Closely following the official Mothership discussion on Battle.net, Blizzard has updated its StarCraft2.com website with a page for the unit.

Builds From: Stargate
Armament: Disruptor Pulse
Role: Capital Ship

Protoss motherships are mighty vessels that were constructed centuries ago during the golden age of protoss expansion. They were intended to act as primary command ships to lead vast armadas of protoss explorers into the darkness of deep space and bring them safely home again. Those days are long gone, and the surviving motherships later became holy shrines to the protoss, representing an honored way of life and a part of the proud history of the protoss race.

As we have mentioned in yesterday’s Mothership discussion post, the Mothership is a problematic unit, which has spawned many debates. Check out the post to learn more about its issues.

Currently, the Mothership has 3 abilities:

1) Cloak. This ability allows the Mothership to hide all ground units in a small radius around it, effectively granting them invulnerability to attacks as long as there are no detectors around. Moreover, the Cloak appears to work on buldings as well – a feat that might prove to be of great defensive value. Hiding specific production buildings or a besieged expansion and its defenses from the enemy could easily turn the tide of the game.

2) Time Bomb. This ability, that’s been presented in the original gameplay video, can now be cast on a specific location, rendering all enemy attacks from it useless.

3) Planet Cracker. Another ability which we’ve seen in the original gameplay presentation, this ability allows the Mothership to damage targets underneath it with a devastating beam attack. The attack animation has been changed since the presentation in May, and now looks less impressive.

Powerful abilities indeed. Such “spells” are usually given to more fragile, dedicated spell-caster units, such as the Protoss Arbiter or Zerg Defiler, in StarCraft. It will be interesting to see which of these abilities survives the intense scrutiny placed on the Mothership and makes it to the final game.

At the heart of each mothership is a huge khaydarin crystal infused with an incredible amount of psionic energy. By tapping into this energy, a mothership can warp or crack the very fabric of space and time itself. The devastating power of a mothership can wipe out squadrons of enemy ships in the blink of an eye or lay waste to entire planets. As the golden age reached its apogee, the motherships were left in place as titanic monuments at the farthest reaches of protoss exploration. It was believed that their like would not be needed again.

 

After the loss of Aiur, however, the motherships were called back into service from the far corners of the galaxy. Now they are crewed not with mystics and historians, but with warriors. The oldest and most powerful weapons of the protoss have been awakened and are prepared to burn the galaxy to avenge the loss of the protoss homeworld.

Related Posts:

• » Two Massive Q&A Sessions: Battle.Net and Beta In-Depth
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Protoss Strategies Overview
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: Yo Mommaship Got Nerfed
• » StarCraft 2 Beta: First Gameplay and Battle.net Impressions

16 Comments to “New StarCraft 2 Protoss Unit Page: The Mothership”

1. MechaBeast — September 7, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
   

   I like that time bomb is still surviving, but i wish that planet cracker was like the “Independence Day” ships. Maybe a couple seconds of charging followed by a burst of energy in an AoE.

2. whiteknight — September 7, 2007 @ 7:09 pm
   

   mothership for protoss(caster)
   Thor for Terran (Support)

   I wish to see zerg’s super weapon too(may be extreame powerful ultralisk) ^-^

3. Battlarmd — September 7, 2007 @ 11:33 pm
   

   I still rather see the mothership as an unique 1 only per player unit.

   that way each race remains MORE different, and not just every race being the same. Zerg shouldn’t have a unique unit unless it is the overmind.

   Also, I feel the mothership looks ‘too small’ same with the battle cruiser… somehow if they can modify the game engine to make it more 3D it will be better… giving a closer resemblence to how big a BC or Carrier should be in the cinematics

4. Mercutio — September 8, 2007 @ 6:25 am
   

   Hmm, I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but it would appear the Mothership -also- has the ability to precisely fire on multiple units at a time. That is definitely hot.

   It does rather look like the mothership is a combination of the now-scrapped Tempest and the old Arbiter. That could work out pretty well, I think, though of course balance is ongoing.

   @Battlarmd – Yeah, they do look much smaller than they probably should given the scale, but quite frankly once you start making them bigger you run into problems. In SC1 I would often run into situations where I just couldn’t freaking SEE through the swarm of Battelcruisers or Carriers, especially with fighters in the air. Granted, the Thor is gigantic, but that’s a ground unit.

5. St4lk3r — September 8, 2007 @ 9:10 am
   

   The new planet cracker looks lame and it doesn’t do a lot of damage, I would like the old planet cracker ability (the one in blizzcon) to be back.

6. Ken — September 9, 2007 @ 5:51 pm
   

   Keeping Pcracker and Time bomb was the right decision! But I think the beam of the current planet cracker cannot crack the planet at all. You should change it to Planet tickler or Peanut cracker. hehehe Anyway, I know you guys will take everything into consideration to get the balance right! So, keep up the good work Blizzboys.

7. aaron — September 10, 2007 @ 9:36 am
   

   Personally, I think that the mothership needs a major overhaul. Although it adds another visually impressive unit to the already awe-inspiring Protoss fleet, its actual implementation appears a little too complicated. The reason for this is that, unlike every other unit in Starcraft, motherships are not designed to be built in bunches (in fact, many argue that only one mothership should be allowed).

   Its abilities all have major issues: time bomb is either too powerful or merely a glorified disruption web; planet cracker seems only effective when the mothership is in the heart of a battle; black hole is currently very overpowered; cloak seems strange for a unit of its size. Personally, I think that black hole should not be used, or be nerfed. An ability that can destroy capital units in one “hit” is out of keeping with the starcraft aesthetic and merely annoying.

   In addition, the “mothership” unit description is a little weak. I feel as though its abilities don’t follow from its background.
   So, here is what I’d do if I could completely redesign the mothership:

   The mothership should be the ultimate support unit. Since its original function was as a “colonizing” ship, it should retain elements of that function. Abilities I would advise for the mothership:
   The mothership should be a mobile shield battery. Think about it — you have a ship that can reinforce your beleaguered capital ships in one of the most important ways possible.

   The mothership should have an “aura” of life regeneration.
   At the moment, protoss don’t have any way to repair damaged units. But if you were ever exploring distant reaches of the galaxy, this would be a critical ability to have.

   One more aura that either improved shields or attacks, making
   the fleet around it that much more effective.

   In addition, the mothership should be a detector, since its original role had it navigating through deep space.
   Perhaps a transport ability should be included as well — especially colossi transport.

   Lastly, some offensive ability, like the “time bomb”, should be given to the mothership to make it more fun to play with. Otherwise, you just have an overly large, boring support ship.

   Having some aura-based abilities would resolve the one-or-many problem. There wouldn’t be any point in building tons of motherships.

   For those of you who are wondering, I like Starcraft much better than the warcraft games, but I think this would be one point where introducing auras would make sense.

   Those are just a few ideas to make the mothership a more “realistic” unit, and also one that adds something to game balance aside from just being “cool”.

8. Mantaar — September 10, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
   

   “Perhaps a transport ability should be included as well — especially colossi transport.”

   I don’t think that would be a good idea. The Terrans can’t transport their Thors, the Protoss can’t transport the Colossus. Plus, the Colossus is already very mobile in that it can absolutely ignore most choke points. Imagine a combined Colossus/Mothership/Drop attack. Woah, don’t like that coming near my base.

   This would leave the Zerg as the most mobile race since they don’t have units that are tied to the ground. I’m a Zerg player, so I like the idea.

   While this transport thingie fits into the general concept of the mothership, it would again make it to powerful.

   If it’s going to act as a shield replenisher this should really drain its mana fast and render its other abilities useless if you do it a lot – Protoss would be the only race that could repair their units *that* fast right in the middle of a battle.
   Perhaps reloading the shields of another unit could drain the mothership’s own shields…

   Timebomb is certainly nice and as you could see in the demonstration, some missiles were coming through… Only problem is, it’s totally useless against BCs.

9. Ken — September 10, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
   

   hmmm… I like Aaron’s ideas. If the Blizzboys had auras for WC3, then why not in SC2 Protoss, right? endowing an aura on the mothership will greatly increase its usability in the battlefield especially in a low quantity-high variety army.

   The shield battery is also great. Think of it this way, if you put yourselves in the shoes (or hooves) of a Zealot in the midst of battle, how would you feel if a Mothership is right above you? a Mothership that can recharge your shields, slowly regenerates your life when your damaged, slightly increases your attack damage and can render enemy missiles useless with time bomb. Wouldn’t you feel a little more comfortable then? wouldn’t you feel more confident in facing the swarm or even those pompous terrans? Wouldn’t you feel prouder to be calling yourself “the blades of Aiur”?

   Kudos to you Aaron, solid work on the mothership analysis, man! Entaro Adun!

10. Mike — September 10, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
    

    Retain the HP and shields, but maybe tone down its damage potential. So food-wise it is not as practical damagewise, as say a Carrier or Zealots. After all, we still have the other protoss units to deal the heavy damage. The mother ship could be like what Aaron said really well, the ultimate support ship. This could then replace the Arbiter, and Shield battery. Plus Sheild or HP regen aura, plus Time Bomb.

11. DomZ — September 20, 2007 @ 6:43 pm
    

    Planet cracker is more like Planet tickler. We don’t mind putting a bit more power to the mothership, its not named mothership for nothing you know.

12. OrangeKing — May 27, 2008 @ 1:23 pm
    

    For the zerg i think a great superweapon would be some kind of bio bomb that would turn all enemy units into broodlings similar to the queen ability in SC 1. give it like the radius of a nuclear missile.

    Also I think that it would a great way to balence superweapons if they could backfire.

    For instance destroying a nuclear silo with a nuke in it would make it explode then and there. Or have a killed mothership create a black hole and suck in all nearby units.

    Or for my suggestion for the zerg the weapon could attack everything nearby and “go crazy” attacking the owner.

13. kill-em-all-god — July 15, 2008 @ 10:33 pm
    

    theres not realy super weapons but units a biobomb kinda sounds
    greatly overpowered for wat it dose, broodlings were made from organic ground units in sc1, lots of banelings seem to be a like a nuke of some sorts.

14. SC:2 Blade — October 26, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
    

    Well I think that the black hole shouldstill be a part of the
    mothership. Suggestion:
    1.You could make the black hole smaller so it doesn’t affect
    much and have it only destroy air units.
    2.You could always make it that you have gather a huge amount of energy, like nuke(use it once then make it again).
    But Make it so that it costs a lot to gather the energy aand that it takes a lot of time. Or you could just make it that it takes out all the energy that the motherships got for the black hole(instead of a lot of time of gathering).

15. Anonymous — December 11, 2008 @ 4:55 pm
    

    Btw, the blizaboys are taking out the motherships black hole ability AND i was just wondering…for a last resort of a nuke, would a time bomb help?

    ***Zoooosh***

    Nuclear Launch Aborted

    Zealot:”So what do we do with a foating nuke right ontop of us?”

    Stalker:”Let’s shoot it”

    Zealot:”NOOO——”

    BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

    gg…rm…

16. Vatiz — October 16, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
    

    Protoss > Mothership
    Terran > Thor

    Zerg > Queen???