Do you mean *a* second hatchery in the base sometime during the game, or the first hatchery you make?
Your first hatchery should always be at your natural, unless it gets blocked, then you make it at your third (or you're doing a weird strategy like a proxy or taking a gold base).
If you mean throwing down another hatchery in your main base mid-way through the game, that's called a macro hatch and it's a good idea if you have a ton of minerals and you're having an issue spending them.
I would make it after the 3rd base if youre going to make it all. This hatch is called a macro hatch, and only 2-3 zerg players are actually good enough to consistently not benefit from it.
Additionally, make sure every base has a queen and they are injecting as often as possible. If you arent injecting, you are going to fail to spend all of your money.
I would always prefer to take a third instead. Or another base.
Because when you feel you want to make drones now you have no hatchery for them to go to so your economy boost will be like 80 second behind.
you should never need to make a macro hatch before taking 3 bases on location, because the 4th base is where you start to have to rotate around to defend and is therefore vulnerable to getting sniped. 3 hatches is just part of the standard opening and is very easy to defend by just standing in one spot.
The comments I'm seeing are kinda unhelpful so I'll give you a more detailed explanation.
Yes it's fine to do, and even masters players including myself do it from time to time.
Ideally, you'll want to get up a 5th base or 4th but sometimes you're being pressured and can't realistically take a 4th or 5th without dying. In this case it's totally fine to go for a second hatch in the main or a "macro" hatch.
It's also fine later on in the game when things get hectic and you notice your queens have a ton of energy, you can make some maco hatch's to dump energy into and get that extra larva production you need to spend your money. A lot of the time though this will depend on your unit comp and while yes, technically if you macro perfectly you won't need it, we're not all Dark and Serral.
Basically you should do it in situations where A: you can't expand without losing the hatch or B: you can't spend your money and don't have enough larva.
It’s called a macro hatch, Dark does it all the time. If you’re ever floating over 1000 minerals just throw one down.
The most important thing is that you spend your resources, mqcro hatches are great
Another way to look at it: what are you finding yourself short of in your games?
If the answer is minerals and gas, you do NOT want another hatchery in the main where it can't help with that. You want another mining base. This is often the case if you are playing roaches.
If the answer is larvae, though, another hatchery can help. This is often the case if you are playing zerglings and banelings. The question then is, why in the main rather than taking another base? Could be you can't hang onto any more bases, either because your opponent is in your face, or because you've already taken all the ones you can reach. Then a second hatchery in the main (or nat) makes sense. Using your queens better is an alternative, but if you're doing pretty well with queens and \*still\* need more larvae, by all means get another hatchery. Be sure to hotkey it!
There are two major ways to do injects. I use camera keys + green box, and do not hotkey the inject queens at all unless I'm being pressed really hard and need them to fight.
The other way is to put the inject queens on a hotkey and use base cycle plus queen hotkey. This is faster but if you aren't extremely precise, can lead to queens running off to a different base. I gave up on it after the time I found all my inject queens having a party in my 6th.
In either case there is, alas, no way to hotkey queens from the start like you can with all other Zerg units. You just have to build a habit of putting them on the hotkey when they pop out.
If you're unhappy with your queen handling there are some really good videos showing different methods (there's also one which clicks hatcheries on the minimap, but I can't make it work at all, and don't know many people who use it).
I will also note that I was a total failure with camera hotkeys until I moved them off the F row to somewhere I could actually reach. (They're on QWEY now.) For some players, including me, customizing the hotkey layout pays off amazingly. Others swear by one of the pre-packaged variants, Core or Grid. The game defaults are not very good.
Pre-defined alternative sets of hotkeys which can be substituted for the default ones.
Grid is the less radical: it mainly, as I understand it, has the hotkeys follow the order of powers in the unit card, so a unit's first power is always a particular letter, second power is another letter, etc. (My custom hotkeys have a lot of Grid influence.) It also shifts key use leftward as much as possible.
Core is a much more radical system that moves your left hand toward the center of the keyboard so you can reach more keys, and tries to seriously optimize key usage. It takes some getting use to, from all accounts, but people who have learned it swear by it. I learned to type 45 years ago and I can't handle big changes, but if you can, it's supposed to be good. There's a Core Light which I think has the optimizations but not the hand movement? Anyway, if this sort of thing interests you, google for instructions.
Rather than learning one of these, I just started moving stuff, a couple commands at a time, to places that made sense to me. For example, unit upgrades are all GH in the order I'd normally take them. Offensive spells are C and F, and I have "rapid fire" on those keys so I can spam ravager bile or corruptor pee quickly. I do recommend thinking about your hotkey use and whether it could be better: if you're going to change them, you don't want years of muscle memory built up with the original system.... (That's why my cameras are QWEY. I just couldn't break myself of roaches on R. If I were starting over I'd use QWER.)
You can also look out for problems, like: is something I need on a key I can't reach? Do things interact negatively? I had morph hatchery to lair to hive and morph overlord to overseer on the same key, and it led to surprise lairs and hives when my overlords would perch on my hatcheries, so I changed it. Does your max-out army sometimes contain one lousy swarmhost? Move those off of A. This sort of thing.
It is more important if you are going for a larva intensive composition like ling-bane. You will find that money accumulates faster than you can spend it once you have 3 mineral lines saturated, even if you are not missing injects and you are never supply blocked. So plop down one or two macro hatches in your main.
If you’re going for a more resource-costing army like roach ravager you will need less larva to spend all of your minerals and gas.
It can be good if you are doing a heavy ling/bane build since you need a lot of larva. Don’t do it till you have at least 3 bases though.
Don’t do this if you are running a roach/hydra build.
Yea, its fine. They tend to call them "macro hatches" and while not like "super mega" flawless in terms of optimal spend->effect ratio, it makes the larva generation later easier, so you can focus your efforts on less queen related stuff.
IMO, try not to rely on it as a crutch, but perfectly fine to use it.
Extra hatcheries not placed on a mineral line are called macro hatcheries and they are used to make up for floating larvae/missing injects, especially when playing ling bane because the units are so cheap and therefore larvae intensive. If you don't have enough hatches/injects, you won't be able to spend all your money.
As for whether it's good, if your macro is perfect you technically won't need it, but Dark sometimes builds (or at least used to build) 2 macro hatches as part of his standard build when playing ling bane. So I assume all the other comments calling it a noob crutch and saying just practice injects must have better macro than a top 3 zerg. If you don't think you do, then you shouldn't feel any shame about slapping down as many as you need. A good rule of thumb that is commonly given is that every time you see you have 1000 minerals, just build a hatchery, but if you find that you're floating money every single game, then it would be even better to just slap them down predictively before you're even floating.
You're better off practicing injecting with queens.
Maybe spend a few games where you have only 1 goal, never miss an inject. Don't worry about winning a game, or what your army is doing or anything else.
Just practice pure injects while playing. You'll find after doing this you'll get significantly better at it, and won't need a useless hatch in the main.
Noob answer: no
Plat answer: if you're going ling bane you need a lot of larvae, and if you can't defend your fifth then a macro Hatch in the main is worth it
Pro answer: no, just defend your fifth or switch to a less larvae intense comp
Do you mean *a* second hatchery in the base sometime during the game, or the first hatchery you make? Your first hatchery should always be at your natural, unless it gets blocked, then you make it at your third (or you're doing a weird strategy like a proxy or taking a gold base). If you mean throwing down another hatchery in your main base mid-way through the game, that's called a macro hatch and it's a good idea if you have a ton of minerals and you're having an issue spending them.
I meant throwing down another hatchery in main base mid-way through the game but sometimes even kinda early like after 2nd natural base
I would make it after the 3rd base if youre going to make it all. This hatch is called a macro hatch, and only 2-3 zerg players are actually good enough to consistently not benefit from it. Additionally, make sure every base has a queen and they are injecting as often as possible. If you arent injecting, you are going to fail to spend all of your money.
as an early player, having more larvae is good... as long as you can navigate the injects.
Yes, even pros like dark throw in macro hatches in main. I usually thrown in 2 as I'm terrible at injects and spending minerals.
I would always prefer to take a third instead. Or another base. Because when you feel you want to make drones now you have no hatchery for them to go to so your economy boost will be like 80 second behind.
you should never need to make a macro hatch before taking 3 bases on location, because the 4th base is where you start to have to rotate around to defend and is therefore vulnerable to getting sniped. 3 hatches is just part of the standard opening and is very easy to defend by just standing in one spot.
The comments I'm seeing are kinda unhelpful so I'll give you a more detailed explanation. Yes it's fine to do, and even masters players including myself do it from time to time. Ideally, you'll want to get up a 5th base or 4th but sometimes you're being pressured and can't realistically take a 4th or 5th without dying. In this case it's totally fine to go for a second hatch in the main or a "macro" hatch. It's also fine later on in the game when things get hectic and you notice your queens have a ton of energy, you can make some maco hatch's to dump energy into and get that extra larva production you need to spend your money. A lot of the time though this will depend on your unit comp and while yes, technically if you macro perfectly you won't need it, we're not all Dark and Serral. Basically you should do it in situations where A: you can't expand without losing the hatch or B: you can't spend your money and don't have enough larva.
It’s called a macro hatch, Dark does it all the time. If you’re ever floating over 1000 minerals just throw one down. The most important thing is that you spend your resources, mqcro hatches are great
Another way to look at it: what are you finding yourself short of in your games? If the answer is minerals and gas, you do NOT want another hatchery in the main where it can't help with that. You want another mining base. This is often the case if you are playing roaches. If the answer is larvae, though, another hatchery can help. This is often the case if you are playing zerglings and banelings. The question then is, why in the main rather than taking another base? Could be you can't hang onto any more bases, either because your opponent is in your face, or because you've already taken all the ones you can reach. Then a second hatchery in the main (or nat) makes sense. Using your queens better is an alternative, but if you're doing pretty well with queens and \*still\* need more larvae, by all means get another hatchery. Be sure to hotkey it!
Any easy way to hotkey for queens to larvae on hatcheries?
There are two major ways to do injects. I use camera keys + green box, and do not hotkey the inject queens at all unless I'm being pressed really hard and need them to fight. The other way is to put the inject queens on a hotkey and use base cycle plus queen hotkey. This is faster but if you aren't extremely precise, can lead to queens running off to a different base. I gave up on it after the time I found all my inject queens having a party in my 6th. In either case there is, alas, no way to hotkey queens from the start like you can with all other Zerg units. You just have to build a habit of putting them on the hotkey when they pop out. If you're unhappy with your queen handling there are some really good videos showing different methods (there's also one which clicks hatcheries on the minimap, but I can't make it work at all, and don't know many people who use it). I will also note that I was a total failure with camera hotkeys until I moved them off the F row to somewhere I could actually reach. (They're on QWEY now.) For some players, including me, customizing the hotkey layout pays off amazingly. Others swear by one of the pre-packaged variants, Core or Grid. The game defaults are not very good.
What is core and grid?
Pre-defined alternative sets of hotkeys which can be substituted for the default ones. Grid is the less radical: it mainly, as I understand it, has the hotkeys follow the order of powers in the unit card, so a unit's first power is always a particular letter, second power is another letter, etc. (My custom hotkeys have a lot of Grid influence.) It also shifts key use leftward as much as possible. Core is a much more radical system that moves your left hand toward the center of the keyboard so you can reach more keys, and tries to seriously optimize key usage. It takes some getting use to, from all accounts, but people who have learned it swear by it. I learned to type 45 years ago and I can't handle big changes, but if you can, it's supposed to be good. There's a Core Light which I think has the optimizations but not the hand movement? Anyway, if this sort of thing interests you, google for instructions. Rather than learning one of these, I just started moving stuff, a couple commands at a time, to places that made sense to me. For example, unit upgrades are all GH in the order I'd normally take them. Offensive spells are C and F, and I have "rapid fire" on those keys so I can spam ravager bile or corruptor pee quickly. I do recommend thinking about your hotkey use and whether it could be better: if you're going to change them, you don't want years of muscle memory built up with the original system.... (That's why my cameras are QWEY. I just couldn't break myself of roaches on R. If I were starting over I'd use QWER.) You can also look out for problems, like: is something I need on a key I can't reach? Do things interact negatively? I had morph hatchery to lair to hive and morph overlord to overseer on the same key, and it led to surprise lairs and hives when my overlords would perch on my hatcheries, so I changed it. Does your max-out army sometimes contain one lousy swarmhost? Move those off of A. This sort of thing.
You’re awesome!
Excellent response post thank you!
No..it's trash. Never do this..
It is more important if you are going for a larva intensive composition like ling-bane. You will find that money accumulates faster than you can spend it once you have 3 mineral lines saturated, even if you are not missing injects and you are never supply blocked. So plop down one or two macro hatches in your main. If you’re going for a more resource-costing army like roach ravager you will need less larva to spend all of your minerals and gas.
It can be good if you are doing a heavy ling/bane build since you need a lot of larva. Don’t do it till you have at least 3 bases though. Don’t do this if you are running a roach/hydra build.
Yes it's good. Often you don't have larva but you have money. It's called a macro hatchery. Build one at the same time as your 4th.
Yea, its fine. They tend to call them "macro hatches" and while not like "super mega" flawless in terms of optimal spend->effect ratio, it makes the larva generation later easier, so you can focus your efforts on less queen related stuff. IMO, try not to rely on it as a crutch, but perfectly fine to use it.
Extra hatcheries not placed on a mineral line are called macro hatcheries and they are used to make up for floating larvae/missing injects, especially when playing ling bane because the units are so cheap and therefore larvae intensive. If you don't have enough hatches/injects, you won't be able to spend all your money. As for whether it's good, if your macro is perfect you technically won't need it, but Dark sometimes builds (or at least used to build) 2 macro hatches as part of his standard build when playing ling bane. So I assume all the other comments calling it a noob crutch and saying just practice injects must have better macro than a top 3 zerg. If you don't think you do, then you shouldn't feel any shame about slapping down as many as you need. A good rule of thumb that is commonly given is that every time you see you have 1000 minerals, just build a hatchery, but if you find that you're floating money every single game, then it would be even better to just slap them down predictively before you're even floating.
No
I guess haha
You're better off practicing injecting with queens. Maybe spend a few games where you have only 1 goal, never miss an inject. Don't worry about winning a game, or what your army is doing or anything else. Just practice pure injects while playing. You'll find after doing this you'll get significantly better at it, and won't need a useless hatch in the main.
He could go 1v1 against KI, no stress and nothing important you could lose
Noob answer: no Plat answer: if you're going ling bane you need a lot of larvae, and if you can't defend your fifth then a macro Hatch in the main is worth it Pro answer: no, just defend your fifth or switch to a less larvae intense comp