New Mothership Info!

@ kuvasz. The earlier description of the Time Bomb doesn't support that.

Though having said that, we've all seen that Blizzard can be shocking at wording their descriptions.

EDIT: Just watched the first gameplay video again, and it definitely does look like it's targeted. Perhaps it varied, just as whether it was unique or not varied.

 

Eh the trick is going to be making the Mothership usefull without it being overpowered as well as something that won't punish the player for being 1-per-player. I think that pushes the Motership to being primarily a super support ship that can turn the tide in battle if nessecary and at great risk. Which means that the Mothership needs a high damage ability that forces it to move in close, which I think the old Planet Cracker did nicely.

Next, to be an effective support unit without punishing the player for being 1-per-player it needs some kind of ability that isn't dependent on energy, currently it has the cloaking field, persoanlly I don't think the cloaking field is a very effective ability because of how late game the Mothership is so as I said earlier I would have the Mothership create a field arround it that can be warped into. If not that I would suggest some similar kind of ability that pulls units to the Mothership, one suggestion could be to use the arbiters old recall but without an energy cost or maybe give Warp Prisms (or maybe all Protoss air units, but that may be overpowered) an ability to jump to a players own Mothership thereby bringing units to the Mothership as well as giving the player a quick way to position Warp Prisms into effective locations to make full use of there abilities.

Finally I would say the Mothership should recieve 1 or 2 more abilities with atleast one of them being defensive or delaying in nature. I think one of the versions of Time Bomb would fulfill this role nicely, or (modifying an idea from an old thread) maybe have the Mothership emit a large shield that gives friendly units within it either a hardened shield like effect or additional armor/plasma armor (depending on whether Blizzard wants the ability to be good against swarms or siege units).

Now on a seperate note, many people have brought up the Carrier and how it doesn't belong, personally I think its a great iconic unit and should be in Starcraft 2 (and those of you that say only "noobs" use it, can go to hell). There have been several suggestions made throughout this forum's life to help make the Carrier more useful, as well as less horrible in small numbers and unstopable in large groups. My current suggestion to make the Carrier a better unit would be to give them 10 interceptors and a flight range a little under the Siege Tank's siege range, after upgrades. The idea behind this would be to make Carriers similar to modern aircraft carriers, vulnerable when pinned down, but difficult to pin because of the extreme ranges they can enagae targets as well as the ability to move around while fighting at that range. This hopefully should make them more useful in smaller numbers (a health increase could also help in this area) as well as prohibitive to use in large numbers because of cost/hard counters that can close the distance on the Carriers before they can excape/kill the targets.

 

+1 for the carrier, except for the health and amount of interceptors increase.

Ok, but if it is going to be so different, why not rename it "Star Trek versus Galactica versus Warhammer 40000 versus some other sci-fi license"?

 

You got that from Kung Pao Enter the Fist

Anyways, don't like this direction. Blizzard is just losing a lot of creativity right now and I like the old arbiter back and I clearly don't see what's so wrong with it. If the old arbiter is back it can just have a few of its abilities removed (or replace with others) that makes it a cheaper caster unit so it's role won't intertwine with the mothership.

 

Wow.. Cloaking Feild cloaks buildings too now? That's pretty cool ... I guess we don't need the Dark Pylon anymore

 

Dood, Kerwyn...

No energy recall would be soooo rigged.. ¬¬
And about your carrier changes.. just cause the unit's not really useful, you dont have to make it overpowered..
If you want to give em more range, decrease Hp or interceptor numbers.. you cant just add everything...

why not give carrierz 50 interceptors and a epic range and 99999/99999 hp and lets make it cost 20 mins without tech and you can build it from nexus plaxor D: that will make it betterzorss

So awesome movie :O

 

I am glad you think that Lombar, now would you actually like to a post explaining why you think what you do or do you intend to just lob criticisms at anything that boosts something other than the Zerg?

I was just throwing out possible ideas to help make the Mothership and Carrier more effective units. As of right now the Mothership looks to be in disarray (just by reading through this thread a person can see players are not happy with it's current ability set) and the Carrier by Jon's own admitance is horrible right now. Personally I would like both units to stay so I through out lots of suggestions I thought might make them better units, if you will read through my post you will notice I only ever mentioned 1 number in reference to a unit's stats and that was "10 Interceptors." I intentionally tried to avoind making numerical suggestions for the most part becasue that is where true balance comes in so there is no way any of my suggestions can be overpowered in any meaingful sense of the word unless we start making alot of assumptions about the Carrier (and Mothership's) current stats. Also you would have to make assumptions about the magnitude of my suggestions and since now I have stated they are intentionally suppose to be vague you would be a true moron to do so.

So any real disscussion on this topic out there?

 

Personally I think cloak buildings in pretty useless. As I'd be nice when your base in invaded. Forces the enemy to have a detector to hit the buildings. Would work best on the attacking buildings. Ala Photon Cannons etc from SC1. Because with the rest of the buildings, not all that good. As most people kill units before buildings as they can't hurt you directly. And by that time the mothership would have been destroyed and then nothing can be cloaked cause it's dead.

And also if the enemy sees you have a particular unit they know you have the prerequisite buildings for it. You have to. So invisible or not the enemy know at least one of each is out there.

So in short for me building cloaking is only good when you are cloaking attacking buildings and want the mothership to take the damage. Cause most times it'd survive and the buildings not. Stops those suicidal rushes at attack buildings in choke points.

So is it really worth the effort? Not really. Sure the above tactic is good. But for me I use the buildings to keep my units alive. As on the whole they're more expensive and a lot more useful. So I want them to be hit. And to be hit they have to be visible. Most times.

 

i can find some good in the Mothership, though the abilities do seem to roll over each other.

-Zerks

 

If they insist on cloning all of Arbiter's abilities on the current Mothership, might as well scrap the Mothership and replace it with an Arbiter.

The Mothership as of now is merely a re-skinned Arbiter, an 'arbiter in disguise' so to speak. Cloaking? Checked. Stasis field? Checked, TWICE. Vortex looks precisely like Stasis Field. And Time Bomb became a stasis field that targets flying units.

I was awe struck when the Mothership was first revealed in Korea. Now? I'm still awe struck-- by how fast the most unique unit can degenerate into a 'Boba Fett'.