Carrier

The carrier is a protoss heavy air unit.

Overview
Carriers are large, heavily armored and shielded warships. They form the core of the Great Fleet, serving as command centers for fleet commanders, though some terrans think this position will be taken by the void ray.

Although carriers lack weapon batteries or other armaments of any kind, their ability to unleash swarms of computer controlled interceptors makes them devastating in ship to ship battle. In addition, the carrier's hangars can house Scout fighters and even Arbiters.

Carriers are capable of making jumps through warp space and can operate in both atmospheric and deep space conditions. When not on the bridge, a carrier commander is entitled to his/her own quarters.

At least some carriers can fire energy beams from their front sections; enough beams inflict purification on a planet.

StarCraft
The carrier is less durable than the battlecruiser, however it accelerates much faster. Forcibly recalling its interceptors and releasing them again may extend interceptor life and save resources since interceptors are automatically repaired upon returning. Interceptors self-destruct if their parent carrier is destroyed. If a carrier is disabled (for example, through Lockdown), its interceptors will return to the carrier and only resume attacking once the carrier becomes active again. Carriers in groups can take down any enemy unit within the blink of an eye though are not invulnerable.

Terrans benefit with the ghost's lockdown, massed goliaths and valkyries (mainly for taking down interceptors). A pair of battlecruisers can also destroy a carrier with the Yamato cannon. Zerg can counter with groups of scourges and massed hydralisks to back off carrier fleets. Carriers however, can still inflict heavy damage on the latter by hit-and-run methods. The zerg abilities Plague and Dark Swarm may also be used against carriers to great effect due to the tendency for carriers to "bunch up". The protoss's Psionic storm and massed dragoons are also effective counters against carriers.

The enemy may choose to attack the carrier rather than its interceptors. Using terrain such as water and cliffs may limit the ability of ground targets to engage the carrier directly. The tactic is especially effective against defensive structures defended by anti-air units.

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft Carrier Quotations

StarCraft II
Carriers re-appear in StarCraft II. Its in-game appearances also include being the protoss boss in Lost Viking. Carriers are less costly than the motherships and the battlecruisers but take 120 seconds to warp in. Compared to in StarCraft, the carrier starts with 4 interceptors when it's warped in and doesn't need the Interceptor Capacity upgrade, saving time and resources on enhancing interceptor numbers. As in SC1, the interceptors are destroyed along with the parent carrier.

Development
The carrier was originally replaced by the tempest during the development of StarCraft II but was brought back due to "an emotional connection with the original unit." Although it keeps the structural design of the tempest, the 'light' color scheme has been maintained.

The carrier could produce escorts. This ability was removed in later builds.


 * Manufacture Escorts
 * Carriers may manufacture up to four escorts.
 * Strike fighter escorts cost resources (and about one second) to build and lasted only 45 seconds, but added a decent amount of firepower to a carriers attack. A carrier could have a maximum of 4 escorts. Escorts were given attack orders to focus-fire on whatever the carrier was attacking and they could be destroyed independently of the carrier or each other. The cost for these escorts would be significant enough to where players would not want to just have the max number all of the time, as that would bleed one's economy needlessly. Thus, players would have to pick and choose their battles in where they wanted the full force of the protoss fleet present.

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft II Carrier Quotations

Known Carriers

 * Qel'Ha
 * Tempest (not to be confused with the tempest-class starship).
 * Xa'lor

Variants

 * Fleet Carrier
 * Super Carrier

Known Carrier Commanders

 * Executor Amur
 * Executor Andraxxus
 * Executor Koronis
 * Executor Damiarch
 * Executor Selendis
 * High templar Mess'Ta (acting commander)
 * High templar Tassadar (super carrier commander)