newb question

[xxazn916pnoixx]

ive had starcraft for a long time but i never played it... now im finishing up the starcraft single player missions and planning to go on to online play...

well here is my problem...
when i have a lot of units ready to attack an enemy, i always end up dragging over and over again bcuz i dont know of a way to select my units faster...

is there a better way to select all my units to attack rather than just me dragging over all of my units and clicking on my target all the time... bcuz it takes forever that way.

[hammocksleeper]

You can hold control and click one unit, and it will select all units of that type that are on-screen. You can also create groups of units by selecting some units, and hitting ctrl-#, where # is any number between 0-9. Then to call up that group, just hit the number.

[Cpt.Chronic]

Yeah, just group your units using hotkeys. Once you hotkey your first group, move them to the side a bit so can select 12 new units for your next group, and so on.

[DragonPaladin]

Group them. then hit 1, click and do it fast so they all move.

[ReD_ICE]

may i remind u about targeting units. try not to target-attack one unit at a time, just click "a" (for attack), and left click on a terrain where the enemy is, not on the enemy unit. Exceptions say to target the most important units (e.g. carriers)

[BrotherGreen]

Yeah, if your battling carriers and say you have groups of marines, you'll want 2 groups per carrier... if you can micro that well.

hotkeying your groups is pretty much the easiest way. If you have lots of groups and you want them all to go together into the battlefield you can do two things.

1, when you send off your units, send groups from the back before you send the front groups, the back ones will have to take extra time to go around the front ones, and by the time they get there the front ones should be moving, thus, they'll usually move more together than if you send group by group from front to back

2, just send your units NEAR the enemy base/battlefield, and re-group there before you send in.

[MidnightGladius]

Always have good recon on your opponent so you can gather up your troops before they enter. Not doing this results in the dreaded "line dance", which essentially equals suicide.

Of course, there are some situations where sending all of your troops isnt a good idea. If you have 8 lings against a firebat and a medic on a ramp, you should obviously send lings one at a time to kill the medic and then swarm the firebat.

Also, though this is almost strictly micro-related, hotkey accordingly to your army size. If you have 12 units, it makes more sense to have 6 groups of 2 than one group of 12. Of course, if you have 60 units, then you should get 5 groups of 12.

[hammocksleeper]

Also, don't forget that you can have a unit in more than one group. If I have a number of units in the range of 3-30, often I will group maybe each type of unit, or two groups per unit or two units per group, but I might also put all units who are low in health in another group, this group will have mixed unit types (also takes a lot of microing to take the healed guys out and put the newly hurt guys in). If I have a hero I usually put him on his own hotkey as well as including him in one or more of the other groups.

[DragonPaladin]

I would group-overlap units so I could command them in pincer flanks, or trident formations. Or even if I wish, rows of firing lines like back in the Revoluntionary War in america.

[Ahzz]

Also, though this is almost strictly micro-related, hotkey accordingly to your army size. If you have 12 units, it makes more sense to have 6 groups of 2 than one group of 12. Of course, if you have 60 units, then you should get 5 groups of 12.

heh. Depends. Have you thought, that it takes awfully lot micro to control 6 groups? Yes, It does take. Only exception to this might be, if you're fighting some kind of a battle, which would decide the winner of the game right away, and you are not allowed to lose almost anything. I'd say it's faster to have 2 groups of 6, and scatter them if needed. Really, it takes much less time. And less micro, which is an good thing for a newb, who isn't a 400 APM gosu... And think who wrote the thread. Just got through campaigns, and trying to move to B.net, definately not gosu.

[BrotherGreen]

I'd go with three groups of four... but not 6 groups of two... unless I were trying to surround the person and was click-happy...

[Cpt.Chronic]

The only time you should split groups into smaller than 12 units per group is if you have some units with special abilities, such as an early force of m&m. Say you only have 8 marines and 4 medics. The best way to control this force is to assign 2 hotkeys because of the marines' stim ability. I like to assign all 12 of them to '1' and then put the marines seperately on '2'. That way, I can move them all at once, keeping the medics with the marines, and then when I want to stim the marines, I just hit, '2, t'. If I have a larger m&m force I will fill up my first hotkeys with all marines, and once I have all the rines assigned, I will assign the medics to the next available hotkey. This way, you can easily stim all your rines without missing some or double stimming others.

[siuloongbao]

I would group-overlap units so I could command them in pincer flanks, or trident formations. Or even if I wish, rows of firing lines like back in the Revoluntionary War in america.


How would this work?

[ReD_ICE]

lol...starcraft is not like actual war, so..i mean even though its a tactical warfare game and all, but applying real life battle tacs may not be useful in sc...

[Ahzz]

Some really are. Flanking, attacking their back, forcing to retreat to base, and then get through his push etc.

How would this work?
Well, just put same marines to also different groups
Like, if you have 12 marines, and make 2 groups of them (6 & 6), and then make a third group using All of the marines you got. Or 8 of them or 10. I dont care.

[siuloongbao]

oh ok, i get it. lol, i knew that.

[DragonPaladin]

Well, it's like spreading damage. VERY HARD TO DO.

Let's say you have 36 marines.

3 sets of 12.

111111111111
222222222222
333333333333

First line fires, and enemy advaces. I retreat first line and let second line fire. Second line retreats and third line fires. I scatter all the lines. I've alreayd pre-hotkeyed them so they can do this at a moments command.

444444 555555
666666 777777
888888 999999

now I have 6 groups of 6 marines. I can
A) Flank them.
B) Trident them
C) Surrounded them.

Or I could make mass chaos, but baiting with two groups and attacking with others.

Or I could do broadsiding with bcs.

Like this

111111111111 222222222222
Target

Then

11111111212121222222222

Target

Then

121212121212121212121212

Target

22222222222 11111111111

Then you could yet again flank them.

If it won in real life, it can win in Starcraft.

[Ahzz]

uh. But noone really uses 6 groups of pure marines... :)

[DragonPaladin]

Yea, but you see the marines are only an example. You can switch in dragoons or goaliaths in replacement.