Helix.SC2 - Noob Notes

At some point, this will be your bible for beginning SC2. At some point, I'll come up with a better name for it.

For now, it's the in progres manual for players just starting out with StarCraft 2 to use as a resource to begin to structure their practice effectively and how to learn effective strategies as well as efficiently track their goals and progress. Laddering for the first time can be a daunting experience, especially after you watch pro players like Idra, HuK, MVP, Puma and Naniwa and at what can be thrown at you, even at Bronze League level (read: constant 3-rax, 6-pool and 4-gate), and I want to create a document that will help allieveate the concerns of new players, as well as giving them a good chance at success quickly.

Building on that, I want also add supplementary articles with race specific tips and strategies. Naturally, as I am a Terran player, these will take a Terran-focus to begin with. That said, I will hopefully be able to source some content for the other two races, whether it be written by myself or by one of the very experienced players we already have in the community.

At the moment, it’s just three summaries of Newbie Tuesday Day[9] Dailies on ‘How To Get Into SC2’ and two on Stealing and Refining a Build. The plan is to summarise more Dailies to give players a digestible format to take in the information without having to watch the one hour+ daily itself. As time goes on, I'll begin adding information from more sources, hopefully ending up with the full on start-to-finish guide from picking up the game at the local store to getting out of Bronze League and on your way to ladder greatness.

The latest version of the notes can be found HERE

As always, any comments on how to improve the guide would be appreciated. Also, if you feel you could either summarise a daily or contribute an article to the guide, either post below or PM me.

Changelog:

1/12/2011 - Thread created. Guide linked

Added #252 - Secrets of Hotkeys, APM and Map Movement, which is one the more important dailies that will be covered due to the fundemental mechanics that it helps address. #257 and #261 are the following dailies and seem to address replays with the lessons from 252, so I will look to quickly summarise these two in the next week or so.

Can you make a list of hot keys for each race plz?

Game Commands

F1 - Select idle worker
Alt-G - Ping the minimap.
Alt-T - Toggle terrain on/off on the minimap.
Alt-F - Toggle minimap unit color. (Toggles between units displaying team color or between colors for player, allied and enemy.)

Unit Commands

A - Scan Move (available to units without an attack, it approximates the attack move command).

Unit Production

Protoss

Nexus :

E - Probe
M - Mothership

Gateway :

Z - Zealot
S - Stalker
E - Sentry
D - Dark templar
T - High templar
R - Archon

Robotics facility :

A - Warp prism
B - Observer
I - Immortal
C - Colossus

Stargate :

X - Phoenix
V - Void ray
C - Carrier

Terran

Command center :

S - SCV

Barracks :

A - Marine
D - Marauder
R - Reaper
G - Ghost

Factory :

E - Hellion
S - Siege tank
T - Thor

Starport :

V - Viking
D - Medivac dropship
E - Banshee
R - Raven
B - Battlecruiser

Zerg

D - Drone
V - Overlord
V - Overseer
Z - Zergling
E - Baneling
Q - Queen
R - Roach
H - Hydralisk
F - Infestor
T - Mutalisk
C - Corruptor
B - Brood lord
U - Ultralisk

Building Production

Protoss

N - Nexus
E - Pylon
A - Assimilator
G - Gateway
F - Forge
C - Photon cannon
Y - Cybernetics core
C - Twilight council
D - Dark shrine
T - Templar archives
S - Stargate
F - Fleet beacon
R - Robotics facility
B - Robotics bay

Terran

C - Command center
B - Orbital command
P - Planetary fortress
S - Supply depot
R - Refinery
B - Barracks
U - Bunker
G - Ghost academy
E - Engineering bay
T - Missile turret
W - Sensor tower
F - Factory
A - Armory
S - Starport
C - Fusion core

Addons :

C - Reactor
X - Tech lab

Zerg

H - Hatchery
L - Lair
H - Hive
E - Extractor
V - Evolution Chamber
W - Spore crawler
S - Spawning pool
C - Spine crawler
R - Roach warren
B - Baneling nest
I - Infestation pit
H - Hydralisk den
S - Spire

G - Greater spire
N - Nydus network

N - Nydus worm
U - Ultralisk cavern

Ty will try these out see if it helps my fail at building things :D

There's an option to show the hotkeys over the buttons so you can see in-game

http://i.imgur.com/k5Mgn.jpg

This is an IOGraph of me after 2 games on StarCraft 2.

This is an example of moderate mouse control; good points are It's not thick around the edges (using minimap to move camera any distance) and there no clusters around the bottom left corner (Not clicking to build.)

Bad points are very concentrated around the middle of the screen, it should be even in a square around the middle of the screen in order to fully utilise APM, and the minimap isn't clustered, i.e. not looking around the map often enough.


Google IOGraph and run it if you want to see your own, you might find it helpful.