Scrapped Editorial Material & Another Carrier Fix

[FrozenArbiter]

Interceptors die like flies to mass upgraded 3-3 goliaths on hold, and they cost 25 minerals a piece actually ;o

It's alright when you have a few running bases, but quite often getting carriers involves making some trade-offs in terms of economy (ie you'll lose a base in the process of getting them, or you are getting them because you are losing the ground war etc).

Of course, I'm not arguing that massed carriers aren't really, really strong, because they are!

[Lucius_Raecius]

Just a thought, though. Isnt saying Carriors have X+X HP and X+X Shields abit Erroneous when even though you may have more interceptors, you dont need to kill them all before you kill the carrier?

[newcomplex]

Squid, carriers are not imbalanced. This is not some figure of vague mathcraft, this is a fact, supported by mid to high level tier gaming.

The only time carriers are viable is super lategame, in which they are drastically overwhelmed by terran lategame.

[Josue]

Well well well.
Hmm, let's see: considering DemolitionSquid's (D.S.) definition of balance:

Well well well, youv'e got a valid point.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Carriers come with the 8 interceptors upgrade by default in SC2 besides of already 4 when built at stargate.

I know nothing is perfect in this world, in your judgment, how balanced is SC1 from 1 to 10?

I believe that's correct.

I have two numbers, based on how you want to define balanced.

Is balance: the game playable, each race have an about equal chance to win on licensed maps?

Then, 9.5.

Is balance: every unit is useful, each race have an equal chance to win without map restrictions?

Then, 4.

I believe that every unit should be viable. Not all the time, in every matchup, of course. But there shouldn't be units we only see once every 1000 games. I also believe that final balance should not be determined by the map, and things those maps must have like chokes and cliffs.

Many people disagree with me, and that's OK. But to claim SC is "perfect" when clearly its not just by looking at the near uselessness of a unit like the Scout or the variability of the Carrier... that's absurd.

I guess D.S. focuses his arguments within his 2nd definition of what "balanced" means while most of the people seem to think something like the 1'st when "balance" is on the board.
He does have a valid point when he states that "there shouldn't be units we only see once every 1000 games" because that makes sense, a unused unit is a unit nobody likes and must be because it has a boring gameplay style and/or is worthless. However, even if SC2 is to be more balanced than SC1, "perfection" is always one step ahead from mankind. Now, Blizzard embraced the endeavor of making SC2 and they will do the effort, that's their challenge and their goal.

Now, going into the carrier issue: they fixed it being underpowered since they're spawned with 4 interceptors in SC2, however, let's analyze the Mass effect on the carrier (which can be countered with more ease than Proton Charge's "Mass effect": you must kill the probes which are sometimes God knows where the other guy expansion is!)

Following D.S. logic:
If someone goes for more than 3 carriers (let's say 5)
they're investing
5x

Carrier + 8 Interceptors
500 minerals
150 gas
300 + 320 hit points
150 + 320 shield points
64 damage

2500 minerals
750 gas

to have:

1500 hit points + 1600 hit points (interceptors*)
750 shield points + 1600shield points (interceptors*)
*(considering you're not clever enough to avoid attacking interceptors and try to focus your fire in a single carrier)

and a whopping 320 damage (which of course isn't dealt "at once").

if we translate that into Goliaths it would be:

100 minerals
50 gas
125 hit points
20explosive(100% to large -read carrier- units) damage

at that price you could have
2500/100=25
750/50=15
at least 15 goliaths (due to gas, let's pardon the other 10). wich gives us that we outnumber that bunch of carriers at least 3 to 1! and we still have lots of minerals to have some 20 marines! (2500-1500=1000 , 1000/50=20)
Maybe if you could have 12 Goliaths and a ghost you could lockdown one or two carriers! and, you know, just focus fire on them, they're dead. Or use a Sience Vessel to cast EMP shockwave into them!

We must be forgetting something. Indeed!
1 we're not taking upgrades (excepting the Carrier capacity) into account AND
whoever exceeds your resources to be able to "waste" a quantity like 2500 M 750G must mean that
A) if you don't have a simmilar quantity, he must have a greater income per second.
B) thus having more expansions than you.
C) or he harassed to blast enough damage to your economy (Doesn't it sound like, you know, something like David Kim and his addiction to "Terrible terrible damage"?).


Now let's increase the bet with 12 carriers:

with 12 carriers you get:
12x

Carrier + 8 Interceptors
500 minerals
150 gas
300 + 320 hit points
150 + 320 shield points
64 damage

6000 minerals
1800 gas
3600 hit points
1800 shield points

6000 minerals! and clearly, at that rate, you must have more than 1800 gas. so, with such quantities, I don't think it's impossible to have 12 Battlecruisers, and with the Yamato Gun upgraded (we're counting on Carriers having the 8 interceptors upgraded).
You know 12 Battlecruisers can win against 12 carriers, specially with the Yamato Gun, with some micro (select 2 BC cast yamato to a carrier, you may end up 12 vs 6 or in the worst case 10 vs 7) they can decimate them if they don't go very carefully!
Now don't say SC1 Battlecruiser is OP. SC2 may well be (it's quite beefed up compared to the SC1 one)

Zerg could have a harder time with Hydralysks, however it's not impossible for them. Besides, Scourge are quite a good counter against carriers, since (unlike Battecruisers) interceptors tend to swarm into the target to attack it thus taking some time focusing fire on them therefore not killing Scourges as fast as BC (have you tried to focus fire into a tiny scourge with all those interceptors swarming and moving like hell? you may misclick into one of your own interceptors!).

with all that said, I think that "Mass effect" is more a situational and a psychological effect than a real effect: the carrier is not that much unless you stare at them and attack interceptors. Besides, there are many ways to counter them. if we talk about psychological effect, Carrier's bark is worse than their bite: the first time I saw them in my entire life (in a Zerg mission) their mere appearance: with those things swarming around it like bees to a honeycomb, I must confess I was scared. later I learned they are weak, just send some scourges making sure they don't get distracted with interceptors and they're history.

[Nicol Bolas]

It's alright when you have a few running bases, but quite often getting carriers involves making some trade-offs in terms of economy (ie you'll lose a base in the process of getting them, or you are getting them because you are losing the ground war etc).

And why is it that getting Carriers requires these tradeoffs? Because they cost too much. If every Carrier didn't have a +200 mineral price tag before it became even slightly useful, then maybe you wouldn't have this either/or with Carriers (either you go suicide-Carriers, or you get no Carriers).

You know 12 Battlecruisers can win against 12 carriers, specially with the Yamato Gun, with some micro (select 2 BC cast yamato to a carrier, you may end up 12 vs 6 or in the worst case 10 vs 7) they can decimate them if they don't go very carefully!

12 BCs requires 3600 gas, 2x the quantity needed for 12 Carriers. If you're going even money for even money, where is the Protoss's equivalent of that gas? If it's Arbiters, then the Terrans lose by default, as a little Stasis goes a long way. And 6 BCs vs 12 Carriers isn't dangerous either.

[Josue]

And why is it that getting Carriers requires these tradeoffs? Because they cost too much. If every Carrier didn't have a +200 mineral price tag before it became even slightly useful, then maybe you wouldn't have this either/or with Carriers (either you go suicide-Carriers, or you get no Carriers).



12 BCs requires 3600 gas, 2x the quantity needed for 12 Carriers. If you're going even money for even money, where is the Protoss's equivalent of that gas? If it's Arbiters, then the Terrans lose by default, as a little Stasis goes a long way. And 6 BCs vs 12 Carriers isn't dangerous either.

Hmm, well, right, the Arbiter can turn the tables, but let's see:
Arbiter tribunal is 200M 150G, the Stasis Field research is 150M 150G and the Arbiter itself 100M 350G . So, granted they didn't invest it in something else protoss must have an aditional 450M and 650G. with it the Battlecruisers could have a Sience vessel with EMP shockwave to help, or protoss could have used it to create archons, it just depends on who has more resources to pay for this or that and whether they invested it on it or not.
However it's still situational, in the Goliath example, all those Goliaths could have been scattered in between several places thus becoming not only uneffective, but also easily destroyed and wasted.

Now to my idea. Several things have been said about Carriers. I don't think they're as Overpowered as stated, but they have certain issues I think we must address:

Alternatively, how about changing the Interceptor's health so that they are often killed in combat, perhaps even eliminating shields or eliminating the healing process that happens in the carrier.

In StarCraft, you could build Carriers, fill them up, and your interceptors would die about once every ten minutes of combat, unless you were up against Goliaths.

1.- Interceptors heal while inside the carrier! that should not happen! why? it's simple: protoss are not supposed to be able to repair themselves excepting shields, it's their racial characteristic.

As for the Carrier, the first thing I'd do is weaken the Interceptors a bit, because I mean, yeah, they can only operate within a limited range (up to 12 distance from the Carrier, although 12 isn't to be sneezed at either), you're paying Zergling money, for something with almost three times the Hp, twice the damage less production time, no supply cost, that can fly (which is important in a melee), oh, and they don't drag on your main unit production either.

2.- Once again Cost efectiveness makes it look overpowered. I think that 30/30 interceptors would be better, specially if they don't heal while inside the carrier. Let's make it even better: interceptor's shields also take full damage from all attacks just like in StarCraft 1, which is fair considering the new damage modifier system.

Carrier's alternative cargo
well seeing that thread I think that there could be another interesting option:
having a scarab style ground suicide interceptors that cost 25M 5G!
(there was a similar unit in StarCraft sickel add on named the "subcarrier" instead of the reaver)
well, still weaker and auto repair removed, quite good!

3.- Carriers don't seem to have changed too much, they need something to spice them up. Blizzard tried things like those escorts but they seemed unlucky. Reading the Carrier's alternative cargo thread this idea was the trigger:

Suggestion 2
1. Interceptors (same as before)
2. Scarabs (1 use only and requires constant manufacturing; either ATG only or targets both)

Well, what I propose is this: Bring back the Shurikens! but keep the carrier the way it was in SC1. Only change it's cargo:

1.-Classic interceptors: 25M (with the fixes already stated in points 1 and 2)
2.-Shurikens: 10M 5G (Scarab Styled suicidal interceptors (melee AtG only!) )

Shurikens would not attack automatically, you will have 2 extra slots for them. you will have to issue a "launch shuriken" command, but they will be able to attack only ground with it and you would only have 2 Shurikens (10M 5G each) to spend, having to make more afterward.

Just to give them some stats they should be 40/40 (but granted their shields also take full damage like the interceptors ) since they're suicidal melee AtG units, their attack could deal 70 damage (+35 to massive) to their target and 35% (24 + 12 to massive) be splashed in a small radius.
That would make carriers a lot better against ground (Specially Massive units like the Ultralisk, Thor and Colossus) while keeping them useful against air.


Now, maybe the shuriken part could create balance problems, however the 1st and 2nd point are quite important!

[unentschieden]

That is the point though. Actual balance that decides matches is too complex to be solved in a mathematical equation.
Comparing PC to MULE is a lot like comparing Battlecruisers to Carriers. You can´t just put them next to each other and see how they perform since the is the whole rest of the game messing stuff up.

[Norfindel]

It's no secret that i disagree about this.

There wasn't anything wrong with the Carrier, the problem was in the countering units. Scouts, and Wraiths were the shit about HP, and had no armor at all, and the damage system don't allowed increased attacks against this kind of unit. Ground counters like the Goliath and the Dragoon, get hindered by terrain. However, you can destroy Carriers pretty fast with Dragoons in the open. Surely with Goliaths too.

You can think of the Carrier as an air Siege Tank. If you stand in shooting range, you die. If you shoot the attacker, they die.

About Carriers vs BCs: anyone that has been in this situation knows that you better start using some spellcasters to turn the odds of the battle, as the Carrier sucks against the BC in BW. The best you can do, is trying to keep out of range, Stasis half of the BCs, or Storm them. It gets worse with upgrades and numbers.

[Krikkitone]

Carriers are balanced.

They are balanced around being full. Because there is a limit to how many Interceptors they have.

Because of that Cap, that the player controls (as in whether or not they reach it), they DON'T have mass effect, they are just more expensive than they initially seem.

(in the same way that PC does not involve mass effect because it is Capped at Mineral Saturation.. which the player controls whether or not to reach)

[Pandonetho]

About Carriers vs BCs: anyone that has been in this situation knows that you better start using some spellcasters to turn the odds of the battle, as the Carrier sucks against the BC in BW. The best you can do, is trying to keep out of range, Stasis half of the BCs, or Storm them. It gets worse with upgrades and numbers.

BCs will never ever win against any half competent Protoss player in SC1.

Carriers are just too fast, while being able to attack and move while outranging the BCs the whole entire time. The only chance Terran has is to use yamato, and even then it takes 2 just to kill 1.