When i saw the teaser trailer i thought corvettes where Titan support units produced by Titan hanger bays. Sort of like Cylon Heavy Raiders that counter everything.

Yeah--that's looking to be the simplest solution but it costs the corvettes effectiveness in several practical areas when you do it.  Sigh.

Limit them to defence vesels without ability to jump betweenplanets wouls screwe multiplayer big time.

Its good idea when fighting AI , but it would rip MP games.

No choke would be counquerable at all.

Right now the corvettes are very cost effective, low supply required, and fast production in the early game. That's the main reason ppl are abusing them.

People who say they are not OP are referring to the combat strength of the unit, rather than overall cost effectiveness.

The goal to nerf the corvettes should be 1) reduce the cost effectiveness in the early game 2) without making the unit obsolete in mid- and late game. 

Raising cost, increase supply uses, and increase production can effectively achieve  1).

To achieve 2), you can simply add a new cheap research (e.g. tier 4) to restore the cost and build time I proposed earlier back to current level. So that they remain effective in mid and late game.

Maybe like Titans they also can be moved further into the tech tree?

LRF/Bomber spam was fixable with the units we already had in Diplomacy, the Devs just never fixed it...

This is true, however I think it is reasonable to assume that the creation of these types of ships would be concurrent with other appropriate changes...

as with any game, developers release their vision, then modders theirs. 

well, first and foremost, i think corvettes need their own damage and armor type. Then you can really 'play' with the numbers to get them balanced. I realize they have multiple weapon types at the moment, and I kinda like that idea, but I think it can be done.

Riiight.... so I have maxed out my ships slots with corvettes, I queue all the research techs.... and what happens? If it changes them from 2 supply to 3 or 4 supply... where does that come from?

Think real-life navy.  In the 60's the U.S. did a major fleet wide refit of hundreds of WWII, Korea and Vietnam era ships.

Suddenly gun ships were equipped with missiles or advanced electronics, higher capacity electrical systems, etc.

Crew size increased requiring new rate types to operate and maintain the new systems and drydock times had to be modified to allow for upgrades and maintenance on the new systems.

More expensive to maintain and operate and more prone to repairs with more systems (Ever seen a retrofitted electronic motor controller box blown off the bulkhead when the formerly hand cranked, WWII era, 5" naval gun it controlled was fired?  I have.)

I love the idea of corvettes being their own class for weapon/armor and the like.  Will the devs do it?

Right now the US navy is scuttling older upgraded ships to make budget room for new ones and scuttling plans for new ones to upgrade old ones--happens all the time.  It's pretty traditional for newer more effective systems to be introduced in smaller numbers to eliminate more numerous older systems.

As for game mechanics, research will just have to be a buff that blows up your old corvettes and replaces them with new ones on death.   You actually could create a new entity file and still  use the same models and textures and retain the ability to have both corvette types.

I think corvettes were primarily designed for cheap planet defense and to counter titans and that the idea of using them in an exponential horde wasn't really thought much on at the time when it was all just conceptualization.

We can't really call this "real life" because we're stuck with game mechanics.  Background adapts to mechanics constraints no matter how convoluted that makes it.  But in real life, upgrading ships makes them cost more logistically.  I served on two that were decommissioned for that very reason.

Corvettes seem to serve two really good roles natively--defending systems against scout and light strike craft forces.  You can stop scouts and lone siege craft and shoot down strike craft without spending a fortune or tying up facility slots for planets or having to do more research.  That role is a great addition imo.

The second role is their ability to cripple capitals and titans particularly by stopping their abilities--and it takes a few to survive their defensive guns (especially in their original iterations).

So both roles (and particularly the latter) take numbers to be effective.  We got a cheap unit made for those things and the win-anyway-possible players pounced on nanite swarms of corvettes as the best use fro them.

I appended some response above and I agree that they shouldn't subvert other units.  The best solution so far is to bump up cost but then you're back to "how much is a corvette worth?".

If you buff abilities to offset logistics/expenses then are they still "corvettes" and if you make them really weak but still cheap, what good are they?

I'd see them as somewhat electronic warfare craft--combined with fast patrol boats.  More weakly armed and armored than frigates, expensive for their size to maintain but having that special attack making them valuable. 

If they are made their own ship class, then maybe Sith's and others' ideas on creating a weapon/armor matrix slot for them can be done.

I'd agree with that, make them a single-craft strikecraft "squadron", much more durable than a single fighter or bomber, but ofc only one, so once it's shot down it has to be rebuilt as a wing.

So the point of them would be that they're "squadrons" which have a comparatively high  chance of returning (since the individual craft is so much stronger), but with a higher risk-value in that each craft shot down causes a much longer delay on rebuilding.

i think they should be in their own class as well as the new cap ship that seems so pointless.

have it take research to unlock the corvette class and make it a true anti titan ship with defense against strikecraft. weak versus frigates,

then the crappy cap that gets moved to this class as well maybe give it anti frig abilities to go along with the corvettes.

make them both a "corvette class" between frigs and cruisers in size 2 ships in the class.

,

call one an assault ship that has a weapon that only fires on titans maybe even capital ships as well.and it has short range defensive weapons for protection verses flak and light frigs and strike craft but has fairly low damage verses them. then the ship that replaces the crappy cap ship that we move into that class as well has straight anti frig ability. Give it a medium range with medium to strong attack verses frigs but cant shoot strikecraft at all. and its weak verses titans, make both of them average verses cruisers. and they both have medium to low armor. maybe barely more armor than frigs.

both can be killed fairly easily by cruisers and frigs but they can kill said ships as well, definately need to be a little more durable than frigs but not as much as a cruiser, cruisers would own them in a straight up fight but in a balanced fleet it would be nice.

cruisers killing corvettes efficiently while one corvette kills frigs efficiently and the other asaults titans. definately cant have them just decimate titans, however it would be the most efficient ship to assault a titan force. have the titan assault ship capable of winning in a fight with flak but not against long range frigs, the other ship would win in a fight verses frigs in a 1/1 ratio but lose to a heavy cruiser 1/1. bombers would kill the anti frig corvette easily but not the anti titan version. they could with numbers of strike craft. they should still be fast but slower than bombers. maybe slightly faster than heavy cruisers.  of course frigs could still kill them just like they can kill heavy cruisers but easier than heavy cruisers and they would be able to kill heavy cruisers bt not that easily, however easier than frigs can

make them mid price range btween cruisers and frigs and take mid range of fleet capacity, and they are marginally effective verses cap ships.

make the tech need 3 labs to unlock corvette class then 4 or 5 to unlock the titan killer. it should unlock at the same tier as titans do.

i know this is asking a lot but it would no longer be a spammable corvette and a worthless cap ship. they would have a place in a balanced fleet. And have an actual effective counter to titans. cause we all know they can be damn strong for whoever gets them first.

plus adds a more tactical strat to hunt a titan and they would both be just as vulnerable to titan fire as everything else.

so u couldnt just spam the anti titan and go swarm it cause they would die in a fire but with both corvette ships you could as long as the titan wasnt well defended with a balanced frig cruiser fleet.

maybe say 10 anti titan and 10 anti frig corvettes would lose in a fight verses 10 heavy cruisers and 10 long range frigs.

maybe they would even lose to a 30 frig force.something like 3 long range frigs kill 1 anti frig corvette. the anti titan corvette is vulnerabl to frigs so it would die slowly to a long range frig in a 1v1.

lol sorry i started babbling and so this is a way TLDL sorry