The Federal Corvette needs a fix, and now is the time to do it.
This sounds strange. The ship is big. The ship is shiney. The ship is incredibly popular to grind for. What could possibly be wrong?
The game evolved, and the Corvette didn't. Bear with me, or skip to the TLDR at the bottom.
The Corvette is a heavy ship capable of mostly holding down a position, but totally incapable of chasing most other ships. It's not a dedicated hauler (lack of Size 8 internals), and it's not a dedicated explorer (high weight). It's an easy target with lots of shields, and enough armour to stand up to phasing damage for an extended period of time, and maybe even escape via highwake after shields go down. This is fine, and allows us to define the ship's role very cleanly: it's a big area-controlling tank.
So where's the problem?
The Corvette may be well-defined as a true specialist, but it is not performant, and has been substantially hurt by recent (valid) design decisions regarding weapon balance. Despite the grind and downsides built into the ship, it is not the best at its dedicated specialised role.
The Imperial Cutter actually represents a substantially better tank, despite being an amazing multi-role ship (combat or trade). With the potential for an 8A generator + 8 shield cell bank (plus miscellaneous smaller sizes) or 2x Size 8 shield cell banks on a 6A generator, it really shines as the shield tank king. Well that's fine, one might argue. The Cutter has roughly 8% less DPS***, and the convergence on a couple of the medium hardpoints (far off-center) are awful.
Meanwhile, the Anaconda does almost 10% more DPS***, despite being a multi-role ship (exploration, combat, or reasonable trade). Well that's fine, one might argue, it's a slightly worse tank.
This positions the Corvette as a the middle-of-the-road big 3 for DPS and for tankiness. It's not the best at either, but it can do both reasonably well. But the DPS and tankiness numbers don't tell the whole story:
- The Corvette comes in dead last in jump range, despite not being the most survivable.
- Its speed suffers from excessive weight (again, despite not being the best tank), making it even more difficult to keep targets in range with 400+ m/s boost speeds.
- Its large and medium hardpoints have genuinely awful positioning/convergence, making them difficult to use effectively while using the huge hardpoints.
But the sleeper issue is that the majority of the Corvette's DPS is tied up in the Huge hardpoints, necessitating high-damage choices in those slots that can constantly fire on your target. If the 2x huge aren't continuously firing, the Corvette does substantially less damage than a Fer De Lance.
This means Corvette build variety is at an all-time low, with few options existing to do interesting things, and even fewer that can utilize the hardpoints effectively to bring good DPS or reasonable utility. Huge cannons are almost unused, as missing shots results in sub-FDL damage levels with your other hardpoints. Huge Plasma Accelerators, a true trademark Corvette build, are used solely because of the absolute damage type when they manage to land creating a more compelling risk/reward situation.
TLDR: So what can Frontier do? What should they do?
Option 1: Change the Corvette’s hardpoints to create build variety, and make it the true combat king of the big 3. How? By swapping the two small hardpoints for Large hardpoints, mounted on top of the hull in front of the cockpit. This would give the Corvette the ability to run 3x large + 2x medium hardpoints as a source of DPS, and allow the 2x Huge more fun/flexibility. The ship build goes from being forced to focus on huge hardpoint DPS, to having the ability to do valid DPS via the 3x large + 2x medium combination, with the 2x huge as a wildcard. Or a player could go all-in on damage hardpoints at the cost of becoming a power-distributor-dry ez-bake oven.
TLDR Option 1: Allow for more builds that do valid DPS, leading to more fun gameplay choices by swapping 2x small for 2x large hardpoints. Let Corvette pilots better capitalize on our extremely limited time on target, and let the ship fulfill its current role (as well as be a much more effective anti-Thargoid ship).
Option 2: Dramatically increase the Corvette’s top speed and boost speed. Leave the guns mediocre compared to the Anaconda, force us to cope with a large hardpoint of damage that’s often unuseable, but make the Corvette capable of fighting more effectively in a universe where mediums fly at 500m/s+.
TLDR Option 2: Give us more time on target by bringing boost speeds nearly in line with the Imperial Cutter. Give both a big mass reduction and Thruster up-size to 8, forcing Corvette players to make hard choices about power consumption, even with Overcharged 5 and Monstered power plants. Make the Vette more “meta,” and tweak the role to allow it to chase targets with its huge hardpoints.
Please, Frontier, consider one of these options! Particularly in light of attempting to add more ships to the game, making some relatively minor tweaks to the Corvette could really improve player quality of life, and really make the ship shine.
*** Raw damage calculation done via multicannon loadout for simplicity in this post.
This sounds strange. The ship is big. The ship is shiney. The ship is incredibly popular to grind for. What could possibly be wrong?
The game evolved, and the Corvette didn't. Bear with me, or skip to the TLDR at the bottom.
The Corvette is a heavy ship capable of mostly holding down a position, but totally incapable of chasing most other ships. It's not a dedicated hauler (lack of Size 8 internals), and it's not a dedicated explorer (high weight). It's an easy target with lots of shields, and enough armour to stand up to phasing damage for an extended period of time, and maybe even escape via highwake after shields go down. This is fine, and allows us to define the ship's role very cleanly: it's a big area-controlling tank.
So where's the problem?
The Corvette may be well-defined as a true specialist, but it is not performant, and has been substantially hurt by recent (valid) design decisions regarding weapon balance. Despite the grind and downsides built into the ship, it is not the best at its dedicated specialised role.
The Imperial Cutter actually represents a substantially better tank, despite being an amazing multi-role ship (combat or trade). With the potential for an 8A generator + 8 shield cell bank (plus miscellaneous smaller sizes) or 2x Size 8 shield cell banks on a 6A generator, it really shines as the shield tank king. Well that's fine, one might argue. The Cutter has roughly 8% less DPS***, and the convergence on a couple of the medium hardpoints (far off-center) are awful.
Meanwhile, the Anaconda does almost 10% more DPS***, despite being a multi-role ship (exploration, combat, or reasonable trade). Well that's fine, one might argue, it's a slightly worse tank.
This positions the Corvette as a the middle-of-the-road big 3 for DPS and for tankiness. It's not the best at either, but it can do both reasonably well. But the DPS and tankiness numbers don't tell the whole story:
- The Corvette comes in dead last in jump range, despite not being the most survivable.
- Its speed suffers from excessive weight (again, despite not being the best tank), making it even more difficult to keep targets in range with 400+ m/s boost speeds.
- Its large and medium hardpoints have genuinely awful positioning/convergence, making them difficult to use effectively while using the huge hardpoints.
But the sleeper issue is that the majority of the Corvette's DPS is tied up in the Huge hardpoints, necessitating high-damage choices in those slots that can constantly fire on your target. If the 2x huge aren't continuously firing, the Corvette does substantially less damage than a Fer De Lance.
This means Corvette build variety is at an all-time low, with few options existing to do interesting things, and even fewer that can utilize the hardpoints effectively to bring good DPS or reasonable utility. Huge cannons are almost unused, as missing shots results in sub-FDL damage levels with your other hardpoints. Huge Plasma Accelerators, a true trademark Corvette build, are used solely because of the absolute damage type when they manage to land creating a more compelling risk/reward situation.
TLDR: So what can Frontier do? What should they do?
Option 1: Change the Corvette’s hardpoints to create build variety, and make it the true combat king of the big 3. How? By swapping the two small hardpoints for Large hardpoints, mounted on top of the hull in front of the cockpit. This would give the Corvette the ability to run 3x large + 2x medium hardpoints as a source of DPS, and allow the 2x Huge more fun/flexibility. The ship build goes from being forced to focus on huge hardpoint DPS, to having the ability to do valid DPS via the 3x large + 2x medium combination, with the 2x huge as a wildcard. Or a player could go all-in on damage hardpoints at the cost of becoming a power-distributor-dry ez-bake oven.
TLDR Option 1: Allow for more builds that do valid DPS, leading to more fun gameplay choices by swapping 2x small for 2x large hardpoints. Let Corvette pilots better capitalize on our extremely limited time on target, and let the ship fulfill its current role (as well as be a much more effective anti-Thargoid ship).
Option 2: Dramatically increase the Corvette’s top speed and boost speed. Leave the guns mediocre compared to the Anaconda, force us to cope with a large hardpoint of damage that’s often unuseable, but make the Corvette capable of fighting more effectively in a universe where mediums fly at 500m/s+.
TLDR Option 2: Give us more time on target by bringing boost speeds nearly in line with the Imperial Cutter. Give both a big mass reduction and Thruster up-size to 8, forcing Corvette players to make hard choices about power consumption, even with Overcharged 5 and Monstered power plants. Make the Vette more “meta,” and tweak the role to allow it to chase targets with its huge hardpoints.
Please, Frontier, consider one of these options! Particularly in light of attempting to add more ships to the game, making some relatively minor tweaks to the Corvette could really improve player quality of life, and really make the ship shine.
*** Raw damage calculation done via multicannon loadout for simplicity in this post.
