Carrier Escorts

According to the latest FAQ you can now build up to 4 escorts form each carrier and they last for 45 secdons and attack what the carrier attacks basicly making them a bigger badder interceptor.

They can be targeted and destroyed independently of the carrier as well (I assume that means that they are slow enough to target since it is possible to kill interceptors)

What do you think of that?

I would much prefer the ability to give individual orders to each escort. They are afterall meant to defend the carrier and there are very few situations where you only have to defend against one enemy.

I could also go for them being permanent but to prevent their use in death squads have them on a leash so they can't wander farr from their carrier of origin an they would also take up pop cap. (im thinking 1 or 2 but be less powerful than the regular air forces since they are only meant to supplement the carrier's attack)

 

Emm.. making them permanent would be nice, I totally like your idea in the last paragraph.
With the current usage of the escorts.. well I am not satisfied..

 

Even if they permanence suggestion is rejected I won't be satisfied if I can't give them individual orders. Quasi-independence is what I'm looking for.


Also if any mods can please fix the spelling on that last item of the poll
to the admin please allow us to edit polls

 

I don't understand how they can attack only what the carrier is attacking when most of the time (when not microed) the interceptors attacks different targets. They should be like interceptors when you hold position, atack nearest or 1st threat and when you attack command, attacks target.

 

WTH where'd your posts go?

Interceptors attack targets independently if you don't give specific attack orders but if you right click an enemy the whole swarm hits the same target. Carrier attack orders are actually focus fire orders. What that means is that if you give an attack order to a carrier with escorts then all of the interceptors as well as the escorts will attack that target and if not they will hit whatever is closest


BTW please vote

 

I'm not a Protoss player so I don't really care. Change is good.

 

I hate all these things where it only last for a short time. They should be permant and controllable, that balances the absense of the old Phoenix/Scout.

 

Scout sucked. I want a corsair replacement. They said the escorts were made to defend against viking raids and corruptor attacks so make the escorts primarily AtA vehicles. It would also prevent overlap with the phoenix as the phoenix would be the all purpose/anti-swarm unit while the escort would only be close in air support

edit: I just had an idea:
Make bring back corsairs as the escorts. They were great units and looked great to boot. We need some familiar air units (I don't count the carrier as familiar since it looks much different)

 

Can you imagine a Carrier with 4 interceptors? That's just a bag or resources sitting there waiting to be murdered.

I hate the idea because they were obviously going "ooh, late game huge effing unit, let's give it a nice ability to make it harder to use at maximum efficiency". So that's what I voted.

 

Kuvasz it still gets the interceptors you build internally and it now comes preloaded with 'ceptors. The escorts are meant to be an addition to the interceptor compliment the difference being hey are bigger more powerful and can't fit inside. (thus preventing the carrier from sheltering them as it flees or giving them free repairs and shield boosts)

A fully decked out carrier would have 8 interceptors (more if they changed the max) and 4 escorts

 

The Q&A says "[...] Carriers now come built with 4 Interceptors already loaded (which is also the max number of Interceptors currently) [...]" so no, a fully checked out carrier would have 4 interceptors and 4 escorts in the current build. Which would mean without additional mineral and time cost (or supply as you have suggested), the carrier would be a sitting duck, like I have suggested.

 

OOOOOOH
I took that to read that as that is the max without upgrading but if there is no upgrade then yes it sucks.

I had hoped we would get 8 interceptors and 4 escorts. Thats probably why I interpreted it as I did

 

Since you only have 4 interceptors, there is a possibility that they are stronger than the original.

Also, since the intercepters are pre-made, and the statement that escorts can be killed separately from the carrier, it sounds like the interceptors might be unattackable acording to my understanding.

I think I'm looking at the big pitcure wrong, as unattackable interceptors would be OP and extremely hard to balance.

 

Well in SC1 interceptors were destroyable but they moved so fast it was hard to target them and they return occasionally to the carrier which rgens their health and shields so killing them was difficult

 

Invulnerable interceptors would not make carriers overpowered because they are the only long range protoss units capable of attacking out of defensive structure range, and since they are tier 3 and cost quite a lot, it'd make sense. Siege tanks are tier 2 and the guardian is most likely tier 2.5-3 and attacks in a similar fashion to the tank. So I think the carriers should also attack in a similar fashion (i.e., without the chance of losing its attack force), but that is kind of against lore.

 

Also if the interceptors can no longer be attacked, then carriers can no longer be used as a blanket cover unit from base defenses. In sc1 i would send in carriers first at base defenses then send the rest of my fleet under the cover of the interceptors which would draw enemy fire as their name suggests.

Also if escorts last for only a limited time then the carrier is very weak because its interceptors payload has been reduced and escorts probably take too long to build to save a carrier.

ps where is the new Q&A?

 

they said a little later in the Q&A that the escorts build time is like 1 sec or so.
and i dont really care so much, cuz i almost never use carriers.

 

Carriers were only good for their range and the fact that lots of Interceptors made it hard for the enemy the target your units.

 

Protoss' Air force seems to be getting pretty powerful now. Corrupters and Vikings were designed for taking out capital ships, but now the Protoss' capital ships are designed for taking out them. I reckon that this is a pretty odd mechanic. It makes it powerful half the time and weak the other half of the time, so why not just balance it out? If they deal 100% damage with the four Interceptors and 200% damage with the Interceptors and Escorts, why not bring back the eight Interceptor limit and make it deal 150% damage?

 

Hmm, i really don't know about this. The whole timed escorts idea sounds very sketchy and i'm not sure how they will explain it. It does sound good tactically though, making you time your strikes.