I've noticed this perplexity for a while now and was wondering what the reason is for this. Is this because of some sort of bonus inherent to Corvettes? It seems ludicrous (speed?) that a lighter ship can have equal (or in some cases better) firepower than a ship in a class above it. I no longer use Destroyers now because of this. This is present in early as well as late game. I usually use UE appearance (because I like the traditional ship class names) and either Amoeba or Sheredyn affinity if this makes a difference to ship strengths.



As a side note, I would prefer to use the Amoeba affinity in order to reveal the map from the beginning, but the retreating AI is driving me crazy. So I pick Sheredyn only to prevent the retreat spam!



Thanks for any responses!

Depends, if you have disharmony:

Sheredyn have an odd destroyer bonus(to Fighters and bombers*), so thier corvette is superior.

amoeba have rather boring bonuses(onlyto defences)



if not then that's an anomaly indeed. Try equiping both ship types with the same armament and see how much spare room remains.



Anyhow Destroyers are not per se stronger/heavier than Corvettes, they simply have the more convenient bonus and are thus more combat oriented.

In disharmony this is rather mixed, for some Races unlocking the Destroyer means finaly getting a suitable battleship, for others it's just a support ship, depending on bonus.



*on the other hand destoryers are most Controll point effective when it comes to massing Fighters/bombers so it's not all that bad.

That's exactly what I did (I was ignorant to those bonuses-thanks for that.) I put the exact same armaments and defenses on both ship types until they were maxed out, both ship types have the same armor as well. But sometimes I'm able to put a single level 1 melee projectile on the Corvette since I have the cargo space, thus making it ever so slightly stronger.



I just found this odd and wanted to see if other people experienced the same thing. Like I said, I've played Sheredyn or Amoeba affinity races exclusively and thought maybe it was peculiar to that particular faction. (Maybe I should branch out a bit!)

Well, I took the numbers from the Endless Space Wiki and if they are correct I might be able to explain to you what is happening.

I am also a Sheredyn player and you have to take some special discounts into your consideration.



First off there are some inherent modifiers for each Ship-Type (i.e. Crovette and Destroyer). The Corvette receives an automatic 25% tonnage discount on Sensors, Engine and Repair where the Destroyer gets an inherent 20% tonnage discount on Weapons.

The thing that matters know are the race-specific modifiers. For the Sheredyn affinity this includes a 20% Weapon Tonnage discount on the Corvette and a 20% Hangar (Fighter/Bomber) discount on the destroyer.

In the end this translates into the Corvette being the superior ship for a Weapon Module based build.



You have 20% Tonnage discount on weapons on both types, though the corvette greatly benefits from the 25% discount on engine and repair, modules that are very common on combat ships that are not made up for suicide missile spam. The only drawback are the 180 HP less on the Corvette pattern but never the less you save a lot tonnage and can easily include an armor module, making the repair module even more effective while keeping the same or even more firepower.



So depending on your builds the 25% discount on Engine/Repair may allow you to bring more military power in a balanced build than the 20% weapon discount. And this might happen on the most races. Though in a suicide missile build where you only install weapons, the destroyer should be always better.



PS: These Modifiers seem to be Disharmony specific though.

You sir, are a gentleman! Thank you very much for that in-depth analysis. You've more than answered my question, thank you!

wheels0132 wrote:
... both ship types have the same armor as well.

If you're playing in Disharmony instead of vanilla this is part of the cause of the problem you're having. In Disharmony, Armor, Engines, Power and Repair modules weigh twice as much on the destroyer as they do on the corvette, while everything else has the same weight, before any race specific modifiers.

But corvette more usefull then you need some to def you unarmed ships.

w-w-what?



I may be terribly wrong here, but AFAIK Vanilla bonuses do NOT apply in disharmony, they are completely replaced by the civ-specific bonuses in Disharmony. Thus the Corvette does not get those

In Disharmony, Armor, Engines, Power and Repair modules weigh twice as much on the destroyer as they do on the corvette,

where did you get that one from?!



You know that's just my reasoning, but if it would apply would there not at some point be a little notice saying it? And would not the bonus to seed modules on Transports stack(resulting in 60-100% discount) ? as both Vanilla and all disharmony bonuses apply here. Also why would there be extra racial bonuses to Seed modules on transports, if these were already applied through vanilla bonuses?

Also I just checked ingame.



Your(wheels0132) problem is that for the sheredyn the Corvette gets the yummy weapons bonus, while the destroyer gets the Strikecraft bonus. Thus for the sheredyn the Corvette is more usefull as allpurpose/glasscannon ship, than the destroyer.

I got it from looking at the tonnage for all the modules on both ships in game. Those 4 modules take twice the tonnage on the larger ship. On the 1 CP ships they take 16 tons and on the 2 cp ships they take 32 tons. So with the typical engine + repair that's 32 extra tons or 3-4 long range kinetics or medium range lasers depending if it's the 1st or 2nd level of the weapons. Add armor and that's another 16 tons or 1-2 more weapons.

larger ships, not destroyers!



The tonnage of some(those) modulesis calculated based on base hitpoints base cost or base tonnage(not sure btw). Modules for dreds cost 4 times as much as those for corvettes and Destroyers, I first thought it was related to CP, but transports actually get those modules at lower tonnage than corvettes and destroyers.

Here's what's in the files for the modules. You'll see that those 4 modules are the only ones that have the "WeightPercent" instead of "WeightFlat" setting for their tonnage. So their tonnage is based on the base tonnage of the ship.

SupportCategory="Armor">




SupportCategory="Power" IsUnique="true">




SupportCategory="Invasion">




SupportCategory="Engine" IsUnique="true">




SupportCategory="Scout" IsUnique="true">




SupportCategory="Repair" IsUnique="true">




SupportCategory="Civilian" Level="1">

I just now realized the op was comparing two 1 CP ships not a 1cp and 2cp ship. In that case it falls to just the difference in the bonuses the two ships. Since Sheredyn has a reduction in weapons tonnage for one and fighter/bomber tonnage for the other and neither have fighters/bombers installed, then of course you can get more weapons on the one with the weapons tonnage reduction. In his Amoeba games, since the one has a reduction in shields and the other has a reduction in flak, the shields one might get an extra weapon since they have a higher weight than the flak does thus the bonus is bigger.



Even though I got a little confused with which two ships we were discussing, the info about the Armor, Power, Engines and Repair modules is useful. Since the higher tech engines, power and repair modules have bonuses for the whole fleet, it would be better to put those on the 1 cp ships both to have more of them in the fleet for stacking the bonuses and because they more tonnage efficient.

Thanks to all the information gatherers in this thread. Everything makes a little more sense to me now.