September Discussion of the Month: Mothership

Sweet. Do you want me to relist my BH suggestion here or is it being taken care of?

 

It's already been taken care of. I'm not sure which one was your suggestion. If you relist it out I'll tell you if it got included as of now.

 

Awsome if you didnt catch it here is a link to my Poll : Mothership thread there was a masive debate in it tworards the end. http://www.starcraft2forum.org/forums/index.php?topic=1588.0

 

The black hole to work as follows:

Upon casting a warning be it a klaxon or "Singularity Detected" is started

The MS becomes immobile for the duration of the casting but can still fir weapons.

The BH will start as a small blue dot about the size of the nuke spotter and will slowly grow from their with the event horizon increasing till it reaches maximum size. It will stay at that size a few seconds before beginning to close. If the mothership is destroyed (or possibly if it gets EMPed) the hole will halt any expansion and begin to close prematurely.

The only assured kills will come from casting BH on top of a unit.

When cast ALL units enemy allied or yours will be pulled towards it unless a move order is issued then the following rule will apply: The speed away from the BH will be reduced while the speed towards will be increased. The range of the pull will be based upon the size of the black hole and therefore will get larger in the first half and smaller in th second half of casting.

Weapons will be diverted by the BH shots fire too close to the event horizon will be sucked in while those at the edge will fire off course. Lasers and energy beams including yamato will be subject to gravitational lensing while projectiles will be subject to quasi orbital dynamics being turned maybe even redirected back the way they came. Missiles may be able to acquire target if far enough away. Trip around the BH will count towards range limits so a missile that would normally hit the target will run out of fuel after being turned by the BH.


The ability will cause great devastations but will be like the Psi Storm where you can save many units if you act quickly enough and fly them away

 

Sorry, BirdofPrey, this suggestion was not included in the report.

I'll review it and we'll discuss it. I do think it's a bit too compicated.

I've been leaning more toward the suggestion that it cause damage over time to enemy units in the AoE and units that are killed by the ability are simply drawn into the hole.

There was another one that said that it would pull enemy units toward the center and they would only be killed if they reached the center. Units could still fly out if they did so early enough.

 

Crap I forgot to mention that nuance. My idea was that ships would be pulled towards the hole then die when they hit the event horizon ( not the center but close) The difference is the BH would grow slowly and that is the time you have to escape I was thinking maybe it takes 8 to 10 seconds for it to reach full size

 

That's pretty much the same idea without including all your crazy gravity-driven stuff.

Like I said, I'll talk it over.

 

I loved the whole idea of a mothership but yeah my only gripe was how broken black hole seemed. Multiple battle-cruisers dieing instantly like that? Please God no.

 

i like the idea that the mothership was unique and it should stay like that, but thats most likely not gonna happen, so instead how about we limited it by making it 1 per nexus. whats your thoughts on this?

 

Question: MS spells?

Leave time bomb and cloak. MS should be a support ship not an attack vessel; drop or severely alter planet cracker, move or scrap black hole. Thus no carrier overlapping, no "Command and Conquer" style super weapons, more appropriate lore.

Perhaps allow this floating city to build probes? This would give it a nice expansion builder/protector role. Unless probes can warp in where they please as we know attack units can with the warp gate. This would give it a nice expansion builder/protector role.

At its center is a large kydarian (spelling?) crystal, right? Couldn't this act as a mobile shield battery for the fleet the MS is supporting? You know toss players want that shield batt back.

Allow smaller vessels to dock within the MS to escape death in battle?

Troop transport?

Consider a large central air to ground beam as the MS only form of actual attack. Not a planet cracker spell, but more of a blowing up the white house in "Independence day" one shot beam. Maybe a small-mid size aoe? The idea is to allow it to also fit a siege (production killer) role in some circumstances. Better than an uber lightning-quick sweep and destroy half an army planet cracker.


Question: One MS per player?

I'm fairly torn. I suppose in a support role you'll never see mass fleets of these things (as you shouldn't). Another way around it is high psi/food cost. An artificial cap of 1/1 just does not sit that well with me.



Hope it's not too too late to be posting my opinions on this.
Thank you for caring about your customers Blizz.

 

That actually does sound interesting. Technicly a mothership a a carrier that smaller ships and vehickes are housed in and launched from.

 

i really like the idea of a maximum of 3

 

As an extension to hawks idea maybe the MS could allow you to build production facilities onboard then you can have a moblie base. I was thinking 3 facilities. Also instead of production you can build on more aromor or weapons instead.

 

Three monster units? While it's certainly balanceable (anything is balanceable in any form, no matter what these people say), it doesn't fit the name of the unit nor the theme of the Protoss. One unit to counter everything else. Not three units to counter it. Not two. One.

 

Hi, was wandering... shouldn't MS look more impressive ( slightly bigger, stronger...) given that it's THE most powerfull creation and symbol of all that the protoss hold dear. For sucha significant unit it sure doesn't seem to look much :-\. Improve the overall look, say make it if not bigger, just a bit more awe-inspiring, mightier looking or smtn. Think that a cost of it should go up too, like bout 1000 gaz/crystalz so that you wouldn't be too quick of acquire them ( without damn good reason) after you see the impact it's having on your ecenomy ^_^ .TNX.

 

I find I slightly dislike the look of the mothership, it looks like a floating city, and while the protoss don't like to have devices with only war-like purposes, I was expecting something more impressive and ominus. but hey it will still own your face

 

In starcraft2.com Blizzard says the motherships were big vessels that carried Protoss scientists, historian and philosophers (if I remember well) to discover other planets in the whole universe. They are rare and precious. All Protoss are proud of them.
Now with the war the motherships only carry warriors. But as they are rare and big, they must be bigger than what they seem to be now. They must be overwhelmingly big !

Often I wonder if the MS is not that unit that shot a large blue ray on the Terran ship of the very first cinematic of SC1.
Also I wonder if the MS is or is not the WORLDSHIP of the Xel'Naga. Or a copy of this structure.

 

they are rare and precious, just another reason to have a one per player limit. with the unlimited number that they have now it goes completely against their lore.

 

The Mothership should be an Unique unit, black hole should be retained, I'm sure it can be balanced, we shouldn't throw away an idea just because it's hard to balance

 

The MS is a unique unit that will just be available in the solo campaign, not in the multiplayer one.