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the following replay shows me (p) vs a z on plat level.
http://clickrush.mysites.com/get_file/mothership-carrier-push.sc-2-replay
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edit3: adjustments
I just pulled off the same strat against a standard FE hydra opening. and got the buildorder much much tighter than in the replay. here are some adjustments I made (besides a tighter macro and better micro).
- getting out 1-2 phoenixes is very rewarding because you can scout for free
- if you scout an infestor pit then make more phoenixes to lift them off. also build a robo as soon as your mothership comes out to have detection. build a reasonable gateway mix.
- if you scout a spire then make a stalker heavy gate composition. in combination with vortex on hydras you can focus fire his air units
- if you scout a third exe then head for the push.
the initial carrier and also the follow up carrier deal very very well against hydras because your gateway units block them you can pull your huge ships back if they focus them. if the hydras do not focus your ships then some of the hydras will automaticaly shoot at the interceptors. If he tryes to focus your gateway units then he ends up overkilling them most of the time.
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the execution in this replay is pretty poor because I just tried this build. both openings are pretty standard pvz. I go for 10 gate + cannon expand while the Z goes for fast expand into hydra and infestors. since the Z player made a whole bunch of lings i did not commit to a early push and stayed defensively for the first part of the game.
I want to start a discussion with this. normaly a P player would go for robo and stack up a few colossi to commit to a push. I thought "why not try to make a carrier and a mothership instead?"
therotically the effect of a mothership and a carrier are about the same as colossi while also the tech is about the same. it deals with masses of units. in the replay I didnt even use vortex because the Z player was pretty suprised and I rolled over him. maybe he macroed a bit too much I dont know.
the reason I find this transition nice is the following: while colossi must be protected against either infestors or curroptors. the mothership does provide vortex. so if you manage to vortex a whole bunch of hydras you can snipe (automaticaly) the anti air units with your ground army.
The second reason is the cloak. If you manage to snipe anti air and detection during vortex then your opponent is pretty much behind and then has to deal with all those cloaked units. but this part is mostly lucky because a good player will not just send out all his overseers into defending the push at once.
Before I tryed this build I went on liquipedia and compared the stats of colossi carriers and the mothership. I think that colossi do more damage while the mothership+carrier have more survivability through the tactical use of vortex, a whole lot of HP/shields and interceptors.
So I suggest we try this out a bit and discuss it!
edit:
according to liquipedia the robotics->facility->range tech costs roughly the same as the stargate->beacon->catapult tech. timings: you can get about 2 colossi out with the robo tech and 1mother+1carrier with the mothership tech. but you must cut on some (2-3) stalkers/sentry.
edit2:
a very good point that a few people stated is that mindcontroling the mothership can counter this kind of push. I cant deny this but you can counteract if you cut on gate units and get an observer up.
someone asked how I would use this combination against the other races. here are my thoughts:
against P I used this with success. I wont upload the replay because I had too much of an advantage early on because he delayed his robo. against the standart robo tech I had some success with 2 robo imortals. with a very zealot heavy composition and build up my first expansion, while I get up a stargate and then procceed with voidrays and mothership. you end up with a lot of zealots, immortals, a few voidrays and finaly the mothership. but this can be countered by a 4 gate all-in or mass blink stalkers since you end up with a very slow army.
against T I open with a stargate to prevent any kinds of marauder pushes with voidrays. against 1/1/1 I do the same but with phoenixes. the follow up with a mothership is quite effective here because you can counter his ravens and vikings with your phoenixes and stalkers, while his tanks/rines are vortexed. against (ghost-)mech you will not be able to vortex but cloak will probably buy your zealots a bit of time to swarm his tanks but I dont know...
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i haven't seen the replays but on paper the only bad things are:
* that you can only have one mothership.
* this is late game
* very expensive to do well (minerals,gas, and time)
* he will build alot of anti air (which could also be a good thing)
quick question: how good is this build against the three races and what is it strong/week against)
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On June 07 2010 04:40 peckham33 wrote:
i haven't seen the replays but on paper the only bad things are:
* that you can only have one mothership.
* this is late game
* very expensive to do well (minerals,gas, and time)
* he will build alot of anti air (which could also be a good thing)
quick question: how good is this build against the three races and what is it strong/week against)
you get only one mothership but a carrier at the same time. after that you pump out single carriers and a bunch of gate units.
it is midgame. in my edited part I showed that you get mothership+carrier when you could have gotten 2-3colossi.
yes the build is expensive. but just a little bit more expensive at the moment when you start building the mothership but after that its about the same.
I stated how to deal with anti air. if Z goes too much on anti air (and kills your mothership) then you will at least have a ground advantage (theoreticaly).
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Also, as zerg you can lolmindcontrol the mothership/carriers and then vortex it or just have them be useless to you.
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On June 07 2010 04:45 Asobitai wrote:
Also, as zerg you can lolmindcontrol the mothership/carriers and then vortex it or just have them be useless to you.
the same is true for colossi. but yes vortex is a problem here since it has 3 less range than parasite. I think this comes down to positioning (just like the colossi build).
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yeah I'd say be very cautious about using this on zerg. Unless you can focus down all the infestors before they take your mothership...
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heres a few advantages i thout of (on paper) for this build:
*greater modility then colosis
*capable of attacking everything (in range)
*has abilities
*they can't see everything you have
*can harrass or enter normal combat
*pure anti-ground can't attack it (zerglings, roaches, banshes, zelots, colosi, seige tanks, and more)
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On June 07 2010 04:52 afirlortwo wrote:
yeah I'd say be very cautious about using this on zerg. Unless you can focus down all the infestors before they take your mothership...
true true. but with colossi you have the same problem. its just that Z needs to control 3 units instead of 1-2.
edit:@pekham
you have some good points but I dont agree on the mobility. the mothership is slower than colossi.
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On June 07 2010 04:59 clickrush wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2010 04:52 afirlortwo wrote:
yeah I'd say be very cautious about using this on zerg. Unless you can focus down all the infestors before they take your mothership... true true. but with colossi you have the same problem. its just that Z needs to control 3 units instead of 1-2.
The difference here is that the zerg only needs your mothership for a second to vortex your carriers or something. So when they take your mothership, you stand alot more to lose than if they take your collosi
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On June 07 2010 05:07 afirlortwo wrote:Show nested quote +On June 07 2010 04:59 clickrush wrote:On June 07 2010 04:52 afirlortwo wrote:
yeah I'd say be very cautious about using this on zerg. Unless you can focus down all the infestors before they take your mothership... true true. but with colossi you have the same problem. its just that Z needs to control 3 units instead of 1-2. The difference here is that the zerg only needs your mothership for a second to vortex your carriers or something. So when they take your mothership, you stand alot more to lose than if they take your collosi
as you see in the replay I cut on stalkers and got a robotics up as soon as I saw those infestors to get observers. with the mothership behind your army you can outrange infestors. A skilled Zerg can still counter this ofc. so yes it is risky but you can deal quite well with infestors. with one successfull vortex (which I did not need because the Z player was too suprised) you will have a great advantage.
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just curious, have anyone tried to use phoenixes to lift infestors together with this strategy?
you can do it both pro-actively and reactively - you need stargate for this build and phoenix for scouting anyway
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I think the important point is to make sure you have a lot of ground units along as well. Almost every time I get a mothership she ends up being cost effective due to my ground forces surviving longer than usual. Of course, I always make sure to have a lot of production facilities so I can tech switch afterwards. The problem with mothership carrier I find vs Zerg is that I can't build enough sentries so my smaller ground force gets demolished by a second wave of lings after they focus down the mothership.
For me it all comes down to how well I can reinforce after a big battle. At least with gateway/ colossus It doesn't feel like I'm waiting on laundry for reinforcements to arrive. Carriers and mothership simply take too long to build.
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using stargate works best PvT imo
if you open with voidray harass with 1-2 voidrays and expand to get 4 gas, only then I think this transition would work.
if you keep building void rays and get speed though they can outrun vikings, so you force terran to go overboard with them, so I like keeping on with the void rays midgame for when you have 2-3 bases. it also helps in denying terran's 3rd-4th.
maybe super late game switching to mothership/carrier works.
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@ phantomlorenz
No I did not try this but it seems to be a viable point. the problem is that the Zerg player can burrow his infestors. with or without phoenixes it comes down to spotting those infestors and getting them before you used vortex. phoenixes could be pretty handy and I also like the point with their scouting ability.
@pabs
you should not have a smaller ground force with this build since it costs about the same and takes about the same time as a 2-3 colossi build. On the reinforcements: as you can see I built up my production to one spot in my base so I was able to get those units asap when I needed them. a good player could do this even better.
but it is true that theh carriers build up longer than colossi. you can get 2 colossi at the time you get 1 carrier. but since 1 carrier costs less than 2 colossi you will get 1-2 gateway units more. the strength of this build over the colossi build would be the fact that the initial push ends up potentially stronger than a colossi push because of vortex. so its ok that this is counterbalanced by a slightly poorer reinforcement ability.
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Don't get me wrong I like your ideas on getting some use out of these neglected units. The problem still remains though with getting reinforcements. If you catch them unprepared the you get a free win but the strat is still considered a gimmick. Vs a decent player they are going to scout you and at the very least be able to scramble together some sort of counter. I can usually win a battle and do some good damage using these units but I have not been sucessful substituting them for colossus/ force field.
Essentially, I can rebuild my robo gateway force immediately. Good luck tying up all your resources rebuilding mother and carrier while the Zerg has how many larva rallied in your mineral line?
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On June 07 2010 06:44 Pabs wrote:
Don't get me wrong I like your ideas on getting some use out of these neglected units. The problem still remains though with getting reinforcements. If you catch them unprepared the you get a free win but the strat is still considered a gimmick. Vs a decent player they are going to scout you and at the very least be able to scramble together some sort of counter. I can usually win a battle and do some good damage using these units but I have not been sucessful substituting them for colossus/ force field.
Essentially, I can rebuild my robo gateway force immediately. Good luck tying up all your resources rebuilding mother and carrier while the Zerg has how many larva rallied in your mineral line?
the counter to this strat is the same as the counter to the colossus strat. yes colossus with force fields is maybe safer against hydra+infestor but its way more vulnerable against hydra+corruptor.
in the initial push/defense you should babysitt your mothership and carrier ofc. this is the key to this strat as I found out in that last game. If you simply pull your ships back and vortex you have them in a safe position. Iam sure you know that the carrier will still do damage if pulled back. you can pull him back way more than the initial interceptor launch range and they will stay in the fight.
If you lose your mothership then the Zerg player has commited all his strength into killing it for a long time. he will end up with losing alot of stuff. remember that the mothership has 350HP+350 shield.
it really comes down to protecting your ships and using vortex correctly without getting mindcontrolled.
but dont forget that iam at most a decent platinum player. this is why I post this here as a discussion. better players might find this less viable then me. but I think compared to the colossi build its stronger but risky.
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I've seen the replay. Zerg loses with +3k minerals in the bank. Before the attack you had 2k minerals.
You attack and find what? Zerglings and infestors as the only defense?
This replay doesn't really prove anything. I could go and try to mass archon vs a terran, then post the replay here, but it wouldn't be a legitimate strategy because the terran would obviously have to be a much inferior level to lose to mass archons.
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well I stated that the replay is poor. it was the first time I tried it and the Zerg was pretty low. this is why I taged this as a discussion and not as a guide. the build was not refined at this time and iam not a good player 
If you have proof that a tight mothership build (with FE) does not work against FE zerg then I beg you to upload it.
if you are familiar with the FE->colossi build then you knew that the timing with this build is pretty viable in theory.
Ive won a bunch of games (all pvz i played so far) with it but mostly against opponents that didnt react accordingly. as soon as I have a even match I upload it.
also for anyone who tries this: pls show us those games 
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On June 07 2010 04:59 clickrush wrote:
you have some good points but I dont agree on the mobility. the mothership is slower than colossi.
i've never seen a colosis attacking the island expantion or coming in from that huge hole by this back side. speed is not modility in my book. in my book: mobility is where it can go, speed is how fast it can get there.
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in my book its both of it. If you try this build then youll see that you cant float around with your mothership without protecting it. Attacking a Island expo is considered as harassing. The mothership is maybe the opposite of a harassing tool because its vulnerable if you do not have a huge army around it. Its designed to fight in huge pushes/defenses.
This strategy is allready very risky because of reinforcements (read Pabs posts). If you add more risk to it then your decitions might become "all-in"ish.
however, if it where faster, then this wouldnt be the case. but as it is now the mothership is like a sloth. the sloth can swim and climb everywhere he wants. but since its so slow I wouldnt call it "mobile".
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EPT
