To be fair, GWG wasn’t supposed to be introduced in the game as the HW1 counterpart to EMP - though I won’t argue that the former is more useful. They’re both unique roles and examples of asymmetric gameplay across different races. EMP itself does have its advantages: it works on all ships and the ability is mounted on a faster and more agile craft.
As for the upcoming proposed GWG nerf itself, it is very significant. The Gravity Well radius being reduced by 25%, from 6750 to 5000, corresponds to a 60% decrease in the volume of the gravity well bubble. The range decrease forces GWGs to park closer to the edge of frigate and destroyer weapon range if they want to keep their salvettes enveloped against strikecraft; this makes it easier to snipe out or focus grav wells or at least force them to retreat to free the strikecraft (note that all frigates move faster than GWG).
As for BCs, GWGs will no longer be able to completely screen them against strikecraft since their bubble now falls short of their weapon range (5000 vs 6000).
We are arguing in circles about this part of the discussion. You’ve already deconstructed each facet of the salvette’s movement with the following quote:
“-Salvage corvettes move faster, are more maneuverable and latch faster and with less problems to their targets than marine/infiltrator frigates”
I’m not saying or implying that salvettes move better overall, I was simply correcting you on the part that salvettes don’t move faster. I did agree with you on the other parts about better latching, maneuverability and pathfinding because they are true.
I’m not sure how you arrived at the 26K/364K hull figures for effective HP. Also, DD and BCs tend to have multiple kinetic guns in addition to usually being supported by other ships. Salvettes need this survivability against capital ship weaponry for the time it takes to travel to the target, latch on and then travel away out of combat (which can be the longest part of the process if the enemy has the sense to give chase and stop the capture/tow).
The situation I described does involve sending all the salvettes together against the BC. Sending them in one by one will result in significant losses.
Regardless, players usually have enough awareness to combat maneuver the threatened ship away from approaching salvettes to buy time as well as attempt to destroy the salvettes during the towing phase with other ships (including anti-strikecraft frigates).
For BC captures, losing salvettes tends to snowball easily as the target’s weapons will reactivate on the loss of one salvette during towing - even in the seconds it takes to replace the lost corvette(s), the rest will feel the damage of the pulsars/lances.
You still have to worry about everything else that can hit a corvette for the entire duration of the towing phase which again, is dependent on the speed of the towed ship and how far the battle is taking place from the mothership (factors which the marine/infiltrator frigate does not need to care about).
Outside of cheese rushes and early-game, this doesn’t happen. Decent HW1 players will not risk their irreplaceable mothership by jumping it close to the front line by the time a certain amount of DPS on the enemy’s side is in play (typically mid-late game). The general prevalence of hyperspace inhibitors dispels the common fantastical notion of insta-capturing enemy BCs without hindrance or consequence.
Also, capturing perfectly healthy units isn’t exclusive to the salvette - while it is tedious on cruisers, the capture rate for marine/infiltrator frigates against undamaged frigates and destroyers is very fast.
The fact still remains that the towing phase becomes much more of a hassle as the game progresses and is why salvettes do not see as much use in late-game over marine/infiltrator frigates. With the GWG radius reduction, the Salvette + GWG combo will be notably less powerful.
