I'm new to playing Zerg and would like some advice:

I have hatchery on hotkey 4 and I'm not supply blocked.

If I press 4sd while watching something else (some scout for example), sometimes it successfully creates a drone, and sometimes it fails (because there are 0 larva) but it will produce exactly the same audio sounds.

Is there an audio way to be noticed when the drone spawning has not been launched? Or do you have to quit micro/scouting and check the unit count each time you try to spawn a drone? Or just spam 4sd so often it doesn't matter if it fails?

  • and as this question pops out, it looks like I can't find any transcript for SC2 announcers/advisors and I'm not allowed to look for video/audio streams at work... I can check myself once I'm at home, but I guess by that time, someone would answer – gl_prout Jul 20 '18 at 9:10

There is no audio cue for a spawned larva.

However, there are several ways to work around this:

  1. Larvae spawn every 11 seconds (except in co-op), which you will naturally get a feel for as you spend more time playing Zerg.
  2. The icon for selecting the Larvae attached to the selected Hatchery has the number of selectable Larvae displayed in the lower-right corner, which you can check after pressing 4 with a quick glance.
  • do you recall if there is an audio cue for no larva available for the selected hatch(es)? – gl_prout Jul 20 '18 at 12:42
  • 2
    @gl_prout if you think about it, an audio cue would be really annoying in the mid and late game once you have multiple hatcheries each spewing out larvae every 11 seconds. there might be a small sound if the screen is near the hatchery, but I honestly doubt the sound would be heard across the map. – Nzall Jul 20 '18 at 13:29
  • @Nzall In your answer and comment, you talk about an audio cue following larva spawn event, but my question and gl_prout comment is about the larva selection event or unit spawn event, not larva spawn event ;) useful answer anyway – Tristan Jul 20 '18 at 19:42

As Nzall states, there's no audio cue, and as you mention, the sounds for successfully or unsuccessfully creating a drone are the same.

However, what you can notice is whether or not your minerals decrease when you hit the hotkeys. As you get used to the timings of larva spawning, noticing this out of the corner of your eye should be enough to tell you on the (hopefully rare) occasions when you miss the timing.

  • You're right, but if I want visual cue, I guess the unit count increasing by 1 in case of successful 4-s-d is the best cue. And audio thing would have been nice. – Tristan Jul 20 '18 at 19:24

Your problem is due to the fact you are not organizing your game properly.

Macro cycle should be like this:

  1. make sure you have one queen next to each hatchery
  2. go over each hatch(default key is backspace, many change it to space) and inject.
  3. build enough overlords so you are not supply blocked when larva pops

(do other stuff)

  1. when larva pops build units or drones

tl;dr - you do not build units at random points in time and wonder if there is larvae or not, you do it in cycles.

  • With other races you spawn a worker every 12s, you mean you have to wait 29s larva spawning for Zerg ? – Tristan Jul 21 '18 at 8:28
  • In early game not, but in late game yes. But you are missing the point. Zerg hatchery can build many drones in parallel while T and P can build only one at the time per each Nexus/Comand Center – NoSenseEtAl Jul 21 '18 at 15:16
  • Mmmm no, not missing anything, just asking questions based on facts ;) Building 3 drones in parallel <> building 1 drone every 11 or 12 s. – Tristan Jul 22 '18 at 7:00

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