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Everything discussed in this article also applies to other abilities that require you to target terrain or other units, such as EMP or Transfusions
What most people know:
To throw down forcefields quickly without having to F-click, F-click, F-click, over and over again, you can hold down the F key and place as many forcefields as you want without having to press F multiple times. This comes with one disadvantage though. If you press and hold F, and start rapidly clicking on your opponent's army to cast forcefields TOO QUICKLY after pressing F, you will deselect your sentries and target one of your opponent's units instead.
*NOTE* - On the topic of Shift-commands
+ Show Spoiler +The problem with Shifl-Clicking is that this will queue up the forcefield command instead of forcing the sentry to do it immediately.
Out of combat, shift clicking is fine, but if you engage with your sentries before you cast any forcefields, shift-click forcefielding will queue up a forcefield command to be cast AFTER the sentry finishes attacking, instead of just forcing it to forcefield immidiately by holding F and clicking. This will cause the forcefields to net be cast untill all the enemy units are dead, in which case the forcefields wont help at all
How to fix this:
Almost everybody knows that when you hold a key down on your keyboard, the character you pressed on the keyboard will, AFTER A SMALL DELAY, be typed over and over again on your screen.
This concept also affects abilities within the game (such as forcefields). When you, for example, press and hold F, the forcefield command will be given over and over in quick succession. This is what allows consecutive casting of forcefields while holding F.
However, as mentioned before, if you start rapidly clicking on your opponent's army to cast forcefields TOO QUICKLY after pressing F, you will deselect your sentries and target one of your opponent's units instead. This happens because you started clicking DURING THAT SMALL DELAY MENTIONED BEFORE between you holding the F key, and the command being repeatedly triggered.
There is no way to completely remove this window of time in which forcefields cannot be cast more than once, but you CAN make this window of time significantly shorter by setting your character repeat delay to "Fast"
(for windows) Follow the following instructions to set the character repeat delay to fast:
Step 1: Click on the Start Button (in the lower left hand corner of the screen)
Step 2: Click the "Search programs and files" field and type "Keyboard"
Step 3: Select "Keyboard" under Control Panel
Step 4: Set "Character Repeat Delay" to Short (furthest to the right, default is 3/4 of the way)
-NOTE- Setting the character repeat Rate to Fast might also minimize problems while forcefielding if it is too low.
While this does not completely remove the window of time in which you will lose target of your sentries when throwing down forcefields, the amount of time you have to wait after initially pressing F is much lower, allowing faster forcefields
NOTE- taking the previous steps will also affect word processing programs and everywhere else you type
Please dont post saying that you just use shift commands to forcefields unless you are ABSELOUTELY CERTAIN you have a way to make shift-commands work
UPDATE:
An article on this topic is now up on http://sc2tips.blogspot.com/2011/05/force-field-delay-when-holding-down-f.html.
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I think this is common knowledge, I've been using this for.. forever.
Good thread anyway. People should use this if they aren't already.
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That's why I was losing control of my sentries =/
I even have it set on fast, guess I'll just f click f click now
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On May 10 2011 07:58 Sinok wrote:
I think this is common knowledge, I've been using this for.. forever.
Good thread anyway. People should use this if they aren't already.
Yes, most people already know that they can hold F and cast forcefields, but i have met many people who complain over selecting enemy units while casting forcefields, and thereby losing control over their army
I hope this helps a few of those people 
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On May 10 2011 08:01 Soulish wrote:
That's why I was losing control of my sentries =/
I even have it set on fast, guess I'll just f click f click now
There is no way (as far as i know) to completely remove the window of time between pressing F and casting forcefields
HOWEVER, if you just press F and wait like 0.2 seconds, you can cast as many forcefields without pressing F as you want without having to fear losing control of your sentries
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You can also F+shift + click click click. That's what I do to warp units. For force fields I always did F click F click though. I feel very comfortable with it.
I didn't know that the delay was linked with the windows repetition thing though. Interesting!
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Usually I just F click, guess I will try using this method after I test it out.
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Canada362 Posts
Oh, mine was set to the second furthest from the left. Hoping this helps to have it on the farthest left, thanks!
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I just f click f click too.
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On May 10 2011 08:08 Temporarykid wrote:
Oh, mine was set to the second furthest from the left. Hoping this helps to have it on the farthest left, thanks!
STOP! You need to set it to Short (farthest to the right) in order to minimize the window of time in which you cannot forcefield. Moving it left will have the opposite effect :S
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On May 10 2011 08:04 iNbluE wrote:
You can also F+shift + click click click. That's what I do to warp units. For force fields I always did F click F click though. I feel very comfortable with it.
I didn't know that the delay was linked with the windows repetition thing though. Interesting!
The problem with this method is that you cannot forcefield while attacking, since the forcefield command will be queued up to be cast after the sentry stops attacking enemy units (Atleast that happened the last time i tried that method)
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i've tried hold down buttons to warp in units and forcefield and it just doesn't feel right. f-click, f-click, to me at least, seems to "flow" better and accurate.
i hold down only when making units from larvae. or making the first dozen workers.
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On May 10 2011 08:22 jinorazi wrote:
i've tried hold down buttons to warp in units and forcefield and it just doesn't feel right. f-click, f-click, to me at least, seems to "flow" better and accurate.
i hold down only when making units from larvae. or making the first dozen workers.
Everyone has their preferences. I find holding F to be much faster, especially when walling off big portions of the map / splitting armies
Setting the Character repeat delay to Short will also make you mass-produce units from larvae faster.
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On May 10 2011 07:58 Sinok wrote:
I think this is common knowledge, I've been using this for.. forever.
Good thread anyway. People should use this if they aren't already.
Someone didn't read the entire post.
Thanks OP this has proven quite useful!
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On May 10 2011 08:15 Jerokar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2011 08:04 iNbluE wrote:
You can also F+shift + click click click. That's what I do to warp units. For force fields I always did F click F click though. I feel very comfortable with it.
I didn't know that the delay was linked with the windows repetition thing though. Interesting! edit: I was wrong, the fallowing only works if your sentries don't attack anything yet! The problem with this method is that you cannot forcefield while attacking, since the forcefield command will be queued up to be cast after the sentry stops attacking enemy units (Atleast that happened the last time i tried that method)
That happens if you hold shift before pressing F, however if you press F first and then hold shift + click they cast immeadiately. That's because in the first case you queue the forcefield order in a regular shift queue.
I use the shift method because I was used to it from war3 and to be honest I didn't even know you could hold down F.
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On May 10 2011 08:30 thesmoosh wrote:
Why not shiftclick?
The problem with Shifl-Clicking is that this will queue up the forcefield command instead of forcing the sentry to do it immediately.
Out of combat, shift clicking is fine, but if you engage with your sentries before you cast any forcefields, shift-click forcefielding will queue up a forcefield command to be cast AFTER the sentry finishes attacking, instead of just forcing it to forcefield immidiately by holding F and clicking. This will cause the forcefields to net be cast untill all the enemy units are dead, in which case the forcefields wont help at all
Hope that made sense 
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On May 10 2011 08:45 eezyBash wrote:Show nested quote +On May 10 2011 08:15 Jerokar wrote:On May 10 2011 08:04 iNbluE wrote:
You can also F+shift + click click click. That's what I do to warp units. For force fields I always did F click F click though. I feel very comfortable with it.
I didn't know that the delay was linked with the windows repetition thing though. Interesting! The problem with this method is that you cannot forcefield while attacking, since the forcefield command will be queued up to be cast after the sentry stops attacking enemy units (Atleast that happened the last time i tried that method) That happens if you hold shift before pressing F, however if you press F first and then hold shift + click they cast immeadiately. That's because in the first case you queue the forcefield order in a regular shift queue. I use the shift method because I was used to it from war3 and to be honest I didn't even know you could hold down F.
After spending some time in a unit-tester map, i still find that a shift-command will not be executed untill the sentries have finished their current command, even if F is pressed before shift.
Please correct me if i am wrong, but i believe that holding F is the only way to forcefield without interrupting their current command first
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f click is just more fluid for me. Sure, holding F is faster, but I don't feel like I'm in as much control
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On May 10 2011 09:15 lazydino wrote:
f click is just more fluid for me. Sure, holding F is faster, but I don't feel like I'm in as much control
It certainly takes a lot more time getting used to your mouse speed/accuracy, since it is a bit hard to actually see where your curser is while you are holding F and clicking rapidly. It is nice to be able to trap units quickly though ^^
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EPT
