"Speed is Life"
Small, fast and nimble will keep you alive, big, slow, and bulky your a sitting duck
Which is Bull when Laser Weapons are Involved.
Because even at Mach 20 you would still not even be moving for the Laser Gun.
Bigger Problem however is the Prices Issue.
Corvettes and their Power Levels are Currently Minimal above Fighters. And due to the Sacrifice of Maneuverability its often not even an Advantage.
But they Cost 20-50 Times of an Fighter.
1vs1 between a Viper MK4 and an Imperial Clipper I would Bet on the Viper.
Have you tried gimballed weapons instead?
I've recently been using my Conda for PvE combat for the first time.
While I prefer more maneuverable ships I cannot deny that the conda kicks more ass faster.
I have it equipped with 4 large gimballed pulse and 2 med and 2 small gimballed multi cannons. FA off is regularly required to get your nose back on more maneuverable targets.
If you had Read my Testing you would know I did Test Gimballed.
Problem is. NPCs are very veeery Stupid.
Of course you kick Ass against them with an Corvette.
You could even use Fixed Weapons.
Because NPCs have Insane Lagranges where they basicly Float in Front of you for Several Seconds.
But thats the same for others.
Thats why you can easily use an Cobra to take out an Conda NPC as well.
NPCs are simply Weak.
Against an Player Gimballed Weapons on a Conda are pretty much Useless.
Because if you only got Gimballed Weapons he will simply Stay out of your Arcs and if he Crosses your Front will Throw a Chaff to Pass the few Seconds he cannot Avoid you without taking Damage.
Usually a Conda will go with a Fixed Class 4 Weapon and have Turrets aside from that (mostly Fragment Turrets). Trying to get your Shields Down and then Kill with the Fixed Gun by getting a Short Pass at you Damaging you.
Unfortunately thats an very tough Feat if the Fighters knows what he is doing.
Needless to say that Ships like the Viper MK4 which got Immense Shields and Armor will really take alot of time to kill them if Piloted by Players.
So my thoughts:
Turrets getting a damage and tracking buff in 2.1 iirc
Small ships getting a huge speed buff in 2.1
Don't write-off fighters. Even with 2 small railguns if they can travel at 800m/s you'll have difficulty taking them on even with turrets if they are doing long range passes. And if you target them deliberately the large ship will pummel you. No guarantees what fighters will bring but given the 2.1 engineers I can't see fighters being another powerplay side/downgrade style thing.
Yeah 2x small ships currently can beat a large turreted ship since 2 distributors and hitboxes are better than one currently. 2.1 seems more balanced large vs small but there are still a lot of significant changes being made...
A Single Fighter can easily Beat an Large Ship actually.
Turrets with their Current Accuracy of like 20% are no real Danger to most Fighters anyways.
And with Fixed or Gimballed Weapons. As Powerful they are against NPCs.
Against Players which dont have this "here I float for several Seconds in front of you" issue.
They are pretty useless.