Microtechnique help: Rapid Mass Lockdown

[NoBetr]

First time posting to the board.

Long time Terran player here.

Was watching replay of Korean champ (not sure which one I don't have the language pack) on Lost Temple_gameI.

Anyhow something thats always eluded me in my micro abilities is how to rapidly lockdown multiple units.

In the replay I saw, (granted its all in the set up), during active battle with all sorts of units, I counted 6-8 bc's locked down in approximately 2-3 seconds. This was done not from a far distance. As an experienced LT player, I almost say the ghosts were in the same screen as the bcs. This was while enemy gols tanks and other units were firing. (To give a better illustration of the geography the melee was within the 12 o'clock positon middle elevated resource node)

It was that fast. Simply instant.

My question is: How is this done?!?! Specifically, what is the efficiency that allows this to be done so quickly?!? Is special hardware involved, if so, what?

It can't simply be hotkeying 12 ghosts I cant even select them that fast. And I consider myself to be an exceptional terran player.

Thanks for input in advance,
NoBetr

[Sambo83]

I believe he simply "cloned" them, and is fast enough to do it in time. I could be wrong though, so perhaps someone will correct me. Also, if you don't understand the term clone, reply and I will explain.

[NoBetr]

Yes please explain "clone". Attaching replay for reference. I think I found the defination.

It basically means that you take a group of guys, tell them all to do something, then deselect one of the guys in the group (shift-click). Take the rest of the guys, and tell them to do something else, then deselect one of the guys. Repeat until the group of guys decreases down to one, and by then, all of the guys are doing separate things

I use the hot key shift deselect technique to do it from a far distance, like say in bgh horizontally between positions to breach embedded cannon defense for ease of example lets say with yamato. But at the distance this person did it with had be checking if i was on LSD.

Unless the 5 or so ghosts were all just multi hotkeyed (say number keys 1-5)then I understand. To have all 5 ghost under the same hot key (say hotkey 1) and pull it off in that distance (shift click deselect) is "autocast" like.


Thanks,
NoBetr

[Sambo83]

He would select all ghosts order them to lockdown, then deselect one ghost (by shift clicking the wireframe) and order them to all lockdown the next target, then deselect another and order them to lockdown a 3rd target, etc.. and you just do this fast enough so that by the time your ghosts get into lockdown range, they are each locking down a different target.

Although this might not have been what he did. I thought I heard a story about a replay of something like that which was staged, and he just had them all hotkeyed.. I don't know.. i suppose you could figure out how he actually did it in this game by looking in brood war chart for his actions at the time the lockdowns occured, but I'm too lazy to do that.

[Jorix]

im pretty sure that boxer hotkeyed each individual ghost in that game vs zodiac...or at least thats what i always heard...i havent looked at it in bwchart personally. i doubt even boxer could clone that fast

[Sambo83]

aite. boxer did in fact hotkey each ghost.. from 2-7

[Hayley]

In the game vs Zodiac boxer hotkeyed each ghost, and all the lockdowns were in less than a second. Don't worry about it NoBetr, it's unlikely you'll ever be able to do that, and it's not really likely to come up in any game of yours anyways ;P

[NoBetr]

Thanks alot for the feedback.

Its good to know the actual technique involved. I'm able to pull it off under one hotkey, shift-click deselect pretty fast. 5-6 lockdowns from a modest distance, but even then still not as fast as I saw in that replay :)

One thing confuses me though. Unless this guy has a 3rd hand, how is he able to physically hit a hotkey say #2, then hit L for lockdown, then point to the enemy unit to be locked down, doing it over and over again for hotkeys #3-6 with computer like accuracy?!? I have great hand to eye coordination, but the only time I've seen hands move that fast on keys was Data from Star Trek. :)

It leaves me to believe, that there must be special hardware involved, like a programmable multibutton mouse, a custom keyboard, joystick, etc, etc. Does anyone have any input on whether this is so. Appreciate any links you can forward on this hardware or even if its competion legal.

Great board and posters so far,
NoBetr

[Jorix]

hes korean...and not just any korean, hes boxer. dont compare yourself to the best terran micro player in the world, youll only get depressed =P yes, the 1700+ apm he had in that 1 second to lockdown a bunch of tightly packed bcs is inhuman, but...hes just that good -_-

[8882]

he used hotkeys

check your apm, boxer has around 250 (actions per minute)
nada has ~400apm. I cant have it even when I press hotkeys 1231275443057340 rapidly.

it's the same thing like with the olympics, poeple run 400metres in shorter time than we will be ever able to run 100m

[Cpt.Chronic]

Yeah, I'don't think it'd be possible to clone the ghosts when he started off so close to the bc's.

[Sambo83]

I know some players use a program to remap keys on their keyboard, so that for instance L would actually be the F key perhaps. It was my understanding that at one point boxer or nada or one of those fags was using a keyboard that had all the keys removed except for the ones required for starcraft.

You can learn those little micro tricks in a couple hours of practice though. I remmeber seeing a replay of his dropship stuff where he had like 8 dropships and unloaded them all simultaneously while the dropships were moving, so I learned how to do it (with click u click) just as fast as him. It just took a little practice.

[Basan]

I know some players use a program to remap keys on their keyboard, so that for instance L would actually be the F key perhaps. It was my understanding that at one point boxer or nada or one of those fags was using a keyboard that had all the keys removed except for the ones required for starcraft.
Simple ingenuity at work...
Do u know the app name or provide a link? If so, tks! :)

Add: It could ease my fingers in the case at hand. Holdin' the a, c, l n' maybe an n at the same time isn't very ergonomical... :o