[Idea] Make the Mothership a Building

[mr. peasant]

Currently, the Mothership is considered a unique unit. However, it currently doesn't feel particularly unique. To me, it just feels like a unit that just so happens to be arbitrarily limited to one at a time. Sure, it has some mighty powerful abilities but even then, these abilities don't feel any different from the plethora of other abilities already in the game. That's when I got an idea: Make the Mothership a building! Essentially, the idea works something as follows:

The Mothership is now warped in by a Probe and requires land space and can only be built within the psionic matrix. It will cost considerably less than it currently does (e.g. 200 minerals, 200 gas) but has much the same stats. During construction, it is considered a ground target (meaning, melee units can attack it). Upon completion, it takes 2 seconds to rise into the air; its three wings already rotating during this time. After this, it can move around like a regular unit and is independent of the psionic matrix but continues to be classified as a building (think of the scrapped Starbase).

And as it's a building, I figured to change how its active abilities works as well. Inspiried, the old Nuclear Silos, the Mothership no longer uses energy. Instead, they must be prepared ahead of time and are purchased using resources. However, unlike the Nuclear Silo, the Mothership can store up to 5 abilities of any kind, casts the abilities itself and needs to be within the psionic matrix to do so (though it doesn't have to be within the psionic matrix to use them). Overall, the abilities would be something like this:

Cloaking field: Free, already available, constant
Wormhole: 25 minerals, 5 seconds
Time Rift: 50 minerals, 75 gas, 15 seconds
Vortex: 100 minerals, 50 gas, 30 seconds


The advantage of doing it as such is as follows:

1. Makes the Mothership feel more 'unique' compared to other units and buildings.
2. The lower up front cost makes the Mothership more economically feasible to be used in games. This is balanced by making each ability cost more resources, thus raising its overall cost.
3. Adds more depth to use the Mothership effectively as it requires forethought in the form of choosing what to arm it with before using it.
4. Creates more uses for Phase Prisms and proxy Pylons that aren't directly related to the Warp Gate's Warp-in mechanic in the form of 'in situ refueling'.
5. The requirement of the psionic matrix to rearm the Mothership is not too much of a handicap since Wormhole (an important mode of transport for it) targets your own buildings. Therefore, the Mothership will spend a lot of its time within the psionic matrix.
6. Prevents potentially overpowered abilties such as Neural Parasite, EMP and Vortex from being used against the Mothership without invoking some arbitrary exception for it. It's a building, therefore, it's immune to them.
7. It makes sense lore-wise since it is far larger than 'massive' units such as Colossi, Ultralisks and probably even Battlecruisers.

So, what do you all think?

[Triceron]

I would prefer it'd stay a unit, but be limited by the number of Nexus you have. But I think one of the problems is balancing its spells when there are ever more than 2 at a time.

As for being a building, there's a few things I don't like.

1- It removes the psi requirement. This thing is not something that should come free of psi, it shouldn't get special treatment just because you can only have 1 at a time. Nukes cost supply and are devastating potential damage, the Mothership in a way is like a Nuke having that same potential through its spells.

2 - There's no reason for it to become a building. In lore, Motherships aren't built, they're called in from the far ends of the galaxy. They have no reason being buildings since they're mobile support with no function as a building. They produce no units, have no upgrades and have abilities that are made to be used in battles. What constitutes them to be buildings?

3 - Mothership is the Arbiter 2.0. It's an upgraded version of an old unit with shiny new spells. There's very little changed from the Spellcaster formula that suggests becoming a building would open up any more strategies than staying as a massive flying unit. I see no reason why we should complicate things as such.

[The_Blade]

I liked your description of the new unit, yet I don't support the building idea. Benefits from the unit's abilities costing resources range from movility to control.

[MattII]

No, just, no. If you're going to do something with the MShip, strip it from mutliplayer, and replace it with something that has a fair chance of being balanced.

I note you're also keeping the same, dull mechanics when you could do something revolutionary, like allowing it to slowly repair/heal a few units at a time.

[Gt2slurp]

I would prefer it'd stay a unit, but be limited by the number of Nexus you have.

Or even the Nexus become the MShip since it take a lot of energy to warp them in.

[Islandsnake]

If it transformed from nexus it would get rid of the whole "dead nexus" problem.


Not that im necessarily behind that idea

[Jconant]

I don't think the mothership should be changed drastically again, especially since we're seeing how Blizzard is adjusting it carefully.

The ms is fitting between OP "lone-hero" unit and "i can only have one, it could easily die, its a waste of resources" nicely. It has a cool selection of tools and its not necessarily going to be insta-gibbed at the first sight of anti air.

[Pandonetho]

I note you're also keeping the same, dull mechanics when you could do something revolutionary, like allowing it to slowly repair/heal a few units at a time.

Allowing a unit to heal/repair other units is revolutionary now?

[mr. peasant]

Allowing a unit to heal/repair other units is revolutionary now?

My thoughts exactly.

I don't think the mothership should be changed drastically again, especially since we're seeing how Blizzard is adjusting it carefully.

The ms is fitting between OP "lone-hero" unit and "i can only have one, it could easily die, its a waste of resources" nicely. It has a cool selection of tools and its not necessarily going to be insta-gibbed at the first sight of anti air.

This is one of the problems I fear. By bearing the full cost up front, the Mothership will either be hugely expensive or merely equal in strength to other units in order to be balanced. If the latter is true, it does not deserve to be a singular/unique unit and its contribution would be likewise small (as it's not compensated by numbers compared to the others). If the former is true, people wouldn't want to risk all that resources to buy a Mothership only for it to be quickly taken down by the enemy.

That's why I suggested to reduce the Mothership's cost (thus making it affordable and in theory, worth its capabilities sans abilities) and subsequently charge to use each ability. This way, getting a Mothership is less of an economic risk.

As for why I suggested classifying the Mothership as a building, it's because it would be somewhat pathetic/unfair if the player brings his Mothership into battle only for it to be Mind Controlled (which cannot be countered) by the opponent. Also, in a firefght between two Protoss teams with Motherships, the victor will near certainly be the one who managed to cast Vortex on the opponent's Mothership first. If they're both immune, this would be much less of a problem.

Also, as Triceron so aptly put it, the current Mothership behaves very much like an Arbiter 2.0 with shiny new graphics. Shouldn't it be different? Otherwise, why change it in the first place? At least if it plays/functions differently, the change would be warranted.

[ArcherofAiur]

Sigh, that reminds me of the Protoss lack of real healing.

Hurray for 1 hp hero units that you can't replace without suiciding them!