Critical Mass: why the Carrier does not work

You can easily get away with 3 or 4 carriers if you support them right, that is both scouts and corsairs (with disruption web), the scouts will handle any air superiority fighters that come it's way, and 6 sairs or so will deal with any pesky scourge, while being able to lock heavy defenses down and make ground to air units useless.

This, with a couple of shield batteries back at base, and 2 or 3 arbiters to bring them back to use them, make this a hard force to beat if managed properly.

Now, those of you who have played with me in games where I go air, which is rare. Know that I like to just mass carriers, which works too. However, I am slowly training myself to support the carriers.

 

Strange, i always raped carriers with wraiths -_- only problem was comsat Observers and lure interceptors into other side for a bit and after little probe was gone bye bye carrier fleet. Especially that fully loaded carrier costs mounts of crystals/gas.

 

Scouts pwn wraiths any day. So long as they have detection. You always have your OB's on follow, so they're never in the action, nor can teh enemy see them at all, because of the air stack, and the fact that they are transparent when detected.

 

Sadly Observers are Always over other units ,so doesnt matter how big the stack no problem to catch them with sensor sweep at all :] And mass Carriers are dead meat for lockdown spam/Wraith combo

 

If you just tell your units to blindly attack them yes, but singling them out when they are stacked, no.

Again, that's what the support is for. If you see a bunch of ghosts coming to lockdown, disruption web them.

 

If a player's able to amass 24 carriers he's playing w/someone far below his skill level. Ghosts' lockdown, battlecruisers yamato cannon, focus fire (hydralisks, dragoons, stimmed marines), corruptors, thors, etc. can counter carriers. Carriers are actually weaker than battlecruisers b/c they're easier to take out w/focus fire. Battle cruisers can yamato cannon away any big threats.

 

But dark, the OP is about the power of just massing carriers, without support.

 

And I keep trying to tell everyone that there is a better way.

 

I think there's no argument hear to be honest, you're a fool if you let a Protoss build up that much! Starcraft shouldn't be a game of mass up and go, like all these damn money/fastest maps have made it into. On a legit map, that shouldn't happen, or you need to work on your early game!

 

You're forgetting that there's still the fact that they're useless in small numbers.

 

Very small maybe, like one or two.

 

Even if you've got upwards of that, they're hardly worth the cost. It's only when you mass them that they're effective, which is why they're a flawed unit.

 

You're doubting Blizzard, they wouldn't have a flawed unit in there game. You just don't know how to use it properly.

 

Carriers are a fine unit, 3 or 4 of them mixed with other Protoss units puts out some brutal damage. Sure, they're not cost effective, but cost efficiency doesn't really mean much alone anyway; it's a comparison between units, and who says one unit to another is the standard unit?

 

@ darkone. Jon's already confirmed that the Carrier is pretty much useless, and that the only reason it's still there is for sentimentality. The Carrier is a flawed unit, especially because of how overpowered it is when massed, and how underpowered that means it has to be when in smaller numbers.

 

I'm talking SC1, you're talking 2.

 

Units comparable power from smaller to larger groups is a matter of how their defense, attack, and special abilities stack. It's good that these factors vary. It'd be boring if every unit's max efficiency was at -or close to- the same # in a group.
Talk of the Carrier being useless makes you sound like a n00b. The range of interceptors lets a carrier user attack supply lines from cliffs unseen or reachable by ground defenses. Terrans can counter them massed w/cloaked wraiths and a comsat station to target observers. Zerg can counter w/massed scourge. In SC 2 they scrapped them having anti-ground shielding b/c it made 'em too powerful.

 

@ darkone. So you're saying there isn't a single flawed unit in the whole of StarCraft1? You want to think that over?

@ Kaloth. Ok, maybe not useless, but they're not at all effective. Seriously, just think how long it would take that Carrier to actually take out that Supply Depot or whatever. The flaw of the Carrier is how it's so weak in small numbers, but overly powered in large numbers. Making them weaker won't stop them being massed, it'll just ensure that they'll either be massed or completely ignored. It's a flawed unit type.

 

Every single unit has it's uses, no exceptions.

 

Carriers were my favourite unit in SC/BW, they all looked like a large bee hive with all the interceoptors flying around. I really liked that static defenses were generally of no use against them, but when BC's appeared with a few hits from the yamato gun, well then u got screwed because u simply couldnt do anything, if you didn' have scouts/goons around. I dunno whats's gonna be the carriers role, but with 4 interceptors i guess it'll be a support unit, and let the Warp Rays take care of the BC's