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Recently saw a video that recommends me learning how to macro with only my keyboard but I'm finding it extremely difficult and counterproductive to my usual technique where I double tap my production building(6) then push the hot key to produce the unit. Basically, I'm using 6 to move my screen directly to my production buildings then left clicking them individually to produce units with my keyboard(ex. M for marines)
My questions are, will learning this benefit me more in the long run or does it not really matter.
Do people actually do this instead of manually scrolling to your production buildings and pushing the hot key on keyboard.
If they do, when is it okay to manually scroll to your buildings vs using keyboard only to macro.
This isn't relevant to the above but I might as well ask. Whats the difference between attack and patrol besides the obvious. I noticed it's very important for some units to use patrol vs attack. A friend mentioned that you should use stop for dragoons and i did notice it makes a huge difference in response time.
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Benefits are good in the long run. New hand movements feel awkward at first.
In the early and mid game micro is a lot more important because you have less units so you can't afford to go back to base all the time.
Late-game, when you have a lot of production buildings, and a lot of army, it's ok to just go back to base.
Idk the technical difference between patrol and attack but some units will respond differently to each command. Try hold position with dragoons for the fastest response time.
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i macro same as you, double tap 5 or such and then click except early game I would use 5 6 7 to produce without looking at buildings (I'm P user) i think if you are T user, it's maybe more important to use 5 6 7 8 to produce early game (vs Z especially) but then later into the game, there is no way to macro using only keyboard anyway generally double tap then click is totally fine, I think some high lvl players used Fkey to gates and then click.. its kind of a detail Yes, it will matter and bring some improvement, if when possible you use 5 6 7 8 early game so that you can keep micro to the max while producing, its not mandatory but at high level it would be harder to maintain advantage/even ground if you have to leave micro for 5 secs or make a disengage to produce or something, sometimes at least its not very very important, but in some cases you COULD lose the game if you leave micro for few secs to produce, or lose opportunity to keep engagement because you want to produce, or skip producing for a bit
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you should keep macro buildings hotkeyed as long as possible
it's pretty important, especially if you do any early or mid-game aggression (2fac, fac cc fac, rax cc rax, 3fac vult, etc)
if you respond 2 or 3 seconds late to a threat with some of these builds (ie. speedlings/goons/vults come in and you don't react immediately) you'll pretty much just lose the game or at the very least be put at a big disadvantage
example clip:
artosis goes back to his base and spends too long building a depot
you can macro with hotkey + mouse as well (4 click marine, 5 click marine, 6 click marine, 7 click marine, 8 click marine)
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Like others wrote, for your main-production you won't have enough numbers to use at some point (as you'll need more for army, too, the longer the game goes).
But in the early phases, it is definitelly very useful. While you have to micro your scout or your first few units in micro-intensive battles. Having production-buildings on hotkeys means that you can re-rally-point super quickly at any time, very useful for early-pushes where you want to have your reinforcements to keep advancing by themselves.
And there are other neat applications: Sometimes you have special-production-buildings that you want to have a very close eye on, e.g. starports/stargates for vessels/arbiters or the like. Also because these units will take longer to build than your usual bread-n-butter-army, so you cannot cue up stuff at the same time as those. And oftentimes these buildings won't be placed right at your main-production-site, but somewhere in the corner of the base, so it would be a time-loss to always scroll there to check.
Once you've accomodated to having special-production on a certain, not so often used key (e.g. 7 for me), you can also switch to putting an upgrade-building on it to check on that while controlling your army (e.g. if you're waiting for an attack-/armor-upgrade to finish before you engage).
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If i had my barracks set to 6,7,8,9,0, would you guys use your index finger to push 6 then m, 7 then m, 8 then m, ect ect.. with the same finger or would you use your entire hand like thumb on m and pinky, ring, mid, index to push the digits?
Thanks for the info, i'll continue to practice it even though it is frustrating at times trying to find my M button to pump marines. Feels like a guessing game.
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swap marines from m to a if that's easier hotkey + clicking the marine icon is fine too keep 90 open for scanners (unless you have them on something else, but 90 are probably the best since you'll never overwrite them)
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i used to use thumb for m but i swapped marines to a, now i use pinky a
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United States9652 Posts
The point of the double-tap production hotkey is so your camera is centered right over your production facilities. Usually you hotkey the center one so all production is on one camera. If you scroll by clicking on the minimap, not only is this extra wasted mouse movement when you drag the mouse to the minimap and then back to the center of the screen, you might also misclick the minimap and not get it centered on your production, causing you to perform even more mouse movements by moving your camera while trying to do a macro cycle and pushing your camera in different directions.
Players who excel at mechanics learn to minimize as much mouse movement as possible to make every play as efficient. Why move your mouse an extra couple of inches every macro cycle when you can just double tap a hotkey and barely move your mouse from the center of the screen? It also will be better for your wrists in the long-run if you don't need to constantly drag the mouse so much.
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Anyone have a macro trainer of any sort? All i can find are micro training maps.
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On September 18 2018 20:53 Cheesefome wrote:This isn't relevant to the above but I might as well ask. Whats the difference between attack and patrol besides the obvious. I noticed it's very important for some units to use patrol vs attack. A friend mentioned that you should use stop for dragoons and i did notice it makes a huge difference in response time. about this one btw, for dragoons if you use hold position it is actually faster than stop (they start shooting faster). i heard you get even better result with patrol+click on ground or maybe even attack+click on ground in right direction but hold is good enough even to clear mines without obs, the difference with stop is clearer though, stop is quite a little bit slower and often too slow to mine clear i think for example.
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Very ancient map my friend, honestly its not related to hotkeys at all, but if you want a modern version. And this modern version is on liquipedia also.
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i think you're technique is fine, the only drawback is that you take your attention away from what's happening on the screen. If your APM is high then it probably doesn't matter but during a skirmish wouldn't you rather just micro with you rmouse and produce with your keyboard?
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When microing dragoons vs Terran FD push when they have a tank 5-6 marines and 1-2 vultures with an scv, I alternate hold position and attack moves. Hold position is best when you want your goons to fire and stay in their position, hence "hold position" I use this when my goons are already in a good straight line perpendicular to the enemy coming at me so all goons can shoot at them almost in a concave fashion. I will rearrange a goon or two and use attack move when some of the goons aren't shooting because they aren't in range for hold position to do much good. Sometimes goons rearrange as you micro backwards and 1-2 goon will get too far so if you press hold, 1-2 goons will shoot but sometimes a goon won't shoot because they are out of range from the rest of the goon group making the hold ineffective at that point. So that's why I alternate between hold position and attack move.
The important thing to note when using attack move is not to attack move too far out of range on the ground when clicking. If you attack move on the ground when the dragoon is too far, it will move to that area first and then atk, but by then they'll be in range of the tank and get hits from all his units and also the goon won't be smart enough to utilize their range to maximum effect. They will move forward until they are like within 4 range when they could atk in a 6 range distance after you get the goon range upgrade. So just a general rule for attack moving micro, click on the ground just 1-2 range from the goon, so they don't start actually move towards the enemy before attacking.
You can theoretically just utilize attack move, I don't think there is necessarily an attack speed response difference. The reason people say hold position gives them a better atk speed response is because of a few factors. Vs undetected mines, the hold position gives the goon the best position to atk the mine where as an atk move will put the goon closer to the mine before the goon realizes to atk it. So in that sense hold position is better to deal with mines but doesn't necessarily mean hold position actually makes the goon fire faster, because when you hold position you aren't atk moving forward, when a mine pops up you can back track your goons and then type h for hold very quickly as opposed to clicking a move forward and then a move backwards. It just puts the goon in a better position to defuse the mines before it hits.
Now the reason why I personally don't just use attack move all the time is because it can be more taxing to constantly having to rearrange your goons in a line while potentially getting hit if a goon decides to get in each other's way they could get hit without me doing damage. So that's why I think it's best for me to utilize hold position in conjuction with attack move when appropriate. But sometimes my goons will listen and I won't have to constantly rearrange them for all 3 of them to atk, so sometimes I continue using atk move until the next rearrangement and then I use hold again.
But yeah, don't just blindly use hold position on your goons all the time, because if they are all not equally the same distance from the enemy, some won't be in range to shoot. So you'll have the goons that are closer get hit while the one further away not doing anything.
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I use F3 for my gateways and remain with it for the whole game
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One useful tip if your fingers don’t reach the f keys well is to keep your main nexus/command/hatchery as 1 the entire game. Double tapping 1 then centers your screen to your main at any time in the game so you can make rounds of units and upgrades.
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On the hold position/patrol thing, it is just how the game prioritizes commands, wasn't intentional but yeah.
Patrol and hold position will attack faster than a-move, for example to get perfect moving shots with vultures you need to use patrol. Same with Dragoons, pressing stop makes them take foreverrr to attack.
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