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On July 06 2013 13:23 eneyeseekay wrote:
-I'd use Z-V for a Rally cam, or even Caps Lock if you don't use Base Camera.
What do you think of Ctrl + Caps Lock / Alt + Caps Lock as a "special camera" (non-base) location?
I've been experimenting with that for my rally/main choke camera and it feels pretty natural so far. What I don't like about Z and X is that they're pretty uncomfortable hitting with Alt (C/V are fine though), and since you often need to reach 1 right after it's a little bit too far off I feel.
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On July 06 2013 18:44 PoP wrote:Show nested quote +On July 06 2013 13:23 eneyeseekay wrote:
-I'd use Z-V for a Rally cam, or even Caps Lock if you don't use Base Camera.
What do you think of Ctrl + Caps Lock / Alt + Caps Lock as a "special camera" (non-base) location? I've been experimenting with that for my rally/main choke camera and it feels pretty natural so far. What I don't like about Z and X is that they're pretty uncomfortable hitting with Alt (C/V are fine though), and since you often need to reach 1 right after it's a little bit too far off I feel.
Yeah sorry I didn't explain the Caps Lock bit in that post. What I was saying was one could get rid of using Caps Lock for Base Camera if they didn't like using it. They could bind Ctrl+Caps Lock to create the "Special Camera", and then simply press Caps Lock to Recall it. I think the binding you mentioned would apply to most players better though. Ctrl+Caps Lock to create, and Alt+Caps Lock to recall is much better for most situations, as you're pressing Alt+A-V for your other cameras already, Alt+Caps Lock falls in line with that-- keeps it all consistent. It even allows you to keep the Base Camera command bound so you don't lose any utility. This is also a really safe binding because Alt+Tab is disabled, and Alt+Shift does nothing on its own, so a keystroke miss won't punish you. Ideally (after doing a bit of testing with it), I found that the create/recall binding on Caps Lock is better off being set as an alternate binding of the A-V camera of your choice. You still get that "special camera" utility without disrupting anything else on A-V.
Assuming those bindings are in place, you can really see how I was looking to arrange the hotkeys since the start of this project. The concept shows itself a lot more clearly after adding a binding like Alt+Caps Lock for an all-purpose/Rally Cam (applies to Protoss & Terran files, as Zerg uses Space Bar for the Base Camera key).- ` to 5 row for units.
- Tab to R row for production.
- Caps Lock to F row for camera-related hotkeys (with Z-V providing an additional row of cameras).
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Hey, thanks for this. I'm physically disabled and found the default layout difficult to reach certain shift/control commands. This helped a lot, since all the shift/control commands are really close.
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On July 10 2013 22:38 wisecrack123 wrote:
Hey, thanks for this. I'm physically disabled and found the default layout difficult to reach certain shift/control commands. This helped a lot, since all the shift/control commands are really close.
Hey thanks for giving it a go! As long as you have a pinky finger that can hit Ctrl and Shift decently, the rest of the layout should work great!
I think the toughest command to perform in Standard was definitely the camera ones. It's no good if you have to take your hand off the mouse to press keys that you can't reach!
Edit: Being able to use your left thumb for Alt is also pretty important..I should have mentioned that!
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We're closing in on a week with the new test files up. I think that for now, this is going to be the way we will propose and test changes to determine whether or not they should be pushed through as part of the thread's featured default layouts.
Regarding the current testfiles, the most important questions at the moment are:1. Do the players feel that it's far too un-intuitive to have Ctrl+Tab/1-5/A-V create these cameras and Control Groups, but have Ctrl+Q-R add to the Q-R Control Groups?
2. Is it going to be safe enough for the majority of players to use? What I mean here is will the the actual use of these bindings be too risky for most players to use given the location of other bindings?
3. Should this change be added to the Additional Info section of the OP as an advanced/optional binding suggestion instead?
If you've tested this throughout the week and have something to add, please feel free to chime in and tell us about your experience with it.
If you're reading this and have no idea what is going on and you're curious, take a look at the testfile document here (also accessed through the download links in the OP):
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/a34d7t3iq6hwpeq/mjMPFPcPVL/%60Tester_Files
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I like Ctrl to add for Q-R, and I believe this is not much riskier than most other mistakes you can make by hitting the wrong keys.
Unrelated: I like Ctrl+Caps Lock/Alt+Caps Lock for special cam, however it's a bit annoying when you don't disable Caps Lock in your system, if you ever wish to send some chat messages during a game (especially team games, that is). There are ways to disable it (I think it's a useless key anyway), but I wonder if I should just switch to another location instead...
Also how are you supposed to use the S key to spam mules? You can't right? Since it requires you to hit the command before clicking every single time. What commands do you suggest considering S for, as a Terran?
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@PoP
You can change MULES to S if you want, that wouldn't be a problem at all. Right now it's on W and Space Bar, so you can either take the Smart Key binding off or the W binding and change it to S. Should work fine!
If you were looking to drop a ton of MULES using the Rapidfire Ability Key without changing it from W/Space Bar to S, you would have to hold press W, then Shift+S. If you you did change it to S, then you would not need to press Shift, only hold S! Ridiculously easy.
S (the Rapidfire Ability Key for Alloy) is very situational. I don't have any suggested bindings for Terran, other than the MULE change mentioned above. I guess the better response to your question is "What spells would you want to spam easier? Bind those to S!". Not the most "directly helpful" response, but it's the best one I can come up with at the moment.
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Hey everyone, I have a couple updates to announce as well as an "exciting idea"  .- The OP now features a section for the Ctrl+ adding method. It was decided that this will not be incorporated into any version of Fleet Keys at this time. However, I will keep the tester files up for players to continue trying out. You can find all of this in the "Additional Info" section, under the "Ctrl + Key Adding Method" subject.
- Revamped the "Smart Key Explained" subject found in the Additional Info section.
So, the idea.
I've been thinking about creating a new section for featuring Fleet Keys users' replays. I think it would be really cool to collect replays from Fleet Keys users of each league, and feature them in an all-new section as part of the OP. Here are most of the details I have worked out/brainstormed as of now:- Feature Fleet Keys users' replays in this "untitled new section" of the OP. The replays (arranged by league) would be in order of Pro/Event games (if one pops up I will
probably lose my mind), then GM down to Bronze and then Unranked, and then a separate section that could feature some fun/exciting team games from various leagues. I would pick roughly 5 of the most exciting games belonging to each league and briefly describe them with the links, (the GM and team game lists will exceed 5 of course if I manage to get more than 5).
- Link to streams of Fleet Keys users who stream and/or offer coaching often (I'd be really pumped to see this).
- Report/chronicle my own progress while doing this. This would be suuuuper fun and exciting for me, as I suck and really want to play a lot more and get better.
- Possibly find some emergent hotkey trends and refine the hotkey systems even more.
The point of all this is basically to get us all watching our games in closer detail to not only pick apart our play in respect to our leagues, but to also pick apart some of the issues players of varying leagues are having with the actual layouts themselves. As far as I can tell, the vast majority of changes to Alloy and Element are all done, so with that, I think it's time we started showcasing the users of this layout to really complete the thread itself.
Does this sound good? Does anyone care for this idea? I need to hear from players of varying leagues for this to really flesh itself out so I can dump, salvage or spring into action with this idea. PM, post here, or email me what you think about it, this could be the last and most awesome step in completing this whole thing.
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So I've tweaked alloy to what I think I'll end up keeping.
Here are the primary reasons for the changes.
1. Simplicity
The more sense something makes in your brain, the easier it is to learn.
I've modified it to be more straightforward and simple so that in the same amount of time I play, I will improve and get better at using the keys faster.
2. Versatility
I play every race, but usually 1 race at a time. To keep my experience with each race relevant when switching, the hotkey setup has to be uniform for each.
3. I dislike modifier+macroCG for selection
This just didn't click in my brain. It was annoying to use at the start, and still a pain to macro with.
Layered cameras are still nice though, and by god do they make using inject/chrono so easy.
edit:Now that I'm thinking about it, shift+a-f/z-v for set cam and recall as ctr+button might be nice. Big hands=alt key isn't very nice to me.
Layered CG's are gone.
Hotkeys are now tab+`+123456.
`: harass scout
1/2:army+casters
3:rax/gate/queens
4:fact/robo
5:star
6:tech
tab:macro
I wasn't planning on using tab thinking I'd use it as a cam or something, but in my short experience so far with alloy it was ingrained into my brain as the dedicated macro button. I love it.
All keys right within reach, no stretching except for tech which you don't need to hit that often.
Alt+` is idle workers, because it might be a nice key to hit every now and then.
Last but not least, subgroup selection onto the mouse keys. This is indeed very awesome. If I was keyless on the mouse, I guess I'd use something like R/F or T/G for subgroups. But it isn't a huge deal, 3 control groups is more than enough for caster usage.
Thanks for the setup again! It's really helped me start actually using cams and more CG's.
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@decemberscalm
That looks like a good alternative setup for those who just can't get used to the Alt+QWE CG's. It all really comes down to what you're comfortable with in the end right?
When you say Tab for macro, you mean CC's/Hatches/Nexuses right?
I'm not sure what you are using Caps Lock for, are you still using it as a CG or Base Camera? Caps Lock is a reallllly good spot for Queens, as it makes the Backspace, Camera Locations, and Box-Click methods insanely smooth. By keeping your layout uniform, did you opt for the Smart Key with Zerg as Space Bar, or did you change Space bar to Base Camera in T&P? The Z and the T&P layouts are divided mainly by that defining feature, so I'm curious to hear what you decided to go for while merging them?
Thanks for the feedback/sharing your thoughts!
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I downloaded and put it on just to try it out. It annoyed me when I tried to change back to my regular hotkey profile they all changed to alloy! The E for attack was the real clincher for me imo. It just does not make sense lol.
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On July 30 2013 18:12 KingofGods wrote:
I downloaded and put it on just to try it out. It annoyed me when I tried to change back to my regular hotkey profile they all changed to alloy! The E for attack was the real clincher for me imo. It just does not make sense lol.
That was a big issue for me at first when I started using Fleet Keys... I lost a bunch of (unranked) games because I tried to a-move my army and walked them freely into my enemy.
That being said, after a week, the E-move became second nature and having A/S/D (and spacebar for Protoss/Terran) as my spellcasting makes it SO much easier to have large engagements with a variety of units.
The efficient/intuitive/accessible camera bindings and general tidiness of the hotkeys makes it worth a little adjustment, in my opinion.
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Have been using Fleet-Keys for quite a while now and just wanted to say thank you for developing this layout.
It is so far working great for me and even brought my poor apm up a bit. . It took me a while to get used to using the modifier key for production but thats fine right now.
What I like is that I'm bascially able now to use all of the control groups, though I still have to learn to make good use of them.
Trying to mess around with the camera hotkeys also, but I still have to find out how I can efficiently use those.
What this layout did for me was to at least get me out of Bronze thanks to being able to macro better now.
What I am wondering about right now is the following: I do quite often use the select idle worker button as well as select all idle workers. I set this key on ^ (left to 1 on the german keyboard) and select all idle workers correspondingly.
This seems to be kind of a bad idea because i frequently manage to overwrite my army CG 1 and have all idle workers there. No idea but it happens almost any game and is really annoying. Using the F1-F5 keys is pretty much no option for me, simply cannot work with those keys without seriously messing things up. (Subgroup selects therefore went to side mouse buttons)
What I am looking for is a good place for that key now that is easy to use at the end of a normal macro cycle. Might put it on t but I already have set this to jump to alerts to know where things go wrong. I wonder if i could use caps lock for that. Never use the base cycle cam anyhow because I either double tap to jump somewhere or trie to use separate camera hotkeys anyhow. Do you have any suggestions for me on that one?
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Off Topic (somewhat)
So what do you guys think of that new potential section for the OP? The poll says there's players from pretty much all leagues, so apart from a bit of contribution it wouldn't be a far-off working concept. The ideas I threw around are only a few comments before this one, but I'll link to the post here.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=404476¤tpage=15#288
@KingofGods
After plugging in the file in your hotkeys folder, it should be as simple as selecting the file from the the drop-down menu of profiles.
As for E on attack, it actually makes a ton of sense. With the placement of 1, 2, and 3 (and for some, 4 as well), you can tap E easier than pretty much any key. A demonstration of this would look like:- Ring - 1
- Index - E
- Middle - 2
- Index - E
- Middle or Index - 3
- Index - E
Chances are you won't be Attack-moving more than 3 CG's, but even so, E seems like a much better location than A or T given the army CG locations. 1-3 are super common for army CG's, and E for attack cuts out any unnecessary reaching or stretching. 1E, 2E, 3E is pretty damn fast-- even adding a fourth CG to it wouldn't slow it down much or at all!
@Eagleeye777
Hey, it's great to hear your macro is going well so far! It's going to be something you'll always be working on so it's awesome to hear that the layout is at least helping that along.
So you're hitting ^ and 1 at the same time while holding Ctrl? Sounds like an accuracy issue, but I do see where you're coming from. I personally don't use the Idle Worker key until late game when mineral patches/geysers are mined out, and I also do not use my Select Army hotkey. There is some room for error with it like you said. I'm not too sure what I'd put in place of Idle Workers/Select Army. Perhaps another CG? Perhaps not? A command that doesn't rely on Ctrl or Shit? Caps Lock is a great location for anything you'll be doing at least twice or three times every minute. If you plan on going for a full-on tabbed production setup, I'd have to recommend Caps Lock for your army buildings, and if you can swing it, Missile Turrets/Photon Cannons with your CC's for a little extra control (just an idea).
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On July 31 2013 05:28 eneyeseekay wrote:Off Topic (somewhat)So what do you guys think of that new potential section for the OP? The poll says there's players from pretty much all leagues, so apart from a bit of contribution it wouldn't be a far-off working concept. The ideas I threw around are only a few comments before this one, but I'll link to the post here. http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=404476¤tpage=15#288@KingofGodsAfter plugging in the file in your hotkeys folder, it should be as simple as selecting the file from the the drop-down menu of profiles. As for E on attack, it actually makes a ton of sense. With the placement of 1, 2, and 3 (and for some, 4 as well), you can tap E easier than pretty much any key. A demonstration of this would look like: - Ring - 1
- Index - E
- Middle - 2
- Index - E
- Middle or Index - 3
- Index - E
Chances are you won't be Attack-moving more than 3 CG's, but even so, E seems like a much better location than A or T given the army CG locations. 1-3 are super common for army CG's, and E for attack cuts out any unnecessary reaching or stretching. 1E, 2E, 3E is pretty damn fast-- even adding a fourth CG to it wouldn't slow it down much or at all! @Eagleeye777
Keep up the good work, continued great thread man and Im a fan of the ideas you have to try and appeal to newer players.
I use R purely for the reason that my index finger sits nicely on R, probably better for smaller handed players to use E, I've tried Q-R for attack and for me R feels most natural. I've kept a close eye on this thread however and sorry I haven't been given much feedback as I've not felt the need to pickup a similar hotkey system due to time constraints playing. I've picked up a lot of handy advantages from this thread. Ctrl+Caps and Alt+Caps works well for a rally cam and I've incorporated it into my own version that is quite similar to yours. But I honestly think using a modifier for control groups isn't a good idea at all. Everything else is decent. Another idea some might find handy is along with using Space(and Z) for Basic Build I use Q for advanced build. I have anything that was X in the building tab rebound to Caps besides this to have an easier hotkey on the first two rows. Using Q and Space and Occasionally Caps for units with 3 abilities (Q=EMP) (Space=Snipe) (Caps=Cloak/Uncloak) for example allows your hand (if it's similarly sized to mine) to hit everything fairly easily. Just food for thought.
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I actually added as an alternative for attack as caps lock. I agree, 1a 2a, 3a can be difficult but it's a lot nicer with pinky hitting caps lock.
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I started to use the Alloy layout today and played a few games using it and now I starting the get the hang of it. I really like these layered hotkeys because I can reach everything without lifting my hand.
The only inconvience I found was that I use QWERTZ layout and had to modify every Z to Y. If you would like I can send you this modified layout for QWERTZ keyboards so people can download it later and don't have to modify.
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on Mac I have a problem. Caps Lock key is only detected as pressed only when a it goes from turned on to turned off. other way doesnt work. its like if i didnt press anything
Is it a known problem?
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Sorry everyone, I've been tied up for the last couple of days, but I've managed to claw my way back! Ok, where do I start?
@Rockafella
R is pretty comfy for me as well since I have fairly large hands. I still use E, and I hit 4E with my index. Slightly inefficient, I know, but 4 army CG's isn't something easily harnessed, so it doesn't see too much use.
I like that spellcaster idea. If you're not using Caps Lock as a CG or Base Camera, I think that could work nicely especially if you're also using the Smart Key as Space Bar. Having 3 different sized keys for each spell might be awkward at first, but who knows, it may help build up one's muscle memory that way because they're distincly different.
I've always received mixed opinions about the Alt+Q-R CG's. I'm not really sure what I would do with them if I did try to change it up. 4,5,6 is obvious but still a bit awkward/takes away from the compact-ness of everything. It requires a lot of moving if your hands aren't big, not to mention you lose up to 2 CG's. Army Production on Caps Lock or 4/5 in conjunction with Subgroup selections is an option too I guess. At this point I'm used to the Alt+Q-R thing, and I prefer it over 4,5,6 but that's just me. I use it the same way for Protoss and Terran as I would use it for Zerg. By "same way" I mean: rapidly checking my Queues across each different army structure, Inject timers between every few actions, and sometimes separate rallying and jumping to each CG's locations.
Being mindful of the white queues on the wireframes is the key to constant and massive production using Alt+Q-R. Seeing what your production is doing and knowing exactly when to make units is better in this case than spamming and over-queuing up on a few structures. I always hoped that this promoted more single queues across more managed structures. The problem is always keeping that one single queue marker on each structure, but it's a good thing to strive for. Trying to produce on-time while simply producing more as opposed to more often is another way of looking at it. That's basically my original intent with it anyway, what are your thoughts about it?
@KingofGods
I'm playing out the actions now.. Pinky for attack? I could see people being interested in that. How did that come about anyway? Were you trying to offload more work to your thumb/pinky?
@SorrowShine and Tritone
Yeah, it's an issue I've heard of with Macs when using Caps Lock in SC2. I am putting that link in the Q&A section with its own Question, thanks for posting that Tritone! This should help more people in the future.
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EPT
