[Next_rim]

Initial build: Ideally 1g-expansion. Depending on T play, can be substituted by 3-g or 1-gRobo expansions.
Goal: Incorporate carriers and mothership into PvT play.
Assumptions: top diamond-low masters level.

First, I would like to mention that I simply love protoss air, carriers and mothership in particular, and would love to use them as much as often. I already play all-air PvZ's and have found carrier transitions very strong. I also consider myself an average player with no particular strength.

Second, I not only want to have fun with carriers, I want this build to deliver results at my level, so I'm looking closely at how it works, what are its strength and weaknesses. I have created this thread not only to share my thoughts, but to receive constructive feedback on how to improve my build. From my experience with PvZ, it takes about 5-8 weeks to perfect and polish a build, and I'm just starting, acknowledging the road ahead.

1. Why carrier, and what does it have to do with collossi, PvT and mothership?

I see carriers as a replacement for colossi in my PvT builds. You might have read my PvZ thread a while ago where I do Carrier vs Colossus comparison on cost and dps matters. I will cross-post some math fyi. Some people may or may not have realized, but carrier is very much like collossus in many aspects, including initial cost of transition, timings and dps for the most part. I post the math vs hydra because I'm too lazy to re-do it for marines. After all, hydra and marines are comparable in type and stats.

Hydra: 80 hp, 1 armor (with upgrade 1:1)
1:0 Carrier vs 1:1 hydra: interceptor damage 2x5, attack speed 3, dps = 10/3x8 = 26,6. Takes 3 seconds to kill a hydra (since interceptors don't all move at the same time, 0,2 is negligible).
1:0 Colossus vs 1:1 hydra: 15x2 attack, attack speed 1,64, dps = 30/1.64 = 18,29 (Colossus does splash on average of 3 units, let's make it 18,29 to 54,87 dps on hydra ball, depending on positioning). Takes 4,34 seconds to kill 1-3 hydra.

4,34/3-1 = 44% 1-target advantage for carrier dps. The longer the battle lasts, the better the carrier is, even despite colossus splash.

Let's compare costs with my build from the points I finish building my 4-5 gates and a mapcontrol phoenix stargate and secured an expansion:

Carrier: 2nd stargate (150/150, build time 120), add fleet beacon (300/200, build time 80), catapult upgrade (150/150, research time 80). Total of 600/500. Carrier unit cost: 450/250, build time 140 seconds. Time till 1st carrier can be built - 80 seconds

Coloss: robotics (200/100, build time 65), add bay (200/200, build time 65), coloss range upgrade (200/200, research time 150). Total of 600/500. Coloss unit cost: 300/200, build time 75 seconds. Time till 1st colossus can be built - 130 seconds.

So, it takes me 80 seconds to start building a carrier, and in 220 seconds I get 2x carrier with catapult ready. It takes 130 seconds to start building a colossus, and in another 150 seconds I get 2 colossus with thermal lance. 280 seconds total.

Now, assuming a clean early game, at 12 mins I have 2+2x 45% ready carriers with catapult upgrade. If I tech colossus, I get 2x colossus with no upgrade, and one more on the way 65% done.

To add, with 2x stargates and no requirement to spend chrono on lance, all chronos go 100% into army boosting, which I haven't included in calculations for the following reasons: there is a possibility you will have to chrono gateways to fight off early 2-base pressure, and it makes math harder to understand.

+ of carriers:
1)Better army potential at 12 min mark, faster execution
2)Forces terran to play AA (vikings and marines), for which you already have air presence and upgrade advantage.
3)Negates annoying ghost
4)Negates powerful marauder play
5)MUCH easier positioning. If you place colossi in bad position with vikings at bad angle, it's game. Carriers...well, they fly.
6)Opens up tech to mothership and phoenix, both can be instrumental at defending from drops and expanding.
7)Fun to execute

- of carriers:
1) 60 (!) seconds longer execution (counting from 1st robo vs 1st stargate)
2) Easy to scout and prepare hard counter in advance, unless you hide tech like a boss
3) No tech tree diversity - 100% devotion to stargate play. Somewhat hard to switch out.
4) No synergy with ground army. Basically, ground army serves as meatshield for that nasty stim marine dps.
5) There is a critical number of marines (i believe 9-10 for each carrier), when marines become unkillbale by carriers due to interceptors dying too fast.

+ of colossus
1) Ground unit, better marine counter, opens tech for immortals
2) More cost efficiency due to splash

- of colossus:
1) Less HP
2) Can't attack vikings, have to rely on stalkers to clear those
3) Becomes useless with large vikings count
4) Bad ffs make them much less cost-efficient.
5) Vulnerable to marauder FF.

To sum up, carrier costs the same, takes only slightly longer to make, easily kills vikings, is tougher, provides comparable ground dps against terran army, and don't die to marauders. I think it is safe to conclude, that carrier is a very decent replacement for colossus in PvT matchup on all accounts.

I would also like to list some minor advantages and disadvantages of stargate play:

+
1) Phoenix - imho, a better scout than obs, as it is faster, and can deny medivacs and banshees
2) Mothership - cloak makes terran use lots of scans, which does mean less mules. Pleasant bonus.
3) Very early access to upgrades in core. Your carriers will likely have 2:0:1 at the very least when the big deciding battle hapens. Vikings will be 0:0 100%, and marines might or might not be 2:2. Default upgrade advantage.

-
1) In the long run, more gas-intensive, which means less HT and more zealots in transition. You have to invest in air upgrades, which your ground army does not share.
2) If you have to add robo early in the game for obs vs banshee, that robo will most likely sit useless for the rest of the game. Somewhat inefficient deviations.

2. Role of mothership

Currently, I see three major mothership roles:
1) Cloaking an expansion makes terran much less likely to do drops. It will require terran a lot more APM to drop into a cloaked base and constantly renew scans, which may be dreadful to most players at my level.
2) Timed recall drop. I have tried it several times so far, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Best-case scenario is if you drop into main, wipe out terran main and most of his army. All while mothership is cruising back to your base to recall your troops to safety, and a pack of zealots is wrecking havoc in the natural. This is my ideal world, and I have not yet able to execute this properly. Am looking forward to improving my timings and control. Right now I can do maybe a ~15 min mark drop of 170+ food, which so far has resulted in 1 win and 2 losses.
3) Tactical recall - well-known tactics to hit-and run when you snipe an expansion and safely recall the troops back to base. Very cost efficient, although I haven't done the math yet. This is my tool #1 for winning my PvZ (70+% winrate over 300 games), and I'm looking forward to incorporating it in my PvT as well.

3. Build specifics.

This is probably the most vague part of my post. Not only because PvT overall has such a massive variety of terran openings, but strongly because protoss has to stay reactive. As mentioned above, early game opening is ideally a 1-G expansion, which ideally coincides with terran gasless or 1-rax explo with a 9-12 min planned timing attack. I think the opening is too well-known, and most of you know how it works. If not, refer to replays below, or google it, I'm sure there is plenty of examples and info on it. Basics are as follows:

1) Secure an early second base (ideally), if terran goes early, do safest 3-gate expo possible.
2) Spam 5-6 sentries in preparation for terran 2-base timings
3) Add 3-4 gateways in the process, totalling 4-5 to ensure drop protection and push survivability
4) Once push is repelled, or terran went for 3rd or is not pushing, transition into stargate.
5) Map control is your priority. Keep Xel'nagas, put spotting pylons, use a handful of stalkers. You need to exactly know when and with what will terran push, to produce just enough stalkers and zealots to repel it.
6) Add robo as you see fit. You may also rely on phoenixes for scouting and control later, or you may be forced to get one if you see 1-1-1, banshees or anything of that sorts.

In other words, do your standard FE openings. Once you have survived the depressing early game, and set up your stargate, focus on the following:

1) Chrono out mommaship and as many carriers as possible. Think of it as a colossus transition, but with carriers instead. Same rules apply.
2) Secure 2:0 air upgrades and set up forge and TC
3) From said TC, get zealot charge and blink if see fit.
4) Add more gateways as seen fit
5) Focus on getting 4 carriers, sentries, 7-10 stalkers (as gas allows), and as many chargelots as you can.
6) Use mothership to cloak expansions and army, move forward to xel-naga.
7) Add phoenixes if terran likes drops
8) May or may not use hit-and run on terran bases. At the very best, terran will be wasting scans, at the worst will add a raven or spam lots of cheap turrets.
9) Secure a 3rd and 4th behind carrier pressure. May or may not go all-in with that very strong recall drop into main.
10) As terran will most likely be spamming marines and vikings, do a transition into HT. You already have the gateways and the TC.
11) If terran viking count is getting out of control, may add stalkers or phoenixes for more AA dps. However, 4x carriers can easily take on 7-10 vikings and lose shields only, depends on micro.

Lategame:
1) Carriers are too fuckn good at sniping expansions. Focus + recall is death to T. And 0 shits given to PF's!
2) Carriers + HT + chargelots is a strong composition, especially when accompanied by good recalls and good air micro.

4. Replays and examples

Below are links to 4x most recent replays uploaded to sc2sea. I will not yet post my own analysis yet, as I would like to hear feedback first. I believe there are 2x crisp wins and 2x losses. I also believe I flipped out in one of them and bmed my opponent for having too many scans saved.

1) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...720b35708975e0

2) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...8751cb02bf96a9

3) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...244d2a9d324c5e

4) http://www.sc2sea.com/downloads.php?...84d31dcd0793e5

Quick Comments

xGKingdelete:

[xGKingdelete]

very interesting. I would love to see someone else try this style. I would, but I don't have enough time

[inFeZa]

Carrier has -a-r-r-i-v-e-d-died