How to counter mass carriers as Terran?

seanbmc

Hey guys.

I'm in Bronze league and recently I have been coming across protoss players using the mass carrier strategy a lot. What some have been doing is, heavily fortifying their base with lots of photon cannons and then pumping out carriers. I have tried mass vikings but maybe I haven't been making enough.

Here is a recent replay of one of the mass carrier games I had, I'm not bad but I'm not great either. Current win to loss ratio is 50 wins and 62 loses. Ranked 37 in Bronze league.

NeoSlicerZ

Vikings are roughly equal against carriers. Push early game with a mix of marines and marauders with stim and conc shell. If you do let him get to carriers, well get more vikings and micro them. Vikings have range 9, also expand everywhere if he turtles.

Funky

vs carriers it's important to focus fire the actual carrier rather than attack move into them since your units will go for the interceptors by default. best bet is probably a mix of marines & vikings, you can let the marines kill the interceptors while you focus the carriers with vikings. but like neo said, pushing early with a bio force should beat this too, especially since you can brute force down mass cannons with marauders pretty easily.

B0X

Had a really quick look and some of the things i noticed were:

For most of the game he had roughly twice the amount of harvesters than you had, his economy was just much better.

He had his second expansion running at 6 minutes and you had scouted this but after your first push you didnt do anything about it. You waited until 18 minutes to get your second expansion... way too long, by this time he was destroying you in the economy.

You didnt harass him at all really, gave him free reign to do what he liked. I dont think he had any detection on his mineral lines so maybe banshees could have worked there. He on the other had harassed you with void rays and DTs quite effectively)

Towards the end of the game i think you only had two gas up and running (You also had four SCVs on one ). At this point you knew he was getting void rays and higher tier units in general and to deal with them you'd need gas expensive units (Vikings)

You had loads of spare minerals, i think nearly 1500 at some points. Though at that stage you were going to lose anyway... maybe spam turrets :P

seanbmc

B0X wrote: »

Had a really quick look and some of the things i noticed were:

For most of the game he had roughly twice the amount of harvesters than you had, his economy was just much better.

He had his second expansion running at 6 minutes and you had scouted this but after your first push you didnt do anything about it. You waited until 18 minutes to get your second expansion... way too long, by this time he was destroying you in the economy.

You didnt harass him at all really, gave him free reign to do what he liked. I dont think he had any detection on his mineral lines so maybe banshees could have worked there. He on the other had harassed you with void rays and DTs quite effectively)

Towards the end of the game i think you only had two gas up and running (You also had four SCVs on one ). At this point you knew he was getting void rays and higher tier units in general and to deal with them you'd need gas expensive units (Vikings)

You had loads of spare minerals, i think nearly 1500 at some points. Though at that stage you were going to lose anyway... maybe spam turrets :P

Thanks for the tips guys

Yeah, the long wait for the expansion was a huge mistake on my part and I should have pushed earlier . I usually harass but I think this game I was too busy being harassed :P.

Overheal

Max units able to extract gas efficiently: 3.
Mineral Nodes max efficiency: 2

For 8 mineral nodes (is it 8?) and 2 gas, you really want to have 22 SCVs, +2 for each mineral im not taking into account.

Mid Game you really need the additional gas, its imperative to get your expo after the first set of rushes. If you have surplus minerals or gas: you're doing something wrong. Maybe you're building cheaper units when you could afford to be pushing out more expensive units, you're not upgrading, expanding, fortifying, etc. I myself am usually guilty of overlooking Engineering Bays and Evolution Chambers; these need to be your 2nd or 3rd tech building. Pretty much right after you have gas flowing.

I haven't seen Carriers much at all in the Bronze and Silver Leagues. Most Protoss run for Void Rays, really. Same principle applies to both though for Terrans: Marines, Marines, Marines. When you get the tech, start shoving Vikings and Thors out the door.

NeoSlicerZ

Mineral node SCV count kinda peaks around 2.5? per patch then it trails off, generally you want 28 or so SCVs on one mining base. Upgrade buildings do not have to be your second or third tech building, this is highly game dependent. You need to have a reason to get buildings. Thors are kinda cost heavy for AA really, a thing to remember is that carriers are slow, as ****. Get 2 medivacs, load them up with marauders, go nexus sniping.

SirJolt

Generally, I'd say the best rule of thumb is that you can never have too many probes/scvs. Always be producing; it means that as soon as you take an expansion you'll have it up and running, stocked with workers immediately. It means your economy gets that bump straight off, you don't need to worry about downtime while you populate a new base

Overheal

Thors generally get targetted first though and are a good tank for Marine "Escorts" And if they survive the assault you then march on the enemy base with thors to bust open the front door and beyond.

Anti

Not letting your opponent get to carriers is always a good start Make sure you keep scanning him so you have some idea what his tech path is(If you scan and see a carrier, make sure you are producing Vikings instead of Banshees). I don't think i've ever played a bronze game where a toss has got to carriers, they usually stop at mass voids. Dont underestimate turrets either a few nicely posisitioned ones can really help.