First, because by definition you're building so many of them, I hear the stupid "The smaller they are the harder I hit 'em" phrase about three times a minute. Either give an option to turn off ship complete sounds, or make it much less frequent. For that reason alone I wouldn't use them.
Second, they're bad. Real bad. I like how easy they are to kill, it's their damage that needs a boost. Corvettes are fragile weapon platforms, but a whole stack of a 100 seems to do less damage than 4 or 5 wings of bombers would (probably much less, because their attack run time is much longer). If this means the cost of them needs to go up slightly, then so be it. A large speed boost would also be helpful.
Third, corvette's always run into their target, and spend a few seconds sliding off and around it, lowering their on-target time and just looking plain silly. (Engines to ram speed!)
Finally, it's tedious making an effective amount of them, even with shift-click. Perhaps someway to make batches of say, 20-50 of them?
My poor mouse clicker. Oh how many times I've pressed you amassing Corvettes . . .
They are great for the one reason they keep the AI spinning in circles and not focusing on real threats. Since non-caps don't level like caps there's so benefit to their survival besides not having to build more.
You could double their cost / build-time and then have it that you get 2 corvettes per build (zergling style). Would halve the clicking and voice-over spam that way.
how about making them in squads of 5 like how bombers and fighters are?
I'm not so sure, Silfarion. I think the Corvette motion animations still need to be worked out. They literally look like "Corvettes" (I mean Chevy Corvettes) moving about the 2-D space around planets and stars and dancing around their targets. Don't get me wrong: I LOVE the new Corvettes as they add a new dynamic to the gameplay, but they just seem to act funny.
I created about 150 corvettes thinking the swarm effect would work well against 20 ships... wrong. Fighters would have worked much better. The corvettes dropped like flies. They need to be a bit stronger to be useful.
Perhaps I am utilizing them wrong but they seem near useless to me. I have been mixing them into fleets for offense but usually they are the first to fall. If they are to be used in game why not have the TEC versions target enemy systems ie weapons, reactors and other subsystems instead of attacking just the ship itself?
if you shift click, you can queue up 5 of any ship. However they will still build one at a time so you will hear the pilots when they're built.
2 at a time from a single factory might be preferable. If you only have a 100 credits and desperately need just one corvette, well, I'm sorry for your troubles.
While the rebel corvette's ability of disabling hull regen sounds good, the loyalists "small chance" of increasing phase jump time by 10% seems very situational. maybe decreasing ROF would be better. it still fits with the loyalists' defensive nature but can be used on offense as well.
maybe there should be some corvette-specific research to increase their survivability in some way?
The thing about them is that they are good for clearing militia when you're starting, you can pump out quite a few of them, but their damage output is quite low and it doesn't help that their tactics necessarily mean they take a while to engage each time. Some upgrades to increase survivability would go a long way to making them useful in the end game. Right now, I don't really see a point for them after the stages of the game.
I thought the corvette's passive ability was the reason that you should consider buying them, rather than damage output? Sure, it may not be great against fleets, but 40 or so corvettes picking away at a titan with that buff going off ought to give you an edge...
I would say they need to have a bigger edge then a single debuff, perhaps multiple debuffs to make the swarm of corvettes worth the cash.
Does anyone think corvettes are actually adding anything to the game? I'd rather just not have them.
In their current state no. If patches bring buffs to them then they can actually be useful. At the moment all they are is just be cheap cannon fodder.
Which I find is a quick alternative to clearing mines when compared to the old "scout+flak" combo
But it would be nice to use them as something besides sheep. Perhaps increase the rate their debuff procs?
Sounds to me like corvettes need a durability boost so they can actually bridge the gap between strike craft and frigates, and possibly a buff to their abilities, in order for them to fulfill any role besides cannon fodder.
A few things I'd like to add/+1 on:
-As said, they need immunity to 'spells' (maybe with research would be fair). Uncapped AoE abilities can kill 100s in one shot, making them completely useless.
-Also as said, unit completion quote. Really annoying. Increasing cost and letting you build 2-3 at a time would help a lot. Another idea would be to only play the quote when the last one in queue finishes building.
-They're too weak. Die too fast, do too little damage. Even at tier 1 I'd rather just take a few cobalts with me to clear planets. Need to be stronger out of the gate, and need upgrades to keep them relevant.
-Rebel passive is okay, but the loyalist one sucks. Needs improvement, and preferably research to upgrade the passives later on.
-Research to add a second passive later on would be cool.
Perhaps giving them an ability that gives them a 10% chance to dodge incoming attacks? Somewhat similar to the asteroid's debuff? I think that would play well with their strengths (You could call it "Reckless Combat Maneuvers or something like that), although it'd need to be tested.
Yeah corvettes are pretty much useless.
+1 to build message spam is uber-annoying.
I agree to building 2 at a time, but also think there should be a tech tree where the number of corvettes build at once can be increased for faaster output. 3 levels for a maximum of 5 corvettes per build order for instance. Build time would increase, and cost would scale with the number of corvettes, but each level would give a small price discount (say 10%) and a little bit faster build time.
Other corvette techs could be faster maneuvering, % chance of dodging shots.
Even still, their debuff does not stack. If the debuff they cause could stack to a cap, I could see it being slightly more useful to buy them just to keep a titan or other ship locked down/disabled.
I thought the purpose of them, atleast as originally stated, was to target individual ship systems (Ala Star Wars: Empire At War)? Was this scrapped or is it possibly still in development? Maybe I read it wrong.
Otherwise I sense some pretty strong ideas.
Yes--LAG. They add lag to the game.
I agree with you--I don't see the point of them. If they are useful and worthwhile, if they provide a good DPS value per credit and fleet supply slot then people will spam loads of them and games will slow to a halt. I think it's just a problem inherent with having an individual ship that costs 1 fleet supply.
Strikecraft aren't that great for CPU performance either, but at least they cost 6 or 7 fleet supply per squad and I'm under the impression that a squad is treated like a single ship by the CPU.
Each individual SC is an object, so in terms of objects per fleet supply SC and corvettes are comparable....the real difference is that corvettes probably have more effects associated with them (they have 3 different weapons after all) and probably bigger textures....
So...yeah....they are really good at adding lag...
As you stated earlier, putting them to at least 2 fleet supply (maybe even 3) would help...plus it would justify giving them more HP so they don't die as soon as the Titan uses some ability once...
Seems to me that the corvettes were basically designed to be spammed (cause of their very low cost), because they serve mostly as turret distractors (so they die very often) and can only deal some real damage when they are in larger numbers.
I may be wrong but on a fleet supply cost with damage output when compared to a standard carrier, you get more 'bang' for your buck with the corvettes. The downside however is that everything can target them whereas strike-craft are immune to many weapon types. I say beef up the cost, the HP & damage output (similar to scouts?) with some better ability unlocks. We could always reclassify the 'scout' as a corvette, why not make a Corvette tier, Frigate Tier, Capital Ship Tier, Titan Tier (or move the Titan into the Capital Ship slot)?
If needed we as a community can suggest some ability / research ideas if needed I'm sure.
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