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Let's imagine you are playing Terran vs Protoss. You have around 7-9 rax, few with reactors, others with tech labs. Your opponent has army that consists mainly of zealots and high templars...

and you need to build you stuff right now. What is the best way to do that?

Option A: press 'D' 5-6 times, and after that 'A' 5-6 times? This way you will receive required amount of marines + marauders. But (at least for me) that takes some time.

Option B: press 'D' for few seconds and after that 'A' for the same time. This way you will receive pretty similar amount of units and it will be quicker, but that won't be as precise as with option A.

What is the best way to order troops when you have A LOT of buildings? Should I go with option "B" or practice "A" but make it quicker?

Do you see any other better way?

Thank you.

P.S. I'm interested in terran race suggestions, but others would be useful too.

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    I suggest you a "C": build by pattern. When I played Terran I use 'aadaad' thus balancing mix and keep watching at the bottom to not queue too much.
    – Meta
    Oct 17, 2011 at 6:05
  • Why you didn't put that as an answer? But looks like you "C" is kind of enhanced "A" :) Thank you!
    – Budda
    Oct 24, 2011 at 1:03

4 Answers 4

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The answer totally depends on your keyboard delay setting. The lower it is the faster it will punch out repeated key strokes.

However, that said. It's better to go with Option A. It's better control over how many units you are pumping out exactly. You need 5 marauders, you hit D 5 times. It's a much more exact army composition that you are getting. You will be a much better SC2 player this way.

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The fastest is to produce one unit at a time, get into the habit of constantly checking your hotkeys. The money you waste on the queue can be spent into an expo or additional production buildings, you waste the opportunity to be able to produce units faster if you just decide to queue them...

This does generally apply to Terran, to Protoss non-warpgate buildings and does not apply to Zerg.

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    I should mention that this also applied to zerg. As if you overmake ("overreact") some units you'll have less larvae for workers and possible switch. Plus the wasted money. And while 'Esc' is fine for terran players if you keep holding 'A' too long but for zerg ones it's totally no-no.
    – Meta
    Oct 17, 2011 at 6:00
  • Probably not the fastest when you start using this method, but most accurate which is such as important. And it will get faster the longer you practice.
    – fschl
    Oct 17, 2011 at 9:29
  • thank you for feedback, but I told about the case when you have 7-9 barracks... Is it possible to 'checking' them through the hotkeys? it is not always possible to detect when it's time to order new wave (you can't have all raxes building with a same speed and have them all be in sync. I try to do that constantly and once I see it's almost a time to start a new way I do. But the question: is it more efficient to press and keep or press required amount of times. Sorean's answer work well, but I would like to have more options.
    – Budda
    Oct 24, 2011 at 0:59
  • @Budda: Yes, it is possible. Pressing the required amount of times gives you more control, you shouldn't ever keep a key pressed or you'll like produce less/more than you actually want. As for synchronizing, please note that an unit is automatically queued in the building that will be able to produce the unit the fastest. So, when a round of marauders is about to finish you can simply queue up the next round of marauders. Your goal is to ensure that every building is producing something, a second goal once you get the first goal is to ensure that your queue is as small as possible...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Oct 24, 2011 at 2:34
  • @Budda: You could opt to queue 2 units instead when you have much barracks.
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Oct 24, 2011 at 2:35
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I would make all your a rax a hotkey/control group so when your in a battle you can quickly press the hotkey and build another amry very quickly. I have used this tatic in my 2v2 games and it allows me to reniforce very quickly. When I click on the hot key to build the Army I tend to vary the wirght of marines to maruders depending on what I'am fighting e.g. if roaches or zelots I press D more times or if its zergling or small units I press A more times.

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  • The question is not how you access your Barracks, but how you fill their training queues.
    – fschl
    Oct 29, 2011 at 11:04
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Do not try to build all at the same time. I usually select my rax every 2-3 seconds to check on their progress, even in battle. When I see that most produce only 1 marine at a time and I have the resources I issue 3-4 times A or D. Then I go back doing some other thing. After some time you know how long 25 / 30 seconds take.

If I know that I need to create about 9 marines / marauders I would make them in 3 cycles (3, 3, 3).

It only needs to be consistent as if they are shifted by a constant. Say Rax1 - Rax3 produce cycle 0 (every 30 seconds: 0,30,60,90 etc.), Rax4-Rax6 produce on +2 (every 30+2 seconds: 2,32,62,92 etc.) and Rax7-Rax9 produce on +4 (every 30+4 seconds). As you check your progress every 2 seconds you should not miss production time at all. Also it is very unlikely that you have produced all your 9 barracks so they sync perfectly.

This concept forces you to build constantly out of your Rax and check your money. There is an easy formula: If your money does not stay at the same level for about 3 cycles and you produce out of all you can add further Rax.

You have a problem if you get supply blocked constantly then the +2 and +4 Rax will loose valuable production time.

I am Diamond league, perhaps this will not work in Masters or Grand Masters but it works for me.

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