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.

Carriers have forward mounted energy weapons used for purification ; they lack other armament beyond interceptors. The computer-controlled Interceptors are unleashed in swarms against other ships. The hangers may also carry other craft such as scouts and arbiters.

Carriers may make warp space jumps and can operate in both atmospheric and deep space conditions. Carrier commanders have private quarters.

StarCraft
The carrier is less durable than the, 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.

Terrans may disable carriers using the 's Lockdown. Two battlecruisers with Yamato cannon can destroy a carrier. Valkyries may clear out interceptors with their splash damage attack.

Zerg have a wider range of anti-carrier abilities. The 's Plague and Dark Swarm are useful as carriers and interceptors tend to bunch up; Plague-affected interceptors return to carriers for repairs and remain docked until Plague wears off. The 's Ensnare radically reduces interceptor rate of fire, and hampers the withdrawal of both interceptors and carriers. Scourge may be used against small groups of carriers, but are countered by corsairs.

Protoss may use the 's Psionic Storm.

Carriers may use terrain to kite; this may reduce vulnerability to anti-air structures and units.

Quotations

 * See: StarCraft Carrier Quotations

StarCraft: Ghost
Carriers were to appear in StarCraft: Ghost.

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, interceptors self-destruct when their parent carrier is destroyed; they are not adopted by other carriers.

Heart of the Swarm Changes
In Heart of the Swarm, the carrier was not available in early multiplayer development. It came back during the beta. Beta files indicate that it once had the ability to manufacture scarabs.

The main issue with the carrier is that its role effectively overlaps with the colossus. Both are siege range units, but the colossus is splash damage, is a lot faster in coming into play, is less of a risk to bring out, and because of how common colossi are in protoss games, counter units such as corruptors or Vikings are already available, making carriers even less viable. The carrier could be buffed to address these issues, but it was decided that a more effective solution was to provide a replacement via the tempest.

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

 * Koramund
 * Qel'Ha
 *  (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
 * Praetor Quordas
 * High templar Mess'Ta (acting commander)