I really want to start using more hotkeys and play the other races as well, so looking for a way to adapt my layout without impacting my current game too much. Your layout is very similar and I love the idea behind everything, so it makes it a logical transition. I'll send you a link to my hotkey file if you want to play around with it (just try the warp-ins, you'll love it).
[G] Fleet Keys - Refined Hotkey Systems - Page 20
Forum Index > StarCraft 2 Strategy |
MilExo
South Africa139 Posts
I really want to start using more hotkeys and play the other races as well, so looking for a way to adapt my layout without impacting my current game too much. Your layout is very similar and I love the idea behind everything, so it makes it a logical transition. I'll send you a link to my hotkey file if you want to play around with it (just try the warp-ins, you'll love it). | ||
ZedraC
South Africa109 Posts
I was "practicing" the new hotkey layout a bit again last night. I still like it but need to get the hang of all the new features. I like the inject options. Takes getting used to but very nice. I have not decided which one i prefer yet. Will let you know for interest sake. Quick questions for now: (knowing you, you'll probably write an essay again) 1. What was your reasoning behind making a Queen E and not W? I'm just curious. 2. You have the Select army on UP. This makes me think you never use this and also don't think other guys are using it, so the question is: Is it a bad thing to use the select army hotkey? When playing Zerg I am in the habit of adding my eggs in the applicable CG and rarely use it, but when playing T & P I find the Select army very useful for the new units that came out recently when I want to reinforce quickly (and adding them to CGs). For now I remapped mine to shift+v, but think you could help me with a better option.? Edit, made a correction | ||
eneyeseekay
239 Posts
1. This was actually the last change I made to the layout before posting the link, and I'm glad you asked. In the past, I had it on W. It was about as easy as it gets in terms of accessibility, and it followed the grid pattern perfectly. The reason it was moved over one key to E is because it was extremely easy to queue-up Queens by accident when you would try to morph Overlords. On E it's still super accessible, yet intentional instead of almost automated (much like how Drones and Overlords are in the layout through finger-rolling). There is a possibility that this could be an isolated issue that only I would experience during testing, but it's one that cropped up every so often and became much more frequent after the Hatches/etc CG was moved to Caps Lock. Feel free to switch it and try both W and E to see if it's an issue for you. 2. You're absolutely right. I moved those away for two main reasons. One, was as you stated, I don't encourage the use of it, but I used to include it for brand new players. Army CG's and Unit Commands are so readily accessible, it's good practice using at least 3 separate army CG's for various purposes. 3 sounds arbitrary, but think-- you'll at least want a main army CG, a spellcaster CG, and a harass/run-by CG right? The Select Army hotkey takes all of that control away from you and condenses your army into a single ball of units. Terran and Protoss need to rely on efficient army CG's even moreso than Zerg. If you aren't dealing some form of damage as Terran, you're likely falling behind. If you're not controlling your spellcasters efficiently or you need to comeback with some Warp Prism or even Oracle harassment, separate CG's will help a Protoss player tremendously. Two, I simply had to make room for another CG on the ` key. It was a great reason to send that Select Army hotkey packing. Idle workers was also on that hotkey, but I relocated to a position where it's really convenient for Rapfire Worker Splits. | ||
kamimaiku
22 Posts
I found FK yesterday and will not have a chance to try it before tomorrow, but I really like the concept (oh my god, just thinking about space+space instead of that damn B+S for supply depot makes me thrilling). So, I dig into Alloy hotkeys file, and after that, into Universal Beta file (just in case it may be better and don't require much learning from alloy). In general, I like the latter more, but some changes are questionable for me, so I'd like to know the reasoning behind them. 1. Q for move, R for patrol. I never use (and I doubt if anyone does) Move command because it is bound to Mouse Right Button, why did you move it to the left instead of throwing it away to something like UP for Army Select? On the contrary, Patrol is very important command, and it's moved to the right border of Q-V sector. 2. While I agree with A/S for reactor/techlab instead of Z/X, I think X for land/lift is harder to reach than C. Also, there is one suggestion - add Space to make an OC from CC, because in majority of games the first three bases are OC, and many games are finished before the fourth base | ||
ZedraC
South Africa109 Posts
Hi, I'm not attempting to answer for eneyeseekay. Just want to say that you must remember the FK layout is a suggested layout.Making a few small changes (i do) to suit you and what you like does not break the layout. You can still benefit from the general idea behind this big project. I also want to redo the move command. I am still contemplating whether its gonna be hold or patrol though. (also see below as to my reasoning for this). I have also moved a few of Z keys to X to suit me. eneyeseekay has however (as you must have noticed) been researching and trying many many different things out for a long time now and he usually has a good reason for the changes. that being said, I still have a few questions of my own and make changes where i feel it should change to suit me... PS. Just for a facepalm, not discussion: I played a game yesterday and was holding Q a lot when I had my army selected, or my creep queens (thus ultra spamming move). My APM was 150 APM more than usual!!! - woohoo . So the one (vain) benefit is that you can make your APM look impressive. {add a :facepalm: Smilie TL!} @eneyeseekay This W(hold) thing have been "troublesome" for me now and again. When I box select a couple of workers in the mineral line to to build a gas, I end up "holding" my other selected workers in the process by accident (I am obviously clicking W once to many times). This is why I am thinking of moving hold to Q. I think this would solve my issue and am going to try it later today. I still want to mention this though to find out what you think. | ||
kamimaiku
22 Posts
What you said is exactly the reason of my question. I know that I may not give a single thought about suggested layout and reassign any keys of it as I like, but I see huge amount of work done by eneyeseekay here, so before throwing his ideas away I would like to know logic behind them. | ||
Geert
Netherlands26 Posts
I was working with the fleet keys, and I absolutely love them! however, there where some issues, which I thought could be done better for the zerg, and I adjustes my fleet keys a bit. This is how I adjusted it: Problems i had: - Too many drones problem: Tab->Q->Q sometimes makes to many drones - No larvae problem: Tab->Q->W doesn't make a overlord when no larvae are there, thus creating a queen by accident - 'Hard' injects: The Caps Lock-> Shift (hold) -> S -> Space inject method was hard to master - Tunnel far: Tunnel was a bit far to reach - Hatcheries The control groups for the buildings are a bit hard to reach So i changed it in such a way that I would minimize the amount of movement of my fingers, and could do my favourite things up front. So this is how I default sit on my keyboard: Pink on Caps. ring finger on A. middle finger on S. Index finger on D, thumb on Space. As I am mainly producing drones and overlords, and do larva injects, I wanted something easy. And I decided to do it as follows: CAPS: select all hatcheries A select larvae S produce drone D produce Overlord When you want to produce a Queen: select hatcherie of choise -> press Q Sometimes you create a Queen by mistake, as there are no larvea, and you use the shortcut of the hatcherie. To make sure I never make a queen by mistake, I didn't bind the queen to any of the units that I can produce (thus W for lings, E for roaches, etc.). For the same reason, the A key is not attached to any unit As my hatch was now on the CAPS LOCK row, I decided to switch the control groups from QWER to ASDF, giving me even less key strokes to use (and i put the camera positions on the QWER row instead) But the CAPS was used for the queen larva inject. So I now do it as follows: SHIFT+Z is the group for my queens (and thus, I sacrifice 1 camera location) CTRL+Z is to create it CTRL+SHIFT+Z and ALT+SHIFT+Z is to add to the group So what happens now, when I want to larva inject: SHIFT (hold)+Z+S+SPACE. All can be done by 4 different fingers (so super quick!) I put the tunnel at F (just a preference, closer to my ASD keys) And because I am a noob, I also binded the 'all hatcheries' control group at TAB (so at TAB and CAPS LOCK), so miss pressing is less of an issue, when you are ion the heat of a batlle. I changed the spawn infected marines to put it on the Rapid Fire key, as I thought it would be more usefull than the other key). And one very last thing. All the upgrades where at QWER row, but I also put them on the ASD row, making my hands to move even less. I now played a few games with it, and my macro got even better than it was! I hope it is helpfull to some other players. I uploaded my layout here, for people who want to test it: Fleet Geert mini | ||
eneyeseekay
239 Posts
1. The Move command isn't the most used key, you're right. The reason I moved Patrol to R and Move to Q is that Patrol now sits more comfortably next to Attack which is nice because they are similar but not the same. Being able to issue Move commands when going for surrounds, never worrying about miss-Right-Clicking enemy units is important. 1,E and 1,R are very close to each other and can produce similar results even if you miss E and use R instead. It's much safer to have Move on Q and Patrol near Attack. Accidentally issuing a Move command instead of Attack during an engagement can and will cost you a game. This decision is mainly a consistency/foolproofing one. 2. I'll take another look at that. Finding good spots for Terran building hotkeys is the only dreadful part of designing a layout tbh. Well, that and Campaign hotkeys in general. On one hand you need to be able to Lift and Land, but on the other, if you accidentally Lift a structure because the hotkey is too accessible you're actually helping yourself lose. Like I said though I'll take a look at it. @ZedraC I thought I took that target canceling command off of W (Hold Position)? W is also not a Rapidfire-enabled key in the new layout (linked it below in Geert's response) so nothing should be impeding anything. The target cancel was a cute trick for the Zerg-only Alloy layout. It was originally for finishing off an Inject round and disabling the target so you can avoid being forced to Right-Click. Unfortunately, this causes problems when thrown into a Random layout. @Geert I'm glad to hear about the changes, because some of what you wanted is already implemented in the upcoming hotkey layout ( <--click this).. With this new layout, Caps,Q,W,E will be the "ideal position", but it's great to see (from your post) that you've been able to shape the layout around your own comfortable resting position. The layout in the link is not currently featured in the OP yet. It's quite different than the Alloy layouts, while still holding many similarities. This layout is a new unified one for all races and will be replacing Alloy and Element. Alloy and Element will be moved to a new "Archived Files" section of the new thread format so people can still access them if need be. | ||
MilExo
South Africa139 Posts
On July 17 2014 09:44 eneyeseekay wrote: @MilExo / anyone wondering about Q/W/E CG's I do understand the Q/W/E CG thing. Some people love it and some hate it. A lot of the time, players who come from BW, Standard or Grid can have trouble getting used to Q/W/E CG's because they are accustomed to spamming 4/5/6 throughout games. I would say it's the one thing that can turn people off from using the layouts, but for not using side mouse buttons, it works. 3x3 sounds nice with R,F,V. Have you taken out certain commands to clear out the 3x3/RFV setup? I've been actively trying to avoid putting commonly used keys on Z,X,C. The way this new layout works is more like 4x2, and when Z,X,C is in use, there is likely an alternate bind for that command on R, D or F. For Starport/SGates and Robo's/Factories, units that would land on R and T usually have an alternate bind along A-F. I try making use of any free keyboard space I have. MilExo, Send me a link to your hotkey file and I'll check it out? When it came to you trying out the Q/W/E CG's, did you try out a custom game, set up your production and just practice unit production for a while? I found that to be the best way to get a feel for it; lots of raw macro in a vacuum to drill the Alt+combo in to make it automatic (worst case, you get used to it, you still don't like it, and you move your cameras up to Q/W/E/R for even quicker Camera Location access!). It's not so much about checking the same structures over and over and over again, it's about getting the info you need from all of your structures very, very quickly without moving your hand out of place, and then filling the queues up and leaving them for a short time until the next quick sweep. eneyeseekay, I sent you a PM with the hotkey layout. The biggest problem I have with Alt + Q/W/E is that Q/W/E are also being used for building something. Lets take the following example: in many instances you need to build something with Alt + Q and then Q/W/E. In the case where you use Alt Q + Q, you might end up accidentally double-tapping Q if you press Q before Alt is completely released (which will take you away from your army view, etc.) If you go Alt + Q and W without releasing on time, then you might select a different production building. If you wanted to build two "W" units, you might end up building something from a completely different building. I love having all the control groups close, but not the idea that you have to release a key on time before you can build. I find this happens quite easily especially if I re-use the same keys for building units. | ||
kamimaiku
22 Posts
Is it just a matter of practice to get used to it? As I said before, I added magic Space for OC. Also, I switched keys for reaper and marauder almost immediately - while massing MMM, I constantly made reapers instead of marauders. After that change, things became way better. And, of course, there is no words to describe all the pain during transition But I think it's too early to make a choice, at least before I reach my usual APM again. | ||
velvex
Germany226 Posts
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ZedraC
South Africa109 Posts
I think pressing Alt+Q/W/E is much better than reaching for (for example) 6/7/8 (what i used previously). I find the FK layout much better than any other so far. I think if you just play with it for a while you'll get used to it quick. Anyway, just my opinion. Can you think of other solution that will suit you better. What are you currently using? Edit 1: There was a brief moment a few weeks ago I thought of having my production buildings on 2/3/4, but just quickly thinking about I decided not to even try, since having the armies there is way more important. Edit 2: @eneyeseekay There is no way you can rebind alt to another key correct? Once I know this I'll elaborate on why I ask... | ||
velvex
Germany226 Posts
On July 21 2014 18:54 ZedraC wrote: Can you think of other solution that will suit you better. What are you currently using? In my setup I have hatcheries on W and inject queens on S. I have two more control groups on Q and A, so if I were to play T or P, I'd probably use these for more production buildings. Production control groups are probably the most important control groups, except one or two army hotkeys maybe. I'd value them higher if I used this setup, similar to how TheCore does. | ||
MilExo
South Africa139 Posts
While R,F,V works quite well for me (only need a 3x3 grid for Protoss), this makes it difficult for me to off-race which is something I would like to do a little bit more. Thinking about making Q,A,Z my other control groups and just shifting the entire "grid" one block to the right, but that moves my hand a bit too far away from Alt which I press with my thumb. | ||
MilExo
South Africa139 Posts
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eneyeseekay
239 Posts
First: What's wracking my brain in terms of the new layout, then "Good News", followed by "Bad News". NEW MAJOR LAYOUT DEVELOPMENT! Keep it? Bin it? Include in official release? Include in a test file? Input please!?: + Show Spoiler +
You'll be guaranteed to have 6 of your 8 Cameras under 1-3 and A-D and the last two Cameras adjacent to them on Alt+R,4 or F?....I need some feedback on this one. It feels like a breakthrough, especially if they are suggested/presented to be set up like:
Splitting the two rows into Offensive/Defensive Cameras is a great concept in my opinion. Not only can it be an efficient arrangement in terms of accessibility, it's also a very easy concept to absorb for anyone learning about Camera Locations for basic, practical purposes. As of now, the potential woes I've taken into consideration are as follows:
Good News: + Show Spoiler + I should be upgrading my PC some time this month. Yay. Also, the new thread images for the new format are done, the revamped cheat sheet(s?) are pretty much complete (same idea but a bit prettier) and I'd like to create some video content to go along with some of the written stuff--- video content and I are total strangers, so it's safe to say that I'm a bit nervous about them. Scratch that, the thought of creating video content makes me quite anxious (yeah, yeah, laugh it up). I suppose my need to stay invisible in terms of video content exposure benefited some community members so that's quite an honor and all-around good thing, but it doesn't really help this thread at all. I'm not gonna lie-- when I see high level (or any level) players propagating Creep Tumors and Warping in Gateway units at inhuman speeds I smile every time. The world's better or at least more interesting with Rapidfire. TL;DR: I'd like to make video content for all this layout stuff. I avoided it like the plague because I'm a wuss, but I'm down for forcing myself to create a least some.. Bad News: + Show Spoiler + (If you're not interested in my PC situation or (current/prospective) components list, just skip this) My once-lovely PC of like 7 years is starting its long, drawn-out death throes, and I'm in the market for a new rig. I still do everything with it today and I'm using it as I type this. In 2007 this PC was the shit considering its price and the use I got out of it. Intel D975XBX mobo, Intel Q6600 Quad Core @2.4ghz, EVGA GeForce GTS SSC Edition GPU, 8 Gigs of Ram (DDR2, not sure of RAM specs), dual monitor setup, Saitek Cyborg keyboard red-- recently replaced by a DasKB/blue, and then a CMStorm RFTK/reds and some mediocre PSU. The mouse was like some kind of stock Dell one, idk. I have an Abyssus standing in for that atm. The components I'm looking at (I'm not planning to ever overclock, and I'm not worried about power consumption): + Show Spoiler +
Yeah, I could spend a fortune on Intel/Nvidia parts, but I know that my current components can do more than enough for me, for at least 1/2 of the price of a higher-end Intel/Nvidia rig. I'm not rich, lol! I put this thread business on hold because I don't know if my current PC will even be working by next week. It simply needs to be retired. So, I directed my attention to shopping around for a new rig that (I hope) won't cost me over $1700.00. I'm preeeetty close to completing it. With regards to the $200-300 price mark for many of the components, I think I hit the sweet spot for what I need. I plan to game on it and use resource-intensive art-related programs, including 3D software. I'd like to eventually stream reliably with it too. I don't want to compromise for anything in the 1080p realm of things, and I'd like to have a decent mid-range setup for when 4k resolution becomes much more prominent. I'll get quite a few years out of this rig while being able to do the things I like at a price point I can agree with. | ||
kamimaiku
22 Posts
This cameras concept sounds very interesting, but I would include it as test file after universal layout release. | ||
Rockafella
United Kingdom291 Posts
On July 22 2014 16:48 eneyeseekay wrote: Hello all, I'm condensing this post. I advise you to please read at least the first section, First: What's wracking my brain in terms of the new layout, then "Good News", followed by "Bad News". NEW MAJOR LAYOUT DEVELOPMENT! Keep it? Bin it? Include in official release? Include in a test file? Input please!?: + Show Spoiler +
You'll be guaranteed to have 6 of your 8 Cameras under 1-3 and A-D and the last two Cameras adjacent to them on Alt+R,4 or F?....I need some feedback on this one. It feels like a breakthrough, especially if they are suggested/presented to be set up like:
Splitting the two rows into Offensive/Defensive Cameras is a great concept in my opinion. Not only can it be an efficient arrangement in terms of accessibility, it's also a very easy concept to absorb for anyone learning about Camera Locations for basic, practical purposes. As of now, the potential woes I've taken into consideration are as follows:
Good News: + Show Spoiler + I should be upgrading my PC some time this month. Yay. Also, the new thread images for the new format are done, the revamped cheat sheet(s?) are pretty much complete (same idea but a bit prettier) and I'd like to create some video content to go along with some of the written stuff--- video content and I are total strangers, so it's safe to say that I'm a bit nervous about them. Scratch that, the thought of creating video content makes me quite anxious (yeah, yeah, laugh it up). I suppose my need to stay invisible in terms of video content exposure benefited some community members so that's quite an honor and all-around good thing, but it doesn't really help this thread at all. I'm not gonna lie-- when I see high level (or any level) players propagating Creep Tumors and Warping in Gateway units at inhuman speeds I smile every time. The world's better or at least more interesting with Rapidfire. TL;DR: I'd like to make video content for all this layout stuff. I avoided it like the plague because I'm a wuss, but I'm down for forcing myself to create a least some.. Bad News: + Show Spoiler + (If you're not interested in my PC situation or (current/prospective) components list, just skip this) My once-lovely PC of like 7 years is starting its long, drawn-out death throes, and I'm in the market for a new rig. I still do everything with it today and I'm using it as I type this. In 2007 this PC was the shit considering its price and the use I got out of it. Intel D975XBX mobo, Intel Q6600 Quad Core @2.4ghz, EVGA GeForce GTS SSC Edition GPU, 8 Gigs of Ram (DDR2, not sure of RAM specs), dual monitor setup, Saitek Cyborg keyboard red-- recently replaced by a DasKB/blue, and then a CMStorm RFTK/reds and some mediocre PSU. The mouse was like some kind of stock Dell one, idk. I have an Abyssus standing in for that atm. The components I'm looking at (I'm not planning to ever overclock, and I'm not worried about power consumption): + Show Spoiler +
Yeah, I could spend a fortune on Intel/Nvidia parts, but I know that my current components can do more than enough for me, for at least 1/2 of the price of a higher-end Intel/Nvidia rig. I'm not rich, lol! I put this thread business on hold because I don't know if my current PC will even be working by next week. It simply needs to be retired. So, I directed my attention to shopping around for a new rig that (I hope) won't cost me over $1700.00. I'm preeeetty close to completing it. With regards to the $200-300 price mark for many of the components, I think I hit the sweet spot for what I need. I plan to game on it and use resource-intensive art-related programs, including 3D software. I'd like to eventually stream reliably with it too. I don't want to compromise for anything in the 1080p realm of things, and I'd like to have a decent mid-range setup for when 4k resolution becomes much more prominent. I'll get quite a few years out of this rig while being able to do the things I like at a price point I can agree with. Depending on if you play a lot of SC2 still I'd definitely get an i5 as the single core performance blows any AMD out of the water..! http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-4670K-vs-AMD-FX-9370 However if not, since rendering seems to be important maybe that's not much of an impact on you. Also you don't need a PSU anywhere near 1000 watts unless you are playing to Crossfire in the future. | ||
ZedraC
South Africa109 Posts
Will set it up myself tonight and try it out. Thinking about it now you can alternate nicely between your bases (for example camera locations 1-3) and your armies (CGs 1-3) and minimize the movement of your fingers. Thus Alt+1/2/3 then double tap 1/2/3 for example. Sounds easy enough. Will play around. 25 Jul: The change was not bad at all. I felt right at home using your suggestion and having the Go-to-Cameras 1-4 on ALT+1-4 is lovely. I have not tried more camera hot keys as I have never used more than four before. Now for another error that occurred to a friend of mine: I am typing this on behalf of him as he never visits TL. I introduced him to FK element long ago and he liked it. Has been using for a while now. When your latest changes came through I e-mail him the hot key layout and he started experimenting. After two games he changed a few things the way it suits him and went to bed. The next day, when he went into a game (custom as he wanted to practice only) he's UI was blank in the middle and right section. He could only see his minimap. For two days he thought it was a blizzard fault, but before he decided to re-install, he thought to change back to the original FK setup (as this was the only thing that changed). Doing this fixed the UI. Strange but true... Question is now, Have any of you experienced something like this before? The UI going blank? I don't intend to go , but this error occurred when trying a new hotkey setup. | ||
eneyeseekay
239 Posts
That is truly bizarre. I've never heard of the UI crapping out due to hotkey issues. I've had issues where my UI turned pink, which occurred after I changed my graphics settings to the Hybrid Settings, but that was fixable. The only thing I can really suggest is to keep the "allow toggle conflicts" set to enabled, or try to replicate the problem and document it in detail so it can be properly tackled. As a new user, I'd skip past Element and check out Alloy, or even better, the version that will be taking the place of both of them, for all races. I won't be updating Element and Alloy myself in the foreseeable future. | ||
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