Spire Corvettes

[Lancefighter]

In my recent game, as some of you have probably heard of, either through the AAR that was tangentially related to gameplay, or through my ranting about zbombards, I used the spire corvette bonus ship.

Now.. I just have one problem.

I'm pretty sure they didn't do anything.

Early on they were used as a supplement to my champion/nebulaship fleet.. To minor use. The nebulaships all outrange everything hilariously much, and have the speed to maneuver far more easily than spire corvettes. In fact, the spire corvettes, along with the dyson gatlings I captured early, were the slowest ships in the fleet (and eventually left out due to their IMMENSE speed difference).

In the lategame, I also feel like they did not do anything. When placed in with the imperial spire fleet, their range was too short, and overall they did not bring anything to the table compared to a spire dd. They cost knowledge, are incredibly fragile comparatively, and generally could not output dps as easily as anything else.

I did however, find myself with a very interesting problem - Zenith bombards. The basic 'idea' of the problem was that there were ships far outside of the range of my spire fleet, and I had no real answer to them. This lead to a thought I have - Why not let the spire corvettes act independently of the fleet somehow?

I propose that they mainly get a speed boost. I'm talking in the 100 range, to match the champion. From there, I am considering either immense amounts of radar dampening (in the 8k range or so), or cloaking. Or both. I also feel like they should be firing railcluster esque shots instead of a traditional spire lance, however I am not entirely sure on that. Probably their normal spire lance is fine. (alternatively, a shorter duration spire lance, say .5s, similar to the hbc. I dunno. I just dont like their shortrange lances. Also possibly moving them into a more 'pointdefense' role? I am also not sure here. Honestly, leaving their guns alone is likely fine.)

Oh yeah - And allow me one more spire corvette per mk per city hub. pretty please.

The idea is such that this allows them to be a mobile compliment to the largely immobile spire fleet, allowing them to engage targets of opportunity, and project a minor part of the main fleet's firepower to otherwise remote locations. This allows the spire corvettes to act as a mobile strike force to engage other mobile targets, or close the distance on particularly annoying enemy installations (OMD/ion/missileturret/guardians/etc)

Opposition to this change would likely be that the spire corvette is designed to be a human level starship, and nothing more. I could probably agree with that. I just hate that /the entire human tech tree/ is irrelevant for spire campaigns.
The change to allowing them to scale based off of spire cities is also a question I am not sure about - I merely want to give them some means to scale, as all spire ships do, without making them too strong. I am not really sure as to the balance implications of this, but I feel like at the low level I am suggesting, and the overall spire fleet, it wouldnt be that big of a deal..

[Cinth]

My biggest complaint with the Spire Corvette is the main gun's range. 3500 is just to short. A flat 7000 across all ranks would be reasonable at this point.

One of those things I mentioned back in AS Beta. Here is the Mantis for it.

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=9771

At 66 speed, it is faster than most Starships (Raids and Heavy Bombers are faster out of the combat SS).
It is also faster than any of the Spire Starships and many of the Spire Fleet ships.

[Lancefighter]

Yes - I think it was their particularly short range which gave me the idea that they should be working in parallel, but not alongside, the main fleet.

[Cinth]

Just points for comparison.

All FS Ships have a main weapon range of 10,000
The Spire Starship has a 6,200 - 6,400 range (Mk III)
The Spire Corvette has a 3,500 range.

The shortest ranged module you can mount on the Corvette has a 9,000 range.

[Hearteater]

I don't see this solving the problem of normal ships in a FS game.  All these changes would do, besides making them possible OP in general, is make them THE bonus ship for FS games.

[Cinth]

I don't want them hooked to the FS hubs at all. They were low cap so that the ships could be individually awesome.

[Lancefighter]

I don't see this solving the problem of normal ships in a FS game.  All these changes would do, besides making them possible OP in general, is make them THE bonus ship for FS games.

Thats nice.

I felt like the 6k knowledge I spent on these ships was useless. I cannot really imagine which bonus ship wouldve been a better choice..

I dont really understand - How do you manage to maintain the usefulness of fleet ships in FS games? As far as I can tell, none of them are useful at all.

I am ultimately ot really sure how I want them balanced. I just want to have a reason to build them. Is that too much to ask?

Cinth - I was torn on requesting they get spire city integration again. I am ultimately not sure if the precedent is worth the benefit it gives. Problem just is.. They arent individually awesome. Maybe if a cap of them was enough to fill the role I mentioned above (tactical quick response/precision damage), they would be fine. Mostly I just wanted them to be able to scale, which is something NO ship currently does well enough to keep up with the spire fleet.

[Cinth]

At the moment they are the only ship that comes close to being a FS ship without having the FS penalty.

I think with a longer range, you wouldn't have them flying into almost point-blank engagements. That gets them killed really quickly. Honestly, nothing should come close to the FS capitol fleet in sheer firepower. The Corvette should give a taste of that firepower. Tactical quick response/precision damage is not what I think of when I think Spire anything. Spire IS the sledgehammer. It is the go to when you need something big and nasty. The human fleet has nothing that compares (neither does Zenith or Neinzul).

[Lancefighter]

Stealth battleships would like a word with you.

[keith.lamothe]

Spire Corvettes are supposed to be less individually powerful than Spire Frigates, hence the size designation.  That puts them towards the top of the non-FS pile and on the bottom of the FS pile.

The main cannon range does need to get longer (say, 8500 because that's still 500 lower than the lowest-range weapon they can mount), I just keep forgetting to do that.

[Cinth]

A brawler of a ship? It isn't fast (52). Cloaking and RD make sure it can get in range.

Spire Corvettes are supposed to be less individually powerful than Spire Frigates, hence the size designation.  That puts them towards the top of the non-FS pile and on the bottom of the FS pile.

The main cannon range does need to get longer (say, 8500 because that's still 500 lower than the lowest-range weapon they can mount), I just keep forgetting to do that.

I can only send so many reminders. 

[Lancefighter]

the comment on stealth battleships was aimed at the precision/tactical application of firepower, something stealth battleships are designed to do. I also thought they were slightly faster than 52..

[Cinth]

Probably comes from the scale of my games. I haven't played a single HW start in forever.

I pulled the speed from the index in game, I play on normal for battle speed.

Even then, I would probably turn to something like Space Planes for precision or tactical approaches. SSBs I use to cross T's and black eyes

[Hearteater]

I dont really understand - How do you manage to maintain the usefulness of fleet ships in FS games? As far as I can tell, none of them are useful at all.

It isn't that that isn't a worthy goal, it is just your suggestion only fixes it for one ship.  If the problem is going to be fixed, I'd rather it work across the board.  Otherwise I'm going to feel railroaded when playing FS.

[Lancefighter]

I dunno. i already feel fairly railroaded when I am doing FS.. because no ships are useful at all.

This has been a problem for me for quite a while - I simply do not like any of the bonus ships. The only ships i could see being useful at all are munitions boosters, and even then the flagship fills mostly the same role