Or, in addition to the list of alternative possibilities I made earlier, here’s another one: move Salvage Corvette’s cap from Corvettes into a separate category, or add them to support, and increase the support cap.
That’d allow HW1 race players in multiplayer to make Salvage Corvettes without sacrificing the combat potential of the other corvettes. (I don’t suggest doing this for the campaign.)
If this were done, the Marine Frigate would probably require a change or two as well.
I understand. Unfortunately, I can’t choose people being cheap against me in MP. I’m a firm believer in salvage corvettes not being military units. It should take the ultimate skill and best of circumstances for a player to pull of a successful salvage in heated exchanges.
Unless I am mistaken, as it is now, one salvage vette latched onto a unit nullifies its hyper space and movement capabilities.
I think Boarding frigates are much more effective, and that is why I think that there is no issue to make the salvettes more viable.
But I’m clearly against placing them in another category other than corvettes, because the player must sacrifice corvette firepower for tactical advantage, but an option could be to have them slow but with enough armor to allow both players react in the situation of an encounter. In the original they were slightly faster than frigates but were the slowest between the corvettes along with the minelayer corvettes, making them challenging to use but still viable.
About the armor, originally they were able to withstand several Ion cannon hits, but if these are made to withstand around 2 or 3 should be enough.
I also think they should be in the corvette class and not have an individual unit cap but a generic corvette cap.
It would also be nice if they could stand one full ion hit without blowing up. Two hits to destroy them, not just one.
I don’t see these changes being out of line or a problem. It would open up their usability in MP and allow for greater diversity of play in SP. I just see it as more strategic and tactical play options.
The only change I think is needed is the same rule as marine frigates - you lose control/hyperspacing at half capture. For salvettes, I would make this (n corvettes for control loss) = (n corvettes for capture)/2 then rounded up. If you need 2 corvettes, 1 stops you. If you need 5, 3 stops you, 2 has no deleterious effects. That stops putting 1 corvette onto something and screwing everything up. It is possible this has already been changed (I don’t see salvage corvettes used often) but it is needed.
Also, Vagyr heavy missiles should be able to hit them, especially when they are attached to something. Basic rule: If it is immune to grav-wells, anti-frigate+ weapons should hit (missiles mainly). Right now, if you tell a HMF to attack a salvette it won’t fire its main battery.
But salvage corvettes shouldn’t be immune to gravwells, they are still corvettes.
The idea of salvagers to be immune to gravwells was silly and it never made sense for me.
Sometimes, things are done for gameplay reasons which don’t make much sense otherwise. Perhaps this was one of those situations.
I think the salvettes are paper thin and could use a buff, I wonder though if enemy ones work in a gravwell now though, as they are supposed to. Based on the original game settings.
Salvage corvettes feeling weak is partially due to Balance Issue #3 and #10 (Interceptors and bombers doing too much damage to corvettes). Both issues have been resolved in the Patch Preview.
Here’s some quick tests I just ran vs frigs:
14 salvage corvettes vs 10 Hiig Ion Frigates = 5 frigates captured, 4 losses
14 salvage corvettes vs 10 Vaygr Heavy Missile Frigates = 6 frigates captured, 2 losses
14 salvage corvettes vs 5 Vaygr Heavy Missile Frigates + 5 Vaygr Assault Frigates = 4 frigates captured, 6 losses
I think that last one should result in 14 dead corvettes. Vagyr already has to choose between fighter/corvette/frigates - I agree with assault frigates losing to heavy vettes or lasers but they should be able to kill salvagers.
For the last test, of the 7 frigs I tried to capture, I think 4 of them were assault frigates. If I had just tried to capture the heavy missile frigates, the assault frigates prolly would have done much better.
Vaygr assault frigates are primarily anti-fighter like the hiig flak frigate though. But they are decent vs corvettes too - just not as good as a hiig torpedo frigate or hw1 assault frigate (which are mainly anti-corvette, and decent anti-frig).
I think possibly a sane first try to see how people feel about it is to increase the Salvage Corvette’s HP (armor, whatever it is) by 33%, and stick it in the BETA to try out in the campaigns and multiplayer.
It’s easy, it’s not a super game changer, and it might be enough of a difference to work.
After a few weeks, revisit the topic.
That sounds pretty insane to me. I think all those salvage vettes should’ve been destroyed, period. From those testing results, I think the salvage corvette is kind of overpowered.
Also, keeping in mind that the salvage corvette is a marginal military unit.
Well, look, nothing’s being decided here as is. Some people, myself included, think they’re fine in the campaign at the moment, but others think they’re not. And, even more so, Salvage Corvettes seem to be much weaker against human opponents. This is a fairly small change compared to many of the others being suggested (e.g., completely removing the cap), and frankly, I don’t think too much more time should be spent debating this.
If we increase the survivability by third or so, and people complain really loudly that Salvage Corvettes are too survivable now, then we know that was too much. Since it’s only in the BETA, it won’t affect most players.
You should have performed HW1 frigate testing too. I’m pretty sure you will find the assault frigates are way over powered against the salvettes, as in none will survive.
Frankly they may as well remove the salvettes from the game they are always going to be too powerful a non military unit even though they ARE a military unit. They also still have the problem of having to go BACK to the mothership regardless of ship captured, and are pretty much being relegated to a fluff unit. Lets ignore the fact the marine/capture frigs give you the ship in the middle of the action and are far more survivable than the salvettes.
They are so useless as a tactical unit right now I don’t even know if the scuttle bug is still in place. I haven’t built them in more than 3 games since the patch.
Right now the only ships that guarantee a loss if you don’t build them are frigates.
[HW1R]
I found this to be true also. As it is now, the only way to guarantee a capture is if you have enough salcaps to latch onto every unit. Otherwise the loose units will target them and one by one, destroy them. I’ve found that all units target them as priority first. This was my reasoning behind eliminating the ‘dedicated’ salcap unit cap.
I’ve noticed this as well. A group of 16 heavy corvettes can ‘not’ destroy an assault frigate in under 1 minute.
The salcap is a game piece and as such should be playable to a good degree of success like any other unit in game. Some players want to have the option of using them.
Good call alpha:
14 salvage corvettes vs 5 Kus Ion Frigates + 5 Kus Assault Frigates = 0 frigates captured, 14 losses
I targeted all 5 assault frigates too, but the corvettes died so fast…
Looks like hw1 assault frigates are doing far better than hiig torpedo frigates vs all corvettes, which was not at all intended. They were supposed to perform about the same vs corvettes.
Just added issue #19 to the list:
Once Balance Issue #3, 10, and 19 are fixed - salvage corvettes should be in a better place.
Also the salvage corvette exploit was fixed in the 2.1 patch.
You neglected major parts of his post. They’re still not going to be viable.
In the 2.0 patch, they at-least take frigates back to the carrier now too. But ya, they’re pretty fundamentally different.
For reference, on shield there’s a disc in the middle. The width of that disc is how far these ships started apart (and all my tests for that matter):
4 hiig marine frigates vs 1 hiig destroyer = 121seconds to capture.
8 kus salvage corvettes + kus mothership vs 1 hiig destroyer = 120 seconds to grab the destroyer, return it to the mothership, and capture it. Plus another 80 seconds to move the destroyer back to where it originally was.
Just added a salvage corvette health bump as issue #20 to hopefully be tested in the Patch Preview:
[quote=“Cloaked, post:1, topic:1512184”]Number 20 salvage corvettes considered underpowered
Suggested changes:
In hw1c they had a bit more health than multigun corvettes, but a bit less health than heavy corvettes. It should prolly be the same in HWR. Suggested to change the health from 1000->1200.
[/quote]
So now we have:
3: reduce interceptor damage vs corvettes by 31%
10: reduce bomber damage vs corvettes by 75%
19: reduce hw1 assault frigate damage vs corvettes by 50%
20: increase salvage corvette health 20%
Well… It’s a start 
It takes salcaps much longer than marine frigates to bring a captured ship into play.
To disable a capture you only need to kill one salcap. As long as 1 marine frigate is latched the capture continues.
HW1 Carriers are only good for frigates and below.
HW1 Carriers are not always available to use for capturing.
1 marine frigate is worth 2 salcaps? I don’t think this comparison is remotely fair.
Loose the salcap dedicated cap and we can call it square I think it’s fair since you must trade off strike craft for salcaps.