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Jak, I made a small discovery on the zerg camera creep spread method that I'd like to share with you, but it will require a change to the layered queen inject CG:
I found this to be extremely useful to get creep going in massive amounts:
0) with your first queen, lay creep and press ctrl+shift+J to set the free camera (repeat with your alternate)
When ready to spread:
1) hold ctrl (THE ENTIRE TIME)
2) press J to recall camera
3) click creep tumor
4) press and hold shift (THE REST OF THE STEPS)
5) click creep queen (make sure she's not in the frame with your inject queens, or they'll get selected too).
- at this point you should now have your creep tumors and your queen selected, with creep tumors first.
6) move camera with your mouse to your new creep location.
7) press "I"
8) click ground to spread creeep (arcs or right next to each other are fine).
9) press CANCEL in case you have a bunch of tumors and don't want to use them all to spread (good idea to leave some active tumors mid-way in case the front most die).
10) press M4 or M5 to Tab to your creep queen. (very good synergy with the cancel button).
11) press "I"
12) click ground several times to completely empty your queen's energy supply with tumors.
13) press J to reset camera.
14) release shift (still holding ctrl), press O to go to your next camera, and repeat from step 3.
While this all sounds like a lot, I've just broken it down by each press. In reality it's extremely fast, and when you've gone through a few cycles, it comes naturally. What's great about this is that it forces your to keep laying down NEW tumors with your queen which makes the spread grow exponentially (up to the point that you can't control it).
HOWEVER,
the only way this method works is if you modify the layered CG (#7) off of the "I" button for ZRM. (applies to all your other layouts). I decided to experiment by moving add and replace CG7 to K instead of I. This actually felt fine considering I'm not adding and replacing that CG very often. Plus, being off the main row makes me less likely to overwrite it.
What do you think?? I've tested this in game, so I know it works.
EDIT:
I forgot to mention the advantages to this:
PROS:
- you never have to click the minimap.
- you only have to toggle shift one time during that whole process.
- you will never lose track of your creep spreading queens since they follow your camera (because she isn't on a CG).
CONS:
- on maps where you want a single trail of creep going in 4-5 directions, this won't work very well. It's best for where there are two main lanes you want to power-spread creep ASAP.
- if your queens die or your creep tumors die, you'll need to get new ones and reset the camera. This probably isn't terribly hard.
- I need to do more testing to convince myself this is actually faster than just using the minimap and manually spreading. I think that it is, but it definitely has a higher learning curve.
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@ Thayneq,
That sounds really cool. Do you have Skype? I'd love to talk about it! If you don't mind giving it out, PM me  . I sent you mine.
I have an idea to add, but I have not tested it out. I'd like to speak to you to make sure I am getting it right.
Edit: with the new suggested CGs, that CG is used even less in terms of additions. K is the next best key in my opinion, and this works really nicely. The only problem I have is going from pressing ctrl to going to press ctrlshift. How do you do this smoothly?
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Hi folks
I´ve seen this Streaming with Virtual Keyboard.
I think when the time is right and new tutorial videos have to be made this would be a cool tool to visualize TheCore in action.
Check it out. I´m testing it for myself and I´m convinced that it suits my needs ^^
Good time to ya all
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Hey guys what's up? For creep spreading, Camera Locations are solid, but can be problematic if your opponent is aggressive about clearing out tumors and creep Queens. Also, Like Thayneq said, multiple creep paths can complicate things even further.
The best way I found to do creep spreading without committing any Cameras or Control Groups to it is to use Drag Scrolling, setting "Drag Scroll Speed" to 100% speed. I'm not sure what TheCore uses for Mouse Buttons, but I bind Drag Scroll to MMB to perform this (I don't have extra mouse buttons). This may sound crazy, but it feels good and has other benefits.
So what I basically do to spread creep is: Hold MMB, scroll to the end of a creep path, Ctrl+Click one tumor, hold my tumor button, and lay down the tumors quickly, and then zip over to the other path with MMB, and repeat for each path. I'm not sure if that's the kind of thing JaK is going for, as it promotes mouse accuracy and speed rather than efficient hotkey placement and usage, but it feels smooth and doesn't tie up any precious groups. You can easily set a Camera Location if you think it will shave time off of the scrolling, but if you're fairly accurate and quick with a mouse then I know no method that's as reliable and simple as this. The best part is, you don't need to scroll by moving your mouse to the edge of the screen, or by clicking on the minimap, you just pull the camera directly to where the work needs to be done, do a few clicks, and repeat. You can even look at the minimap's "camera box" while dragging your camera for reference, so it's easy to position yourself at each path.
I hope that gave you guys some ideas, as deciding on an extremely easy way to spread creep can be very tough. Unfortunately, it's a fairly complex task that demands your APM no matter which way you go about it. I learned that as a Zerg player, you're either going to be constantly re-assigning Cameras or CG's/selecting tumors/spamming tumors/re-assigning Cams or CG's with each round of tumors. I've tried methods involving these things, and they are very hard to maintain during play, especially when the tumors increase to nearly unmanageable numbers, and the number of paths increase.
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On April 07 2013 04:01 thayneq wrote:
CONS:
- on maps where you want a single trail of creep going in 4-5 directions, this won't work very well. It's best for where there are two main lanes you want to power-spread creep ASAP.
I honestly don't see how this is a con- you can spread creep in two of the lanes with this method, and for the other two you can have a queen on a control group (or just click the minimap).
Your method isn't any worse than other methods in this scenario- it's still better, you just can't use it on ALL of the lanes.
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Hell the fuck yes @ Virtual Keyboard. I am all about that.
EDIT: Turns out its $30... 
EDIT AGAIN: So its working and I didn't pay for it or do anything shifty. Going to start recording the new videos most asaply
@eney
We're going for superior mechanics, so if the mouse is faster, that's what we will suggest, if the keyboard is faster, that is what well will suggest.
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On April 07 2013 07:38 JaKaTaK wrote:Hell the fuck yes @ Virtual Keyboard. I am all about that. EDIT: Turns out its $30... @eney We're going for superior mechanics, so if the mouse is faster, that's what we will suggest, if the keyboard is faster, that is what well will suggest.
Thanks for the quick response! What method do you guys currently lean toward for creep spread or is that still up in the air?
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Is there any advantage to using certain sizes of the core?
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On April 07 2013 03:54 JaKaTaK wrote:
Can we not give the thumb shift, control, and layer keys?
I suppose you could but since everything is already readily available without it, I can't imagine much benefit. Unless you never wanted to move your other four fingers, lol.
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Hey Jak et al (and community, TheCore lovers, haters and everyone else)!
First off, I'm nobody, SC2 noob and currently trying to learn the Core. Here goes a shitload of text. Good luck:
Talked to Jak on youtube yesterday and made my first ever post there. Now I made my first ever post here, which was made in the TheCore hotkey trainer. I thought it deserved a cross-post here as I may have what some noobs, who can use some basic photoshop and have some time would probably like to have as well. It's a help graphic for TheCore that may be useful for a lot of people that posted here or just silently read along. So I'm cross-posting my own first post here. Is't that awesome? My second post ever in this forum and it's already to quote my first post. That has to be some sort of record, lol. Anyway...just read the post and you will know why I say this my be of interest to some folks:
So me to the maker of TheCore hotkey trainer in my first post:
Good stuff. That's some great work mate. There are no keyboard options for other languages yet right? It says you need to change this in the config.ini, but there is nothing we can change it too yet. Is that correct? If that's correct, I'm asking myself of what use I could be to you? I wish more people would ask themselves that. I am German, have a German keyboard QWERTZ and would certainly be willing to help you with this. I'm in the process of making a PSD for my specific layout that overlays TheCore onto a typical German keyboard. I already have that file for TLM, but that is because I didn't understand TheCore at all and thought the L would simply move the layout to the left side of the keyboard, but instead it's truly for left handed mouse use. It also reverses the logic of what fingers are used for what actions and is thus completely impractical for me. I only started playing a few weeks ago, so the resulting completely illogical placement and hand gymnastics only became apparent, when I started practicing with it ingame. So I scrapped using the TLM 0.6.3 layout and fired up the TRM 0.6.3. Then it hit me hard. The buttons are definitely different. Things aren't always where the TheCore Reference Spreadsheet assumes them to be. I think the mapping probably works fine, but they spreadsheet tells you different keys than what they are in reality, when you try to play. So this is probably the riddle you cannot solve without a different keyboard and language settings on your machine. Obviously you will have no idea what truly happens without that foreign keyboard in hands. The good news is. I have one of the keyboards you will want, I speak pretty fluent English and I can translate and check where things are, etc. I'm not a programming wiz and don't understand anything about Python, but I'm sure I can still somehow help. I'm now working on making the PSD for regular right handed mouse use. The PSD includes markers over keys for what buttons to press to make and add to control groups, set and use cameras, build basic and advanced and some strategy related stuff like lift building, siege/unsiege etc. It also features a legend that displays clearly what buttons are suggested to use for specific things. It is clearly labeled, intuitive and color coded. I did this, because I don't really know SC yet and a layout of what fingers you use to press where and where things are generally wasn't enough for me. I needed to actually see a lot more within one simple picture. Why is that you might ask? Let me explain. For example if I press Shift-W for cam 1 and W for group 6 and the CC/.../... goes there, I needed something that would tell me all these things without having the spreadsheet open and the general map. Otherwise the process is as follows. I build a CC. I should set a camera here and bind it to a control group. Let's pull up the spreadsheet and look how to add to a control group. O.k. Now where do I add this to? Let's see what's suggested over here in a different place in the spreadsheet. Ahh, ok., so that goes to group 6 to make things flow easy. Hmm, so where is group 6 placed? Let's look that up, too. Ahh, yes. Wait a second how do I set the camera again? Right, I just use Alt and I'm good to go. Let's go back to the game. Wait, shit, how to set control groups again? Was that W or E? Let's check the spreadsheet. Now else might I want to do. let's look at the basic mapping again. And so on and so forth. At that speed it probably takes me a year to grasp the basics, so I figured I'd make myself a more telling graphic that tells me all I need to really know with one glance. Like I said I'm a total noob, so the graphics a resources they provide were simply not detailed enough for me to learn things within a reasonable timeframe. The general help pictures were made for people that already have a general sense of what they are doing and they were meant to apply to all versions and all races. That ended up not being useful for me at all, so I figured maybe give this hotkey trainer a try and sure enough that absolutely helps to get things in order in my brain. But there are so many things you can do and control groups don't go left to right top to bottom either. They went with game related ergonomics for TheCore, so not much is intuitive until you get it. So in order to get better I had to see what your program wanted from me on a piece of paper and made myself a PSD that tells me it (at least for terran). When I finally saw things like that I quickly realized that I had assumed wrong and that TLM was indeed for left mouse and they truly meant what they said. It's not just the layout on the left of the keyboard, it's all ergonomically and logically switched to be used with the right hand. So I went with TRM instead and then I looked at the spreadsheet and in game. A lot of shit is not where the spreadsheet says it should be, because buttons are labeled differently and at least in the case of löä#enter, we have one more button in the row. I remembered I read in your config.ini you could switch keyboards. Then I tried putting my country code de instead of us in there and it broke the hotkey trainer. So I tried finding out what I need to put in there and instead google brought me here. I'm currently trying to jump through the hoops of figuring out where things are truly placed on my German keyboard for TRM. Once I figure this out I can finish the PSD and then I will have one for TLM on German QWERTZ and one for TRM on German QWERTZ. I guess I'm currently the only person with a German keyboard that has used your trainer for practice as it works just fine for left handed folks / left mouse users even on the German keyboard. The problems are really on the right side of the keyboard, where there are ö,ä,ü and all sorts of things mixed up. For example for the SCV to build a tier 1 building TheCore wishes the button to be ', but unfortunately the German keyboard has 3 buttons after L, before the enter, whereas the US keyboard has only two. So in game there is nothing happening when you press ' . Instead one needs to press ä to build tier 1 and also turrets (same button in TheCore). And that's just the beginning of it. There is so much different on US vs. German keyboards. Long story short, I think the PSDs I'm working on can give you the answers to the questions you may have in one easy visual, at least for terran. I don't understand theCore well enough to know if this may be all you need to understand all races and all sizes for theCore, but I think it probably will. Anyhow, do you want the PSDs once I finish? I will contact the maker of theCore Jaksomething was it? on his youtube channel. In fact I already talked to him there on one of his videos. I want him to see the PSD as well. Perhaps this can be of use for him as well. I think noobs like me will love having this visually before them and I think it could be adopted relatively quickly to different races and sizes now that one clearly layered, marked and color coded PSD is available for that. The PSD itself is 80MB though. It would speed up the process of learning with your trainer immensely in my opinion. Other than offering the PSD (PSDs) I can try whatever you want and I'm willing to go into files and make translations, photograph my keyboard, etc. but I believe the PSD shows clearly a lot of the default TheCore mapping as it applies to a German keyboard an that may well be all you need. If you still want to make a different keyboard setup, I'm here to help you start with this version in any way you would like me to. I guess it would be the QWERTZ version, but I'm unsure if they all have 3 buttons after L before the enter button or just Germany due to our öäü. So whatever help you want, just say the word. And to give you an idea of what the PSD looks like, here is the JPG it gives me: Oh, no image for new users, eh? Great. Link maybe? http://postimg.org/image/p4mlxvp41/This is on the background of US key Layout on the left side of the keyboard obviously. I have since renamed and restructured the graphic I overlayed the stuff on to match my keyboard and I'm working on the PSD for left mouse on the right side of things. I'm not done yet though. TL/DR I know, I know. I'm just trying to help and have a feeling that's exactly what TS was looking for. So I signed up just for this. I'm cross posting this to theCore thread as well. I hope that isn't against the forum rules and if it is that they make an exception. I feel a few people that read there may want to have that PSD as well, so I think the post isn't spam and the people that may be interested will be found in that thread more likely than here. So mods, please don't be very harsh to me, if I assume incorrectly here. So, this only took 25 minutes to write, lol. I'm outta here and will check back for a possible response from you. In the meantime I shall now head to youtube and give Jakforgetwhatitwas the link to here. Like I said maybe he has use for the PSD as well. Cheers and thanks again for our great program. It would be an honor for me to help make it a little better.
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@eneyeseekay
We don't really have a set in stone method yet, although Thayneq's post above, in conjunction with your method describes what I personally think is fastest after trying both. I agree with Borskey that for multiple paths one simply needs to do what you suggest after your two creep cams are exhausted. Being adept at both is great because if one's cams get screwed up, one can fall back on the drag scroll method. In TheCore, currently DS is set to middle button, because M5 is used as next subgroup. M4 is previous.
@ Jak,
I really like Thayneq's proposed change. I tested it out, and it works nicely. It allows you to check creep spread every time you make a unit, because you use control to add eggs to cgs. Further, adding things into cg 2 with K is fine because as he mentioned:
1) one does not need to use it so often
2)... especilly since only queens occupy the control group following the revision
3) Way less rebinding mistakes. Before I was having lots of difficulty with adding tumors accidentally to the cg. Now it is not a problem.
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TL/R version:
I'm a terran noob that needed a better visual to learn TheCore, so I made myself one.
Any of you interested in a PSD that gives you this:
http://postimg.org/image/p4mlxvp41/
???
I am making a version for right mouse use and left hand on the right side of a keyboard right now. I'm probably finishing that one up in a few hours. Only that one will be for German QWERTZ, BUT there is a layer with the keyboard on it, so you can go grab the original unchanged version from google or directly here:
http://openclipart.org/people/Todd Partridge - Gen2ly/keyboard-mappings-outline.svg
and throw that in there to have a US layout in the background, but you will need to clean up some of the keys. I had to do the same. However all the little markers and all text is labeled, color coded and organized in folders on layers for people to move around and readjust to whereever they may want things. It's gonna be very helpful for me I'm sure. So it'll most likely help other noobs as me.
I'm probably uploading a new version for the left hand on keyboard and the right hand on mouse tomorrow or a few days later if I have to work too much and can't find the time. If anyone has a suggestion where to host a 80MB PSD for easy access to everyone here, please do tell. Thanks.
Cheers and glhf
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ok, so I've been using my creep method (free-cam method) again over 10 or so games and here's what I've found:
- holding ctrl and toggling shift is very difficult for my thumb. It requires pressing ctrl with the back part of my thumb, and using the tip to toggle shift. This is OK, except when I press ctrl the first time, it's usually with my tip, so I have to lift off, which defeats the whole purpose. I find that this extra half-second of though is enough trouble to make it not worth it.
- if you are a lot faster with your mouse than your typing hand, then the drag scroll method of spreading creep is superior (after trying both).
- if you don't like mousing back and forth to the minimap (which you should practice if you can't do it fast), then my method is better.
- somehow I ended up with evo chambers on the wrong control group. I think I'm too drunk to play SC2 anymore 
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@TheRealKinetic
The Hotkey Trainer program that you are referring to is made by another guy, and is not affiliated with the developers of TheCore whatsoever. It was created a long time ago and has not been maintained, so it will not be up to date with Heart of the Swarm changes. That said, I believe you should be able to use that program with the German version of TheCore. I don't exactly understand what the issue is that you are having with it.
For sharing large files with everyone, I'd recommend using DropBox.
Personally, I find your diagram to be an overload of information for me. The diagrams that exist now for breaking down keys by control group, camera, ability key, etc. was exactly what I was looking when I was learning TheCore, although I was already an experienced SC2 player. However, I'm sure there are others who will find it very handy, so thank you very much for sharing it.
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I'm having trouble understanding what this creep spread method is. Is it a lot better than just having the creep queen hotkeyed?
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Hey Sandbox,
I'm wondering if you can please share your control group setup with us and compare it to the new suggested control groups on the main page of the alpha spreadsheet. What do you use your free cams for if not creep spread?
Thanks!
Edit: we aren't positive if it is faster or more optimal yet. Also, how does having a queen hotkeyed help with the tumors on the ground?
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My control groups are ordered 0 - = [ ] \ ; ' mouse 1 mouse 2 (from 1-10) with ZRSM
1 - Main army (lings, or roach/hydra)
2 - Initial scouting overlord / Banelings (early game) / infestors
3 - Second scouting overlord / Creep queen / Any air (corruptors, mutas, vipers, broodlords)
4 - Hatcheries
5 - Queen 1
6 - Queen 2
7 - Queen 3
8 - Evolution chambers
9 - Spawning pool (early game), spires/infestaiton pit
10 - Swarmhosts / Creep queen if 3 is being used (for air) and I don't have any swarmhosts
I use my cams for the first 6 bases
Creep queen hotkeyed makes a pretty big difference for creep spread, for any active tumors not near the queen I just click on the minimap
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On April 07 2013 11:01 JDub wrote:
@TheRealKinetic
The Hotkey Trainer program that you are referring to is made by another guy, and is not affiliated with the developers of TheCore whatsoever. It was created a long time ago and has not been maintained, so it will not be up to date with Heart of the Swarm changes. That said, I believe you should be able to use that program with the German version of TheCore. I don't exactly understand what the issue is that you are having with it.
For sharing large files with everyone, I'd recommend using DropBox.
Personally, I find your diagram to be an overload of information for me. The diagrams that exist now for breaking down keys by control group, camera, ability key, etc. was exactly what I was looking when I was learning TheCore, although I was already an experienced SC2 player. However, I'm sure there are others who will find it very handy, so thank you very much for sharing it.
Thanks for the warm words and that information. That's kind of you.
Meanwhile I'm done making a new version of the image. Here is the learning helper jpg for "The Core" on QWERTZ German (TRM and TLM):
http://postimg.org/image/f8ga35isn/
Also shrunk down the PSD to a managable size. If anyone wants the above, please hit me up.
My personal problem was/is that some of the keys from the trainer do not coincide with what is printed on my keyboard.
And how is this useful for a German Terran that just installed "The Core"? Well, we don't know what combinations to press to make and add to control groups. We'd like to see this on a keyboard rather than find it in a spreadsheet. Then in game we build something and have to look up to what control group we are supposed to add it to. Then we have to find where this control group is exactly, if we don't have it memorized and so on and so forth.
Then suppose you start a game and macro up for a while. You move out and get attacked by the Zerg opponent. You want to siege your tanks and move up your army. How do I do this utilizing hotkeys in "the Core"? One look at this and a German Terran will know. In this case you'd press 9 I Ö J and klick with your mouse. To select ghosts, cloak, EMP the deathball and attack your Protoss opponent with all your army it would be L Ä I Ö J provided you use the groups as suggested. And now I can finally see what those groups are and where they go. If I wanted to I could actually think about what actions I wanted to speed up in game and practice the corresponding "combos", even outside of the game as if this was a StreetFighter booklet. You can't do any of that with the original helpful images. You have to go back and forth through the spreadsheet, the images and if you have a German keyboard even check in game and make annotations, because buttons are labeled differently.
I think the great images that helped you are clearly more geared towards pretty high level players that already do a lot of stuff correctly and just want to use "the Core" to shave off milliseconds. But all levels seem to actually embrace the idea a lot. If you are gonna learn using hotkeys well, you might as well start with the most efficient layout there is. I need to learn a lot more than how to shave off a few milliseconds and don't want to waste 100 games to be able to learn to make use of 2-3 control groups and 3 cameras, worse yet at the same time macroing and moving my army. The hotkeys are supposed to help me accomplish this, but it costs a lot of time finding out how I do the most basic things with hotkeys. I can't constantly pause games and think about what I should be doing, then going to the desktop to get the spreadsheet again, etc. So I just print the jpg I made out and put it right underneath my keyboard and voila I can get much more use out of my time learning. That's how my image helps me personally, where the official ones and sometimes even the spreadsheet didn't.
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Cool. If you had all your queens on one group (in other words, two extra CGs,) what do you think you would add?
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oh SNAP, I just learned something SUPER dope with those free cams!!
So check this: When you are holding ctrl+shift and then pressing "I" for creep spread, just hit I+J both together to not only spread creep, but reset the camera! This is great because I and J are right next to each other, so it's easy. And as a bonus, when you spread creep with the other camera, you hit I+O which again is super easy because your fingers are both right there. You basically just took 2 steps out of the whole thing by making CTRL+SHIFT+I+O one single press that does multiple things!
try it out!
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EPT
