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The Protoss Conclave - Units and Stuctures

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STARCRAFT
  Race Overview
    Terran
    Zerg
    Protoss Units
    Protoss Structures
      Basic
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  General Strategies
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  Contents

Go to GameSpot's Guide to Broodwar

Carrier

Strengths:
Hardy; highly effective against land and air units
Weaknesses:
Very expensive; reliant on Interceptors; require upgrades
The daunting Protoss Carrier is a small arsenal unto itself. This massive spacecraft is remarkably expensive and slow to produce, it is heavily reliant on upgrades, and it isn't effective unless deployed in groups of four or more. And yet if you can fulfill its steep prerequisites, you will find the Carrier to be the single most powerful weapon available. Though it possesses no offensive weapons of its own, it commandeers fleets of fast automated Interceptors whose Pulse Cannons can shred any target to ribbons in no time.

Hit/Shield Points/Size 150/250/large
Time to Build 140
Cost (minerals/Vespene Gas/PSI) 350/300/8
Weapon/Strength Interceptors 5, +1 per upgrade
Armor/Strength Protoss Plating 1, +1 per upgrade
Plasma Shields 0, +1 per upgrade
Special Options Build Interceptor 30m 0g time 20

Interceptor

Strengths:
Inexpensive; deadly in large swarms
Weaknesses:
Self-destruct when host is killed; slow to produce
Before building your first Carrier, you must be able to set aside enough resources to research the Increased Carrier Capacity option from your Fleet Beacon. This doubles a Carrier's Interceptor capacity, effectively making it twice as powerful at a fraction of the cost since Interceptors are inexpensive. This upgrade is absolutely vital. You can research it simultaneously while building your Carrier, since the Carrier itself is produced very slowly. Once the Carrier has arrived, immediately queue up five Interceptors for construction. Interceptors build rather slowly, so check back on them after a few minutes to queue up the remaining three Interceptors for a total of eight. Eight Interceptors increases the Carrier's cost by 240 minerals, a very significant margin. Only once its full complement of Interceptors is built should you send your Carrier into battle.

Hit/Shield Points/Size 30/20/small
Time to Build 20
Cost (minerals/Vespene Gas/PSI) 30/0/0
Weapon/Strength Pulse Cannon 5, +1 per upgrade
Armor/Strength Protoss Armor 0, +1 per upgrade
Plasma Shields 0, +1 per upgrade

Upgrade air weapons to maximum as soon as possible from your Cybernetics Core before attacking with Carriers. A quick glance at the arithmetic involved shows that weapons upgrades are remarkably beneficial to Carriers. Interceptor Pulse Cannons normally inflict five points of damage, but each upgrade boosts the damage by one point. And when you have several Carriers attacking with eight Interceptors at a time, and each Interceptor inflicts one to three bonus points of damage with each fast attack, those extra points add up very quickly.

Though Carriers are hardy, they are far from invincible. A concentrated enemy attack against a Carrier will inevitably lead to the Carrier's destruction, at which point its Interceptors will lose control and self-destruct momentarily. The best way to defend Carriers is to deploy them in great numbers, in which case their Interceptors can cut down any enemy targets before they can inflict significant damage against the host. And yet even in fleets, Carriers still have a mortal enemy - the Zerg Scourge. The tiny, fast-flying suicide bombers may pass through a swarm of Interceptors before the Interceptors can pick them off, and it only takes a few Scourge to eliminate at Carrier completely. Unfortunately, there is no easy way for Protoss to counter the Scourge; Dragoons are ineffective against them as are Scouts, who themselves are vulnerable to the Scourge. Further, the Protoss High Templar, whose Psionic Storms can normally crush great fleets of Scourge, run the risk of killing off many Interceptors with their area affect attack. Your best bet is to use the High Templar's power to create hallucinated Carriers that will distract the Scourge from your real forces.

Carriers pack lots of muscle and are perfect for attacking an enemy base head-on. They can quickly eliminate stationary anti-air defenses because those defenses will spread themselves thin trying to attack Interceptors while the Carriers themselves remain unscathed. Be certain to periodically check up on your Carriers to replace any Interceptors that are destroyed in combat. Carriers are also excellent for base defense and are well nigh unstoppable when stationed over Shield Batteries. If you're at no loss for wealth, building fleets of Carriers will be more than worth your while, especially if you can hide the lot of them under an Arbiter's cloaking field. Aside from Scourge, Carriers have nothing to fear.