spire Corvette modules feel weak

[chemical_art]

I hardly notice them

 on phone so cannot provide numerical examples

[Radiant Phoenix]

Stats:
Ship:
* 300 kdps/mark photon lance
* 66 speed
* 8 mil hp/mark
---
Light module x4:
   Laser: 2.7x5 kdps/mark
   Sniper: 2.7x5 kdps/mark
---
Heavy module x2
   Shield:   1.5 mil hp/mark
   Heavy Beam Cannon:   30 kdps/mark
   Plasma Siege Cannon:   4x10 kdps/mark

So, best case, you get 134 kdps/mark from modules. Here's that as a % of hull dps:

• Mk1: 88% (mk2 modules vs mk1 hull)
• Mk2: 66% (mk3 modules...)
• Mk3: 59%
• Mk4: 55%
• Mk5: 44%, because there are no mk6 modules AFAIK.

Note that this is assuming a heavy-hull stationary target, 4 lasers and 2 plasma cannons.

---

I honestly don't know if this is too weak or too strong, because I haven't gotten around to thinking about it.

[Hearteater]

At minimum, there ability to act in a role similar to Shield Bearers is pretty useful.  Pair them with any long-range fleet ship (Bombards for example) and you can wreck systems with no loses.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Riot control starships do the shield thing better, IMO, because of their better shields.

Personally, I like them for being tough sniper platforms.

I think that, being one of two modular starships, they should be differentiated from the Riot Control Starship by having large piles of DPS.

Which they do, at 400+ kdps/mark per ship, plus 100kdps (i.e., 500, 900, 1300 kdps per ship) (sniper + heavy beam cannon)

[Marmu23]

Riot control starships do the shield thing better, IMO, because of their better shields.

Personally, I like them for being tough sniper platforms.

I think that, being one of two modular starships, they should be differentiated from the Riot Control Starship by having large piles of DPS.

Which they do, at 400+ kdps/mark per ship, plus 100kdps (i.e., 500, 900, 1300 kdps per ship) (sniper + heavy beam cannon)

 Dude! The shields on riots are tiny while the shields on corvettes are huge. I recommend always shields + snipers on corvettes, thats the only ship i consider almost as OP as shield bearers because of how incredibly tough, damaging and force multiplier they are for the ships accompanying them. With sniper modules, you can shoot ions and the likes right on entry without putting any other ships in danger.

 For a demonstration of how OP they are and why they are almost as good as shield bearers, start a game with them, unlock shields, make covettes mk1-mk3, and right click them on the farthest enemy planet. Unless the AI are a specific type or have some specific ships, your corvettes will be chilling on an AI homeworld a bit after 30mins into the game.

 The reason they are less OP than shield bearers is their shields cover a much smaller surface. So they can't force multiply a fleet of bombers+frigates, but can do with starships. They are better for eye worlds but worst for every other world.

[Radiant Phoenix]

I was only considering shield HP.

[Lancefighter]

I thought we had to divide spire beam cannons in like fourths because of their inability to hit things?

The modules provide a lot of consistent dps over the quite inconsistent dps of the main gun.

[Hearteater]

If you move the Corvettes into a system and just sit them still on the Wormhole, everything comes to you because of your Sniper modules and you get full beam duration as they fly into the beam weapons head on.

[Lancefighter]

Yes.. just like spire lances on championships often deal far more damage than most people give them credit for..

that doesnt stop radiant phoenix from calling them terrible

[Radiant Phoenix]

I thought we had to divide spire beam cannons in like fourths because of their inability to hit things?

The modules provide a lot of consistent dps over the quite inconsistent dps of the main gun.

I was calculating bonused DPS.

non-bonus DPS is more like 160kdps/mark/ship + 86kdps/ship (75 from the lance, 75 from the two heavy beam cannons, 11 from the sniper modules)

Which is still very impressive, because it has a cap of 2 IIRC, but it is offset somewhat by the need to unlock the corresponding turrets.

[chemical_art]

Tired, hard to focus on...anything. Day 7 of 9 day work week.

Now that I see their stats...corvettes base stats are fine. Strong beam.

Yet, in practice, they always perform much worst then if I use other ships.  Don't know why.

MK I laser turret has 1.2x the max dps of a single laser turret on normal cap. Or a fully lasered frigate has its turrets worth almost 5 laser turrets. Base dps is 72% of a single laser turret. Terrible.

Another way, on normal caps, a single laser turret has 220% the max dps of a fighter...in other words, a full cap of decked out frigate lasers dish out less then 10% of the dps of a fighter swarm.

But wait, the heavy modules, you will say!

The heavy modules do dish out decent damage...but then you get by far the frailest starship ever.

So the MK I modules are lack luster at best...yet require exceptionally, exceptionally higher costs to go up in mark.

The end result is MK I spire corvettes are actually fine, but the higher up in mark they become, the further they lag behind due to nothing else then the K cost. I see no reason why the modules can scale more sharply, since they cost sharply more K to unlock.

snipers are not that useful. Their base dps is atrocious, and their bonus dps is even less then lasers. If you want long range, get a naval carrier enclave and you'll stir up and defeat targets much more effectively.


Keep in mind all these comparisons are against base objects, which the bonus ship is meant to be superior with by a good margin.

[Zeyurn]

Spire Corvettes with Snipers + HBCs are very, very powerful.  The higher level spire corvettes really don't die that easy, but you might want to toss 1 shield module on your mark 1s.

But it's going to highly depend on your play strategy.  I feel that they performed well above my expectations for them in picking them as my bonus ship, so unless other balance changes dramatically around them I don't really see them as needing a buff.

This was in a no superweapon game, of course, superweapons/exos always throw off how things perform.

[chemical_art]

Spire corvettes are nice. Yes. At mk I.

That is what I'm starting to come to.

Because they take exponentially more K, higher marks don't scale nearly as much.

[kasnavada]

Compared to the the riot, those are weaker because of the low base attack and lower HP, yet more useful since their module is not dependant on other unlocks...

I would change the module so they are not dependant on other unlocks but reduce them by a level to even things up.

Compared to other starships, they fulfill the role of sniper starship which is otherwise unavailable, and this requires only the spider turret... Compared to "assault" starship I feel their power balance is fine if you have turrets unlocks.