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Eventually I would like to create a nice guide for this however for now I will leave it with a [D] tag so we can hash out as much as possible.
As you may or may not know Blizzard launched the 1.2 Patch on the test realm. (Click on the StarCraft II Public Test.exe icon in the root of the install folder of your PC to install).
I am extremely psyched for this change as it will allow us to create a custom hotkey layouts that are optimally setup. This will dramatically increase efficiency for things like larvae injects as well as make things like baneling micro incredibly fun to watch a they will be better controlled! Also because these changes are bound to our profile you can access them for any computer!
Custom Hotkeys on PRT:
1. You can access the new hotkey menu from the main menu (by default this is bound to F10 while in game).
2. There seem to be two different types of hotkey sets Grid and Standard/Classic.
3. Grid Hotkeys: Function with a 1 to 1 mapping that corresponds to the icons location on the menu screen in the lower right hand corner when in game. Changing the hotkey for anything in a particular location will change it for corresponding hotkeys (for both buildings and units). Example: The default hotkey for Move is T in the Grid Layout if you would like to change this to Q you will also change everything else that was in this potion. Since the build SCV with Grid layout is also Q by default it will change to the letter T as well. For this reason I do not think grid custom hotkey layouts will work for most people unless you keep the default layout or something very close to it. Therefore all future references to hotkeys in this guide will pertain to the standard/classic setup unless otherwise specified. Edit: If this section is not clear please let me know (alternate descriptions welcome).
4. Standard/Classic: These hotkeys are much more granular. Changing the default move commands (Attack, Patrol ect) will change the corresponding commands for all units of all races.
5. Individual unit spell hotkeys are independent. (This is important to note because it will allow for some very nice keyboard combinations. For example if you know that your Templars will always be bound to Control Group 9 you can make Psi Storms Hotkey the letter I and then make the Morph Archon Hotkey the letter O and Set the Rally with the letter P. In game this would look something like 9 I click I click I click I click O O P to get off four Psi Storms with four archons and then morph them into two archons and set them rally to a specific location).
6. Changing a hotkey for gateway production will change the corresponding hotkey for warpage units as well.
7. There is a customizable hotkey for warpgates in the Global section.
8. You can use any combination of alt, shift and control for all Control Group hotkeys.
9. Control groups do not have to be a number key.
10. Keys that do not work as a Hotkeys for move commands, spells and production: Control, Alt, Shift, and Print screen
11. Click on the unbound tab to items that do not have a corresponding hotkey.
Creating Custom Hotkeys in 1.1.2:
I have included this for reference as some people may want to setup the same hotkeys in the live version as they have on the PTR:
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=117649
I have not tested this programs effects if any on the PTR if anyone has please let me know.
Optimal Hotkey Setup:
Now for some theorycrafting at its very best. I would like to discuss the optimal setup for hotkeys. It’s a good idea to give this some thought as changing hotkeys is an exhaustive process as there is a great deal of muscle memory that goes along with it. My snap judgment is that all hotkeys will be near the control, alt, shift keys since these are the only things you cannot change atm. (these are used as control group modifiers).
Initial ideas for optimal hotkey discussion:
1. Control 10 (10 keys for control groups) Line layout: Setup in a line of 10 buttons. Control groups of 1-0 bound are bound to a-; instead. Tab key stays the same. This seems like a fairly intuitive setup as its similar to the existing 1-0 Control 10 layout. The drawback is that the h-; keys are far away which can be cumbersome.
2. Control 5 (5 keys for control groups) Line layout: Setup in a line of 5 buttons with an alt modifier for 6-0. Control groups of 1-5 bound to a-g with alt + a-g as control groups 6-0. This makes the keys easier to reach by using alt +a-f for groups 6-0. Control groups 1-5 (a-f) will most likely be for units. Spells can be assigned to q-t and z-b. Tab key stays the same. Unit production control groups will be 6-0 (alt +a-f) with production hotkeys being q-t and z-b. This seems like a fairly intuitive setup as its similar to the existing Control 10 layout broken down in half via use of the alt key and then shifted from the numbers to the letters a-f. This is more convenient than you standard Control 10 layout.
3. Control 5 Custom layout: This would entail setting control groups to something like q,w,a,s,1 (or any 5 letters/numbers) for groups 1-5 and alt + q,w,a,s,1. The advantage of this type of setup is that you are always guaranteed to be using two fingers when deploying movement commands. For example if you wanted to attack with groups 1-3 it would look something like a,d click s,d click q,d click. This may be the optimal layout however it will also be the most difficult to learn as it is the least similar to the current setup.
I would love to get some feedback on your initial thoughts on an optimal layout as well as feedback after actually trying it out. This is an extremely exciting change to the game that I am looking forward to testing out more. I will add as much info to this guide as possible.
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Control 4 Block:
Since most players do not actively use all 10 hotkeys a block of four may work well along with another random keys. For example the letters W, E, S,D could be used for control groups 1-4 and 5-8 via and alt modifier. 1-4 for units and 5-8 for production. The 3 key could be used for control groups 5 and 0 as an axillary hotkey for things like research or a proxy pylon.
Essential Movement Commands:
Its seems as though you really only need three movement commands set to a hotkey. Attack, Patrol and Hold Position. Of these three patrol tends to be used the least and often during low pressure situations thus it can be relegated to a less than optimal hotkey position.
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Rather general question:
Can you edit the funcion of:
- CTRL
- SHIFT
- SPACEBAR
..?
If yes then this would mean that you could, say give ALT the function of CTRL and give SPACEBAR the function of SHIFT - much more comfortable control-group assignment!
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Sadly this does not seem possible ATM. This is why I think most people will settle on hotkeys in the asdw range as they are near the location of control alt and shift.
It would be nice if they added a hotkey for control modifiers 1, 2 and 3 so you could reassign control alt and shift to any other keys.
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On December 07 2010 00:18 Shurafa wrote:
Sadly this does not seem possible ATM. This is why I think most people will settle on hotkeys in the asdw range as they are near the location of control alt and shift.
It would be nice if they added a hotkey for control modifiers 1, 2 and 3 so you could reassign control alt and shift to any other keys.
Sorry if my questions seem stupid, but since I'm a 2nd class European, I can't test the custom hotkeys.
So is it at least possible to relocate SPACE (for going to last action, which I never use because I always end up going to a pylon)? Because you could give SPACE a function that you always need like attack-move or stop (for kiting)
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Holy smokes! Some of these were not obvious, thank you for the post! I'm excited for:
8. You can use any combination of alt, shift and control for all Control Group hotkeys.
9. Control groups do not have to be a number key.
I may be making a change or two to perfect and speed up control groups!
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what would be a good way to consolidate things?
Currently i am using tilde to switch between hatches, qwer for upgrades on buildings
most of the main attack move and stuff like that is normal
but now i have spells on qwe, upgrades on qwer.
Im trying to think of good control group management, im thinking both space and control.
Currently space is burrow/unborrow, build queen(at hatches).
but i think space used as the control group key would be good, also thinking caps lock for attack move key would be good as my pinky could be on both shift and attack move allowing it to be more useful.
how are other people thinking about the most efficient hotkey setup.
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One of the reasons I have not yet gotten into the multiplayer in Starcraft 2 yet is because I wanted custom hotkeys, but they were not included in the game, I am very happy they are finally going to get patched in. I was disapointed because this was a feature that was seen in Warcraft 3 but not in Starcraft 2 at launch. Now that players can set things up hotkey in a manner that feels most natural for them I assume that we are going to see a huge boost in player skill at top levels of play now that players can customize thing how they want and not have to conform to a set of standardizations.
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Rather than use letters for control groups (which can be less intuitive), you can use the F keys. On my laptop, the F keys are directly above their equivalent number key, making it very easy to map half my control groups over to the left side.
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It would be great if some WAR3 vets would jump in here and share some of their experience.
I feel as though we are reinventing the wheel here.
I have been working on this non stop since the PTR launched. #The key issue is how to assign your control groups (the rest will fall into place). You cannot use control group keys for anything but control in addition all movement commands will apply to all units. Add in the fact that you want things to be near the control alt and shift keys and your options become more limited than you would think.
My most sucessful tests have entailed using group 1,q,a,z for production and 3,4 for attack groups (I would like to add 2 more attack groups as well as 2 auxiliary hotkeys to this setup).
Its a work in progress... I will keep posting with regular updates. I hope to start laddering within the next few days to really give the hotkeys a good stress test.
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personally, I think the 6-0 keys are far away and cumbersome, and I really don't understand how on earth people can actively use them. The best I could ever achieve out of the outer control groups is setting 6-0 all to the same thing, so when I try to hit 7 and accidentally press 6 or 8 it doesn't mess me up 
However, the h key seems to be comfortably in my reach... leaving me 6 control groups to work with on the a-; line.
Though, now that I've grown accustomed to the basic keys, I have a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of messing up no matter how easy the keys are to reach :X
I remember when I first changed to a grid key layout in wc3, the computer would own me >.> I ended up having to just change the necessities, Q= move for surrounds, w = 1st skill, e = 2nd skill, r=3rd, all workers were built using q.
same grid setup for units, I couldn't get used to the buildings in grid formation though.
But alas, I'm unable to participate in the PTR. I'm getting the famous "log into your account manager and add sc2" error.
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I've changed patrol from P to Q, much easier to actually use this now.
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On December 07 2010 09:33 zylog wrote:
Rather than use letters for control groups (which can be less intuitive), you can use the F keys. On my laptop, the F keys are directly above their equivalent number key, making it very easy to map half my control groups over to the left side.
The problem I find with using the function keys as well as 6-0 is that they are relatively far away from the rest of the hotkeys. I feel as though this is a less than optimal setup.
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It's nice to hear that control group hotkey does not need to be a number.
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On December 07 2010 10:47 Shurafa wrote:
It would be great if some WAR3 vets would jump in here and share some of their experience.
I feel as though we are reinventing the wheel here.
I have been working on this non stop since the PTR launched. #The key issue is how to assign your control groups (the rest will fall into place). You cannot use control group keys for anything but control in addition all movement commands will apply to all units. Add in the fact that you want things to be near the control alt and shift keys and your options become more limited than you would think.
My most sucessful tests have entailed using group 1,q,a,z for production and 3,4 for attack groups (I would like to add 2 more attack groups as well as 2 auxiliary hotkeys to this setup).
Its a work in progress... I will keep posting with regular updates. I hope to start laddering within the next few days to really give the hotkeys a good stress test.
You couldn't customize any of that stuff in WAR3. Only unit hotkeys not things like Control 1 and even camera commands/inventory hotkeys on your hero.
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FYI Some Bugs I Found:
1. Seems as though when you set the medivac load hotkey and the marine/marauder stim hotkey to the same character it overwrites the last one used. (When set to different hotkeys they work just fine.)
So if you have stim set to 1 and then set the medivac load hotkey to 1 it will override the stim hotkey and show it as unassigned.
2. Similar behavior was found with burrow and morph to baneling. (When set to different hotkeys they work just fine.)
3. When changing the Base Camera to ` and idle worker to alt + ` you are unable to use control + ` to select all idle works. Not sure if the all idle workers hotkey is missing or if this is a bug.
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My Preliminary Hotkey Layout Analysis:
I play random so this needs to work for all three races:
Production: 1, Q, A, Z
Units: S, D, F Spacebar
Auxillary Hotkeys: Alt + Z, Alt + A (Typically used for research).
Warpgates: Alt + 1
Burrow and Halt Building: E
Base Camera: ~
Last Event notification: Caps Lock
Camera Locations: F1-F4
Idle Worker: is Alt + ~ (WARNING:There is a bug that prevents you from selecting all idle worker with this hotkey)
Attack: G
Hold Position: H
Patrol: J
Unit Abilites: C,V,B and E,R,T
I am using a modified grid pattern for production with most units being produced with the 2, 3, and 4 keys. Unit spells are C, V, B sometimes E,R,T are used as well. C is the default for most unit abilities.
Preliminary Analysis:
Having all of the production hotkeys in a grid is intuitive and efficient as it keeps all of the hotkeys compact on the left side of the keyboard.
Having the unit hotkeys in a line has greatly increased my speed when using multiple control groups. S,G Click D,G Click F,G Click is so smooth and already faster than 1a2a3a which I have been using for decades.
Also having all of the spells on the same/similar hotkeys is phenomenal. Being able to box a group of units and then drop several forcefields with the C key followed by a tab C C C to drop a few Psi Storms is truly a game winner.
Its going to take a month to get used to these hotkeys and I am sure there will be changes. I will keep you posted on the progress.
Looking forward to hearing other peoples layouts.
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So with Blizzard's new hotkey customization feature, we cannot re-assign keys like ctrl or shift to keys like Tab or CapsLock? I prefer the latter two keys since they are closer to the number keys for control groups.
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I already know what I'm going to do with the new custom hotkeys.
5 and 6 are getting moved to Q and W for queens and hatcheries. Build Queen will get moved to shift q.
7 through 10 will get moved to F1 - F4.
This way I've got an extra key for units giving me 4 unit hotkeys, so maybe I'll be able to do some more drops effectively or add in a control group for a second set of banelings for flanking from two sides. Additionally I'll be able to put lots of less urgent control groups on the keys I never used before, like evo chambers and tech buildings, creep tumors, nydus worms and overlords.
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Are the standard keys really that hard? Like I can understand changing maybe one key if you use grid and have the baneling blow up/morph issue, but apart from that, isn't it just going to take you even longer to get used to?
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On December 08 2010 08:27 Jersey Devil wrote:
Are the standard keys really that hard? Like I can understand changing maybe one key if you use grid and have the baneling blow up/morph issue, but apart from that, isn't it just going to take you even longer to get used to?
some players just want keys to work the way they want to. i know some quake players back in the day that prefer mouse2 for forward moving then w
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On December 08 2010 10:43 wing43 wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 08:27 Jersey Devil wrote:
Are the standard keys really that hard? Like I can understand changing maybe one key if you use grid and have the baneling blow up/morph issue, but apart from that, isn't it just going to take you even longer to get used to? some players just want keys to work the way they want to. i know some quake players back in the day that prefer mouse2 for forward moving then w
Ye, i used that as well in quake, coz one player just showed how he plays and left his control setup 
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def putting space as base cam for very very fast shift+injecting
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On December 08 2010 08:27 Jersey Devil wrote:
Are the standard keys really that hard? Like I can understand changing maybe one key if you use grid and have the baneling blow up/morph issue, but apart from that, isn't it just going to take you even longer to get used to?
Tigers Woods was the best golfer in the game game when he decided to change his swing. It took him over a year to make this transition however he is now a better player for it.
The existing Classic hotkey set is clearly sub optimal. Creating a custom hotkey set will greatly improve upon this. I can see this even though I have only played a small number of games with the new layout.
This is also why I have been putting so much thought into the process. I do not want to create a custom set only to find out that that it does not function very well.
Edit: As someone whom has changed Tweaked his hotkeys over the years in a number of RTS games I find it takes about a month to get used to them.
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After making my own optimized hotkeys I've really been thinking why would some of the previous hotkeys even be what they are? Like having build immortal all the way on I or lift on L and things like that
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On December 07 2010 13:29 Shurafa wrote:
FYI Some Bugs I Found:
1. Seems as though when you set the medivac load hotkey and the marine/marauder stim hotkey to the same character it overwrites the last one used. (When set to different hotkeys they work just fine.)
So if you have stim set to 1 and then set the medivac load hotkey to 1 it will override the stim hotkey and show it as unassigned.
2. Similar behavior was found with burrow and morph to baneling. (When set to different hotkeys they work just fine.)
3. When changing the Base Camera to ` and idle worker to alt + ` you are unable to use control + ` to select all idle works. Not sure if the all idle workers hotkey is missing or if this is a bug.
why would you call that a bug? wtf? think before you post a 'bug'
that setup would make zerglings so hard to use
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On December 08 2010 08:27 Jersey Devil wrote:
Are the standard keys really that hard? Like I can understand changing maybe one key if you use grid and have the baneling blow up/morph issue, but apart from that, isn't it just going to take you even longer to get used to?
I dont know why but sc2 ordinary bindings are not ergonomic for me while i can use 45+ keybindings in another game for hours while not getting hurt.
8-0 is just impossible to use and it would decrease my APM more than having like harras groups on f4.
Btw. what ppl bind on f1-4 and f5-8? I found it hard to a-move and horrible for nexus atleast.
F3 + e,e yh right :D
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On December 08 2010 18:23 Ryndika wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 08:27 Jersey Devil wrote:
Are the standard keys really that hard? Like I can understand changing maybe one key if you use grid and have the baneling blow up/morph issue, but apart from that, isn't it just going to take you even longer to get used to? I dont know why but sc2 ordinary bindings are not ergonomic for me while i can use 45+ keybindings in another game for hours while not getting hurt. 8-0 is just impossible to use and it would decrease my APM more than having like harras groups on f4. Btw. what ppl bind on f1-4 and f5-8? I found it hard to a-move and horrible for nexus atleast. F3 + e,e yh right :D
I am using F1-F4 for camera controls. Using it for units is less than optimal imho.
I would suggest using your less than optimal keys for things that you do not needs to spam like:
Research Building
Proxy Pylon
Scount
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I think the only change I'll make will be to move Lift/Land Building from L to something like Q.
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Definitely going to move the backspace key to the spacebar. That might allow for faster queen macro.
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I really miss the goTo hotkeys from Age of Empires. Accessing your barracks/stables/siege workshops just by pressing Z/X/C without having to hotkey them every single game was so convenient. Also having hotkeys for selecting all idle military, all military, all infantry units etc was great. In Starcraft you have to manually key bind units and building each match (minor issue) and use the whole 0-9 range with its horrible ergonomics (major issue).
I really wish someone would combine the Quality of Starcraft II with the interface of Age of Empires 3.
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Are Hotkey settings saved on the server/account or on my pc?
If not saved online, tournies such as MLG are gonna be a huge mess with all the changes that have to be made prior to each match. Imagine all the failures that will happen if sby forgets to change even 1 single hotkey...
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I play random, so it took me a while to go through and tweak things to my liking, but I figured I'd share a few of my changes in case anyone is looking for ideas:
- I changed the worker command for basic buildings to f, then the most basic unit producing structures for each race to f also (i.e. ff builds a gateway for toss, barracks for terran, and hatch for zerg)
- I changed the toss/terran mains to d, just because fd is easier than fc/fn
- I changed stop to x, to save a bit of face if I misclick at the beginning (workers won't stop mining; I thought about just changing scv and select larva to e or something instead, but decided to try this way first and like it well enough)
- Patrol is now q and hold position is now g (partially out of laziness, partially because...)
- Control groups 890 are yhn, respectively. I don't have a problem hitting 7, but anything beyond that is a bit cumbersome and yhn are much more accessible.
- F1-F4 are cameras (changed idle workers to `), as are shift + sdfv
- Someone else also mentioned base camera to space; I did that too. Spacebar queen macro is superior.
- Last notification is caps lock
- Jump to current unit (I think default is ctrl+f or something) is shift+z
- Pretty much anything else on the right side of the keyboard was remapped because I'm lazy, usually to f. (metabolic boost, immortals, planetary fortress, the four armory upgrades became wedf, lift/land to z, etc)
- Any state changing is now ed (burrow (banelings went to f), siege, viking transform, warp mode, etc)
- Sentry/queen spells were rebounded, just to avoid accidental presses since they were next to each other (cv -> cf for queen, fg -> fe for sentry)
...yeah I can't play on default settings anymore >_<
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On December 09 2010 03:07 Kemy wrote:
Are Hotkey settings saved on the server/account or on my pc?
If not saved online, tournies such as MLG are gonna be a huge mess with all the changes that have to be made prior to each match. Imagine all the failures that will happen if sby forgets to change even 1 single hotkey...
They're saved on the server, so you can use them from anywhere as long as you're logged in to your own account.
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On December 07 2010 13:29 Shurafa wrote:
1. Seems as though when you set the medivac load hotkey and the marine/marauder stim hotkey to the same character it overwrites the last one used. (When set to different hotkeys they work just fine.)
2. Similar behavior was found with burrow and morph to baneling. (When set to different hotkeys they work just fine.)
1: This is because you can stim marines in bunkers (in the campaign at least) and also unload/load. So they can't be the same hotkey because they are on the same command panel.
2: This is because you can burrow a speedling and also morph to baneling, so they can't be the same hotkey.
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My primary hotkeys:
DFG - Macro Control Groups (nexus, buildings, pylon as toss)
CVB - Army Control Groups
AS - build command (basic,advanced) as worker)
2 - Cancel Build order
WERT - Primary build keys (most common things)
QASZX - Build less common things
WERT - Upgrades
ASW3 - Spells
T - Attack
R - Stop
E - Hold Position
Regards
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this thread is great. as a european player who's not having access to 1.2.0 yet, this provided some interesting information.
still, i've got some questions.
1 - it's been asked before but went unanswered (or i just didnt look right).. can you indeed modify _every single_ key except shift/alt/ctrl? so it's possible to relocate the current backspace, space and tab functions?
2 - does alt give multiple purpose to just the group hotkeys, or is it possible to use alt with all the other hotkeys aswell?
thanks in advance
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can we reassign backspace to F for example for easier spawn larva?
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come on, help out the guys who're blessed with less test server. it's christmas.
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I use the left handed standard scheme (believe it or not), and I'd never used the town view button before, as it's so far from the rest (F1).
I decided to give it a try last game, and found out... it simply doesn't work. F1 works fine when I watch a replay, but when I use it in a game it just shows the achievement screen. Just thought I'd share. It's great that Blizzard put options for lefties, but they might want to actually test them next time...
For me, the patch will change everything. Starcraft 2 is about to get serious. I've always known I would change the hotkeys eventually, so I knew I would have to re-learn everything. It's a shame we couldn't do that before, really.
So for a leftie:
-% ^ $ and * are my new control groups 1 to 4
- "," is my new advanced building button
- backspace is now townview. It wasn't before.
- baneling explosion will be something i can never reach, like 1 or a
- enter to switch between commands in a selected group
- ! is iddle worker
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Can you in beta assign ` key to town camer view (backspace)?
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On December 26 2010 22:01 GORECHESTRA wrote:
1 - it's been asked before but went unanswered (or i just didnt look right).. can you indeed modify _every single_ key except shift/alt/ctrl? so it's possible to relocate the current backspace, space and tab functions?
On December 26 2010 22:34 Allscorpion wrote:
can we reassign backspace to F for example for easier spawn larva?
On December 28 2010 19:06 Alpina wrote:
Can you in beta assign ` key to town camer view (backspace)?
we demand answers.
please oh please..
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I'd change CTRL for ALT, and, if I could, town camera to C.
In that way I can shift V and then C for fast injects.
I can't wait for this.
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Patch is now live! After playing with the new hotkeys I could not imagine going back to the old system.
If you are a pro gamer or just want to play like one you really should be optimizing your hotkey layout. All other things being equal it is the difference between winning and losing.
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Hey Shurafa im very interested in changing my hotkeys. Im using grid right now. Maybe u could write a guide or something it would be very interesting to the community.
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On December 18 2010 04:12 photomuse wrote:
My primary hotkeys:
DFG - Macro Control Groups (nexus, buildings, pylon as toss)
CVB - Army Control Groups
AS - build command (basic,advanced) as worker)
2 - Cancel Build order
WERT - Primary build keys (most common things)
QASZX - Build less common things
WERT - Upgrades
ASW3 - Spells
T - Attack
R - Stop
E - Hold Position
Regards
I really like this template. (Using the middle keys as your base hotkeys)
The problem I ran into with this is that you cannot get all of your hotkeys with this setup. WERT are your "primary build keys" what about non primary stuff? Its a bit combersome expecially for zerg since there are sooo many units you can produce.
If you could go into a little more detail as to how you deal with this type of issue it would be greatly appreciated.
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On January 22 2011 14:28 Shurafa wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2010 04:12 photomuse wrote:
My primary hotkeys:
DFG - Macro Control Groups (nexus, buildings, pylon as toss)
CVB - Army Control Groups
AS - build command (basic,advanced) as worker)
2 - Cancel Build order
WERT - Primary build keys (most common things)
QASZX - Build less common things
WERT - Upgrades
ASW3 - Spells
T - Attack
R - Stop
E - Hold Position
Regards I really like this template. (Using the middle keys as your base hotkeys) The problem I ran into with this is that you cannot get all of your hotkeys with this setup. WERT are your "primary build keys" what about non primary stuff? Its a bit combersome expecially for zerg since there are sooo many units you can produce. If you could go into a little more detail as to how you deal with this type of issue it would be greatly appreciated.
I don't know about zerg but for protoss everything fits pretty well with the "QASZX - Build less common things" I just tried this out and man its really straight forward makes controlling armys and unit production a lot easier atleast for me.Although I think I am going to throw x and h in as control groups aswell
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On December 18 2010 04:12 photomuse wrote:
My primary hotkeys:
DFG - Macro Control Groups (nexus, buildings, pylon as toss)
CVB - Army Control Groups
AS - build command (basic,advanced) as worker)
2 - Cancel Build order
WERT - Primary build keys (most common things)
QASZX - Build less common things
WERT - Upgrades
ASW3 - Spells
T - Attack
R - Stop
E - Hold Position
Regards
I think this layout has a lot of potential! Have you tried switching the macro and army control groups? I would think that optimizing your keys for unit attacks is the most important thing.
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I was pmed not long ago from a player looking for some hotkey tips and what not for zerg.
This is the PM I responded with, I think my effort that went in to it could help others here.
I can give you a few tips but only as to what I like to do, other then that I'm not sure how else I can help.
So to change layouts to start, you need to go to options>hotkeys and select something from the left side scroll bar. Here you can create your own custom hotkey profile, by starting on a blizzard layout and saving over it with a new name. Once you have created your own custom hotkey layout, you can start tweaking each hotkey.
First i'll go over my location spots. I set 2 of these F keys to my mouse's forward button and back button. I use a Lachesis from razer. Any mouse with side buttons will be able to use this wonderful feature.
I have changed my F1 key (idle worker) to my mouse scroll button, for fast easy splits in the beginning of games, as well as fast responses on idle workers.
I use these buttons on my mouse to spread creep tumors. I will Shift+back mouse buttons or Shift+forward mouse button to save the locations after i have spread the tumors. Allowing me to quickly spread again after the next Inject cycle. To get good at spreading creep a good system is spreading after Injections.
F1, F2, F3 and F4 are now the F9 F10 F11 and F12 keys (blizzard set the location keys to these(there so far on the key board i don't use them much))
My control groups are :
Was - Is now.
0 - `
1 - 1
2 - 2
3 - 3
4 - 4
5 - 5
6 - 6
7 - 7
8 - Q
9 - Space Bar
These control groups are very nice for me as a Zerg player.
Here are the other hotkey changes i have made:
W - Base Camera
E - Inject
E - Unborrow
R - Burrow
Tab - Next subgroup
Caps Lock - Previous sub group
R - Melee attack upgrade
T - Ranged attack upgrade
Y - Carapace upgrade
R - Flying attack upgrade
T - Flying carapace
Y - Infestation pit
Y - Infetor (larva)
D - Unload all
B - Ultralisk den
B - Ultralisk (larva)
Ok that about covers all the hotkey changes. I'll go over my set ups now in game as zerg.
Control groups - Assigned function.
` - Harassment units. (Mutas, Lings, Infestors (Corrupters vs Toss))
1 - Fast units (Lings,Roach)
2 - Slow units or meaty units
Q - Infestors (If i have them.), or my whole army.
Space bar - Banelings (If i have them.) or my whole army.
3 - All Hatcheries
4 - All Queens
5 - Creep spreading queen or whole army if not yet assigned.
6 - Evo chambers and Spire
7 - Important Buildings
I will use tab and caps lock to cycle through my upgrade buildings and important unit structures for upgrades.
This concludes all of my changes, Its important to keep in mind to change hotkeys to what your comfortable too. Just because this works well for me it may not for you. I suggest trying my way if you like it. Then tweak it to your standards.
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I really like how specialized your setup is Chef! I think that players who play one race can really maximize the potential of custom hotkeys as you only have to make it work for one race!
The problem I have run through playing random is that you need to make a set of hotkeys that works for all three races.
I have added details about my current setup here: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=209178
Basically it uses 1-Z as a vertical macro line with Capslock, G.` and Mouse 4,5 as the micro control groups. I dubbed it the "Cartesian" Hotkey setup as originally it used Caps Lock - F as the micro control groups (like the X, Y plane for you mathheads out there).
PS For those looking to compete with a give set of hotkeys stay away from any programs that remap your mouse/keyboard keys as they will most likely not be allowed in LAN competitions. (Any custom hotkeys saved to Battlenet will be allowed though!).
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EPT
