making boxes, I've always made them starting at top right and going down to bottom left. I know that a ton of people go top left to bottom right, but I could have sworn at one point that I heard someone mention that going top right to bottom left is more efficient for clicking on the minimap after grouping units, and it made complete sense to me so I started doing it, and now I just always do it that way out of habit. Does anyone else go top right to bottom left instead of top left to bottom right?

SC2Phoenix

Canada2814 Posts

July 05 2010 09:32 GMT

#79

I can't even spam or i will forget stuff. I'll miss my second pylon and forgot to make a zealot etc.