1821

Amen to that, the games that I somehow survive that long I have a chance at winning with the Zerg, but that hasn’t been the case lately.

I like to start from 1 and go up as I’m a lefty and my hand naturally gravitates to the left side of the board so it’s easier for me. Also I have to agree with Mike about zerglings, you always want them separate from your main army either for surrounds or for harassing while the main army is away.

One other thing about the Zerg I’ve found is that armor is more valuable to upgrade first as even though you build in mass, keeping your units alive longer is better then doing more damage.

1822

Is there a hotkey to center on the selected unit?

1823

Not sure if there is a hotkey for that. I’m sure you know about hitting a group hotkey twice to center on it. Also there is ctrl-shift-f I think which follows the selected unit.

1824

Do you hit it once for all of them, or do you have to hit it multiple times, i.e., once for each unit?

1825

Hit T once for all of them.

1826

Heh, I love the mental image of someone with a huge swarm of Marines having to hit T to activate each individual Marine’s stimpack! That’ll get your APM up!

 -Tom
1827

Early on, that’s how I thought it worked, albeit by hitting T multiple times rather than individually targetting each Marine. Yeah, they died quick.

1828

That’s why I asked! The button stays lit instead of having a cooldown timer or something, so I spammed it and killed a bunch of guys. I figured that wasnt supposed to happen but thought I’d ask. Because there’s no such thing as a stupid question!

1829

Heres my 2 cents on the comparison between learning Chess and learning Starcraft.

I agree that to get good (or decent) at Chess, you need some education rather than just playing games. Either a few learning games with a good player, or read a small, basic, introductory book. It will teach you things you’ll take ages to learn just by playing.

But once you understand the basic principles of good opening, plus forks and pins, you can have really fun, closely fought games of chess against opponents of similar skill. Almost every game will be a nail biter.

In Starcraft, I think you have to reach a much higher basic level of proficiency before you are playing “nailbiter” games. Until then you are mostly going to experience lopsided stomps, as either the victor or the loser. (This is just my experience of SC2 so far feel free to correct me if your early experience differs).

That doesn’t mean that I think Starcraft is a bad game. Theres lots of great hobbies that require a high basic level of proficiency to really enjoy them the way they are designed. (eg learning to play a musical instrument).

I think people misunderstand chess because of the whole “Grandmaster” thing. Low level chess is tense, competitive, and strategic. The rating system means that almost every time you log on for a game online you are going to have a drawn out, hard fought, close match.

Tony.

1830

This is a wonderful mental image. “SHOOT UP SOLDIERS! SHOOT UP! SHOOT – no, at the muties! Not in your arms! Not in – ah shit.”

1831

That’s rather surprising to me, i reached 2v2 Diamond in random team and i never found a situation where they would come into play. Perhaps that’s the difference between a pickup team and a premade one. Nevertheless i have a hard time seeing when Carriers would be useful; almost all good 2on2 games are decided in the middle to late midgame. Like all the late game units, they cost a great deal for little effect until they are heavily massed, and it’s difficult to find the time in a tight game. You guys must expand/defend/harass until you have a significant eco advantage.

Our latest strategy is to hit early with 3 zealots and 6 marines, then while that is going on I’m building stargate and voids. I then harass with a void or 2 or 3 until I can get my beacon out. If harassing is allowing us to macro up then I get void speed and continue harassing while partner rolls out with tanks, hellions, bio or something else. I contribute zealots to his army. I try to get 1 or 2 carriers to go with him as this is moving across the map. It is amazing the difference 1 or 2 carriers can make when covering siege tanks, marines, and hellions. I have to be very careful microing them. Oh and he repairs them with his scvs and/or MULEs.

We found lately that most of our games were going to mid/late game strategies so we needed to develop something with more punch. Rushing doesn’t have much success at this level, the best kind of rush is just a poke/recon in force.

1832

I like to think of it as a needle attached to the inside of their suit, pressing right against their neck, triggered remotely by the commander, against their will.

“But sir, we’ve got these big bolter guns. How is giving me an adrenaline rush going to make my bullets more…AHHHHH!!!”

1833

I’d agree that Carriers are pretty useless in 1v1 as they require significant resources be spent on air upgrades in matchups that pretty much require you to devote yourself to ground forces, and the Void Ray already provides an effective air unit even without upgrades.

In team games though I think that Carriers can be used effectively. Carriers benefit from weapon upgrades more than any other unit in the game - each “+1” is effectively a “+16” for a Carrier attack, and if taking armor into account the Carrier can have its damage output increased anywhere from 37.5% (against 0 armor targets) to 150% (against 6 armor targets)

I’ll agree that the BC is probably one of the least used units, but it does have a place in the TvZ matchup. TLO among others have made great use of it as an essential part of their endgame composition.

1834

Really, you can repair Carriers? Are you sure? I thought that was taken out after the beta. I’ve tried to repair Protoss stuff with an allied SCV after the game has ended and i’m just fooling around with stuff, and it never works. Neither does enabling Autorepair allow it to repair Protoss mechanical. Unless the Carrier is somehow different as i’ve never tried it on the Carrier per se. In beta SCVs could repair Protoss at about 1/4 to 1/8 the rate of normal human equipment.

Oh, and that’s a great tip about control-grouping all your Queens. Never knew about that!

1835

I think including armor in that calculation is a bit misleading, since the carrier was doing so little damage against high armor targets in the first place. Yeah, the percentage increase is impressive, but in practical game terms it simply means “Your carriers don’t suck vs. high armor targets anymore”.

By the way, teching to Carriers is a quick & easy way to get the “FFA” achievements against 7 computer AI. Just make sure to build a mothership so that you can warp your force back to your base if a computer player comes knocking while your force is out “liberating” minerals.

For the Outmatched achievements, I’ve had really good luck playing Terran & just lifting my CC and starting my base on a resource island. They say that no man is an island, but I have a 1 vs. 4 Hard AI achievement that says otherwise.

1836

How do the early achievements like “Win 5 games against an evenly matched AI in a custom game” work? I’ve done plenty of 1v1 vs a Normal AI, with the game mode set to Melee and with it set to Custom, and the progress bar doesn’t tick up. What do I need to do?

1837

You need to play the games from the Multi-player tab. Stupid, I know.

1838

This is rather unintuitive:

You go into “Multiplayer”, start a game, and then populate it with whatever AI you want to satisfy the conditions of the achievement(s) you’re chasing. Custom games in Single Player don’t count for anything, for some odd reason.

1839

Play Co Operative counts too afaik. So if you do a 2v2 vs AIs, either with an AI buddy or a real friend, that will progress the “Win X games vs evenly matched AI” achievements.

1840

Son of a… So that’s why that hasn’t been working.

Thank you!