Battleships vs Corvettes

[Jezbob]

Hey,

I seem to remember somewhere on the last stream someone asking in the stream chat if there is actually any difference between spamming corvettes vs building a single battleship to which Wiz replied 'no'.

I'm a little confused by this, will you be able to match a battleship's strength using up the same fleet logistics and upkeep/construction costs etc etc.... or did he mean something else? Or did I just imagine he said this .

Thanks,

 

[Ziffallo]

Seems unlikely. It is a different tool for a different use. May have been discussing force projection.

 

[KonradKurze202]

In the forums somewhere Wiz mentioned that Battleships are more cost effective (Large weapons specifically have a better cost:damage ratio), so Battleships will kill Battleships and Cruisers faster than an equivalent (8 if I recall correctly) amount of corvettes will. However, they will kill Destroyers slower than Cruisers will, because medium weapons are more accurate against smaller targets. And in turn Destroyers will kill Corvettes faster.
In a fight between 8 DDCs and 1 BB the 'vettes will probably win. However between 2 CA and 8 DDC it is more iffy, and 4 DD will probably do very well against 8 DDC.

The idea is to have a balanced fleet, so a fleet of 100 DDC won't be as good as a mixed fleet.

Military ship classifications from hull size: for fun reference
BB - Battleship
CA - Cruiser
DD - Destroyer
DDC - Corvette

 

[Fonz]

I think he might just be saying there's no theoretical disadvantage to having a battleship vs a bunch of corvettes. Since some 4x games favour one side of the spectrum for being more efficient.

 

[Veracin]

The only difference being that I don't think corvettes can have a heavy weapon slot or have more than one which is what you need to be effective against a battleship. By contrast, a battleship probably has a model that has a bunch of small weapon slots that are ideal for attacking small corvettes.

 

[Summin Cool]

The only difference being that I don't think corvettes can have a heavy weapon slot or have more than one which is what you need to be effective against a battleship. By contrast, a battleship probably has a model that has a bunch of small weapon slots that are ideal for attacking small corvettes.

That brings me to a question, are spinal mounts in?

 

[ahhheygao]

Also keep in mind that while you can arm your Corvettes to the teeth, they are still severely limited by armor/shield/power slots... so at higher tech levels, it might be possible for a sufficiently powerful Battleship with optimum weapons to one-shot each of your glass-cannon Corvettes.

 

[Yenzen]

Hey,

I seem to remember somewhere on the last stream someone asking in the stream chat if there is actually any difference between spamming corvettes vs building a single battleship to which Wiz replied 'no'.

I'm a little confused by this, will you be able to match a battleship's strength using up the same fleet logistics and upkeep/construction costs etc etc.... or did he mean something else? Or did I just imagine he said this .

Thanks,

I kind of read it as "You can have a fleet full of battleships with TONS OF TINY DAKKA or a swarm of tiny corvettes/destroyers with HUGE ASS MISSILES and they'd be a pretty effective counter against one another." Meanwhile, battleships with huge missiles and corvettes with tiny lasers would be pretty bad against one another,

 

[Milten]

The only difference being that I don't think corvettes can have a heavy weapon slot or have more than one which is what you need to be effective against a battleship. By contrast, a battleship probably has a model that has a bunch of small weapon slots that are ideal for attacking small corvettes.

Larger weapons have more range, larger hull types are required to use them. You *could* also kit your battleships with lots of small weapon slots if you want an anti-beeswarm ship, but it's not terribly cost-DPS effective.

 

[GC13]

I kind of read it as "You can have a fleet full of battleships with TONS OF TINY DAKKA or a swarm of tiny corvettes/destroyers with HUGE ASS MISSILES and they'd be a pretty effective counter against one another." Meanwhile, battleships with huge missiles and corvettes with tiny lasers would be pretty bad against one another,

Both fleets fire at one another ineffectually for a while before eventually becoming embarrassed and going home to sulk and listen to their favorite emo band.

 

[Bob_Herzog]

The first thing to mention is that you have options with the hull sections. So it might be possible to construct a battleship that is dedicated to kill small targets (go fo hull sections with lots of small turrets).

The biggest problem the stream showed so far was that the difference in speed dragged the fleet out so that the bigger ships couldn't support the faster ones in time. Might be a hint that bigger ships should be equipped with large range weapons or could be an issue that can be solved by useing the adequate combat computers. Also we already know that certain options are only available, if we go at least to cruiser size (i.e. carriers).

Then there might be advantages of not haveing to big fleets. I.e. when you use wormholes the build up time is said to depend on how many ships you want to send through. So a balanced fleet might be better to move around than myards of corvetts.

It likley depends on how you fit out your fleet. I.e. you can go for the biggest turrets in Corvettes and Destroyers available transforming them into reliable Battleship killers. But at the same time such Corvettes and Destroyers would likley be vulnerable to ships closer to their own size since they lack small turrets that have a good chnace to hit those.

Currently it is hard to really make a call on this without being able to see all the options and with much still to be balanced.

 

[TheBeautifulVoid2]

It looks as though hangars require H weapon slots, which are restricted to CAs and BBs. A corvette fleet, therefore, will be unable to fight carrier battles.

Corvette fleets would also take damage differently from battleship fleets. A thirty-corvette fleet which takes 10% casualties would lose three ships. If the same amount of resources were spent on capital ships then it might be a four-ship fleet: 10% damage to it would mean one ship reduced to 60% strength. Repairing a single ship feels different in play from replacing three ships.

 

[Xyphos]

I can think of 2 arguments against spamming corvettes.

The first is cost effectiveness. I havent checked but it may be more economical from a cost/upkeep to strength ratio to build battleships as they may give you more bang for your buck. This would probly also vary wildly based on what kind of configuration both your battleships and corvettes are using but its a thought.

The second is fleet/ship limits. As far as i know, as with EU4 impacts to ship limits aren't influenced by ship class, meaning a limit of 20 ships can mean 20 corvettes or 20 battleships. If you have 20 corvettes and I have 20 battleships, i think we can all figure out who's winning.

 

[Yenzen]

The first thing to mention is that you have options with the hull sections. So it might be possible to construct a battleship that is dedicated to kill small targets (go fo hull sections with lots of small turrets).

The biggest problem the stream showed so far was that the difference in speed dragged the fleet out so that the bigger ships couldn't support the faster ones in time. Might be a hint that bigger ships should be equipped with large range weapons or could be an issue that can be solved by useing the adequate combat computers. Also we already know that certain options are only available, if we go at least to cruiser size (i.e. carriers).

Then there might be advantages of not haveing to big fleets. I.e. when you use wormholes the build up time is said to depend on how many ships you want to send through. So a balanced fleet might be better to move around than myards of corvetts.

It likley depends on how you fit out your fleet. I.e. you can go for the biggest turrets in Corvettes and Destroyers available transforming them into reliable Battleship killers. But at the same time such Corvettes and Destroyers would likley be vulnerable to ships closer to their own size since they lack small turrets that have a good chnace to hit those.

Currently it is hard to really make a call on this without being able to see all the options and with much still to be balanced.

Then again, maybe huge shielded battleship wonderwalls breaking into the enemy formation and going nuts with projective weapons, while fragile destroyers stay at a distance and fire missiles and lasers would be a viable formation?

 

[Yenzen]

I can think of 2 arguments against spamming corvettes.

The first is cost effectiveness. I havent checked but it may be more economical from a cost/upkeep to strength ratio to build battleships as they may give you more bang for your buck. This would probly also vary wildly based on what kind of configuration both your battleships and corvettes are using but its a thought.

The second is fleet/ship limits. As far as i know, as with EU4 impacts to ship limits aren't influenced by ship class, meaning a limit of 20 ships can mean 20 corvettes or 20 battleships. If you have 20 corvettes and I have 20 battleships, i think we can all figure out who's winning.

Not the case, the fleet size cost increases with ship class. One destroyer is two compared to corvette's 1, for example.

 

[Xyphos]

Not the case, the fleet size cost increases with ship class. One destroyer is two compared to corvette's 1, for example.

Well then it comes down to whether 4 corvettes = 1 battleship or not.

 

[Just a Joke]

Big weapons have a hard time hitting small ships, and fill a battleship with small weapons is not cost effective. I would prefer fleet carrier and battleship/battlecruiser style battleship, and build some Atlanta-class like CLs (with lots of small guns and PD) and DDs against corvette swarm.

For corvettes, they only have 3 small slots or 1 mid + 1 small. So if someone install torpedo on corvette against big ship, they will have a hard time penetrating enemy gunboat screen. And corvettes don't have enough slots for PD weapon. Corvettes also have to somehow choose between shield or armor, in stream we saw Blorg's shield-focused corvettes get eliminated very fast by enemy corvettes with autocannon.

 

[beckermt]

The first thing to mention is that you have options with the hull sections. So it might be possible to construct a battleship that is dedicated to kill small targets (go fo hull sections with lots of small turrets).

The biggest problem the stream showed so far was that the difference in speed dragged the fleet out so that the bigger ships couldn't support the faster ones in time. Might be a hint that bigger ships should be equipped with large range weapons or could be an issue that can be solved by useing the adequate combat computers. Also we already know that certain options are only available, if we go at least to cruiser size (i.e. carriers).

Then there might be advantages of not haveing to big fleets. I.e. when you use wormholes the build up time is said to depend on how many ships you want to send through. So a balanced fleet might be better to move around than myards of corvetts.

It likley depends on how you fit out your fleet. I.e. you can go for the biggest turrets in Corvettes and Destroyers available transforming them into reliable Battleship killers. But at the same time such Corvettes and Destroyers would likley be vulnerable to ships closer to their own size since they lack small turrets that have a good chnace to hit those.

Currently it is hard to really make a call on this without being able to see all the options and with much still to be balanced.

There's also something like the defense station warp interdictor that can only go on larger ships (L utlity slot, I guess?)

IIRC, there were no corvette or destroyer sections with L weapons.

 

[Bob_Herzog]

Then again, maybe huge shielded battleship wonderwalls breaking into the enemy formation and going nuts with projective weapons, while fragile destroyers stay at a distance and fire missiles and lasers would be a viable formation?

Essentially I agree with that as a viable possibility. Currently there are two point that speak against it:

1. Wiz comment on the low cost effectivnes of building such a Battleship. So yes it would work out but in an even war one would lose out through attrition ultematley.
2. The fleet behaviour. We have no direct control over the ships and as of yet we have not seen a single ship that kept its distance. Even ships armed with nothing but missiles (the long range weapon of the three) did rush into close combat. From all description I have read or seen interviews so far on combat computers those are more on general orders (attack only if fired upon versus hunt everything down and if it flees follow them!).

So should the game give us the oportunity to construct a fleet that would carry out this specific setup it might be feasible. But shouldn't the game then allow the other side in kind to construct a setup that goes for the kill on the weakest enemy ship first (= pass the close combat Battleship with their superior speed and force it's escorts into close combat)?

There's also something like the defense station warp interdictor that can only go on larger ships (L utlity slot, I guess?)

IIRC, there were no corvette or destroyer sections with L weapons.

Biggest in the sence of biggest available. I meant i.e. the option to go with a medium weapon slot in a corvett compared to more smaller ones. And there still might be hull options open for research ...

 

[Just a Joke]

There's also something like the defense station warp interdictor that can only go on larger ships (L utlity slot, I guess?)

IIRC, there were no corvette or destroyer sections with L weapons.

L weapons? Corvettes have 3 small slots or 1 small + 1 mid, DDs could have 2 small + 2 mid. And we know in different sections 1 big slot = 2 mid = 4 small. So theoretically it is possible to load 1 big gun on DD.