The Mothership

How many mothers do you have? I only have one. If the mothership isn't unique, rename it the Circular Arbiter 2.0 or something else stupid.

 

Nope, mothership basically implies its an important capital ship, and there could be therefore many others

 

Well it also implies it's as important and unique as one's mother, so 1:1.

 

what about 1 mothership per nexus then? xD

 

Yea i suggested that multiple times. I even suggested the nexus transforming into one( but that was just an idea). @the guy with the mothership avatar:
Circular Arbiter 2.0???? The mothership isnt suppoed to be that. Read the name. So what you can have more than one? I agree with the guy who said blizzard has too few defenders of lore. in lore, the protoss built many of these ships to explore space. NOTE THE "MANY"
I would love it if Blizzard did not make it unique, only one per nexus, and yes i think that it should be capable of making a battlecruiser cry if there was ever a 1v1 confrontation

 

That was me 1n5an1ty and I think the Mothership should stay unique. Yes there is more than one Mothership per say but that doesn't mean they would all be available for battle at a moments notice. If you think about it these ships were in such remote place and there is so few of them that not even one could be recalled before the fall of Auir of even the subsequent battles on Shakuras. The Mothership should definetly have a limiting factor of some sort and I simply think uniqueness is the best one because then you aren't asking about how many is enough you don't need to worry about whether the Mothership can be overpowered if there is more than 1 or it or anything. If only can be on the battlefield at a given time then you can easily balance the abilities with that in mind so unit isn't nessecary but if someone chooses to get 1 it will be well worth the spent minerals and a poweful force on the battlefield.

 

Hmm very well then. Still, i don't like the idea of the mothership being limited to one. seriously DAMN. why not make it three or sumthing, maybe then u need 3 nexuses if u wanted 3 motherships. I dont think that mothership is overpowered. In fact, it think its UNDERpowered. up the cost to sumthing like 500 min and gas, change its spells some, allow MORE THAN ONE It should be balanced quite nicely.

 

Well currently the mothership is practically on par with the battle cruiser in terms of abilities, health and damage so i see no reason at all that it shouldn't be made to have more then one if terran have the battle cruiser and the zerg have the ultralisk.

Also the carrier doesn't stand up to the tier that the battle cruiser and ultralisk now because of the upgrade they both got (the battle cruiser is like a carrier on crack anyways).

Fix this the stalker and the colossus and the protoss will be perfect because the stalker would take the place of the ata leaving the phoenix in a pretty good place the colossus just because it needs to change and the mothership would become the capital ship for the protoss leaving the carrier to a new roll (because of its range).

 

Seriously the Mothership should only be on par with the BC? A flying city created by the most technologicly advanced race playable at the hieght of their creativity is on par with a single Terran warship that they have hundreds of? Screw gameplay for a second, TBH the Mothership can be balanced to fill whatever role it ultimately falls in but take a look at this from the lore side of things for a second. You are suggesting that the most powerful and technologicly advanced race in the game should have their greatest feat of engineering and technology only on par with a Terran battleship?

Like I said earlier the Mothership is going to end up balanced no matter where it finally ends up as far as gameplay goes. What I am arguing for is the idea of the Mothership, it makes me to sick to think that the Mothership should be on par with any unit period (not to say it shouldn't have counters, you would just need more than 1 of the counter). The Mothership should be similar to the nuke in the way it puts fear into your enemies hearts and not just something another player sees and says no biggie to.

 

Well look at the colossus it sucks and is supposed to be some kind of death machine from hell (well it used to be but they nerfed it to hell).
Same with the phoenix being a upgrade from the scout.
How bout the Stalker its weaker then the dragoon racking in a might 14 damage every attack and its got about a 2.5-3 second attack CD.

I understand but still the fact is just because the mother ship was unique at one point does not meen it needs to be unique units just aren"t meant for Starcraft multiplayer.

 

The Colossus can't be soloed any single ground unit can it?
How does the Phoenix being better than the Scount interfere with the lore for either unit?
Same goes with the Stalker being worse than the dragoon?

Just because you believe unique units aren't meant for Sc2 multiplayer doesn't make it true either. I posted a copy of the poll earlier in this thread that showed an overwhelming number of people who responded to the poll wanted the Mothership to remain unique.

 

Because there weaker versions of the original units but then again the immortal is stronger.

The Colossus can"t and like I said its supposed to be a death machine from hell.

 

The Colossus in your words is a "death machine from hell" and it can't seem to be soloed by any ground unit. That seems like the lore is lining up with gameplay right there. Also, you still havn't answered how the differences between the Phoenix and Scout/Stalker and Dragoon interfere with the lore of eiter pair.

More importantly though you are now ignoring the topic of this thread, which is the Mothership. Whether or not 1 or 2 units fit in with both their gameplay usage and lore is quite irrelevant to whether the Mothership does or should. The Mothership should be unique or extremely limited according to the lore of the unit, also the Mothership should not have any equal when it comes to combat. Not having an equal doesn't mean something can't be balanced or have a weakness, in fact being both powerful and unique is a balancing method in and of itself.

 

Pownage.

The mothership as a unique unit is just logical. It should just require so much psi that it becomes impossible to warp in another one. No more complaints of it being unique for the sake of it being unique. Only because there is no other way.

However, this could be one of those ideas that only makes sense to me. Meh, no wall of text in this one, so it should be pretty straight forward.

 

I was responding to this on how other unit could be taken into that light for one.

So what unit is going to be on par to the ultra or battle cruiser atm the carrier dosen"t compare because the BC is like a carrier on crack.

the mother ship is now a base defender and in fact seems to be more of a weapon like the nuke more so then a last tier unit.

Also here is another fact why wouldn't you want more then one mothership? Why the huge push to make it unique simple because that's how it was first shown as?

Its costs a 100 more gas then the battle cruiser and is a protoss unit so in essence it should be stronger (something iv been saying all along) and never said it should be on par but I was simple stating atm the battle cruiser pretty much the same strength.

Lastly I know they are going to balance SC2 so saying that is like saying lets shut this site down because there no reason to talk about stuff they are going to do anyways.....

 

I think our fundemental dissagreement lies right here. The fact that the BC is currently a Carrier on crack doesn't seem like it's a problem to you. It is a problem in my book, the Carrier and BC should be able to go toe to toe with each and come out about even. Wfile the BC and Carrier obviously have different ways of going about it they both fill the role of arial siege/supression fire units. The BC uses it's Yamato Cannon and Defense Matrix/Armor to do a large amount of damage while only taking a small amount itself, the Carrier should theoretically be able to use its massive range to attack almost anything in the game without recieving returning fire. The Ultralisk shouldn't even be in this disscussion, it is a ground based siege unit, the Zerg equivelant of the Archon. The only thing the BC, Ultralisk, and Carrier/MS have in common is their tech level (even thoguh I would argue that the MS is/should be one level higher).

So now to you other question, why do I want the Mothership to be unique. To answer this question I first need to restate my vision of the Mothership. I think the Mothership should be a unit that inspires the same kind of fear as the Terran nuke. I also think the Mothership should kinda be the avatar of the Protoss (in a similar way to how the Queen is kinda the avatar of the Zerg, even though I would need to know what the current Queen is like to say anymore). For something (in my opinion) to be the avatar of something else it should embody the traits of whatever it is the avatar for and take them to the next level. The Protoss are all about expensive, powerful units and caster units. So for the Mothership to fill this role it would need to very, very expensive and very, very powerful as well as use abilities (a good thing here is abilities and power seem to go hand in hand at the top tier of units). The other requirement I put in place was that the Mothership should inspire the same kind of fear as the nuke. To do that the Mothership would need to have Nuke level consequences if not dealt with, so the Mothership would need some set of abilities that tend to build up in damage as time progresses in an attack.

The major problem with abilities that tend fit the above description is they tend to become quickly overpowered if they are able to be used in quick succession or at once. Which is why I keep pushing the idea of a unique Mothership, if a player can only have one Mothership on the field at a time then all of its abilities can balanced in knowing that each player will at most only have one on the field at a time.

Here is an example Mothership with some mock abilities I think would fill the role I have described:

Mothership (unique)
Minerals/Gas: 800/800
Supply: 10
HP/SP: 600/400
Attack: 5 Psionic pulses that each do 12 (+2 per upgrade) damage.
Abilities (The Mothership comes with the abilities researched):
Dimensional Recall: 25 energy Basicly the same ability the Arbiter had with 1/4 to 1/2 the area of effect, no cooldown.
Energy Siphon: the Mothership can absorb the energy of ally/enemy unit.
Shield Recharge: The Mothership increases the shield recharge of all nearby allied units by 100% (so if the unit has been hit recently it is recharging at 100% and if it hasn't been hit in awhile it is rehcarging at 200%) channeled 20 energy to start and 4 energy per second used.
Planet Cracker: 200 energy, The Mothership does 5 damge/sec under in a radius 2 area centered under it, the damage increases by 5 and the radius .5 each second until the ability stops after 10 seconds, the Mothership can move while this ability is activated, 30 second cooldown.

Now obviously the above would likely be overpowered but it fits the role idea I have for the unit. Now while I think the Mothership should have Planet Cracker for lore purposes here is another ability I think fits the theme of the MS I described.

Pulse Storm: 200 energy, The Mothership unleashes the full fury of its weapons decreasing the cooldown of its weapons by 50% every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, the Mothership can move while using this ability, 30 second cooldown. For example if the Mothership fires 5 pulses every 2 seconds it would fire 5 every .125 or .0625 seconds at the end of the ability.

 

One thing there:
This way, the normal attack would do 70 damage per second. The ultimate ability -planet cracker- would only do 55 damage per second, and only in the last second. I know the area of effect would be pretty large, but still... I like the idea of having a faster attack rate, though. It could fit into the lore as some kind of overload of the khaydyrin crystal that powers it. Although, taking some power away from the shields to the weapons would be more realistic. -Since overloading power courses causes damage.-

 

But why would you want the mothership unique for multiplayer? Why not balance it so you can have more then 1.

 

Like we keep saying:

- Lore, there are not that many close enough for battle. They are just to far away to recall in time.
- Uber Strength must be compensated. If a unit has no equal, it must be one of a kind, or else it has no counter. Not even a soft one.
- Nerfing MS to get more of them is lame. It is supposed to be the pinnacle of Protoss technology. Making it as strong as -for example- the BC would destroy the idea of having a unit that causes fear and radiates that feel of power.
- The MS is a freaking floating city. Units are scaled in-game, but how weird would it look in cinematics to see a bunch of floating cities above a battlefield... The Carrier was large in sc:bw cinematics, but the Carrier is nothing, nothing compared to the MS if it comes to scale.

 

To far to recall?
wat the hell?