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I've been playing carrier a lot, and I think it needs a bit of reworking. There are two obvious imbalances with it - one being feedback, other being photon barrage.
By constantly feedbacking, I can keep two enemies completely depleted of energy. Plus the 1.5k dmg it does is nothing shy. I would just reduce it to 200 energy instead. This way, it doesn't affect people who dont pump energy, but if they choose to become casters, they aren't punished for it.
If you have 3-4 coordinated people using photon barrage, it's instant death for anyone. They can run in, fire a few rounds off, and then fire off barrage. As long as this spell exists, Star Battle will never be anything near competitive. Games will pretty much be everyone being carrier, getting photon barrage right off the bat, and the start getting insta kills. I would tone it down to 1.8k dmg instead of 2.1k. That way you need 5-6 players to insta kill someone.
I would also change the carrier around a bit so that it's more of a support class rather than a damaging class. Both vortex and feedback are good support abilities. The 17% shield spell can be changed into a group heal ability that heals 1.5k hp. We can also add in a guardian shield ability that lasts 15 seconds and blocks 10 dmg. It doesn't have to be these spells, but something to make the carrier into a support role so there can be a bit more teamwork involved.
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A good wat to balance the abilities is so that when a player chooses an abilitie, it will lock out other upgrades and abilities. For example, if a player who is using carrier buys the photon barage, the lose defensive upgrades like the sheild recharge, or even sheild upgrades
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I feel like Corrupters on Leviathan need tweaking, make them last 1/3 the time they currently do (20 seconds down from 1 minute), make their attack against massive about 33 from 100, and make the energy they cost about 1/3 (17 energy).
This will balance them by making them more micro intensive and less easy-mode-farm-kill.
Right now you can leave a fleet of Corrupters at the enemy lines to farm for you, and you receive all the Minerals from their kills while you go back to buy. This would also make that a non-issue.
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On December 04 2010 05:52 Chairman Ray wrote:
I've been playing carrier a lot, and I think it needs a bit of reworking. There are two obvious imbalances with it - one being feedback, other being photon barrage.
By constantly feedbacking, I can keep two enemies completely depleted of energy. Plus the 1.5k dmg it does is nothing shy. I would just reduce it to 200 energy instead. This way, it doesn't affect people who dont pump energy, but if they choose to become casters, they aren't punished for it.
If you have 3-4 coordinated people using photon barrage, it's instant death for anyone. They can run in, fire a few rounds off, and then fire off barrage. As long as this spell exists, Star Battle will never be anything near competitive. Games will pretty much be everyone being carrier, getting photon barrage right off the bat, and the start getting insta kills. I would tone it down to 1.8k dmg instead of 2.1k. That way you need 5-6 players to insta kill someone.
I would also change the carrier around a bit so that it's more of a support class rather than a damaging class. Both vortex and feedback are good support abilities. The 17% shield spell can be changed into a group heal ability that heals 1.5k hp. We can also add in a guardian shield ability that lasts 15 seconds and blocks 10 dmg. It doesn't have to be these spells, but something to make the carrier into a support role so there can be a bit more teamwork involved.
Carrier can be a great support ship. The problem is that support ships don't get kill counts as they deal no damage. As long as the map is catered for the casual players, there is no reason to tune down carrier's offensive ability and buff its defensive/supportive abilities.
I love playing my carrier and racking up 3-4 kills counts. Just played a game an hour ago where I killed 5 enemy ships and almost got the 6th one too. :D
It's not that the carrier is overpowered, it's just that I know how to steal kills from teammates. 
The primary reason why I stick with carrier is due to feedback. The ability to dictate whether my opponent can use special abilities is just too vital. I tried it out with battlecruiser too and its emp. While EMP is even better than Feedback, the lack of a warp upgrade made me switch back to carrier. I hate waiting for warp cooldown.
The ability to instant warp saved my teammate's asses a bunch of times. I see somebody under fire, I warp in and draw the fire. Also, I can go back to upgrade whenever I want and come back to the battlefield without missing much.
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On December 04 2010 04:59 Almania wrote:
Corruptor leviathan builds work -very- well. Especially as a lot of people currently aren't aware of just how deadly corruptor's, they'll run into a group of 20 of them and die in seconds.
They are kinda imba. Just won a 2 vs 4 just by spaming corruptors.
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On December 04 2010 07:00 bennmann wrote:
I feel like Corrupters on Leviathan need tweaking, make them last 1/3 the time they currently do (20 seconds down from 1 minute), make their attack against massive about 33 from 100, and make the energy they cost about 1/3 (17 energy).
This will balance them by making them more micro intensive and less easy-mode-farm-kill.
Right now you can leave a fleet of Corrupters at the enemy lines to farm for you, and you receive all the Minerals from their kills while you go back to buy. This would also make that a non-issue.
only if you give them enough speed to chase... too easy to avoid them currently
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I love love this game, cause it's not just a map but a game all its own. I use battle cruiser as snipe ship and it works pretty damn well. it would be awesome to get teams and team strats together though.
edit -
On December 04 2010 05:52 Chairman Ray wrote:
I've been playing carrier a lot, and I think it needs a bit of reworking. There are two obvious imbalances with it - one being feedback, other being photon barrage.
as battlecruiser, if I see a lot of feedback use I start upgrading speed and weapons.. but it is still kinda imba
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does the carrier's warp upgrade remove the chargeup time, the cooldown time, or both?
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cooldown time.
How come sometimes the missles just wont fire? the cooldown is done but they wont fire even if a enemy massive ship in around.
And idk i see emp more imba then feedback. 1k dmg shields and 200 energy in a aoe. In big battles alot of the time the enemy will be clumped meaning 3k dmg and 600 energy is easy to accomplish.
But best build currently imo. 4 speed upgrades then warp or 3 Then get 4 weapon upgrades. Then get your range up to 11 for your missles(throw in a speed upgrade to so your at 1.91 or you can sit at 1.81 if you want). Then upgrade your missles/number of missles then your guns.
You can out run and outrange anything. No special abilites can touch you 
edit: had to remove part of the start build only works if one of ur teammates drop
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On December 04 2010 09:06 Falcor wrote:cooldown time. How come sometimes the missles just wont fire? the cooldown is done but they wont fire even if a enemy massive ship in around. And idk i see emp more imba then feedback. 1k dmg shields and 200 energy in a aoe. In big battles alot of the time the enemy will be clumped meaning 3k dmg and 600 energy is easy to accomplish. But best build currently imo. 4 speed upgrades then warp or 3 weapon upgrades and then wait for 5 sec to get enough cash for the 4th so you can 1 shot the small ships. Then either get warp or 4 weapon upgrades. Then get your range up to 11 for your missles(throw in a speed upgrade to so your at 1.91 or you can sit at 1.81 if you want). Then upgrade your missles/number of missles then your guns. You can out run and outrange anything. No special abilites can touch you
I've done some testing, missiles don't fire if you're too close I've found, but also if you've targeted someone, if you are moving (not target firing) missiles will fire.
I discovered this game like 2 days ago and I love it ... so epic! Carrier is super imba though so I always pick that one no cooldown on warp is so hax also feedback and photon barrage
personally I open with warp + 1.71 speed. Farm a bit, warp back at about 30-40 kills get no cooldown warp and 4 weapons. From there it depends what the other team gets. Speed is always important to get though, I try stay 1 speed upgrade ahead of opponents so they can never chase me down
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On December 04 2010 09:06 Falcor wrote:cooldown time. How come sometimes the missles just wont fire? the cooldown is done but they wont fire even if a enemy massive ship in around. And idk i see emp more imba then feedback. 1k dmg shields and 200 energy in a aoe. In big battles alot of the time the enemy will be clumped meaning 3k dmg and 600 energy is easy to accomplish. But best build currently imo. 4 speed upgrades then warp or 3 weapon upgrades and then wait for 5 sec to get enough cash for the 4th so you can 1 shot the small ships. Then either get warp or 4 weapon upgrades. Then get your range up to 11 for your missles(throw in a speed upgrade to so your at 1.91 or you can sit at 1.81 if you want). Then upgrade your missles/number of missles then your guns. You can out run and outrange anything. No special abilites can touch you
This is my strat, unfourtunatly my computer is a tad slow so I get killed a lot but even so this is my favorite custom map by far.
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My Carrier Build involves farming and then getting fast vortex b/c that gives you insane control of the map.
Basically I get +2 Speed and +4 lasers right off the bat, and then wait for a few seconds and get warp.
After that I move out, farming, saving teammates, yaddah yaddah...
Once I got 300 min I go back to base, get vortex and any sort of core upgrades I can get b/c 150 energy isn't too easy to come by in early game.
All-in-all my BO is primarily not getting yourself into stupid situations where you can die easily, early on, and then once you get vortex you and your teammates ROFLstomping everybody in your path.
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+2 Speed +4 Lasers seems to be the best starting build IMO. Leads to fast farming, still fast enough to escape and can deal decent damage up close to capitals.
I like getting warp and Barrage afterwards with Carrier (which is def imba imo). The energy recharge upgrades are also a bit too cheap maybe. A solution to mass barrage spammers is to get Feedback, but again that implies carrier imba to me.
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I do +2 speed, +1 core, storm. It's an incredible opening build.
I'm not sure how it'd go down against 6 competent players, but in your average public it's fine.
As for balance, the carrier has too many good options that tend to be better than the other ships options.
Storm beats the Missile storm (forget what it's called)
Barrage beats the Yamato.
Feedback is better than EMP, I think? I'm not sure, nobody uses EMP...
Warp beats the other ships Warps.
Vortex is ridiculous.
With perhaps the exception of Vortex, none of those abilities are particularly overpowered, but when combined together the ship just ends up superior to the others. Hopefully some of those abilities can be transferred to other ships when more of them are added.
Also, I killed someone with psi storm today. So happy. :D
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I've been testing out all the ships today, and feedback isn't all that bad actually. EMP is superior to feedback, but people just never use it for some reason. Yes feedback is extremely powerful, but a lot of it is because so many people use it. I still support reducing feedback to 200 energy though, and I think EMP should not take out shield anymore. It may feel natural to follow along with the ghost's EMP, but 1k damage to shield only will not change the purpose of EMP, nor will it allow people to use it as a damaging spell. It's just an annoyance. Getting an EMP on 2+ enemies is more than enough to make it a powerful spell. One note regarding the leviathan, I think they tried to make him the tank class, but it achieved the opposite effect. Armor and hp upgrades from the leviathan scale far slower than attack upgrades do, so as the game goes on, the leviathan will just be dying quicker and quicker. I think a +2 armor instead of +1 would be a decent change. The leviathan will still be dying quicker as the game goes on, but since he can live a bit longer than his teammates, it might be viable to take one for the team rather than ditch defenses and pump offense instead.
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I tend to play a support battlecruiser, open 4 laser 2 speed and warp until I have enough for PDD, 4 core upgrades. This allows for some intense pushing, I then keep out until I have enough to get a 3rd speed and EMP, after this upgrade in a 1 core/1 armor/1 range pattern when you can and eventually adding the regen enhancer. The BC has a huge health pool so this works really well.
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Anyone want to play some as a team in about an hour, on the NA server? I know it's kind of early morning in the americas... but... star battle!!
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Last few games I've been going carrier fighter build.
It works surprisingly well.
One psi-storm would shut it down pretty well til you have about 14 points in your fighters - but most people don't know how to counter it yet - or they don't realise it's your interceptors doing all the damage. And then you could tech feedback.
But yeh - with 20 points in your fighters you lay waste pretty fast. 75dmg, speed 3, 20 shield armor, 20 armor, 100 shields, 100 health, * 15 interceptors. And they have a massive range, and can be launched without pausing. Very effective vs the vessels too.
I don't imagine they'd work well in arranged teams though.
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This is so far the best custom map made for starcraft.
There I said it!
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I keep getting flashbacks to that episode of Haruhi Susumiya, with the space-battle computer game. And EV Nova.
And, when my team extracts a dying teammate successfully, the scene from Star Trek: First Contact where the Enterprise comes out of warp between the borg cube and the Defiant.
Good lord, I'm a nerd...
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EPT
