Rant: Game interface design

[Occhidiangela]

I can never seem to get the drones to repair units sequentially, even when I follow the instructions. As I understand it, I should be able to tell a drone/SCV to repair three siege tanks in succession, but he never repairs beyond the first one.

Have not played BW/SC in a while, and I will try to get it right once again when I break it out again. I really like SC, but to play on bnet, I found I had to be way more a fast twitcher.

About the rally point: I had my best success by using keys for certain commands.

Select barracks and hit the keyboard to select the skill . . . in this case rally point. (IIRC, that was either R or P, but it has been quite a while.)

Trouble is, that takes a bit of self training to do, but I thought it was way faster for me than using mouse alone.

[Archon_Wing]

Hmm, that may be due to the fact that drones can't repair :)

But anyhow, if you want to repair several units at once, you can't use the repair button. (Yes, that's ridicolous, but follow me on.) Well maybe there is, but this is how I do it.

1.)Select the SCV
2.)Hold down the shift key and do not let it go until I say so
3.)Right-Click on the first tank that's broken
4.)Right-Click on the second, and so on
5.)Release shift after you picked all the tanks.
The SCv will repair one tank until it's fully repaired and automiaticaly move on to the next.

Even cooler, after you shift right click all the tanks, you can shift-right click on a mineral which causes it to mine minerals after it's done requiring no (less) hassle on your part

[kandrathe]

WarBlade, I concur! First, the AI please. Some things I've wanted added to merc's...

1) The merc should have the sense to run away when it is badly damaged.
2) We should have a hot key to set the merc's general behavior Attack, Defend, Guard and optionally to be able to click on the target. e.g. defend the sorceress in my party, or attack Shaman (ignore the others). One might override that to make the merc sensible enough to defend itself against direct melee attacks.
3) Most mercs currently retreat faster than I do, so if I need my tank to hold station while I back up a few paces they are then usually behind me. Not good.
4) Have a way to temporarily suspend the merc without killing it. "You stay in town, I'm going to go dispatch Maffer the MSLEB, ok."

Pete, I'm too am trying out SC again. Currently, I am working my way through Brood War, on Act V Terrans. I agree, it is cumbersome. One of my biggest pet peeves regarding the interface is with the Zerg. I end up always needing to set a rally point away from the hive. When I group select units I always seem to end up getting one of the larva included which then precludes the command I want to give them. As for the Ctrl+# -- I end up only resorting to using that when I am massing and weilding unit in an attack force. Another is in the unit AI in regards to boundaries. That is it really bugs me when you try to place a unit close to a border, the unit will suddenly decide to circumnavigate the map in order to get to the other side of the boundary (usually getting itself killed in the process). Regarding D2, I would like a little more freedom in assigning key sequences to skills, namely multiple key sequences (e.g. Alt-C-1). Many classes are getting to the point where 16 hot keys for skills are not enough. For the sorceress and the paladin I always use more than 16 skills. I think this becomes more of a problem with the addition of items granting skills. All games should disable the "Windows" key. I got tired of my friends ripping it from my keyboards in frustration, so I use winkey assassin. But still, what were they thinking?