Goodbye, Tempest; You’ve been officially replaced with the Carrier.

Following last week’s update featuring the Terran’s capital ship – the mighty Battlecruiser, Blizzard has now created an official page for the Protoss capital ship.

Builds From: Stargate
Armament: Interceptors
Role: Capital Ship

The massive carriers serve as operations centers for leaders of the protoss fleets. Heavily armored and shielded, carriers can punch their way through enemy blockades by unleashing flights of robotic interceptors at vital enemy targets. These maneuverable, computer-guided craft tear through enemy flight formations and relentlessly strafe slower ground targets with potent plasma charges.

Returning unchanged from StarCraft 1, this is one of the strongest units available in the game – despite having no attack of its own. The mighty Carrier relies on a swarm of robotic interceptors to destroy the Protoss’ foes, staying away from the fight itself.

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The Carrier can even repair the interceptors inside the safety of its hull, making attacks on them almost useless – unless they are heavy and concentrated enough to destroy them quickly. Since each interceptor costs resources to produce, this can actually put a drain on the Protoss economy. For the most part, though, a group of Carriers can face many threats without taking any losses, and completely negate any form of static defense.

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Most carriers have no weapon batteries of any kind, but their deployment of interceptor flights makes them devastating in a ship-to-ship battle. However, a handful of heavily armed “super carriers” exist, most famously the Gantrithor. This was the flagship of Executor Tassadar when he led a protoss expeditionary force in its attempts to eradicate the zerg in terran space. The Gantrithor was powerful enough that it single-handedly defeated an entire terran battlecruiser squadron under the command of General Edmund Duke. Tassadar later sacrificed himself and his ship to destroy the zerg Overmind when it manifested on Aiur.

Update: The action shot of the 3 Carriers fighting a single Battlecruiser, posted on the Carrier’s page, brought concerns about its performance. The Carriers took a long while to take down the Battlecruiser, which managed to destroy the shields and damage one carrier heavily in the process. Karune, Blizzard’s official RTS community manger, has posted some calming words for Protoss fans:

The Carrier is not at all balanced in that video. The video is more showing off the animations involved in the Carrier’s attack, so no need to worry about it being completely ‘nerfed.’

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• » Death Animations, StarCraft 2 Q&A 51 and Fansite Q&A 5

19 Comments to “New StarCraft 2 Protoss Unit Page: The Carrier”

1. keikun17 — October 5, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
   

   Batch 16 up
   http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=sc2-general&t=44419&p=1&#post44419

2. great player — October 5, 2007 @ 7:29 pm
   

   Why is it terran? Isn’t it a protoss unit? And it seems that carrier move very slowly, I wish it was either tougher or faster.

3. whiteknight — October 5, 2007 @ 9:07 pm
   

   http://www.starcraft2.com/features/protoss/carrier.xml

4. whiteknight — October 5, 2007 @ 9:08 pm
   
5. whiteknight — October 5, 2007 @ 9:08 pm
   

   isn’t it protoss ?

   makes them devastating in a ship-to-ship battle. ?
   if blizzard want to put these sentence so do not show that action shot

   3 carriers against one battle cruiser ?
   and battle cruiser destroy carrier shield in only 3 shot

6. whiteknight — October 5, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
   

   if yamato gun was use i think about 2 carrier will fall down

7. Starcraft 2 — October 5, 2007 @ 11:32 pm
   

   Karune actually responded to that kind of remark in the blizzard forums..

   “The Carrier is not at all balanced in that video. The video is more showing off the animations involved in the Carrier’s attack, so no need to worry about it being completely ‘nerfed.’”

   http://www.battle.net/forums/thread.aspx?fn=sc2-general&t=44464&p=1&#post44464

8. Mike — October 6, 2007 @ 5:47 am
   

   This isn’t really that important, but can’t we make the capital ships graphically larger. Those Carriers look puny. The Carrier’s (and Battlecruisers) model size can be increased 30%-60% making them look more physically imposingwithout really critically blocking the players view of the ground below.

9. Dill — October 6, 2007 @ 10:46 am
   

   I don’t like the carrier design (It doesn’t look like a full blown capital ship, more like a collection of assorted parts painted yellow. I’d prefer something more like the original blob like carrier, which did look more like a full blown capital ship.

   As for how powerful that is, I figure it will be balanced with testing, just like everything else.

10. battlarmd — October 6, 2007 @ 5:20 pm
    

    I also think that the capital ship’s size should be a bit larger. Not too large, but large enough to have a strong visual impact. 30% larger might do it. it does look very puny now.

11. Ken — October 8, 2007 @ 12:43 am
    

    oh, I see… they just recolored the tempest figure into gold then… its a new SC2 carrier. is that a good idea? i thought they brought back the carrier because they got the emotional attachment to the previous unit… if it looks different, how can we feel the emotional attachment?

12. las_lama_on_earth — October 17, 2007 @ 1:20 am
    

    Im totally with you on this one ! They screwed the carrier up in sc2. Hope some of them are reading blogs like this and will take our remarks into consideration.

13. dan — June 6, 2008 @ 6:52 pm
    

    i loved the carriers in the first sc but they ruined these ones. BRING THE OLD CARRIER BACK OR THE NEW TEMPEST! PWEEZZZ

14. goomba — July 30, 2008 @ 3:53 pm
    

    oh c’mon people if you want the old carrier, go play SC1. they were cool but they resembled big helpless blimp things anyway. this is a time for new things and i personally like the look of the new ship. be happy that is will remain a powerful weapon and that it remained in the game! i hope it says “carrier has returned” when it comes out!

15. persen — September 11, 2008 @ 6:46 am
    

    yes i do want the old carrier not this crap, it looks more like a blender then a capital ship, it looks like this just because they don’t want to bother making another modell

16. Dan L — October 17, 2008 @ 7:12 am
    

    I think that they should take the old render of the SC1 and give it the new paint job with those sparkley blue designs

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18. Charlie — April 19, 2009 @ 6:12 am
    

    Come on Blizzard!!! Why when you have something that works and people love must you guys ALWAYS mess with to the point where it becomes completely AWFULL. This new carrier design looks NOTHING like a capital ship… The carrier is THE quintessential protoss unit IMO… and you’ve made it look AWFULL! I was so excited about SC2, but now I feel really let down now that I’ve seen that you are doing to SC what you did to WC – you guys just dont know when to leave something good ALONE.

19. Rebecca — April 19, 2009 @ 6:17 am
    

    I agree with Charlie – what a shame you had to wreck something that was so perfect. I wish I could have a word to the artist who did the design for this model – I bet the have never played Starcraft themselves – no fan of the game would ever turn the carrier into THAT catastrophe. Its too small, and rather than looking imposing like the original, this version will probably have the enemy laughing themselves to death… “It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no wait… it’s a flying egg whisk??”