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Hello. After seeing a fellow Singaporean (JMave) posting his terran guide, I was motivated to finally make this post which I've been thinking of doing for a while now. A little bit of introduction, I'm pangshai and have been playing on and off since the game came out. I don't play a significant amount of iccup to get to my highest rank, but I've beaten C+ players on my good days.
This guide attempts to cover the usage of the control and shift keys. It seems that most players know how the shift key can be used to set waypoints, select/deselect units, and clone stuff. But they overlook the usefulness of the control key. Because of this, the main focus of the guide shall be on the control key and I will try to touch a bit on cloning.
Everyone knows that holding control and left clicking a unit will select similar units on the screen. This is similar to double clicking the unit. But control can do so much more than just that. I first noticed the control key being used in a different way while watching Midian FPVods, but only figured out how to use it a year or so later (lol). Firstly, I present a common scenario.
Here's what a typical zerg rally point looks like at some point in a ZvT game. You have mutas out, and are busy microing your mutas in the terran main, but because you have been diligently practising your 3sz4sz5sd3sh4sz5sd, you have a whole bunch of units sitting at your choke when you take a break from the muta micro.
Now, the dilemma. You want to send your 3 drones (that're stuck in the middle of all the lings and hydras) to mine. You can hold control and left click the drones. But doing that will mean the other drones already mining minerals at your expo might also get selected. Whats worse is if you select a gas mining drone, order it to mine minerals and not notice. You can try to shift select each drone individually and get all 3. But thats slow, cumbersome and requires high accuracy. Here's where the control key can come into good use.
Step 1: Draw a box over the drones. This will most definitely also select the lings as well.
Step 2: Now you have your drones selected with a whole bunch of lings. Hold control and left click the drone icon. Note that it is the icon of the drone at the bottom of the screen that you're left clicking on, not the unit itself
Step 3: Only your 3 drones are selected and you can send them to mine now.
Sometimes in step 2, your box doesn't successfully select all 3 drones (you only select 2 drones and 10 lings/hydras). Continue on to step 3, and then repeat step 2 again. In time and with experience, you learn to draw smaller boxes for higher specificity.
The control hotkey is not only useful in this situation. Assuming you're zerg and you're attacking a small marine medic group with lurkers and lings. Your units are not positioned ideally, and they are running in in a line.
As your lurkers approach the group of MM, you want the front lurkers to burrow, but the lurkers behind to continue the advance forward. Similarly you draw a box over the units in the front (in this case, a mixture of lings and lurkers), hold control and left click a lurker icon.
Only the lurkers in front will be selected, and those at the back will continue the run forward to engage the army. Especially at the D level, you see zergs burrowing the entire hotkey of lurkers when only half the group is in range, and terran easily cleans up those in range before retreating. This is also good for a swarm push, as it keeps your army running forward into the swarm as opposed to burrowing behind the swarm.
Other events this might come in handy is with sieging of tanks in TvP, grouping of marine medic armies and ling/hydra/lurker armies, reinforcing (shift + draw box to replenish a hotkey group, but this will select a whole bunch of assorted units. then control left click).
The control hotkey is especially useful when it comes to grouping. Often you macro a decent sized army at your choke (at least for those of you who, like me, aren't very good with reinforcing or coordinating multiple attacks at the same time).
Likewise, you start out by drawing a box over a bunch of units on the outside
You then hold control and left click the icon of a marine.
And you have 10 marines now selected in a hotkey group. This is easy to top up later by holding shift and drawing a very small box over a couple of marines.
By comparison, if you were to use control + left click on a unit, 12 rines are randomly selected.
And some rines are going to be stuck within other units. If you were to use control + left click on a unit to group all your rines, you'd have a lot of work to do later deselecting, or you will have rines which are in multiple groups. This will mean that when stimming both groups, the repeated rines get stimmed multiple times.
Similarly with zerg, say the scenario is you just exchanged your army with the terran but have macroed up this army during the battle. You want to group it with lings into separate groups from the lurkers. The problem with control left clicking a ling here is that the 12 lings will be randomly selected from the screen -- not particularly ideal, with lings getting trapped between other units or getting repetitions etc.
While I mentioned that the control + left click icon might be useful for reinforcing, I find I use shift while reinforcing more frequently. Say you moved out with a vult/tank army TvP, and you want to go back to pick up your new units. Press your hotkey for tanks. Tanks are selected.
Now, hold shift, and double click on a tank at your rally point. This selects all the tanks on the screen. Then just regroup them (control + hotkey number).
Not sure how complicated this sounds, but this is what you'll be pressing. 2 --> hotkey for tanks, 8 tanks selected shift (and hold) + double click on a tank at your rally point --> 8 tanks originally + 3 tanks at your rally point control 2 --> put all 12 tanks into hotkey group 2
I think maybe this will be more understandable with FPvods or something, but I don't know what programme to use to make them, so if someone who knows what I'm talking about wants to go ahead, I'll gladly add it to the OP.
Thanks for reading the guide. Hopefully it was understandable. Happy new year. (This was written on 1/1/09, 6.10am, sober).
EDIT:
Shift adding units to existing hotkey groups. I didn't add this to the guide at first because I don't really find this particularly useful.
Lets envision a scenario where you are terran and you have just engaged zerg's army with your 5 hotkey groups of army. I personally use 1, 3 and 4 for marines, 2 for medics and 5 for vessels and tanks (with the control key + unit frame selection you can isolate the tanks easily for quick sieging). After the huge battle, you have five marines left on 1, six marines on 3 and a lone marine on 4.
Press 4, selecting the lone marine, hold shift, and press 1. This adds the marine from 4 to control group 1. Repeat similarly with 3. Press 3, selecting the remaining six marines, hold shift and press 1. This adds the six marines to control group 1. Not sure how this sounds again, so I'll just run through the keys you have to press.
4 --> select the 1 marine left in control group 4. shift + 1 --> add the 1 marine from 4 to control group 1. 3 --> select the 6 marines left in control group 3. shift + 1 --> add the 6 marines from 3 to control group 1. 1 --> all 12 marines will be selected.
Most of the time though, you wouldn't have such a nice number of marines left over. If you have a group with 3 marines left and another group with 10 marines, and you use the shift add function, I think only the first 2 marines will be added, but all 3 stay in the previous control group. ie, if you have 3 marines in control group 1, and 10 marines in control group 3, and you shift add the 3 marines from 1 into 3, only 2 marines from control group 3 are added to control group 1, but all 3 marines will remain in control group 1. Also, most of the time after the huge battle it is a good time to go back and reinforce, replenishing depleted control groups with new units, so I don't find this function too useful.
Someone also mentioned the alt key. I'm not particularly sure the functions of the alt key either. Maybe someone can inform me on uses for these 2 functions that I will include in the guide. Once again, thanks for reading.
edit: fyrewolf posted some useful information. some of it was covered in the thread already, but i didn't update my OP before, so i thought it'd be best if i updated now.
On January 25 2010 05:12 Fyrewolf wrote: CTRL+C OR ALT+C = Center Camera on unit This command centers the screen on whatever unit you currently have selected. If you ever lose units from a group or somehow, this centers the screen on that unit. if for instance, you are trying to center the camera by double pressing a CTRL groups number and the screen diverts to an empty area because the units are too spread out, you can select one of the pictures and center on it with this command, or just any lost unit you are trying to find.
ALT + Number = Center Camera on group number Alternate to double tapping group number.
ALT + Click on unit = Last Group This was already mentioned, but ill list it for good measure. Selects all units that were last selected with that unit, NOT related to CTRL groups. Good for groups of Zerglings or other units that tend to die too quickly on CTRL groups.
Shift + 1 = Add to Group Adds selected unit to group number, also already mentioned.
ALT + O = Open Options Menu Screen Opens the Options menu subcategory. F10 opens main menu.
CTRL + M = Toggle Music
CTRL + S = Toggle Sound
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the last tip can be done with holding control instead of double clicking. so shift+control : it adds a unit type to a selected group.
also I didn't know about selecting by control+click on unit frames so thx
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thorough guide on a pretty basic aspect of the game =P. not sure how many people, on tl at least, that this is going to help. a for effort though, and seriously if you can write as thorough, clear, and concise of a guide on more complex things i think youd be a great contributor to tl.
edit: i was wrong insofar in that everyone else has thought this guide was super helpful. my apologies! also, in that case, i htink this should be put in the recommended threads. keep up the good work!~
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You forgot to mention when you're playing zergs and have to macro off three or 4 hatches - press control click on larva means you only have to macro using 2 actions versus click+sz click+sz click+sz or what not. It's an alternate way of macroing, perhaps not more effective.
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Awesome thats very helpful. On a related note, is there a way to exchange your control keys duties onto another key like you can in other comp games
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Braavos36362 Posts
nice! thanks, i didn't know about the control click unit frame thing
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thanks, very helpful guide !
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Kinda what i was trying to explain here:
+ Show Spoiler +On December 25 2008 18:21 Cloud wrote:Show nested quote +On December 25 2008 01:46 AloneInDaBunker wrote: 5. The focus of zergling+lurker control is zergling, not lurkers. Charging 1a2a lurker zergling accomplishes nothing but making marines retreat a small distance. It is better to divide zergling and lurkers to make lurkers run in front while zerglings surround marines from behind and move attack. This deals more damage. Remember the main part of July’s ling+lurk control was zergling, not lurkers.
6. Lurker control Tip Burrowing lurker group altogether as if sieging a group of tanks will make you lose. When charging with lurker group, it is important to shift click on each lurker to burrow those in appropriate position. If you got a slow hand, ctrl+lurker will select lurkers in screen. Pressing U after that will make lurkers that are not on screen to run forward. Press U again on these running lurkers. This will prevent lurkers to stand still when intense battle takes place. Place two lurkers in expos in starting points. I advise against stop lurkers for beginners since you will have to pay too much attention to it.
I kinda disagree with these 2 points. With the first one, while the flanking with zerglings is indeed the most important part, that is usually done prior to battle. The toughest and most micro intensive part is actually the handling of the lurkers. Even the running past the marines and attacking them with zerglings requires about 2 mouse clicks for each group of zerglings you have and not even precise clicks. However for lurkers, burrowing/unburrowing to catch up with the running terran or burrowing only the front lurkers to place all of them in range of his stationary army is a whole different story. Defilers and scourges may also not as important as the zerglings but are harder. You need to focus more on these units. Also, while yes, the ideal way to attack with lurkerling is to have zerglings which completely surround the marines, you never want to leave your lurkers without any lings close to them or the marines will actually kill the lurkers and escape through there rather easily. With the second point, i dont even understand what youre trying to say with the shift click but using ctrl + left click on the lurker itself right from the start is a bad idea, youre better off just using the hotkey and pressing "u" since if you want the former way to work, you actually need to have your screen set up so that you cant see at least half of your lurkers, which also means you will not see half of the rest of your army which usually includes scourges and defilers. So im gonna try to explain as best as i can the way i think its best to handle lurkers. Your lurkers are coming close to the terran, you use your mouse to drag select (with a box) the front lurkers, you will most likely select some zerglings too, so to be able to burrow.those lurkers you have to ctrl-left click on any lurker drawing on the lower part of the screen, which i will call the "selected group box" for clarity. The rest of the lurkers will keep moving, and if you want to move them even farther, you can use the hotkey + your usual right click while the burrow animation is still going, however if you keep ordering your whole group to move (even the burrowed ones) you will actually prevent the burrowed ones from attacking, so then you may need to do some more of the action i described in the previous paragraph, especially if your lurkers start splitting in 2 groups and surrounding the terran, which sometimes happens. If you are fast, you can spam right click on a marine who is in a sweet spot while having the burrowing lurkers selected, if you click right when the animation finishes, the luker will actually fire a little fast than usual. Now, some of the lurkers are fully burrowed your ctrl+left clicks on a burrowed lurker will select only all the burrowed lurkers you can see, same goes for the unburrowed lurks if you click on one, so rinse and repeat those last steps with the still running lurkers. If the already burrowed lurkers are suddenly out of range then you will repeat the same technique i just described. You drag-select the lurkers you wanna unburrow or just ctrl-left click on one of them if you wanna unburrow all, ctrl+left click one of them in the "selected group box" to remove any other unwanted units unburrow and then you can start moving them asap since the animation to unburrow is like instantaneous. Thats basically it, takes a lot of practice and some speed, the scourges come somwhere between where most of your lurkers are burrowed and all of them are burrowed. The defilers and zerglings are used when the lurkers are still running.
If you have trouble cloning scourges because you are slow, then just spread them somewhat before the fight, just not too much since you want them to keep their formation when they move, then you will move them past the vessels but they have to pass over them and when they are over them you can just attack move wherever. If you are fighting lots of tanks with few vessels, you want your lurkers to burrow as close to the tanks as possible, since they are the most dangerous, if you kill them, you usually nulify the terrans attack even if most of the marines are still alive. If you are fighting lots of vessels with few tanks(1-3), forget about the tanks since the terran will usually just use them to soak up damage if you burrow lurkers next to them (defensive matrix and all that), you want to kill marines with those lurkers, also if the terran retreats and leaves his tanks behind, they will die easily to your zerglings. A bit confusing i know, but i hope it helps.
But its nice to see it with pics.
If you ctrl+click on a fully burrowed unit, it will only select the burrowed units.
Also for fully sieged tanks, it will only select the sieged ones.
Same goes for any kind of eggs.
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I'm surprised there are people who dont know how to use control, thats a pretty basic feature of the game.
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On January 01 2009 07:55 Mastermind wrote: I'm surprised there are people who dont know how to use control, thats a pretty basic feature of the game. I've known this stuff for ages, but I guess it would be helpful for those who didn;t know. I use it all teh time for selecting marines from MMF to stim or target sunkens, that way my firebat fends off the lings and my medics dont run up to the sunken. Many uses indeed, but I would think that everyone should know this already.
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Thank you very much, though I was aware of these features I hadn't thought of using all of them properly!
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On January 01 2009 08:10 Grobyc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2009 07:55 Mastermind wrote: I'm surprised there are people who dont know how to use control, thats a pretty basic feature of the game. I've known this stuff for ages, but I guess it would be helpful for those who didn;t know. I use it all teh time for selecting marines from MMF to stim or target sunkens, that way my firebat fends off the lings and my medics dont run up to the sunken. Many uses indeed, but I would think that everyone should know this already.
lol, i thought the same thing. actually, though, it could be interesting, examples of implementation... lurkerling, mmf, taking specific units from rally points, etc. that kind of thing.
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thanks! Very useful guide :D
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I've been using ctrl + shift, and each individually for such a long time, but for some reason, I couldn't put two and two together. I've been vexed as to how to separate the drones from the giant clump, and... this made my mind finally combine the things I know. Thank you!
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A easier way to do the third step would be to actually control click to select those 3 tanks then to shift-add (shift plus group number) them to your control group of 8 tanks.
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Great guide! I love to see guides that help efficiency around here.
Another thing I find useful (particularly in TvP's after backing off an engagement) is when you have 3-4 hotkeys of units, engage, pull back and only have 3-6 units in each hotkey. Instead of moving the army together and re-hotkeying, simply hit a hotkey (for example 4), hold shift, hit 3. Then follow up with 2, shift, 1. Now you have all your units in 1 and 3. Now, hit 3 and ctrl+2 and you've got your units all back in order.
Of course, you could 4, shift, 2 then 3 shift 1 etc etc... I've found it quite useful and time-saving.
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I didnt know about this thanks alot. This should really help my ZvT. Tested it out in single player and it was so much easier than trying to shift click during battle >_<
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I know this, but I don't use it often. I should probably try to get into the habit of doing so, because it's faster than shift-clicking away the units I don't want.
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I actually have never used the control click on a wire-frame to select only the unit type in the group thing. I usually shift and so forth, but I think I will incorporate this.
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Yea this is pretty basic... easily learned from those tips given at the beginning of single player games that all of you guys ignore (read them, they help so much).
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OMFG!!!! I didnt know this WTF!!! Thanks man you just helped my TvZ A LOT!!!!
Often I move my screen so I just se the corner of my square of marines and then I double click so I get just those marines.
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how about shift + group number to add that certain unit in that certain group?
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On January 01 2009 09:49 Zoler wrote:OMFG!!!! I didnt know this WTF!!! Thanks man you just helped my TvZ A LOT!!!! Often I move my screen so I just se the corner of my square of marines and then I double click so I get just those marines. Wow, I think you were being sarcastic there, hehehe.
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One thing I want to point out is your example of re-hotkeying. If you additionally selected units, then just shift-# instead of letting it go. It's only .5 secs or so faster, but .5 secs add up in an intense game.
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i did not know this...thankyou
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On January 01 2009 07:35 thunk wrote: You forgot to mention when you're playing zergs and have to macro off three or 4 hatches - press control click on larva means you only have to macro using 2 actions versus click+sz click+sz click+sz or what not. It's an alternate way of macroing, perhaps not more effective.
I think it's much easier to click hatchery -> s -> d/z (whatever unit) just because the hatchery's larger, and so, unless you have godly mouse precision, it takes less time to click -> sz than to ctrl+click -> z. usually your production hatcheries wont be all clumped up together so doing ctrl+click will only get you maybe 6 larva...
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On January 01 2009 10:48 Infinity.SkyLark wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2009 09:49 Zoler wrote:OMFG!!!! I didnt know this WTF!!! Thanks man you just helped my TvZ A LOT!!!! Often I move my screen so I just se the corner of my square of marines and then I double click so I get just those marines. Wow, I think you were being sarcastic there, hehehe.
NO MAN THIS SHIT TOTALLY CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVAH
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You should extend the guide to add the use of the "Alt" key. I find it to be extremely useful, especially as a zerg player trying to manage more units than I have hotkeys for and for dealing with huge balls of units in various groups.
Also, I think more players are unfamiliar with the various practical uses of the Alt key than Shift or Ctrl.
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Thanks! i didnt know the first part of ctrl clicking.
To the non chinese, Pangsai means the act of shitting in hokkien btw
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Didn't know about the control thing either. I was only using shift.
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Awesome, I use almost all of these except control clicking on wireframes in unit selection to just select the ones you want.
I thought I was pretty clever coming up with the shift click adding to control group thingo by myself hehe
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Unit frame thing is quite useful, thanks!
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If you select a group of workers, some of which are mining and some aren't, tell them to mine with the shift key and only the ones that aren't mining will move. The ones that are already mining will just ignore you. Shift+control really help with efficiency, especially when used together.
The unit frame tip is really useful, too; thanks for the guide and for putting effort into making all those pics.
On January 01 2009 13:12 H2O wrote: Also, I think more players are unfamiliar with the various practical uses of the Alt key than Shift or Ctrl.
What the hell is the alt key for ?_?
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Thanks I found this guide helpful.
Its funny that cloud posted his explanation of lurkerling control because that was where I found out about the ctrl + unitframe trick. Keep up the good work.
Oh and alt click onto a unit selects the last group the unit was in. Thats for huameng. Though I've never found an in game use for it.
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lol, i feel like a n00b for not knowing the first one i use the second all the time, so its all good
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Errrr not to be mean or anything, but I didn't learn anything from this =\ And most of this can be understood from just hovering the cursor over unit squares.
Appreciate the guide though. =}
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I thought all this was very obvious, and have been using it ever since I started playing SC about 6-7 months ago right form my very first game without watching FPVODs or anything. I guess I did used to play wc3 though and there are similar controls used there.
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I never knew you could use ctrl+shift to add to a group of units already selected.
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On January 01 2009 08:43 Delirium wrote: Great guide! I love to see guides that help efficiency around here.
Another thing I find useful (particularly in TvP's after backing off an engagement) is when you have 3-4 hotkeys of units, engage, pull back and only have 3-6 units in each hotkey. Instead of moving the army together and re-hotkeying, simply hit a hotkey (for example 4), hold shift, hit 3. Then follow up with 2, shift, 1. Now you have all your units in 1 and 3. Now, hit 3 and ctrl+2 and you've got your units all back in order.
Of course, you could 4, shift, 2 then 3 shift 1 etc etc... I've found it quite useful and time-saving.
OmG FAcK! This one's knew to me. The interface just got 100 times cooler.
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Thanks for the comments so far. I've added a bit on the shift adding of units to existing hotkeys, but I can't seem to edit my original post. I'll try again later.
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My problem is when i have like 36+ lings at my choke and i need them all hotkeyed, so i do ctrl + click to get 12, but now i have to send them somewhere else and come back once they have all left to get another hotkey using this method. Any better way to do this? (usually other things beside lings mixed in too).
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Simple stuff, but not a lot of people know it. Thanks for the guide. I like it.
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I learned a little from it, nice job.
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On January 01 2009 17:16 sqwert wrote: u guys never knew this?
That is an excellent question. I'm not sure whether to be shocked or astounded. To think that people other than yourself might not actually be aware of something you are!
This is pretty cool stuff that I was never aware of. It's never really needed, but seems to make things alot easier.
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I find it incredibly surprising that some people here don't know this stuff. When you put your mouse over a wireframe it clearly says it.
Anyway my personal favourite is alt + # to center the screen on that group of units. It's probably only marginally quicker then hitting the number twice but every bit adds up.
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nice stuff, thanks
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the shift + double click is weird, in your screen i see 3 tanks yet you selected a lot, are they near the ramp or something?
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wait so what did this guy mean about the alt key? i never used it before and didnt even know it has a function in the game.
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As WhenHellFreezes mentioned, holding ALT and clicking a unit will give you the last group the unit was in. So say you have zealots A, B, C, D and dragoon E, F, G. If you select them all and tell them to move some where, then go macro, then come back, alt leftclick on any (A through G) of them will get you the entire group. If before that, you selected just the goons only (EFG) to micro them, then alt clicking on E,F,G will give you the entire last group that unit was in (all the goons, EFG).
My experience with alt has been poor. I fiind that it's inconsistent and for whatever reason sometimes it doesn't work for me. But the worst thing is that it's only SOMETIMES so I don't even know what causes it to break down; because of the chance that it'll mess up in a critical battle, I hardly use it.
Also, in the OP, the first situation, with all the drones clumped together surruonded by other rally units, you can ctrlclick all drones then shift click the minerals, and only the non-mining drones will follow that command.
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On January 02 2009 02:43 Raithed wrote: the shift + double click is weird, in your screen i see 3 tanks yet you selected a lot, are they near the ramp or something? I had 8 tanks initially selected in the middle of the map. Shift + double click on the tanks at my choke causes the tanks at the choke to be added to the 8 already selected.
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On January 02 2009 02:55 xhuwin wrote: As WhenHellFreezes mentioned, holding ALT and clicking a unit will give you the last group the unit was in. So say you have zealots A, B, C, D and dragoon E, F, G. If you select them all and tell them to move some where, then go macro, then come back, alt leftclick on any (A through G) of them will get you the entire group. If before that, you selected just the goons only (EFG) to micro them, then alt clicking on E,F,G will give you the entire last group that unit was in (all the goons, EFG). I don't understand why you would want to use alt though. So assuming that A B C D are zealots and E F G are dragoons, and you select the dragoons using control click to micro them, why can't you just use 1 (or whatever the hotkey group that all the units were in) to select everything again?
On January 02 2009 02:55 xhuwin wrote: Also, in the OP, the first situation, with all the drones clumped together surruonded by other rally units, you can ctrlclick all drones then shift click the minerals, and only the non-mining drones will follow that command. The problem with that is that when you control click the drones, not all 3 drones that are not mining will necessarily be selected, since the selection is random, ie you might get 2 drones at your rally point and another 10 drones already mining.
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This guide is fantastic. It's easy, I've thought about a lot of the stuff before. But walking through it step-by-step with pictures + discussions. Priceless.
You sir are today's hero.
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can we have more information on the ALT things? :D
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Nice guide. will helps me lots with my epic line lurker burrow :\
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also just something to be noted which i think is right though im not entirely positive: when you double or ctrl-click it will select all of that type of unit on the screen as well as (if there arent 12 on the screen) any that are JUST covered by the infobar at the bottom of the screen.
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Lol I learned the shift one from Combat-Ex and the Control one I learned from putting my mouse over the unit picture and it saying Ctrl-Click - select all or something, and shift-click - remove or somethin =P
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I actually really like guides like these cuz they are the ones where you discover that you missed some key amazing features in a game. Like some new patched features or such.
And yeah, nice basics.
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On January 01 2009 08:10 Grobyc wrote:Show nested quote +On January 01 2009 07:55 Mastermind wrote: I'm surprised there are people who dont know how to use control, thats a pretty basic feature of the game. I've known this stuff for ages, but I guess it would be helpful for those who didn;t know. I use it all teh time for selecting marines from MMF to stim or target sunkens, that way my firebat fends off the lings and my medics dont run up to the sunken. Many uses indeed, but I would think that everyone should know this already.
IT useful for people like me. Iv been taking sc a little more seriously for about 5 months. Got Battlechest in Jan 29, 2008 :S
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A little off topic, but this method can be used with the "magic box" to doublecast spells or lay mines, but vults are easy to select.
Doublecasting storms vs lings/hydras is fun.
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On January 02 2009 07:09 Carkling wrote: can we have more information on the ALT things? :D
Holding Alt and clicking a unit selects the group that the unit was last previously selected in. (this is not limited to a ctrl-group)
I remember this being useful when trying to move massive amounts of zerglings that were in a big group.(sauron) I could group them in a shift box, then when I needed them, I simply needed to alt+click the zergling and send them in. ALMOST as efficient as another hotkey. It also ensures that the zerglings I'm selecting are in a nice group, instead of scattered. That way they don't get trapped.
It was also useful if I just needed a group of zerglings for a flank, but didn't have any room in hotkeys (I favored hatcheries on hotkeys in midgame). Using the Alt trick, I could send in 12 lings (or more) quickly, without having to deal with shift or dragging.
Lastly, I used Alt if I couldn't remember where I hotkeyed a particular unit. If I saw an idle attacking unit, while engaging, I figured that that unit was also part of a group that wasn't doing what it should be doing. So I would Alt+click the idle unit and send the whole group in again.
All these were methods that helped a noob zerg deal with huge amounts of units.
Hope it helps someone.
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That's where i know i've been playing too much Starcraft. (didn't read the whole thread obv so sorry) I learnt nothing ! But it's always good to share it with everyone of course.
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On January 02 2009 03:13 pangshai wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2009 02:55 xhuwin wrote: As WhenHellFreezes mentioned, holding ALT and clicking a unit will give you the last group the unit was in. So say you have zealots A, B, C, D and dragoon E, F, G. If you select them all and tell them to move some where, then go macro, then come back, alt leftclick on any (A through G) of them will get you the entire group. If before that, you selected just the goons only (EFG) to micro them, then alt clicking on E,F,G will give you the entire last group that unit was in (all the goons, EFG). I don't understand why you would want to use alt though. So assuming that A B C D are zealots and E F G are dragoons, and you select the dragoons using control click to micro them, why can't you just use 1 (or whatever the hotkey group that all the units were in) to select everything again? Show nested quote +On January 02 2009 02:55 xhuwin wrote: Also, in the OP, the first situation, with all the drones clumped together surruonded by other rally units, you can ctrlclick all drones then shift click the minerals, and only the non-mining drones will follow that command. The problem with that is that when you control click the drones, not all 3 drones that are not mining will necessarily be selected, since the selection is random, ie you might get 2 drones at your rally point and another 10 drones already mining. Well it's just another way to get faster multitasking. On this case you may want to scroll a little far from the mineral and this way you'd get like 6 or 7 drones (Cause it's pretty uncommon to have like 30 drones in 1 base right ?) Works better than drag-boxing and then ctrl it in the frame if the drones are somewhat spread enough where you can't have all of them without your frame being full of whatever units it has in the rally point. I think it's a matter of preference and experience.
Edit : Oh and about the alt key, it has 2 purposes : - Like xhuwin mentionned, if you don't have any free hotkey, using it could be like a relatively fast yet temporary hotkey (Won't last long though, probably not more than 5 sec i guess ? I don't know really never investigated it so far yet). - And centering your hotkeyed group, be it units or building (i think).
Edit 2 : An example of using alt key. ZvT : you have F2'ed ur main and F3'ed ur expand. And then : Oh shit, dropship in my expand > ctrl click drone f2 right click mineral and then get a bunch of units attacking the area dropped. But he already left and your drones are almost at ur main, what to do ? Simply alt + left click one of the maynarded drones and f3 right click minerals. I'm commanding my bitches better than kerrigan ~
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On January 02 2009 14:39 RaiZ wrote: ZvT : you have F2'ed ur main and F3'ed ur expand. And then : Oh shit, dropship in my expand > ctrl click drone f2 right click mineral and then get a bunch of units attacking the area dropped. But he already left and your drones are almost at ur main, what to do ? Simply alt + left click one of the maynarded drones and f3 right click minerals. I'm commanding my bitches better than kerrigan ~ I see how it can be useful now. I was under the impression that alt only worked when you had assigned it to a preexisting hotkey group instead of just selecting the group that it was in previously. Are there any other uses for the alt key?
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Thanks on the info abt alt clicking!
I did some little testing on alt clicking to recall group
After selecting 10 groups, i cannot alt-recall my 1st group while i can alt- recall my 2nd group.
Time doen't seem to be a big factor. I can still recall my 12 lings after 1 minute, which is more than enough for rushing into a battle.
So from what i've gathered, you can only recall your previous 9 groups that have been selected.
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Edit: Apparently you can't deselect a unit type froma group in the manner I described. My bad. I must have been thinking of another RTS. I thought I remembered doing this a while back while playing terran, but I tried it out and it doesn't work.
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On January 03 2009 03:58 Loophole wrote: ...
You can deselect all the vultures selected by holding shift + alt and then clicking the wireframe of 1 of the vultures. Now you have just medic and marine. This can be usefull as well if you are grabbing a mix of lings, hydra, and lurk, and you want to flank with the ling/hydra while allowing the lurk to continue to move towards the sopt you originally sent them so they can burrow. Just grab some units, alt+shift click a lurk wireframe, and flank away.
Now that's something I didn't know. It's really not THAT practical for a protoss player anyway, but I'd love to learn all the little details SC has been hiding from me
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Yeah, I hardly ever use it as a P player myself, but when I am messing around with friends and playing T, I end up using it a lot to make groups of m&m or m&m&f.
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Katowice25012 Posts
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Excellent guide. It's little things like this that often get forgotten.
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On January 03 2009 04:08 Naib wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2009 03:58 Loophole wrote: ...
You can deselect all the vultures selected by holding shift + alt and then clicking the wireframe of 1 of the vultures. Now you have just medic and marine. This can be usefull as well if you are grabbing a mix of lings, hydra, and lurk, and you want to flank with the ling/hydra while allowing the lurk to continue to move towards the sopt you originally sent them so they can burrow. Just grab some units, alt+shift click a lurk wireframe, and flank away. Now that's something I didn't know. It's really not THAT practical for a protoss player anyway, but I'd love to learn all the little details SC has been hiding from me I still haven't managed it to work... Always heard about that as a legend. Do it works for you ?
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It may be because you play terran, but shift-adding to groups is crazy useful. When you go back to check your rallies, it's easier to add to your groups already in place just by hitting shift and the number of your control group than to select your control group, hold shit while double clicking and then rehotkeying. For PvT, this is huge, especially since most of the time you want your groups separated into goons and zeals. Just control-click goons, and shift-add to your goon group. Then rinse and repeat with your zeals.
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I figured this out over time, but it is really helpful information. Good job compiling the info., I'm sure it will help newer players or players who did not know this before.
You mention that you shouldn't ctrl + click a unit type at your rallied units because it will pick units that are stuck in the middle also and will lead to repetition. That is a good point, but I still use this method and overcome this difficulty by simply spreading out the units really quickly before I make my groups. It just takes a few fast clicks of spreading out the units and then just ctrl+clicking the groups. I don't know if it is more or less clicks than if you were to do it your method where you fill up the groups again later, but I find it pretty efficient.
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Calgary25938 Posts
Added to the recommended threads. Thanks for writing this!
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Yeah, it's a nice read. My problem is that I actually know all these things and it doesn't help me get any better
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Netherlands4511 Posts
I didn't know/use a couple of things in this, nice
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United States3824 Posts
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lol, i've been playing for 7 years and I've never noticed the conrol left click thing, omg, luckily i knew the rest^^
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Good guide, i knew most of it but i didn't know you could select all units of the same type by just holding CTRL+Left-click, i usually double-click which is a pain in the ass when my units are moving.
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i didnt see anyone mention ALT + click
ALT clicking a unit will select that unit and whatever group is was last grouped with regardless of what control group any of these units are in.
So if you select two zealots and four probes (six units in the wireframe display) and then start microing the zeals you can ALT click any of those four probes to select all of the original six units.
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On January 22 2009 15:46 Kunty wrote: i didnt see anyone mention ALT + click
ALT clicking a unit will select that unit and whatever group is was last grouped with regardless of what control group any of these units are in.
So if you select two zealots and four probes (six units in the wireframe display) and then start microing the zeals you can ALT click any of those four probes to select all of the original six units. Yes, it is very useful that way. It was mentioned in the last page, and I've been trying to edit it into my OP, but I can't seem to be able to edit it.
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I need a lot of cloning practice too, which was unfortunately not covered in this guide. I can do it with just hotkeys though, cuz it takes a while to clone and my units are always too close. I feel like I'm missing something.
Otherwise excellent guide. I learned a new way to select rines without stimming them 4 times.
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It's interesting how little of the controls people actually know, especially when they popup on screen by hovering over the unit picture. I didnt know about adding units to control groups, that is extremely useful. ALT has a lot of uses, but a lot of times it actually is just an alternate form of another command. Also there are some commands that aren't in this thread right now. I don't really know all of them but the most useful are Add to Group and the Center Camera Command.
CTRL+C OR ALT+C = Center Camera on unit This command centers the screen on whatever unit you currently have selected. If you ever lose units from a group or somehow, this centers the screen on that unit. if for instance, you are trying to center the camera by double pressing a CTRL groups number and the screen diverts to an empty area because the units are too spread out, you can select one of the pictures and center on it with this command, or just any lost unit you are trying to find.
ALT + Number = Center Camera on group number Alternate to double tapping group number.
ALT + Click on unit = Last Group This was already mentioned, but ill list it for good measure. Selects all units that were last selected with that unit, NOT related to CTRL groups. Good for groups of Zerglings or other units that tend to die too quickly on CTRL groups.
Shift + 1 = Add to Group Adds selected unit to group number, also already mentioned.
ALT + O = Open Options Menu Screen Opens the Options menu subcategory. F10 opens main menu.
CTRL + M = Toggle Music
CTRL + S = Toggle Sound
Also ALT is supposed to let you use hotkeys while typing messages, but I never got it to work right, so maybe it got patched out or something. I know this is an old thread, but most of these haven't been talked about yet, so i figured i would post them.
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United Arab Emirates5090 Posts
yea control click unit frame is awesome
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I knew you could shift-add units, but I never knew you could shift-add ctrl groups. That's awesome, it makes re-hotkeying after a large fight so much easier.
Thank you TL
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that Shift+CtrlGroup feature is pretty nifty. Nice OP and bump
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Only thing I would disagree with selecting drones and lings is how its executed. I prefer clicking minerals with my selected units then ctrl clicking lings and move those somewhere I want. This way I don't have to select lings twice.
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wow this is awesome. after so many years, still learning new things about sc lol.
thanks for the tip
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