Corvettes vs frigates

[p.sahlstroem]

Same ship size but frigates look to be a lot better statwise while costing a little more resources.

Does it make sense to just build frigates if I can afford them, or is there a recommended ratio (I would be inclined to go 50/50 frigates/corvettes)

Year 2300ish

Thanks :-)

[VulcanTourist]

At first glance, it appears that frigates are focused on long-range capabilities, so having both close-ranged corvettes and frigates may be a good idea to keep the heat off the frigates.

[p.sahlstroem]

Mhm, makes sense. Gotten lucky with a few events that gave me several large hightech ships that I want to keep alive. Using the corvettes as armour for them makes sense.

Thanks!

[VulcanTourist]

I wish there was a Situation that would reward you with a whole fleet of those suckers!

[Namdoolb]

Corvettes are your general purpose small ship.
Frigates are a specialised version of the corvette designed as a torpedo boat.

If you're looking for a general purpose ship at that size then corvette is what you'll want most/all of the time.

You'll notice that Frigates are slower than corvettes, have much worse evasion, but have more hull points. Frigates can also mount torpedoes.
Torpedoes are mostly fairly short range weapons. Like missiles they bypass shields, &the amount of damage they do is based on the size of the target (they do much more damage vs larger targets).
(You can equip a long ranged weapon to frigates (neutron launcher (or something like that)) but that's got pretty poor damage & is nowhere near as effective as their shorter ranged torpedoes.)

In short, Frigates are specialised for attacking large ships & space stations. They aren't very good if you're facing other corvettes or destroyers; you need to be hitting cruiser / battleship / titan / starbase for them to really earn their keep.

[p.sahlstroem]

Thanks for the input! Not an ironman run this time, so I'll experiment a bit. Me thinks there's an enigmatic fortress nearby that will be perfect to test out different fleet setups, I wonder if 20k power of torpedo frigates will even dent it (regular corv/dest fleets get vaporized)

[Moridin]

the dev diary's also mentioned that non-laser weapons have a minimum range inside which they wont fire. so making sure to have right combat ai is more important now.

[VulcanTourist]

Originally posted by Moridin:

the dev diary's also mentioned that non-laser weapons have a minimum range inside which they wont fire. so making sure to have right combat ai is more important now.

That is not true of all non-laser weapons unless v3.6 has changed things. You can confirm ranges in the tooltips of the weapons; any weapon that doesn't have a restricted minimum range will appear as "0-nnn"; those that do will have a non-zero number first. Any ship that has these weapons needs to also have a compliment of some that are not or be designed as a standoff vessel with a computer to match, otherwise when the enemy closes to "melee" range they're vulnerable.

[Terijian]

frigates are slow as hell

[-=EDF=- Kouta Seto]

Corvett would still wipe a frigate out of the sky. Why? Becuase PDW's. Torps will be all but useless in that fight and the corvett still has 2 guns left, wich outgun the frigate. The additional HP wont help and yes, frigate is slower as well.

My GF tested the game just today too, the old way of pure ranged BB still works soooo paradox grand plan of unrealistic bull**** that you want more classes of ships for some roles did not work (LUCKILY! Otherwise i would have modded frigates out of the game and put old ballance back in place!). Torps are all but useless, even given the neutron ones having the range as should be, yet those weapons CAN be countered and even 900 - 1200 dmg wont kill a typical battleship. and given how little torps a ship can fit... well lets just say even those high numbers are outgunned by a BB with Kinetic artilery II only and mega canon or tachyon lance. Not to mention IF at all you also use cruisers using.... KINETIC ARTILERY AND MEDIUM GUNS!