Corvettes and 55 piloting: A discussion.

TL;DR:

I do not think 55 piloting (medium spacecraft, 58 for 100%) is enough of a requirement to fly Corvettes considering their strengths. I’m rather fond of the idea of either:

A) Moving medium spacecraft to a higher level requirement (not really fond but an option)
or
Moving corvettes to the ‘large’ spacecraft class. (really what I’m looking to discuss/get feedback on)

Some people agree with me. Some do not. Discuss.

Non-TLDR:

Let’s face it: Corvettes are a pretty powerful class of ship. Everyone is happy as a clam when they become available IC. I know I am. They are heavily armed. Heavily armored. Locker. Workshop. Good fuel, good hyper, usually decent hangar, turbo lasers, can’t be pirated… If you had two or three working together, you could probably take down a cruiser with a somewhat experienced pilot. You can pirate hunt anything. You can store your other ships (and make them safe from theft if your corvette autopilot is on). You can nest ships for fuel (fighter in your freighter hangar in your corvette hangar).Tractor beams. They are a pretty intimidating class.

You can do a lot. For 55 piloting.

Now no, you do NOT have shipdodge (or roll, though that doesn’t work with corvettes anyway) or space combat 2 (or 3, duh), navigator, precision, or evasion. But you can still be a damned effective pilot without ANY of those things while in a corvette. MANY people with piloting experience will attest to that. Hell, people WITHOUT a lot of experience will attest to that. The ship can do a LOT of the work for you.

All that being said, 55 piloting combined with corvettes is probably the cheapest levels-to-effectiveness/usefulness of really any other class. And I think it’s too much. Here I’d like to get input from you all on your thoughts.

I understand moving medium spacecraft to a higher bracket will likely disadvantage many people who just want to cargo run, and would otherwise be out of luck. It is however an option.

My better (and again, what I’m really looking to discuss) idea is moving corvettes to the ‘large’ category of spacecraft, and therefor requiring 100 piloting.

What do you think?

I do not condone level adjusting Medium Spacecraft. Moving corvettes up to a higher tier isn’t really an option either. Dumbing them down (statwise) will just make them glorified cargo haulers. Keep them where they are, make them able to be pirated. They aren’t great enough to be moved up to large spacecraft, but if you’re insistent on changing them, I would start with their immunity to pirateship.

I like corvettes how they are, 55 piloting is sufficient because they still don’t really stand a chance vs larger spacecraft. I think instead of making corvettes harder to get, why not introduce larger spacecraft that characters with 100+ piloting can use/own?

Leave it alone. Naval battles are controlled too much by battlegroups anyway.

Actually, if I had my way, battlegroups would be a maximum of two capitals (or one) and then a bunch of smaller ships, you know, like a proper fleet with strengths and weaknesses to each ship, instead of all the same thing..

TL:DR for below: Don’t gimp cargo by making medium ships higher level, jostle corvettes to a higher tier. Don’t give them cappie restrictions. Corvettes hardly belong in the same class and freighters and gunships.

Full version
You can’t move midships to 100 and short circuit the cargo system. That would be unfair to everyone that could give a rat’s ass about corvettes. It should be more difficult, however, to get them. A higher class for corvettes would be good. They are, technically, a ‘large’ ship, considering the ones we’ve seen are used as large missile boats, or troop carriers, and things like that. And, in game, they’re mobile bases for whoever fronts the credits to own one. And I don’t mean troop transport like a little shuttle, or dropship, a CR-90 like Tantive IV looks like it could easily fit a couple hundred. Although there are no crews that size in game, naturally, when compared to the rest of the medium ship class, the gunboats and freighters, it’s illogical to qualify a corvette in the same class with them. I realize this may be unpopular opinion, but that’s fine with me. Don’t hurt the cargo game just to keep corvettes from being available more easily to potentially team up and destroy full size battleships or cruisers. HOWEVER.
Moving corvettes to the Large tier would beg the question, "Do we qualify these as capital class ships now, and thus, limit them to clans?" The answer would have to be no, as well.
Anyways, to follow in Coffin’s style.

I personally don’t see any real need or logical reason to change it. The level spreads for the 4 different sizes of ships are pretty reasonable. I feel like classifying a corvette as a large ship is a bit of a stretch as well. However, I do agree with Kirash on the fact that pirateship restrictions should be modified. The fact that you can’t steal anything bigger than a freighter is very disappointing for the Smuggler class. I think putting it back to where only large ships are immune to the skill would spice things up a bit.

55 is too high for midships anyway IMO.

Bump corvettes up to large, and then make everything in large that can’t land on a planet be part of heavy (and tweak the stats a little to compensate), and then remove the clans-only designation from larges.

Or do nothing.

Your survival in a corvette hinges on your piloting levels. Without shipdodge, a capship will be able to take you down just as fast as it would a freighter. WITH shipdodge, you should theoretically have a better chance of escaping in a starfighter or Millennium Falcon style freighter. The problem isn’t corvettes, it’s the piloting system that corvettes exist in. Bam, minds blown. Avanga out.

Raise the class for something that is classed as a large spacecraft to large spacecraft.

This should have a vote to it, Coffin. I feel like a lot of people won’t post opinions, so just let them vote on it one way or the other. >_>

Anonymous polling would just encourage people to make thoughtless, unconsidered button-clicks.

I see no reason at all to make it harder for a player to have and use a decent ship that won’t explode in one hit of a turbolaser. Hell, we should ungimp personally owning larges, because that would actually make things challenging and give people a reason to roll over 100 piloting when they aren’t in major clans. If ships are easier to access and worth owning, more people will want them, and it may somewhat revive an otherwise somewhat dead class.

You can’t really change corvettes without changing everything around them. Well, you can but it’s kinda pointless. TBH, the corvettes we see in LotJ (the Ajax, in particular) have more in common with luxury yachts like the Lady Luck than they do real corvettes.

1) Starfighters should be nigh impossible to hit from a turret (exception, frigates).
2) Starfighters should still be able to survive a couple rounds even if they’re getting hit.
3) Transports should be midships and freighters should be scaled up accordingly, so that they can all take even more punishment. They should also have defined subclasses (light freighter, bulk freighter, transport, luxury yacht)
4) Gunships, Corvettes and Frigates should all be reworked to better suit their canon roles in a fleet
* Gunships are small, heavily armed capships that lack the armor/shields and the capability of carrying squadrons that larger capships have.
* Corvettes are the scouts and sheepdogs of fleets. They’re meant for running blockades, scouting, and comm purposes
* Frigates are the largest in the ‘small’ capship group, generally designated for support/anti-Starfighter usage (Lancer Frigates)
5) The biggest capships are command ships and every battlegroup should only have one or two of them (Inexpugnables in era 1). They have the most firepower, they’re also incredibly slow and require babysitting to keep squadrons from ripping them apart.
6) Cruisers fall somewhere between, filling multipurpose roles of carrier and light battleship. They pretty much already do this.

This is how it should be.

Of course, if I had my way we’d be able to obtain and install rare components to bring any stock vessel well above standards so that we’d see the occasional Millenium Falcon-style freighter running around with super heavy duty shields and quad lasers able to wreck much larger vessels. Let me know when we get a really crazy coder, I will give you all sorts of ideas to code up for a system supporting this.