Carrier Escorts

Eh Lore can be fixed but it is still important. As far as abilities something needs to happen to the Carrier and this is better than nothing so I'll take it and run with it. And before it comes I hated the Tempest idea it felt more like a nerf to the Carrier than anything else. My idea with the weapons platforms would be they are either on the Carrier or linked to it somehow (so they could be targeted). So when the time came and they ran out of energy the Carrier would in effect pick them up so they could be deployed later once you had enough minerals to activate them again. Basicly they are suppose to act like the escorts but fix the lore problem.

 

Why was the Tempest a nerf?
Nobody used Carriers to engage air fighters as most air fighters in numbers owned capital ships.
The Tempest emplified the Carrier's strong point and build upon it, being the fact it owns most things on the ground. And to make ground assults stronger they gave it a hardened shield since it didn't have the confuse factor anymore. Which means it operated as a simple attacking unit with no passive attributes as the Carrier did with the Interceptors being targetable but fast moving.
We have the Phoenix for air, why not return the Tempest but make it's shurikens targetable, that way we have the Carrier back but in a better form, as when it attacked air it was pretty much unessesary, I know I never used Carriers to take out or defend against air units as there were Corsairs and maybe a Scout available. Also, since the Phoenix is AtA it works with the Tempest idea of being AtG which I think is good.
I'd rather that happen than the Carrier getting a 45 second buff.
Whats the point of wasting minerals to produce these things if you can build a stronger Phoenix which can last and has Overload?

 

Your right people primarily used Carriers to assualt ground and they probably still will, but tell me this how often did a Carrier die to a ground based enemey? When you know your oponent is uilding Carriers what do you build? Wraiths, Scouts, Scourge.... All air units so why I would I want to give the Carrier a buff it doesn't need in exchange for it having about 150-200 less overall hp against air units? The bottom line is the Carrier was already insane against ground it doesn't need to be any stronger. Also the lore behind the Tempest was pretty pathetic.

As for Blizzard's current way of making Carriers new I think its atleast better than the Tempest so I am willing to try and help make it better. But if Blizzard or someone else came up with something I thought was a better idea I'd happily run with it as well.

 

I would prefer absolutely no abilities for the carrier except for a researchable passive one: the tempest's GTA hardened shield. I don't care if it capped max damage to ~15 or gave another pool of shield points, it'd look cool and would add another element of strategy to the game. It'd also make sense lore wise because the carrier would be more vulnerable to air due to the enemy being able to attack the core without the ship hull protecting it.

Alternatively, I would be glad to see an ability for the carrier to change where it focuses its shield: either against air or against ground. So basically if it focused its shields against ground then it would have no shields against air (and vice versa). Coming up with the lore would be simple: the carrier is so large that the shield generators can only provide the pool for one 'half' of it. This ability could be toggled the same way siege mode can be, and it would add a tiny bit of micro to the unit as well as a new and exciting (and possibly harder) way of countering it.

 

I wouldn't want lots of units getting that hardened shield. Although it is an air unit so I guess its ok.
But yea. No abilities please.
Kuvasz, the shield idea is a very nice one, focused shields ftw.

So what I'd like to see is the Tempest or Carrier return, the Carrier returning to its classic state, but it has a shield which can be focused at air or ground attacks. But there has to be a cooldown when the shields are changed as it could be imabalanced.
This basically means players have to choose their units wisely when a Carrier comes out, it intimidates players to use both ground and air to combat it, which would be the most effective way to deal with the hard shields. Or you could bluff with a a ground assult so the carrier goes hardened ground shield, then some Vikings fly out of nowhere

 

About the Tempest, people hated it wasnt a capital ship. And another factor, a capital ship shouldnt just be good against one kind (ground/air), but both (lorewise and hopefully game-wise in starcraft 2).

 

It'd also give a whole new and useful purpose for Hallucination in PvP If it got reimplemented.

edit: furrer, the MS is the capital ship and has been given AA attack to make it truly capital. The carrier is just a flagship and could have an easy but optional counter in the form of my second idea. Then again, I don't even know what flagship means or if the carrier is that or a capital one.

 

Wow we have come full circle there is actually a thread in this board disscussing various ideas for making the Carriers stronger the idea of interchangeable hardened shields is one of them amongst many other others.

 

I believe flag ships kinda lead the way/escort capital ships.
When the Tempest got released, was the Mothership out also, or did it come before?
If so I see no problem with Tempests being AtG, since you could view the Mothership as a capital and the Tempest as flagship to eliminate ground forces which others can't as the air attack was un-needed meaning they want to focus on ground assult/support which it was used for.

 

Just so people know as far as I know Flagships are basicly the command ship of an armada, so in effect they are just a really powerful capital ship or a capital ship specifically desgined to command a group of units. So between the Mothership and Carriers, the Mothership is the flagship while Carriers are just your run of the mill capital ships.

You know what after thinking about it for a little while I don't particularly like this eescort idea. So here is my idea about how to deal with the entire Protoss air force (since other Protoss air units really need to be brought into this disscussion to make it really work)

Phoenix: Don't change it at all make it an AtA only heavy fighter.

Warp Ray: Don't change it besides maybe giving it a minor range increase.

Carrier: Revert the Carrier back to its old Sc1 form of having 8 Interceptors with no special abilities, but give Carriers the otpion of a second kind of "Interceptor" that can be built (either taking up normal Interceptor space or not depending on balance) this second kind of Interceptor would essentially be flying Scarabs that can hit either air or ground but cost a little more. These new Interceptors would bring back the Reaver's ability to deal with mass units heavy or light. Also, because these Interceptors could help make up for the loss of the Reaver Colossi could back to their earlier attack since they wouldn't need to directly take up the Reaver's mass kill roll anymore. Finally and what I would say is one of the biggest advantages of this is that since the new "Scarabs" would be flying they wouldn't suffer the same pathing issues old, Sc1 Scarabs had.

Mothership: Make it one per-player if isn't yet. Remove Void. Remove Cloak (if hasn't been already). Give the Mothership a version of Recall that only affects air units. Fianlly, give the Mothership a version of Warp In that allows it to warp in up to 2 Zealots and 1 Phoenix before it has to wait for each units respective cooldown (aka build time). (The unit options for the Motherships Warp In could vary with balance but give it some version of this because it is a "Flagship," a command ship)

The above would allow the Mothership to truly take on its role without being overpowered by being one per-player. It would also make the Carrier fresh again, while making it a viable unit in smaller numbers, without making it that much stronger than it was in Sc1. It also takes some pressure off the Protoss ground force to deal with masses of units (which is why the Colossus is being pigeon-holed into its current form).

So what do you think?

 

Keep void though since AoE attacks are useful

As for the cariers maybe it is time to ressurect the old carrier suggestions threads

 

I don't think recall would really work as we have warp-in and Phase Prisms which I think suffices just fine. Recall was just easy, atleast with warp-in you have full control over which units you wanna bring and where with less risk instead of grouping them as tight as possible and hoping the Arbitor doesn't die.

flag·ship
n.
1. A ship that carries a fleet or squadron commander and bears the commander's flag.

So the Flagship is the command ship and I guess flag simply refers to the fact its a main ship just as the main base would have its flag.

 

Yeah hence why I said aerial recall because only gateway units can use warp in.

 

I've said this a few times before, but Warp-in does not serve on the battlefield quite the same way Recall does. If you use Warp-in a lot, you'll end up getting units stuck on islands a lot, and you probably won't build a whole lot of Phase Prisms... so it is a pain to get move them around. A Recall ability would be immensely useful in SC2.

 

actually, the reason they called it a "flag" ship is because thats what they used to communicate orders back in the days of naval combat before radio. The commander on the flagship would use color coded flags to designate different orders to the rest of his fleet.

 

And that is the other possible route as far as Recall goes. Make it just like original Recall because by the time you can deploy a Mothership your units will probably be extremely sccattered. So the Mothership can take on its command role by recalling all of your units to itself allowing you to regroup and organize a powerful offensive.

 

So thats sorted then, generally we dislike the current escort thing?

 

i kinda like it.

 

Why are people so Warcraft-phobic? StarCraft has always had special abilities, even non-caster units such as the Corsair, Wraith, or the Vulture.

Not counting caster units, currently, only the Stalker and the Phoenix have special abilities. Units without special abilities are: Probe, Zealot, Immortal, Dark Templar, Archon, Colossus, Phase Prism, Warp Ray, and Observer. Yet, people say such obsurd things like "not every unit in SC2 needs a special abilities."

Traditionally, it has only been the Zerg that has gotten the shaft on special abilities. Mechanics will effect SC2 on a case by case basis, nothing is good or bad because SC1 this or WC3 that. While turning SC2 into a WC3 clone is certainly a bad idea, especially because WC3 sucked, unit special abilities definitely isn't the thing that will do that.

 

The Phase Prism has the Psionic Matrix ability, the Zealot, Immortal, Dark Templar and Observer and possibly the Archon, though I'm not sure because I've heard so many reports either way so correct me if I'm wrong, all have passive abilities, being Charge, Hardened Shields, Cloak and possibly, though again I'm not sure, Power Overwhelming. The Colossus is also able to walk up and down cliffs. They might not all be the classic types of abilities or spells, but they are still abilities that other units do not possess.