Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Mothership

The Protoss Mothership is a new capital ship making its debut in Starcraft 2. It has been changed many times throughout the Beta, and in its current state, resembles a bigger and more expensive version of the Arbiter from the first Starcraft.

The Basics

You can build a Mothership at your Nexus once you have built a Fleet Beacon. The Mothership is Unique, so you can only ever have one out at a time. It is also the most expensive unit to produce in the game, costing 400 minerals, 400 vespene gas, and 8 psi. Classified as an Armored Mechanical Psionic Massive unit, the Mothership has 350 hit points, 350 shields, 2 armor, and a Move Speed of Very Slow.

The Mothership attacks with its Purifier Beams, which can hit both ground and air. It does 6 attacks of 6 damage at a range of 7, with a Weapon Speed of Very Slow. Like the other Protoss flying units, the Mothership can attack while moving.

The Mothership currently has 3 abilities, which all function pretty much the same as the Arbiter's abilities from the first Starcraft. The first ability, Cloaking Field, passively cloaks all nearby units and structures. The second ability, Mass Recall, teleports all of the units owned by you in the targeted area to the Mothership at a cost of 100 energy. The third ability, Vortex, sucks all of the ground and air units in the targeted area into a big swirling vortex, which takes them out of action for 20 seconds.

Available Upgrades For The Mothership

At the Cybernetics Core there are 3 levels of Air Weapons and Air Armor upgrades available to research for the Mothership. Each Air Weapons upgrades adds 1 base damage to the Purifier Beams, and each Air Armor upgrade adds 1 armor.

At the Forge you can research 3 levels of the Plasma Shields upgrade to add 1 armor per upgrade to the Mothership's shields.

Mothership Strengths

The Mothership's strength lies in its ability to affect large groups of units, either by teleporting a large group of your units across the map, or by taking lots of enemy units out of a battle with Vortex.

Mothership Weaknesses

One of the Mothership's biggest weaknesses is its Cloaking Field. By cloaking all of your other units, the Mothership is then targeted and quickly destroyed by your opponent. Another weakness is how painfully slow the Mothership moves. It takes forever to move your Mothership around the map, thus limiting its usefulness.

Best Uses Of The Protoss Mothership

One good use for the Mothership is to Mass Recall your army to your base if you are hit with a surprise attack. Another good use is casting Vortex on half of your opponent's army, which will let you easily kill the other half with your army. You can then wipe out the units that were caught in the Vortex when they come out.

The Protoss Mothership is rarely seen in games, because by the time you can build it, your opponent will have many units that can destroy it without much trouble. It can be useful in some situations, but for the most part, you are better off spending the resources on other units.

See also:
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Protoss Sentry - the Basics
Starcraft 2 Beta New Unit Spotlight: Protoss Sentry - Tactics
Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Stalker
Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Warp Prism
Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Immortal
Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Colossus
Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Phoenix
Starcraft 2 Beta New Protoss Unit Spotlight: Void Ray