Updating the User Interface part 2In the last UI update, we discussed changes made to the on screen UI. This time I will be highlighting some of the gameplay changes being implemented into Starcraft 2 in order to catch it up to modern standards.
Some of the changes will include the following:
-Smartcasting
-Auto-mining
-Multi-building selection
-Unit formation
-Expanded multiple commands
Smartcasting is the ability to have a single spell target various targets. In Starcraft 1 if you told a group of 12 Ghosts to use their “Lockdown” spell on an enemy, all 12 of them would fire on the same target, wasting 11 “Lockdowns”. In order to counter this, the player would select the group, target one enemy, then as the Ghosts make their way to the target, the player would have to de-select one unit from the group and target a different enemy unit and so on and so forth. As you can imagine, this required a lot of clicking and hand speed.
In Startcraft 2, Smartcasting will take this into account. To accomplish the same effect described above, the player will take his group of Ghosts, select Lockdown, then right click on an enemy unit. As they are moving to the target, the player only has to hold down the shift key and right click on any other units they want to perform the spell on.
This method will work for all spell casters in Starcraft 2 and should help close the gap between people with slower and faster hand speeds.
Before: Boxer’s LockdownMass Lockdown without Smartcasting.After: Terran SnipingStarting at the :50 second mark, you can see mass Sniping using Smartcasting. At the end of the clip they show off calling down Drop Pods with Smartcasting. As you can see, you get the same effect with a lot less clicking.
Pulling something like this off in Starcraft 1 took incredible hand speed. Not so in Starcraft 2.Auto-mining is a fairly simple addition, but one that is long overdue. When you click on any building, a player can select a rally point anywhere on the map. The rally point is where the new units will go when they appear from the building. If you set a rally point on a patch of minerals or gas refinery, the worker units will automatically start collecting as soon as they appear from the Command Center, Nexus, or Hatchery.
Get to work!Multi-building selection will allow a player to assign multiple buildings to any number group he chooses. Say you’re playing the Protoss with 6 Gateways. You can click on each Gateway and tell it to produce a single Zealot. Now, you can click on the first Gateway, hold shift, and click on the rest of the Gateways. Once you have all 6 highlighted, press Ctrl and any number 1 thru 0. Let’s say we assigned our Gateways to number 5. Now all we have to do is press 5,Z and we will have 6 Zealots produced at the same time, assuming the funds are ready.
Use Multi-building selection in conjunction with Smartcasting and Gateways to speed up the reinforcing of the front lines with the Protoss.Unit formations in Starcraft 1 were pretty bad. Pathing AI wasn’t the best either, especially on ramps. Starcraft 2 will allow the units to respond to group movements better and hopefully reduce all the clutter large moving armies tend to incur. Players will still have to issue up commands to their units, but at least they all won’t go walking off in a straight line this time around.
The pathfinding AI in Starcraft 1 would have made this attack very difficult to pull off without extremely good micro skills.Customizable hotkeys are in discussion now. This would allow a player to remap the 15 keys on the far left side of the keyboard to whatever he wants them to be. Don’t like reaching over to “p” to create a probe? No problem, reassign it to “s” or “q” or whatever you like.
Finally, we have expanded multiple commands. Basically, this means a smarter use of the Shift and Ctrl keys. If you highlight any builder type unit, say a SCV, Probe, or Queen, you can give them a queue of commands to follow when setting up buildings.
Say you wanted to build 2 supply depots, a barracks, another supply depot, a factory, and end with another supply depot in that order. Using hotkeys, you would click on an SCV and press the following:
Hold shift, b, s, click location, b, s, click location, b, b, click location, v, f, click location, b, s, click location.
*the hotkeys above are “b” build basic structure, “s” for supply depot, “b” build basic structure, “b” for barracks, “v” build advance structure, “f” for factory, “b” build basic structure, “s” for supply depot*
The above sequence can be entered manually using the lower right unit commands, but it will just take more time. Memorizing hotkeys takes a while to get used to, but becomes second nature after a while. When learning hotkeys, you can always look at the lower right unit command window and hover your mouse over a unit picture. The name, cost, and time to produce the unit will appear in a balloon. The unit’s name will have one letter standing out in a different color. That is the unit’s default hotkey. This applies to buildings and spells as well.
Building a base like this will be much easier and efficient in Starcraft 2.
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Topic: The Starcraft mega thread - Rising from the ashes. (Read 190035 times)
