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All units and structures built in Starcraft require a hot key to be pressed or held down to confirm the action. If you want to simply build a drone, you press D.
What if you want to build 2 drones? You press D. What if you want to make 5? What if you want to make 50?
The average amount of time it takes for a human to press a key, release that same key, and press the same key again is close to 1/8th of a second. (0.125 seconds) Introducing latency and Starcraft registering the key press rounds this to about 1/5th of a second. (0.2 seconds).
Let me give an example:
Most Zerg players use a 9 overlord, followed by a drone to 10 supply. This brings a period of time where the Zerg waits for the overlord to spawn to initiate two drones in production.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KmXY8l.jpg)
The Overlord is about to spawn. I want you to hold down the D key instead of pressing it twice.
What is actually happening is, the game is not recognizing these as separate key entries, but as a continuous entry. Thus the input time from your keyboard, the time from pressing your finger on the key once more, and the time taken for Starcraft to register the key press are nullified (latency will always be a factor).
The fact that your drones will spawn earlier is undeniable.
Now let me ask you something. Professionals and masters players often use 'tricks' to gain or hinder mining in Starcraft. If one ever watches Spanishwa or Destiny's streams, you can clearly see they press keys instead of holding; usually to demonstrate pro-level APM during early game (mind you that up until 20 supply you only need ~50 APM to correctly complete all your tasks at hand). Don't you find it silly that they spend so much effort to change small amounts of minerals and yet they sacrifice so much by not pressing their keys fast enough?
Mineral pushing as some call it (when a worker of A mines B's mineral patches preventing a worker from B from mining it) only offers incredibly slight mineral adjustments.
Rallying workers to closer mineral patches only yields ~20 minerals more if done correctly.
This is for your entire game long people. Think about those milliseconds adding and adding over time. Every time you build something you are further and further behind on what could have been.
Even more importantly, when Larva appears from your Hatchery every single time, you are transforming that larva into units/drones slower without holding down the S key.
Terrans and Protoss: Will hold much less often. The larva mechanic relies on speed of the key press while Terran and Protoss are free to que up units as they please without much haste. (Things like the SECOND a barracks finishes however to build a marine or tech lab etc will require a hold). Protoss and Terrans should avoid holding on buildings that can que due to idle money mechanics.
[Zerg] WHEN TO BE CAREFUL USING HOLDING:
A situation like this below:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/W6IG7l.jpg)
Larva can be overspent on the wrong things sometimes. Most commonly, people will over react to an attack and hold their R or Z buttons down. This can cost you games. Be careful.
All larva can and will be spent in less than a half second if you continue to hold, as so:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/EQN1nl.jpg)
Thank you TL for your time. I hoped a helped a few members get out of their bad habits.
-Hatefiend
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I think holding hotkeys is alot more situational than you make it out to be.
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So your point is that holding the key builds multiple things with a lower delay in between them?
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uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....
i thought every zerg would know this by now 
either way im sure it'll help a lot of the beginners or the BW players switching to sc2
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i was actually surprised when someone said "wow i never knew you can hold down a button" when i posted something regarding the apm reading change on one of the patches.
i had no idea it was thread worthy.
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On July 23 2011 09:38 Giwoon wrote:uhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm..... i thought every zerg would know this by now either way im sure it'll help a lot of the beginners or the BW players switching to sc2
Start watching some streams and prepare to be frustrated. ^_^
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I don't hold for small numbers (eg. 2 drones at 10-12) because there is a small delay between when you hold down the button, and when the units actually make. You're first unit will make, then there's that little delay and then the rest go at whatever the repeat rate is set for on your keyboard.
Unless you mean holding down D before the OL spawns, but the difference is so small it's negligible. The extra milliseconds won't add up throughout the game as you shouldn't be getting supply blocked beyond that first OL you make, hence another situation where you are waiting for the OL to spawn before making drones will happen very rarely if ever.
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wasn't there a patch in which blizzard fixed this kind of mechanic so you had to press the hotkey one by one again ?
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On July 23 2011 09:45 arkedos wrote:
wasn't there a patch in which blizzard fixed this kind of mechanic so you had to press the hotkey one by one again ?
It didn't last long.
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On July 23 2011 09:45 arkedos wrote:
wasn't there a patch in which blizzard fixed this kind of mechanic so you had to press the hotkey one by one again ?
I'm 99% certain that it still works.
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On July 23 2011 09:40 DarthXX wrote:
I don't hold for small numbers (eg. 2 drones at 10-12) because there is a small delay between when you hold down the button, and when the units actually make. You're first unit will make, then there's that little delay and then the rest go at whatever the repeat rate is set for on your keyboard.
Unless you mean holding down D before the OL spawns, but the difference is so small it's negligible. The extra milliseconds won't add up throughout the game as you shouldn't be getting supply blocked beyond that first OL you make, hence another situation where you are waiting for the OL to spawn before making drones will happen very rarely if ever.
Around 5 builds is when the process begins to even out. The delay of holding is around a half a second long. Considering each different build takes ~0.2 seconds to complete while key spamming, it quickly begins to get dwarfed by the holding method.
Plus, it's always good to build good habits. "The difference is negligible" excuse is just a poor answer. I was watching Destiny and Day9 talk on Friendsday Wednesday this week, and Destiny wasn't even sure if Extractor Trick was better than 9 OL, or even if double extractor trick was worth it. He said he read it somewhere that he could not remember and kept the individuals word for it.
Things like that are careless and come off as lazy. If you don't believe me on the holding technique, open a custom game vs a computer and try it yourself.
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On July 23 2011 09:52 Hatefiend wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2011 09:40 DarthXX wrote:
I don't hold for small numbers (eg. 2 drones at 10-12) because there is a small delay between when you hold down the button, and when the units actually make. You're first unit will make, then there's that little delay and then the rest go at whatever the repeat rate is set for on your keyboard.
Unless you mean holding down D before the OL spawns, but the difference is so small it's negligible. The extra milliseconds won't add up throughout the game as you shouldn't be getting supply blocked beyond that first OL you make, hence another situation where you are waiting for the OL to spawn before making drones will happen very rarely if ever. Around 5 builds is when the process begins to even out. The delay of holding is around a half a second long. Considering each different build takes ~0.2 seconds to complete while key spamming, it quickly begins to get dwarfed by the holding method. Plus, it's always good to build good habits. "The difference is negligible" excuse is just a poor answer. I was watching Destiny and Day9 talk on Friendsday Wednesday this week, and Destiny wasn't even sure if Extractor Trick was better than 9 OL, or even if double extractor trick was worth it. He said he read it somewhere that he could not remember and kept the individuals word for it. Things like that are careless and come off as lazy. If you don't believe me on the holding technique, open a custom game vs a computer and try it yourself.
So after 5 units it evens out hmmm. Thought it was around 6 or 7, in any case do you know of any way to get rid of the delay? Or is it a limitation of the game?
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I tap. I don't want to accidentally make all roaches, or all zerglings. It's just a habit even if I do want to make them all roaches or zerglings.
It's down to player preference. It's not going to change you from masters to grandmasters.
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I think everyone already knows this by now :S
Thanks for the effort??
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This has lost me a few games. Because I wanted to hit R or Z and my finger went immediately to holding D and I made drones instead of Roaches or Zerglings  . I try to tap as much as I can but sometimes my habit of holding the hotkey just kicks in.
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Is this viable for terrans? when making lots of marines etc?
Does this also queue units in the production facilities if held down for too long?
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Isn't this what everyone does already?
It doesn't put you ahead/behind by any large margin as long as you know what you're doing.
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This has been known since beta .___.
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On July 23 2011 09:50 Badfatpanda wrote:Show nested quote +On July 23 2011 09:45 arkedos wrote:
wasn't there a patch in which blizzard fixed this kind of mechanic so you had to press the hotkey one by one again ? I'm 99% certain that it still works.
It still works, the change was revoked before patching the game.
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EPT
