[D] Smartcasting - Page 6

On November 30 2007 00:59 ForAdun wrote:
Well, Klockan is right that the gas-cost is not the reason for ghosts to be underused. Vessels have an equal impact on gas but even in TvP they are extremely useful, arbiters and ht's get much weaker because of EMP. The UI is one of the main reasons why ghosts are underused. SC is very fast-paced and ghosts are only useful against carriers and arbiters. Since arbiters get countered by vessels the only reason left to build ghosts are carriers.
As seen on Monty Hall between Chrh and Bisu in the proleague several months ago. Who's interested in the progaming-scene knows that game already but I will use spoiler tags anyway. + Show Spoiler +
To me this proves that the UI is not the first reason why ghosts are underused. It's the 2nd reason at best.
So...
Q: Why don't terran players automatically tech to ghost as soon as they scan carrier tech? It would be logical, not?
I thought about the possible scenarios where carriers can be locked down. Protoss players are smart, they never send their group of carriers further than neccessary. They keep them on cliffs or above water/space, in other words: they keep them in distance. Proper control allows the protoss player to do a lot of damage without getting too many hits on his carriers from goliaths. Now imagine terran has some ghosts there and manages to lockdown say 2 carriers out of 8. Protoss will fly the rest away and continue to harass somewhere else. The ghosts will have to walk a long distance, probably through a mass of goliaths and tanks and maybe into mining scvs because protoss likes to harass expansions with his carriers. The 2 lone carriers that have been locked down can't get shot because they were returning behind the cliff/water at the moment when the ghosts locked them down. Terran will lock down 2 more carriers at his expansion but only 1 of them stays in the range of goliath fire. The first two carriers will be unlocked at that point and protoss flies his 6 carriers somewhere else and adds 2 new carriers. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and locks 2 of the remaining carriers. Protoss flies his carriers (6 again) away and adds the once-locked carrier from the expansion that terran couldn't manage to shoot down. Protoss adds a 3rd stargate. Terran manages to shoot down one of the locked carriers and barely damages the other one and protoss rescues the weak carrier and adds it to his remaining 6, then adds 2 new carriers and keeps harassing, now building 3 carriers at once. Follow the story-line and you know why ghosts don't make enough of a difference.
The extra effort is simply too much. No matter how hard terran tries, protoss can always keep a healthy amount of carriers, all because of cliff usage and path abuse.
Now this is the scenario for maps with many dangerous cliffs/waters and with bad pathing like Loki 2 and Peaks of Baekdu. On maps like Longinus or maybe Python it can be different because there's much more space for ground units and the pathing is alright.

The thing is that protoss players are "smart" enough to not tech carriers on Longinus or Python unless they want to surprise terran. Or the starting positions are good for carriers e.g. 12-3 on Python. So terran will never get into a scenario where ghosts become useful enough against carriers. Not even smartcast could change that.
Sorry spoiler again. + Show Spoiler +

PS: Sometimes I hate to make spoilers.