The problem with corvettes

from Sins Forums

TEC:
2.4 DPS Front Composite, 1.55 DPS L/R AntiLight, 1.6 DPS B Composite
4 Composite DPS per unit
Cost: 100cr/10m/5c, 2 slots, 15s build
VeryLight Armor

PSI:
2.6 DPS Front Composite, 1.84 DPS L/R AntiLight (PointDefenseLaser), 1.7 DPS B Composite
4.3 Composite DPS per unit
Cost: 100cr/10m/5c, 2 slots, 15s build
VeryLight Armor

PHASE:
2.91 DPS Front Composite, 2.1 DPS L/R AntiLight, 2.3 DPS B Composite
5.2 Composite DPS per unit
Cost: 140cr/15m/10c, 3 slots, 20s build
VeryLight Armor

TEC Heavy: 18 Composite DPS
Cost: 500cr/100m/70c, 10 slots. 60s build

PSI Heavy: 18.95 Composite DPS
Cost: 525cr/100m/90c, 10 slots. 58s build

PHASE Heavy: 23 Composite DPS
Cost: 625cr/150m/110c, 12 slots. 72s build

For every 1 TEC heavy cost you get about 5 corvettes, PSI heavy equals about 5 corvettes too.  Phase Heavy gets you about 4 corvettes, but is the DPS about the same?

5 TEC corvettes is about 20 DPS so beats the single Heavy
5 PSI corvettes is about 21.5 so better than the single Heavy
4 PHASE corvettes is about 20.4 so not as good as the single Heavy

Corvettes with their verylight armor are going to take full damage, but get 20 of the buggers together and you've got nasty 80/80/100 DPS (racially respective) with every pass.

Single point of armor or not (+4 to 6 armor from research bonuses), it's a swarm and if taken in when ships are already engaged, they aren't going to be primaried and will slaughter caps/titans or just rip through any non-capital they go after.  Fighter movement makes them hard for other static ships to go after and just removed DPS from non-corvettes.  AntiFighter frigs aren't really a defense against corvettes with they guns doing less than 5 DPS.

Some suggestions for toning them down. 

3/4 the base damage they're capable of now and change composite class to antiheavy so they do 50% vs Cap, 45% vs Titan, etc... Composite is just rape cannon vs anything.

Reduce shield and hull HP by 1/2 so they can be swatted out easier and not just be an invincible swarm.  Get 50 of the buggers together and you've got a mess.

Perhaps turn them into a squad after all.


Off Topic, but why do titan weapons only do 75% vs Capital, but 100% vs everything else -except pirates?

 

2,772 views 1 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

They need a nerf, but -25% damage -50% hull/shields is way too extreme.  With your very numbers they barely beat the damage of heavy cruisers(nowhere near the 33% higher that would correspond to a 25% damage Nerf), and heavy cruisers have all of their weapons in forward non-point defense damage. 

 

Other differences: heavy cruisers have the very heavya rmor type which is great against pretty much everything besides bombers & cap ships.

By contrast corvettes take 100% damage from everything besides cap ships & bombers(200% from flak).  The heavy cruiser armor type is way better in general.

 

Heavy Cruisers may be around the same in hull/shields as 5 corvettes, but it's all combined in 1 unit(which is to say no DPS lost until the full 2000 or so damage comes in rather then 20% damage loss after each 400 damage drops a corvette.

 

Also AoE shreds corvettes, which is a major problem later game.

 

 

The raw damage numbers just fail to take into account so much.  Remember that before the recent hull buff TEC corvettes were widely regarded as useless(and a 50% hull/shield nerf would put it lower then it was before).

 

 

Again not saying corvettes are balanced, but your nerfs go way overboard.

 

They really need to give corvettes their own damage type rather then composite so they can adjust it's potency vs specific ships without nerfing it accross the board.

 

Honestly I think the corvette would be perfect if it's current damage values were changed 110% vs medium(does from current 125%), 50-75% vs heavy(down from 100% they should be bad at trying to kill flak), 75% vs very heavy(down from 100%; bombers & other heavy cruisers are all the counters heavy cruisers need); otherwise unchanged.