It's not the same for everyone, but I'd say it's generally like 1-6 units, 7-0 buildings and F1, F2 workers. Though as I said, it differs ALOT from race to race and even map to map.

#cpm.sc

rofl

It depends on your race, generally you want to use number keys that make common command combinations easy, like you assign protoss nexuses to higher numbers because they're by P, the shortcut for probes. 8p9p0p. 123 to unit groups for the infamous 1a2a3a and barracks just beyond that for 4d5d6d and 4z5z6z.

It is all up to playstyle. Generally speaking early game you hotkey every single production building and any upgrade structure you're currently using, but eventually you have more buildings than you can realistically hotkey so players either use the F keys on a major production center, or hotkey only one building in the group.

Some zerg players hotkey literally every single hatchery and their evo chambers, then only use 1 and 2 for a group of units. For terran you typically need your whole army hotkeyed because of stim and siege mode. There's no standards at all though, every pro has a different setup and one way to identify legit replays of pros playing online is to analyze their hotkey setup.

Very true.

like already been stated, there is no "right way". make up your own, or steal someones setup, and get used to it. as ix mentioned, stuff like keeping the protoss nexus's to 098 to get it closer to P and such things should be prefered, but other than that, nothing.

though i would say, keeping your units on the closest ones(1-2-3-4) could be prefered, seeing as you might want to be able to interact with them as fast as possible, while macroing wont suffer as much if you delay it by a few ms. unless you're a freaky ass korean and you need to cut every corner you can to gain an advantage, but I honestly assume this is not the case.

hmm ok, thx :). and how to people than seperate units? like say on protoss i have zealots one group, dragoons one group, air units one group, and support unit like observer/arbiter.. that makes sense?

and how do zerg players control their armys, cause of the huge numbers and stupid selection maximum u cant have all units under 1 group right?(specially like zerglings)

486 apm.

You generally have the right idea, but still not. Starcraft isn't played as the typical RTS keyboard wise, at least not most of the time. I'd say you have to find yourself some nice VODs showing people using their hands while playing to get the idea of how stupidly hard Starcraft is on the highter levels of play. Best way is to sit next to someone really good see how they do, then find your own style.

What Lock said. FPVODs are a great way to see how it's done.

well sometimes people have hotkeys for each individual spellcaster unit or a small group as it is easier to cast several consecutive spells in a short time. like emps, psi storm, and whatever. shift click, i think, deselects a unit from a group...

hmm reading this thread i realise ppl play rts 1000x more seriously than me, no wonder i lose every time

#cpm.sc

fishing for bait?
fishing for prey?


/e
omg.

Free candy.

My mom always said, I should go with every stranger that offers me candy.

And you are the first :)

so how do people move big army's? just double click and "a" click alot of them till all units are gone? must be a better way? :/ stupid selection maxium is driving me crazy.

Both using the method you are describing and a combination of using multiple control groups.

SC2 will have no such limit, currently.

The SC2-thing bothers me a bit. Think of the muta-grouping! 50 mutas going around 1-shot killing everything. ^^

I've heard that muta stacking and dashing doesn't work in SC2. =/

From what I've heard Blizzard is trying to implement muta stacking. I kinda hope you're right though as muta stacking 30 mutas would have been rediculus.

While one shotting resource buildings would be ridiculous most other things are one shottable or near enough by a stack. It wouldn't be that hard to disincentivise excessive stacking by ensuring each race has decent area of effect anti-air units. 50 mutas going pop is GG even if you kill the enemy main and some AA units.

Ofcourse, but that is the wrong way to go in my opinion. One shotting CCs left and right from time to time is not a valid option.

Why not? I think a control group of siege tanks can or near enough. It's a massive investment you're talking about, 5,000/5,000 minerals/vespene gas.

Yeah, but moving in with a control group of siege tanks might be a LITTLE more difficult, right? Yeah, I'm aware of the investment. 50 muta were just a number I put out there. But 24 is not that difficult to achive and would destroy everything fast as hell. All I'm saying is that doing specific counters for everything is a sucky way to go about it.

It would destroy everything fast as hell, but so would anti-air AOE destroy it fast as hell. You fuck games up when you try to prevent units functioning as intended, it's a huge investment and commitment to air units, the designers just need to make sure it's counterable.

SC is built on specific counters and I'm not talking about an anti-muta unit, I'm talking about anti-massed air which units like the Valkyrie, Corsair and Archon already are. Units do fill specific functional countering roles by the mechanism of their action, that's why SC works along with the not entirely linear resource system and lack of hero BS.

You know you can, instead of double clicking, ctrl+click a unit to choose units of the same type, right? It's way faster and you don't have to be as precise.

I was under the impression that players used that program that rebinds shortcuts to whatever you want?

Against the rules.

what rules?

he's a texan so i'd say probably the bible

Tournament rules. I suppose he could do it just to play bots, but good luck playing against real people.

so there is a set of rules that every tournament use or what?

Not every tournament uses it but its against the rules in any serious tournament.

Of course, I don't play in tournaments and have no intention in ever doing so, so I've rebinded my keys to a much more simplistic setup.

Most tourneys that try to be serious adhere to KESPA rules.

Works fine playing against real people on BNet.

Dishonest, however.

I don't see how it is any more dishonest to change the hotkeys compared to actually creating a special starcraft keyboard (which is commonly used by pros).

On the contrary I think more casual players are willing and able to change a game hotkey file than to change their entire keyboard.

The special keybaords that professional players have do not remap keys, they just change the colors (to make it easier to see what to hit) or remove keys completely (so you can only hit the correct keys). In a professional environment, this is expected. In a casual environment, if you were to use hotkeys and your opponent wasn't informed that he could do the same, you would have an advantage.

Well, in a casual environment if one is removing the keys from the keyboard, even if the opponent knew about it its unlikely he'd do the same just to play this one game.

Why would you play seriously in a casual environment against someone who isn't or potentially isn't? Again, it's dishonest and you'd just be picking on someone.

You keep calling it dishonest even though you have no valid argument as to why it is more dishonest than getting a Starcraft keyboard (which you obviously seem to think is fine).

The starcraft keyboard does not change the layout - you still have to hit the keys where they are. If you simply can't accept this, go ask on the TL/gosugamers forums and see what they say.

I have a friend who used to play in Team Liquid and he uses it as well.

It doesn't really matter though, I play at such a low level no one could care less about how my keys are setup.

just set stuff to control group numbers that you feel comfortable with. its just like weapon binds in fps games. theres no right or wrong just what your preference is