Would it be practical for the players just to have like... A barracks or something, and then just make a Marine or something, and then totally exclude the mouse from gameplay?

Like, a Map for frogger... Would it be fast enough to keep the gameplay smooth?

(Assuming that the build time for the units are 0, and that there are HyperTriggers involved.)

I don't see why it wouldn't be. I've done it before for a Snake map.

The only problem is that the hotkeys aren't in your standard WASD format and it can be awkward going from M to C to F to G.

There was this one thing I remembered playing. I can't remember it's exact name, but it offered a choice of "Selectors", Troy, Trek, I'm not sure, something like that. Perhaps that could atleast ease the pain?

I believe it was Tron. The options were a Stargate and something else. The button set up on the Stargate was ASC, which wasn't too bad. I think the other one may have been a factory, key set up being VGT, also not too bad.

Yea, tron is the perfect example.

I'ved used this keyboard system in one of my mini-games. It was the code sequence one originally by fritfrat. I used a barracks and all you gotta do is have: your left ring finger on the C (medic), left middle finger on the F (firebat), left index on the G (ghost), and your right index on the M (marine).

Another thing you could use is perhaps a remote control system, like where you have a dropship either as your unit or just somewhere as your "controls." I also used this in one of my minigames, but you could have like 4 units inside your dropship and have the commands to move up, down, left, or right. One advantage I think this has over a building which builds units is that you dont have to use your fingers to reach for the keys. All you need to do is press a hotkey, then use your mouse and select a unit while still keeping your screen centered upon your unit.

Tron.

Barracks or Stargate.

Yay. Now, imagine the use of a hive selection system. You'd have 9 keys at your disposal, possibly customizable with the usage of tech tree buildings and trigger selection.

Example:
Text: Please Select Your "Left" Key.
*Player Selects (D)rone*
Text: Please Select Your "Right" Key.
*Player Selects (U)ltralisk*
And so forth, with a confirmation trigger.

Its a somewhat long process, but may just give you customization.
(If only there was a way to have larva spawn faster, seeing as how naturally, you can only select up to 3 larva from a single hatchery...)
Crappy Solution: Hotkey 0-9 (10) Hives.

Except you still have to wait for larva.

I thought tron used units in a dropship?

Tron used Barracks or Stargate.

I already addressed that issue with a "crappy solution".

That is actually worth the wait. It can be put up to good use for RPG elements, Survival maps, and such.

Which is why I suggested the hotkeying of 10 hives (I'd say 5 is sufficient though).

Untill we hit SC: II where hotkeys are customizable, we're stuck with this non-conventional system.

Well, even after sc2 comes out, sc mapping will still be fun because of its limitations, but that's how I feel. I like the challenges posed by starcraft's limitations, and working around them to build complex systems.

A starport would work well. You get 5 buttons, W, D, S, B, V. In my opinion, S, D, V would be the most comfortable with a starport. Actually, allowing the player's to choose their controls configuration and the factory would be a neat implement in any game.

My snake map used StarPort. WS for up/down and VB for left/right. Then I added SCMLoader data so that it could use wasd.

Just make sure that you detect mineral loss, rather than units being built, so you can speed it up.

is there anyways that you could make it so you have to hold down a key to make it go in that direction? i can't think of any way to do this...

The biggest problem about hotkeys is that they're language dependent. My spanish SC has all the hotkeys changed

My snake christmas map used a barracks.

Even if a bit awkward, I think it has the potential to crate more action-packed maps, so that's a plus. But the larva idea... the issue, other than spawning of them, is that you actually need to press 2 other keys for each action.... the hotkey and 's.' I would also consider using just a 4 directional and using the corners and center, or what have you, as weapons, and so forth. Course that's assuming no trigger-custom keys. But anyhow if it's worth the trouble, then by all means.

I actually have a basic idea of what you could do... What if you made a form of a crossover board game / RTS, by assigning a hive to each piece on the board. The more you move a piece, the less it'll be able to move in the near future, so it's almost board game-like. I imagine bunkers swarming around with 2-4 players casting weird spells for blockades and whatnot with perhaps a grid system. you could even select spells for the keys that aren't directional.

I used 1/15 build time.