Mothership

The Mothership is a powerful Protoss capital ship. It is set to appear in StarCraft II.

Overview
Motherships are mighty vessels that were constructed centuries ago during the Protoss Golden Age of Expansion. They were intended to act as primary command ships to lead vast armadas of Protoss explorers through deep space and bring them safely home again. In the aftermath of this period of expansion, the surviving Motherships became holy shrines to the Protoss, representing an honored way of life and a part of the proud history of the Protoss race. As such, they were left in place as titanic monuments at the farthest reaches of Protoss exploration. It was believed that their like would not be needed again. After the Zerg devastated Aiur however, the surviving Motherships were were called back into service. Now they are crewed not with mystics and historians, but with warriors.

At the heart of each Mothership is a huge khaydarin crystal infused with an incredible amount of psionic energy. By tapping into this energy, a mothership can warp or crack the very fabric of space-time itself. The devastating power of a Mothership can wipe out squadrons of enemy ships in the blink of an eye or lay waste to entire planets.

Game Unit
In the most current development version of StarCraft II, a player could create and control multiple Motherships.

The Mothership is treated as a support unit, with powerful defenses but slow speed.

The Mothership's standard attack consists of eight disruptor pulses, that spread out and attack all enemies within range. These can attack both air and ground units. This makes them quite ideal as support in the back lines of a battle, dishing out pain to the front lines. While the Mothership has an immense amount of a hit points, they are incredibly expensive, and are not worth the risk of being exposed to open fire. Indeed, expect the enemy to throw everything they have in destroying these immense vessels. Overall, it is a unit that should only be built if you have air superiority and can adequately defend it.

The Mothership is able to survive a direct hit from a Nuclear Missile.

Abilities

 * Recharge Energy
 * Hotkey: E
 * The Mothership can grant energy to a friendly unit below it.
 * Summon
 * Hotkey: N
 * The Mothership can teleport an entire army to its location in a manner similar to an Arbiter. Its much higher durability helps it in this role.
 * The Mothership can either defend a base (teleporting units to its location when the base is attacked) or accompany attack forces, summoning reinforcements.
 * Time Bomb
 * Hotkey: T.
 * Air units within the area cannot move and do not suffer damage from ranged attacks. This is especially useful when breaking an enemy's defensive line in a drawn out battle. This ability has no effect on beam weapons such as those of the Warp Ray or Colossus. It is also useful in allowing the Mothership to retreat.

Previous Abilities
Any abilities that do not make it into the final Mothership will still be available in the game editor.
 * Vortex
 * This ability could quickly destroy air and ground units in an area of effect. This ability was formerly known as "Black Hole" in the previous builds.
 * This ability has been canceled several times and is currently not being used by any units in the game.


 * Cloaking Field
 * The Mothership has the ability to cloak nearby units and make them invisible without enemy detection abilities. This ability has a very large range.


 * Planet Cracker
 * Deals massive damage to an area directly below the Mothership's position (ideal for destroying buildings and slow-moving targets such as Siege Tanks) over a period of time. It has no effect on air units.

Quotes

 * Main page: Mothership Quotations

Trivia
If the Blizzard game demonstration video is any indication, not to mention the voice of the quotes on the official StarCraft II website, it is thus far the only Protoss non-hero unit to be voiced by a female representative.

The Mothership's "Planet Cracker" ability is based on the energy beam from the ship in the introduction video for StarCraft I. That ship is the "conceptual anchor" for the Mothership idea.

The Mothership has been switched back and forth from a one-of-a-kind unit to a normal unit, multiple times since its unveiling in May 2007.