Mothership

"For a second, everything is silent, as if the gigantic thing had sucked the sound right out of the air. Then light, everywhere, all consuming. I fall, shielding my eyes. Light, light and silence. When I come to, there...there is no central Berne, no worker family housing. All gone. Just a pit, gouged from the earth, a pit where a city used to be."

- GDI Civilian Engineering Corps Foreman Martin Hoffesommer, describing the destruction of Berne

The Mothership is the largest and most powerful Scrin aircraft in Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath.

Background
The Scrin Mothership is a rarely-seen superweapon, an ominous and enormous wheel-shaped beam cannon that may also serve as a command hub for Scrin invasion fleets. It moves extremely slowly through the sky, and, upon reaching its destination, releases a jolt of energy capable of utterly destroying anything in an instant. The subsequent chain reaction is capable of leveling entire cities in a single blast.

Each Mothership houses a Scrin Foreman, making them possibly the only piloted Scrin units during the entire war.

Strategy
While their ponderous speed has ensured that many of the small number of these units yet encountered have been destroyed, they are evidently capable of absorbing a tremendous amount of anti-aircraft fire, more than any aircraft ever manufactured by humans. Firehawks are recommended for quick and devastating attacks. If a Scrin Foreman decides to attack a commander's base, he will guard his emissary of that commander's destruction with high tier units, such as Devastator Warships, Annihilator Tripods, Stormriders, or other assorted units to counter the commander's anti-air defenses. This sheer firepower can severely damage one's anti-air defenses, especially with the fact that Devastator Warships can fire out of range of AA defenses to destroy them. This will pave the way for the Mothership to arrive. All human commanders should beware, and make this unit a priority when defending your base.

Essentially, the Mothership is a mobile superweapon - but it must be used carefully, otherwise, it will be 5000 credits wasted. It cannot target air units but is massively armoured and has a self repair capacity. Massed aircraft with potent anti air weaponry is the best answer. Being a terror weapon (similar to the Kirov Airship from the Red Alert Universe in many respects), it will likely target mass concentrations of enemy forces (such as bases) before rooting out other targets. This behaviour can be exploited by a tenacious commander. Shooting down a mother ship may bring some material damage to Scrin. As such, should a commander encounter a Mothership, it would be wise to invest in its destruction.

Like other offensive units, the Mothership can gain veterancy. Doing so reduces the amount of time required to recharge its weapon. However, only the initial target counts towards its experience, not the ones destroyed as part of a chain reaction. Given the difficulty of firing its weapon even once, the number of targets it needs to destroy to level up and the fact it effectively eliminates an opponent each time its weapon is fired, this is not a strategy likely to prove useful in any match. Though it can sometimes rank up by alining the Mothership's core with a veterancy crate, and then pick up the crate using a ground unit.

Changelog

 * Tiberium Wars patch 1.05:
 * attack power increased by 100%
 * catalyst cannon now causes a faster, wider chain reaction
 * units affected by the Mothership's catalyst cannon now lose their explosive properties if teleported via the Teleport Units ability or the wormhole support power
 * damage sustained by the Mothership has less impact on the power of its attack.
 * Tiberium Wars patch 1.07:
 * now takes 8 seconds to deploy over the signal transmitter, where it is un-selectable by the user but can be attacked by opponents
 * speed increased by 33%
 * weapon chain reaction delay increased by 1 sec
 * Tiberium Wars patch 1.08: a related exploit has been fixed
 * Kane's Wrath patch 1.02: units will no longer retain the mothership catalyst effect when transported through a wormhole

Trivia

 * Its weapon is somewhat similar to the City Destroyers from the 1996 film Independence Day.