Carrier Escorts

Your wording is incorrect Hex. It's not "powerful half the time and weak the other half of the time," it's more powerful when you choose so. If that's 90 seconds (45, 45, back to back), so be it.

Interceptors have always costed resources, it is just when and how it's used that has changed. Carriers are really later than they are, because even after you ride the high tech, you still gotta build 8 interceptors for them not to be target practice. Now, you start with 4(which are perma and untargettable/indestructable) right off the bat, that change alone is worth it and make Carriers slightly more useful/used in games outside of nooby hands. In a pinch, a freshly built Carrier can now have a full 8 interceptors in 4 seconds, how is that bad? Explain that to me.

I think it's a great idea. Best one Blizzard came up with in a long time. You gain the benefit of having useful Carriers right away, and anytime you get into battle, you just get to 8 interceptor status for 45 seconds. People are somehow failing to see the benefit of this.

I think people are confusing these Escorts as actual units. IMO, they're just SC1 Interceptors with a new name(and probably a slightly different graphic). The name is only to differentiate it from the now instant-perma-indestructable Interceptors, and to justify the mechanic(can't have some Interceptors perma and some temp).

Just a side note. The scatter interceptor to draw enemy fire thing that someone mentioned up there, doesn't work against anyone any good.

 

I dont think its a very good idea.
it seems to me that BLIZZARD wants to change all the high tier units such as the Ultralisk and the battlecruiser. While I like the changes they made to those units, this change seems pointless, and like DontHate says doesn't make a lot of sense lore-wise.

 

Pointless? Really? That's the conclusion you came up with on that?

 

I didn't really literally mean 50% of the time it's powerful, 50% it's not, I meant that it's going to be strong in some battles and weak in others. They've told us that using them for every battle would be too expensive, so why not just average it out? That way the Carrier can be stronger than it was before, which is what they're trying to achieve with the Escorts, but they don't have to bring in any abilities like this that don't really suit the Protoss. They're tough and durable. If you pay for something with Protoss you expect it to last a long while, and not have any kind of timer on it. It's more of a Zerg mentality to buy something and expect it to be gone or dead within the next minute or so, but Protoss aren't like that at all.
I'm all for it starting off with more Interceptors, but the idea behind the Escorts isn't too solid.

 

God it's good to have Remy back. Mua ha ha ha! Ph33r ye, forum spammers!

I think the things are a great idea. But I think perhaps they should have even more capability limitations. Make it expensive to use an all-out Carrier attack. But I think the indestructible four interceptors makes the Carrier a good seige unit while keeping it from becoming OP.

 

Quote Remy: "In a pinch, a freshly built Carrier can now have a full 8 interceptors in 4 seconds, how is that bad?"
i would rather have 8 interceptors all the time and not have to spend minerals at the beginning of every new battle.

 

I wonder how the carrier's shields and life will be changed since it has an attack with long range that cannot be destroyed.

It would be nice if the escorts could be controlled separately from the carrier. Allowing you to create a temporary support fleet if you had a few carriers. It would also allow you to send them on separate missions or act as a decoy since players would think the escorts mean that the carrier is nearby, when it could be on the opposite side of thier base.

 

if that happened then Carriers could be used as mobile factories that could be outside attack range and keep sending new escorts to attack.

 

No, like karune said, they cost resources, and to keep making them would bleed you dry very quickly.

 

Before this idea, you still spent resources with every Carrier. Why are people now making it sound like Carriers came with free Interceptors pre-loaded? Ain't the case.

With this change, in actual practice, Carriers would be viable earlier in the game. Simple as that.

 

I just hope this doesn't ph*ck the Carrier up like it did the Thor.

 

Yeah, the Thor looks like a steamy one right now.

 

What I want to know the most though is what the part about escorts being destroyable means.

interceptros were destroyable but they were hard to target Does this mean that 'ceptors are now invulnerable or that escorts just move slow enough to be targeted with a decent rat of success.


Frankly heres how I think it should work:
Carrier comes stock with 4 interceptors
one upgrade increases carrier capacity to 8 but you have to build the other 4 interceptors
another upgrade allows escort production to act as an oh-shit button.

Though Like I said in the first post I think it woul be neat if escorts were units that are external to the carrier and move about the speed of a regular fighter and due to tis are easier to destroy than 'ceptors but are still on a leash. Since they state it is supposed to defend against vikings and corruptors it would only make sence for it to be AtA only
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The reason the Thor is such a mess is because people ept saying it overlaps with the tank despite the Thoor being close range support while the tank is long range artillery

 

@remy because the interceptors were cheap and easy to make.
the escorts on the other hand cost a large amounts of minerals

 

It might be a tad early to say that.

We don't have data on costs yet

 

2 things first:

The Carrier only has a max of 4 interceptors. Second we don't know how mcuh the Escorts but I doupt they will be as expensive as everyone is thinking I would either 50/0 25/25 50/50 or maybe 75/25 I don't forsee them costing more than 100 total gas a minerlas the only they are expensive according the the Q&A batch is that since they despawn after 45 seconds if keep rebuilding when they are uneeded the costs begin to stack up.

 

And only you have this secret inside info because...??

@ BoP, I doubt the Interceptor max count would work like you mentioned. It doesn't really make sense if you think about it. Some Interceptors are perma and indestructible while others are not? I doubt it. I think even if the max number for Interceptors or Escorts get tweaked, it would still be those two groups only. But I don't even think that would get tweaked. It would be much easier just to tweak the stats of Interceptors and Escorts while keeping their numbers the same.

 

Casting them while sitting in base or even just on the move is stupid anyway so it should be a non-issue. A smart player only builds them when enemy contact is expected in a few seconds (ie right before you begin your assault or if you see an incoming force headed for your front door)

@ Remy
that's how it is now though. The wording makes me suspect the 4 interceptors that the carrier comes with are invulnerable while the escorts poof out after 45 seconds but can be destroyed early. That is exactly what you comment about with half of the interceptors being invulnerable.

As for my suggestion the interceptors would be vulnerable regardless of if they are the one that come preloaded or not. You would have a build option at all times in the event an interceptor is lost and also to fill the carrier when you upgrade its capacity

 

Exactly!

People are making this harder and more complicated than it really is.

 

Assuming the escorts cost 50/50, let's say a battle lasts for, say two minutes. That's 120 seconds. Now in that time you can choose to have none to four escorts. But to not complicate this, let's just say it's a high stakes battle where you just can't afford to lose, so you use all the escort slots you have. Say you have 8 Carriers. 8 x 10 = 80. Carriers have 4 slots each, so 80 x 4 = 320. At 50/50 (again this is a guess), it's 320 x 50 = 16000

That's 16000 mins and gas for a group of 8 carriers building 4 escorts each. Add in the fact they only last 45 secs and you have a serious economic problem on your hands. Personally, I've never gotten above 1000 mins in a single game, not even on money maps. While this calculation isn't the most accurate in gameplay terms, it shows just how fast escorts can burn through resources. It won't ever be a good idea to use all the escorts at once. The only way to properly use them would be in stages. This would depend totally on the player's income rate. High income rate = more escorts at once. Low income rate = less escorts. I like how this actually forces to make a decision on their spendings.