The StarCraft II thread

[Fate]

HEY THAT WAS ME WITH THE BIG TALL BUG LOOKIN THINGS.

I WAS THEREEEEEEEEEE

[Nuwen]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns6G8QYQJtk

<3

[ReaperCharlie]

f*** I need to get in on this.

I need a new computer first though.

f*************************

[JDodge]

Mafiascum Name	Starcraft II Name	Starcraft II ID	Comment
AGar	AGar	#777
Claus	PatoArmado	#451
DTMaster	DTMaster	#595
Fate	Chain	#369
Flameaxe	Buhbuhbam	#884
Gammagooey	Gamma	#853
JDodge	hallucinogen	#324
Papa Zito	PapaZito	#836	Has no idea what he is doing.
scotmany12	ejcraw	#253
SaintKerrigan	StKerrigan	#662
Nuwen	Nuwen	#294
Shanba	Shanba	#743	EU
TheButtonMen	TheButtonMen	#659
VisMaior	legallyBlind	#469	EU

[ReaperCharlie]

Haha, don't flatter yourself JD


...though I can see why you'd want to add BBM.

He's cool as sh1t.

[Claus]

I tried for the "win all 5 placement matches" today with Nuwen, and failed miserably. Here are the replays:

http://claus.castelodelego.org/starcraf ... cement.zip

We won the first 3 games, then I completely lost my cool as the wireless started lagging Happy new year!

[Nuwen]

i'm on many nyquils to fight the tiny invading things in my body.

[Shanba]

I have serious issues with tvz. Not in practice - in practice at my level, I just kill the bastard. On a theoretical level I have an issue with it. Like, what I should be doing.

Early game I hate the concept of harass. I much prefer the idea of pressure. There's a definite difference in my mind which I haven't before been able to work out, but I think it's something like this - pressure requires a "MOAR STUFF" response - hence

automatically

doing damage even if you fuck everything up as a result of zerg larval mechanics. There's a baseline with pressure that you'll always hit no matter what. Whereas harass requires a techy or a micro solution - if they successfully reach the required tech/micro correctly, then harass can feasibly do

no

damage. So harass feels like more a gamble to me - either you do loads of damage or you do none - whereas pressure is the safer option. I mean, consider banshee/hellion harass - neither puts much larval pressure on the zerg, as roaches/spine crawlers/queens don't require that much larva, and all are going to continue to be useful.

The other problem I have is what to do next. Cause early pressure means lots of infantry, and lots of infantry means I've invested heavily in bio, but mid-lategame against zerg cause (mostly) of banelings I need something with more oomph. So how to transition into mech from there? Also, I don't want to be stuck in a position where I can't expand - where this attack

has

to do damage in order to let me win. I feel like most timing attacks work that way - sure there's followups, but only if your attack skirts the balance between doing no damage/being utterly crushed and wiping out the zerg there and then. Like, I feel I should be able to use terran's turtling ease to be able to build up again and force another expo, perhaps the gold or whatever, but if I lose too much shit trying to curb zerg's growth then that's not possible. Again I feel forced into bio, there, cause bio is replaceable in a way mech is not. But bio still has the problems I mentioned earlier. I've found thus far that enough bio can eat the baneling hits - and I think if I worked on my splitting it would eat even more - but I figure there's going to be a point where I hit a brick wall and no matter how good I get, lateish midgame bio is going to run out of steam. I don't want to run out of steam. I want to always have another step. So when to transition into mech? Three tanks or whatever is rubbish. I need to be making many tanks or no tanks.

And then lategame I feel like taking a third is a nightmare. Suddenly your army has all this ground to cover just to protect all your bases against mutalisks/drops/nydus/whatever. I mean, no matter how many turrets or thors you have there's always going to be a weak spot that zerg can exploit. Mech locks down a position, and locks it down hard, but zerg can totally abuse mobility by that point. I mean, when exactly am I going to be comfortable taking a third base? On maps that have a triangular setup for the bases, like metalopolis or shak plat or jungle basin, I can conceive of how it's possible. But what about on a map like scrap station? If your shit's all at your front door, you're going to be in trouble when zerg knocks at the back. TBM told me a while back that you just need two turrets and a thor at each mineral line to shut down harass, which is great, except that when I move out I'm not fucking leaving 18 food worth of shit behind. I need that shit. And frankly, by the time I get that kind of defence out, zerg's probably on multiple bases anyway.

I don't think I've seen terran lock down a fourth base like, ever against zerg in gsl etc.

It's like this, you see. Zerg often say that they need to be one base ahead to compete with t. I'm sure that's true - you see equal bases, you know terran is winning. Yeeeet.... at the same time, I think zerg on 3 base is probably actually ahead of terran on 2. It's so god damn binary. Either terran is matching zerg on bases, or he's falling behind. Sure you see random shit where terran goes for a 2 base timing push or whatever, but that's pretty much all in, just all in at a different time, since how the fuck is he going to expand from there?

So I dunno. I'll keep doing what I'm doing till it stops working, I guess.

[JDodge]

http://uploading.com/files/149em712/sho ... SC2Replay/

Any help you guys could give me would be much appreciated. I need to start improving more.

[Nuwen]

• Spend your money all the time, always. You shouldn't have 600 minerals banked less than 4 minutes into the game. If you have more than 150 minerals, build another rax.
  
• Constantly make workers (from both of your command centers)
  
• Hotkey every building and every non-worker unit + hotkey the workers you use to build supply.
  • Keep your hotkey layout the same. Mine is 4hatches/t1production, 5-6t23 production/evo chambers, 1-3 army groups, 890 important shit like overseers
• Get used to hitting command center + worker production & rax + marine/marauder production constantly (4s5aa while focusing the center of your screen on something that isn't your base)
  
• Always have some idea of what your opponent is doing. Eventually you'll pick up on specific timings at which you should scout for builds that might kill you ("if I 2 rax FE and he's 1-1-1, I might need to keep a scan saved at ~7 minutes when cloak finishes")
  
• Unless you suspect that you need scans stored to engage/banshees, MULES. MULES IMBA.
  
• Don't 1 base battlecruisers, no matter what day9 tells you :p

Being able to make shit constantly is all that matters right now. Keep building and making shit until you can build and make shit without thinking about it too much.

[Shanba]

Spend your money all the time, always. You shouldn't have 600 minerals banked less than 4 minutes into the game. If you have more than 150 minerals, build another rax.
Constantly make workers (from both of your command centers)
Hotkey every building and every non-worker unit + hotkey the workers you use to build supply.
Keep your hotkey layout the same. Mine is 4hatches/t1production, 5-6t23 production/evo chambers, 1-3 army groups, 890 important shit like overseers
Get used to hitting command center + worker production & rax + marine/marauder production constantly (4s5aa while focusing the center of your screen on something that isn't your base)

All this shit is interrelated. One of the problems I had when starting out was that people would tell me "WORK ON YOUR MACRO" and I would always think "OMG BUT THERE'S SO MUCH SHIT WHAT DO I WORK ON FIRST". Now I know nuwen and tbm may disagree, but since you're setting the pace of the game it makes sense to have something of a build order as terran. At least for the first 3 or so minutes, anyway. Here's what 99% of everything terran does starts off as:

To start, build an scv and send your workers to work. Then hotkey your cc. Then start the GLHF shit. Or don't if you're a bad mannered fucker.
Build scvs constantly. No gaps. No matter how small. Like at first, just watch the wee bar on the command centre and then as soon as it is about to finish, click build scv. BEFORE it finishes. Queuing is bad generally, but you need seamless unit production.
On 10 food, build a depot. If you've been building scvs constantly, this is the first time you should have 100 minerals. When you're getting close, grab an scv and pull it away. The timing on when you have to pull it away is different when walling in - you may need to practice that a few times to get it right. What should be happening is that the scv reaches the place you're gonna build as soon as you reach 100 minerals.
There'll be a tiny supply block on 11/11. This is normal. You can't do jack about it. If you build your depot on 9, you can get away with no supply block, but that's because you've stopped constant scv production somewhere earlier.
The depot will finish and your twelfth scv should start. While this scv is building, you should hit 150 minerals for the first time. Use it to build your racks. HOTKEY YOUR RACKS AND SHIFT CLICK THE SCV BACK TO WORK.
Gas on 13/18 food. This is the only time when you can start to change things up, really. Gas timing can be changed - for example for certain cheeses and certain expo builds. But right now just start it at 13/18
Keep building scvs and keep an eye on your barracks. It will complete pretty much at the same time your gas does, which is fairly annoying, as you'll want to be doing a lot of shit all at once. You need to IMMEDIATELY turn your cc into an orbital command (don't bother building any more scvs until your orbital is done), start a marine from your barracks and send two more guys onto gas (probably in that order, but it's not too important). You should be at 16/18 food.
Build your second depot and shift-click the guy back to minerals. Against zerg, this is the one completing your walloff.

- Any one of your scvs who is building can instead be sent to scout instead of going back to the mineral patches after completing his buildings (and at least one of them

should

be sent)-

This should get you through the early game relatively comfortably. I mean, against 6 pool or whatever stuff obviously changes - you won't be able to wall in on time, for example. That's ok. This will do for now. Go load up a custom game against a very easy ai and just get this down pat. From here, there are set in stone build orders you can follow or you can try freestyling - if you're freestyling, the key is just to SPEND ALL MONEY and ALWAYS PRODUCE UNITS FROM ALL STRUCTURES.

Those are the two key ideas of macro. To start with, just concentrate on scvs and depots. TEll yourself: "THIS GAME I WILL NOT MISS AN SCV OR A DEPOT." You will miss one. It's ok. The mental pattern will be learnt, slowly but surely, and then it will become easy. Oh, use hotkeys. Better to get in the habit now. For example, if your cc is 4, then hit 4s rather than clicking on the cc then clicking on the portrait. When building a depot, select the worker then hit bs*click*. Building a rax? bb*click*. Only when you're confident that you're remembering to hit those scvs and depots should you start thinking about your other buildings. At no point should you be looking at your army, like, at all. Box select it and attack clic towards your opponent's base. Sure they'll do stupid funky shit, but that doesn't matter for now. Just get super comfortabl building scvs.

Then do the same, but think about your barracks and your cc and so on. Eventually you'll get the hang of it. Throughout this process, don't worry too much about how high your money is. You can't spend it until you get the hang of constant unit production. Only when you have that down start thinking about how to spend the excess.

[ReaperCharlie]

omfg that sounds crazy. I would get schooled if I played you guys.

[Quagmire]

Still learning, just started tonight: how do you hotkey buildings?

BTW: #134, ChipperPear.

[SaintKerrigan]

You click on them and hotkey them, just like hotkeying units.

[Flameaxe]

Control + number.

[Quagmire]

I don't think I'll be playing much with you guys on BNET yet until I wash away my Starcraft rust and solve my inefficiencies. Unless of course I play JD, who I hear isn't good yet.

So I'll be playing the campaign until I think I'm good enough to play. With that said, whoever wrote the script to the Terran campaign likes

Firefly

a little too much.

[ReaperCharlie]

Haha, have you played Halo 3 ODST, Quagmire? At least three of the ODST team have Firefly cast members voicing them. It's awesome.

[Claus]

Playing the campaign will NOT prepare you to play online. I remember when I finished the campaign and played my first couple online games:

"What? I can't build medics? What's wrong? What building did I forget? AAAAAH"

[SaintKerrigan]

I'll be on SC2 off and on today, if you catch me while I'm on feel free to join me.

[Albert B. Rampage]

This thread makes me want to play with Nuwen.

[pickemgenius]

just bought this.

time to improve my mashing abilities.

[Fate]

Weren't you the one hating on SCII >_>

[BrutalAztecs]

He was hating on Minecraft.

[pickemgenius]

what BA said.

This game is fun as shit.

[Fate]

-_-