In StarCraft 2, how do you quickly place N units in N different locations?

Question

In StarCraft 2, how do you quickly place N units in N different locations?

For example, if you have 10 overlords and you want them in 10 different locations. What is the fastest and/or easiest way to do?

Answer 1

The method I usually use is to group-select all of the units and order all of them to the first point. Then I deselect the number I want to stay there and order the remaining units to the next point, and so on. So in this case, order 10 overlords to the first point, then immediately order 9 of them to the second point, 8 to the third, etc.

This has the advantage that it works for most types of orders and any combination of units. It's faster than trying to select individual units or groups for each order, and you can be sure that you're not accidentally dispatching the same unit twice.

There is a certain amount of wasted movement at the beginning but I find it's not usually significant. Most of the time, the points are in vaguely the same direction anyway so the initial movement isn't totally wasted, and even if it is the savings in time and attention are worth it.

With ground units you might need to double-check that the units aren't crossing each others' paths too badly; SC2 can handle a few units trying to move past each other gracefully, but if you have a lot of units in a crowded area it might be worth manually assigning which ones go where.

Answer 2

As stated before but let's just get into the game mechanics a little deeper: 1. It depends if You want to send the units to multiple location straight from larvae or straight from the production buildings. 2. It also depends if the units are already in a given hotkey group.

So there are couple cases:

• You have the units alive and without a group.

CTRL + click on 1 overlord (this selects all the overlords that are at the current screen that You're looking at).

Right click the minimap -> SHIFT click overlord on the center of the screen to deselect one.

Repeat the process.

• You have units inside already existing group and want to split them across the map.

This is a little more problematic case which would require You to also edit the group not to clamp up the units when You're trying to control them via control group.

• You want to spread them out from larvae

If that is the case then straight up when You're queueing an Overlord just right click while having the larvae selected. That issues the command for the spawned Ovie to go straight to the place that larvae had the rally point set up to.

I am open to more questions if that was helpful. I might be able to give more feedback on hotkey optimization too :) Hope this helps.