Starcraft II Tips

This can be a thread dedicated to 90% of the noobs on starcraft, for online and campaign tips.

On muiltiplayer, what buildings/upgrades to you get first?
Do you instantly go build another command center on another patch of resources?

 

Everyone is rushing, so be prepared for that...

 

Biggest tip: learn the keyboard shortcuts, and don't run low on supply structures or resource gatherers. Those three things will make you 50% better overnight

 

Only played, and lost, 3 matches last night. It's nice how you get to see a very in depth data output and graphing of you and your opponent(s) activities. One thing I noticed on all 3 of my losses was my opponent gathered significantly more resources, and also never had idle unspent resources (I don't remember sitting around and picking my nose but all the data points towards it). Honestly, I don't have the multitasking skills at this point in time to be able to manage that many things. Also, every time my opponent was building higher tiered structures/units before I even thought humanly possible.

Game starts, 3 seconds later: "Nuclear Launch Detected" followed by a massive wave of full upgraded Battleships and Thors.

This pretty much sums up how my games went.

 

1. Constantly build workers.

2. Use hotkeys and shortcuts, usually I have 1 - 4 as army, 5 as CC/Nexus/Hatch, and 6 - 9 as production buildings.

3. Keep money low, I always aim for less than 500 minerals and gas at all times.

4. Learn good build orders.

5. Don't bother with micro until you master macro.

Got to Diamond on beta just by following those 5 steps.

 

You can group all your production buildings into one hotkey and just tab between the different types of production buildings.

The same can go for your army but it is more useful to have different types of units grouped up with different hotkeys if they need to be moved separately.

 

^This. Solid rules of thumb.

Random1337, do you frequent teamliquid.net? You clearly know what you're doing. I'm a low diamond myself, and nothing special.

 

Can someone explain or link all the shortcuts to assigning units/structure to different keys?

 

The problem with Starcraft, and one of my clanmates attests and utilizes this as well is the many,many macro binds.

Basically he macro binds 100's of binds to do things much, much faster than most people dream about. THIS is a huge issue with the first game.

Make no mistake this game is uber-competitive.

 

Not much to it. Select whatever units/buildings you want and hit CTRL + any number 1-9. After that every time you hit that number on your keyboard it will select those units/buildings.

 

I'm no pro at SC2, but I was pretty sick at SC1. Here are my rules.

1. Know the keyboard shortcuts. Selecting a SCV and tapping B twice is always faster than clicking on Build then clicking on Barracks (when almost all the icons look the same)

2. Don't just play as ones race. Know how to use all three races. When you are familiar with each race, get familiar with different opening moves each race has. When you know the opening moves, know which opening set up counters which opening set up.

3. 10 workers on mineral = more than enough. This is for long games, for short games where you plan on rushing, you can pull it off with fewer. You would rather wait 10 seconds to build your second barracks, than build 2 more SCVs and have a crap load of extra mineral sitting around.

4. Extra resources = time and resources on wasted on building too many workers when you could have built something else. If you have extra resources sitting around, make some (combat) units, or get some research upgrades. It's not wasting if you have extras sitting around.

And the most important one...
5. Play ladders, and WATCH THE REPLAYS! Doesn't matter if you win or if you lose, you can always learn something new by watching replays. If you won, know why you won, how you won, who did you win against, what strategy did you win against; if you lost, know why you lost, how you lost, who did you lose to, what strategy did you lose, and what strategy you can use to win (you learn this last one by watching other replays).

There are only so many opening moves out there, so it's not going to take forever to learn. Opening moves usually make or break the game. There's usually less variation for ending a game (whoever gets Carriers, Cruisers, or Brood Lords first usually wins).

 

One more thing... you HAVE TO scout in the beginning of the game - not just to find out your opponent's location, but also to find out your opponent's opening moves (which you learn by watching replays... i.e. 6 Drones + Spawning Pool = Zergling rush). Protoss use a worker, Terran use a worker or marine if you pull them out early enough, Zerg use Overlord in the beginning then Zerglings when you get a Spawning Pool.

Hover your cursor over the button you want to press. Don't press it, and the name of building/upgrade/unit will come up. One letter will be white while the rest orange, the white letter is the keyboard shortcut.

 

The shortcuts really help that much?

Ive won 1 game out of like 5 so far on 2v2. I play as Terran cause I have no idea how to use the other races, or the characters/buildings are/do.

I was very good at warcraft TFT back in the day, and it was easier because the humans and orcs had the same type of characters. The human archer was the equivalent to the bezerker(sp?).

 

Shortcuts do help a lot. When it comes to rushing, or defending against rushes, every second matter. Whenever I rush Protoss with Zerg, the opponent is usually training Zealots or building their first few Photo Cannons. If they get 1 cannon or 1 Zealot out, my Zerglings would get destroyed.

 

shortcuts help TREMENDOUSLY !!!, a player used to consoles and no keyboard or has never used shortcuts is dead meat for any player, even if their new but knows the keyboard.

 

i dont use any keyboard shotcut still about finish the game some how

 

Tip from myself - If you are NEW and have not mastered/learned any of the standard keyboard shortcuts yet go into your options and turn on GRID mode.

Even I as somebody familar with some of the old shortcuts did this and it took me awhile to get used too it, but after I did I found it much better than the old method.

With grid mode you can play all 3 races easier without learning the hotkeys for all of them, and all the keys are within easy reach.

Also in custom games where there are non standard commands grid mode still works the same.

 

I agree, MACRO's will slow you down until you play the game for a while. Using hotkeys/shortcuts is very helpful

 

Boy, so I get to use my left hand in Star Craft?
Gotta stop working

 

just type in "show me the money", it works for starcraft 1 or sure about starcraft 2 though.

 

lol ^ that def works in multiplayer...

but anyways, hotkeys and fast thinking will win u.

know what ur opponent is doing at all times to counter it.

rushing is easy to get past if u stay calm.

 

Okay so can someone explain the hotkeys again? you put your cursor over the building or w/e and the right white letter is the hotkey? Then you just press that and what?

 

^
The hotkeys are like a faster way of pressing a button from left clicking. And yes the white letter is the hotkey. If you make your way around through campaigne, you'll get the hang of it.

Example, if you select your Barracks, and press A on the keyboard, you build Marines. So tapping 5 A's would mean you build queue 5 Marines.
Also works for most skills and abilities, like B for Blink for the Protoss Strider.

This, somewhat saves a lot of time and focus instead of you just moving your mouse to the button and pressing it, as oppose to you paying attention to your main screen and pressing hotkeys.

 

Okay so I just press that button? Or is it CTRL + hotkey? Here is what showed up first in google, kinda helped -http://www.starcraft2freaks.com/starcraft-2-hotkeys-list/

Also, is there a way to use voice communication instead of typing?

 

No, don't use CTRL + Hotkey, unless you want to make groups, which are useful for gathering your forces or quick-selecting buildings. Or CTRL+ Hotkey can be other things as well, but for buildings/abilities hotkeys, don't use CTRL.

CTRL + 1~9 will make a group for anything you have selected that is yours.

So another tip is to make your production buildings as some groups. Then you press that corrosponding group number and hotkey build your way through.

And yeah I think they implemented the voice communication...check your options. If I'm right, there is a tab that says "Voice" or something like that.

 

By default, the push to talk hotkey is tilde (~).

Also, using cheats in single-player disables achievements.

I'm a diamond Terran consistently top 10 of my division and my best advice to new players is to focus on macro mostly at first. What is macro management? Macro encompasses creating buildings, researching upgrades, producing units and expanding. Don't worry too much about micro other than really basic stuff like attack-moving (hitting a then left click) and grouping units into control groups. Those are obviously important basics too.

Always keep constant worker (SCV, probe mainly - different for zergs since they need to manage larvae differently) production. The optimal saturation for a mineral line is # of minerals * 3 + 3 or 4 (for diagonals) on gas. If there is an optimal number of workers you might ask, "Why should I constantly produce them then?" A player named Maynard popularized this technique called maynarding, back in SC1, which is basically oversaturating your mineral line so you can transfer workers to a fresh new expansion thus almost instantly saturating a mineral line without having to saturate it at a glacial pace (one by one).

tl;dr
-always have an SCV or probe in production, constantly produce workers
-hot key your units and production buildings
-keeping your resources low is one sign of good macro, spend well (train units and workers as well as additional buildings)

If you focus on those simple points, you'll improve pretty well. Obviously there is a lot more to Starcraft than that but don't worry too much about that yet. A lot of new players will watch high level play and instantly try to mimic advanced techniques before getting down the basics. Starcraft is a game that really capitalizes on basics, specifically macro basics. I know I've kind of re-hashed a bit but it's important to communicate this to new players, lulz.

As the game is still new, all SC2 wikis are WIP but this is easily the most credible and probably most active one: Liquipedia.

 

Def. am getting better. The hotkeys are easy to use, basically the first letter of what the building/trainee is. Not that hard to memorize. Im not sure how much faster it is, but it def. is much more convenient than scrolling over it with the cursor

 

Long video answer (from SC1, but still applies):


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use it during combat as well bro.

u can be fighting and be building at the same time.

 

That's one of the things I just recently learned I have to do. Pretty difficult actually since I'm not used to dividing my attention between building and micromanaging my forces. I've never been a big RTS player before.

 

How do you do both? The only hotkeys I use are to select a SCV to build something. How do you select a single scv without clicking it?

 

That APM video is nuts. I always thought it was pro-micro that won fights, but if you can issue orders at that rate AND micro well... you're nuts then lol.

 

I always knew I should have been an Asian from the beginning!
Now I have slow and fat Caucasians fingers.

 

The more I read about this game the more I think you could have an entire Degree qualification based on it. Even if you have played many other RTS like I have, for example CNC, BZ1/2, RA2, COH, AOE, TWS etc, it won't make much difference by the looks of it. I watched a lot of youtube videos and the rock paper scissors (over simplifying it a lot I know) seems to be the main foundation here. Whether you start with Starcraft 1 or 2, I think you will get owned.

 

You could always take that UC Berkeley Starcraft course. The lectures are even posted on youtube somewhere.
U.C. Berkeley Now Offers StarCraft Class | GameLife | Wired.com

 

well, battle and building is a little difficult and duno if thats recommended or not.

But training more units and such, while in battle, is key.

 

Hmmm. Mineral nodes can't be worked on by more than 1 worker at a time, right? When I try to place more than 2 workers on a node, the 3rd one always just runs off to some other node to work. It sometimes even happens when I put 2 workers there, if the node is pretty close to the Command Centre.

 

it has something to do with timing.

if u put two drones to the same node at the same time, one will go to another.

but if u wait like a sec or 2, then another can start gathering from the same and then a third.

they will figure it out themselves if u just keep training more.

 

The more workers you have past 2 per node there will be diminishing returns because the workers will have to wander around more to cover any gaps in mining efficiency.

The idea of saturation is that 100% saturation would mean that every node in a patch is being mined as much as possible 100% of the time with no downtime as workers switch places and stuff. 100% saturation is not possible because the worker AI is not perfect (though it is very good).

Having 2 workers per node will get you about 70% saturated, after that point there are some diminishing returns as you add more workers the percent goes up slower. By the time you hit 3 workers per node you'll be about 95% saturated.

Most people consider 2.5-3 per node to be "fully saturated" which basically means you're mining very efficiently.

Going up to 3 workers per node is recommended because even a few extra percent will be enough extra income to pay off the value of the extra workers. It also means you will more easily be able to pull off workers to do things like repair, build, defend, or go mine at an expansion.

If you are planning to expand soon, get more than 3 miners per node so once your expansion is done you can split your miners in half and immediately have a large number of miners at your new base.

Gold mineral bases have fewer nodes but more minerals are returned each time a gold node is mined. The end result is that a fully saturated gold base will generate about the same amount of income as a blue base but you will not need as many workers because there are fewer nodes so you can saturate them more quickly and without using as much supply.

Mules do not interfere with other workers, if a mule is mining a node it does not get in the way of other workers mining that node (but they will get in the way of other mules). So basically each mule is a consistent extra 250-300 minerals (how much one can mine in it's lifespan) unless for some reason you have more than 1 mule per node and then there will be some diminishing returns. Try to call down mules on the nodes with the most minerals in them so you don't have 1 node running out much sooner than all the others.

 

I didn't realise there was an actual course for this already.

 

The course has a lot of Starcraft but a lot of Mathematics too.

 

How do you train units and battle at the same time? I always end up with a stupid amount of extra resources when I come back to my base after an attack

 

Hot keys, Keep all your production buildings on a hotkey then tab thru them to build.

 

I think this short guide is pretty useful.

It is titled "How to become mediocre at starcraft 2 really fast part 1"

Click here if you want to see the other parts.

 

I was watching this guy's SC2 videos, thought they are pretty good. His SC2 series is called "I suck at StarCraft 2", which basically documents his mistakes and provides lessons for new players:

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those helped quite a bit.

Is there a way to wipe my game history away so I can start over? I have an embarrassing amount of loses on 2v2

 

I only got silver on 2v2 dunno why I only lost 1 game I think. Of all things I got gold on 1v1 and that surprised me because I did lose the last 2 of my 5 games in my placement matches.

I guess it accounts for a lot more than just win/lose probably takes into account how close the game was, score, rank of other players, stuff like that.

 

hotkey ur buildings that create units and set rally points when u battle to keep sending more guys in.

 

just dont lose track and be sending them all to there death or leave none at your base for defense

 

Placement matches are weird ._. I got placed Platinum instantly after winning all 5. I was expecting silver or low gold