Corvette blues

Max Gene

Spaceman
Here's a ship that can always lay on the hurt, as long as you're me. The fricking WC3 corvette always gives me serious bruises- if possible I let the wingman do most of the work. It's the only reason for torpedoes in that game, if you ask me, but it feels ridiculous using them on the smallest "capship" in the game.

Now, part of this is just me sucking horribly at taking out the turrets, although I figure there has to be a trick to that as well. But what tricks do you guys use to take out these things without consistently taking a beating?
 
Well, obviously, assuming I won't be needing any missiles at any other point on the mission. Is there any spot on them where turret coverage sucks, or an easier method to taking out turrets? Something along those lines, if possible.
 
I felt the same way about corvettes when I first tried WC3, but they're actually incredibly easy. Attack them from the same plane they're traveling on, not from above or below. Only two turrets can target you at a time if you come in flat from the flanks. Their fire is only accurate when you're close, so keep your distance. If you start taking hits, break away for a few seconds to recharge your shields, then resume the attack. Don't bother taking out the turrets unless you have a sure shot at them; corvettes can't take much punishment compared to other capships, so all the energy you waste popping turrets is better used to make the ship blow that much sooner.

As far as blind spots go, if you zap the rear tachyon turret, get in close enough to lick the paint, and match speed, you'll be out of the killzone of the lasers and can destroy the corvette at your leisure. This tactic is a little more tricky, however.
 
I hated corvetters. They were the second hardest thing in the game to kill after cruisers (damn AM guns!), not counting the dreadnought at the end of the losing track, of course.

I found them especially problematic becasue the game keeps making you go after them in an Arrow. The Hellcat versus a corvetter isn't bad, and the Thunderbolt rips them to shreds with minimal damage taken even without using its torp. But arrows get all shot up when you actually get close enought to do damage.

I would suggest taking a heavier figher if you expect to encounter them...
 
I found them especially problematic becasue the game keeps making you go after them in an Arrow. The Hellcat versus a corvetter isn't bad, and the Thunderbolt rips them to shreds with minimal damage taken even without using its torp. But arrows get all shot up when you actually get close enought to do damage.

Heh, the Arrow was actually my ship of choice against them; In all the other ships I seemed to lose half my ship whenever I went up against them no matter what I did, but the Arrow could just slide back and forth along one side and rip them up undisturbed.

I only played all the way through WC3 once though, so there's probably a truckload of useful tactics I never tried.
 
If you were not on a strike mission and there was no other capitatl ships to target, the ideal way to take out a corvette was the Thunderbolt. Just use a torpedo. Fast, easy, unproblematic.
 
Heh, the Arrow was actually my ship of choice against them; In all the other ships I seemed to lose half my ship whenever I went up against them no matter what I did, but the Arrow could just slide back and forth along one side and rip them up undisturbed.

I only played all the way through WC3 once though, so there's probably a truckload of useful tactics I never tried.

Hmmm, people will scream "idiot" at me for this, but I never used the autoslide. So my Arrow experience wasn't as good as some people's. (In spite of this, it was still my favorite WC3 fighter).

It was mainly a philosophical reason, not a tactical one. I had already suspended disbelief at WC physics to accept that ships in space that have a finite top speed, slow down and stop when you shut off the engine, behave exactly the same in atmospheres, and can hover motionless in a gravity field with engines off. However, Autoslide seemed to be pushing the disbelief of physics a little too far...especially because you could use it to make perfect 90° or 180° turns. The fact that it appeared only in WC3 and not in any other WC game (I think...it wasn't in WC4, was it?) also made it seem an odd, and transient, addition to the physics as well. All in all, I decided it was too much like cheating...not quite to the level of turning on invulnerability, but in the same direction...and decided never to use it. If I wanted to slide, damn it, I was going to do it the old fashioned WC1 way--with a long powerful burner burst, then cutting engines and turning hard. This probably made the Arrow misisons, especially against Paktahns and corvettes, much harder, but that was OK, I had a more enjoyable playing experience. I suspect I'm in the minority here, but there it is.
 
??? I never had problems with the Kamranis. I'd make quick passes at them and pick off their turrets one at a time. I'd certainly take some evasive action! Twitch left, twitch back (fire a burst at a turret), twitch right, twitch back (burst), then loop away and burn briefly to get out of range. After picking off the turrets facing a direction, I'd then plow in and give it a full energy load from the guns. It usually took a couple of iterations, but it was possible to pick off enough firepower to allow you to quickly take her down.
 
The secret to kill the Kamrani is to get that rear turret ASAP. Once that's done the ship becomes infinitely easier to kill.
 
Heh, the Arrow was actually my ship of choice against them; In all the other ships I seemed to lose half my ship whenever I went up against them no matter what I did, but the Arrow could just slide back and forth along one side and rip them up undisturbed.

I only played all the way through WC3 once though, so there's probably a truckload of useful tactics I never tried.

Everytime I tried to autoslide around a capship, I just ended up sliding into a massive wall of fire.
 
Everytime I tried to autoslide around a capship, I just ended up sliding into a massive wall of fire.

Not a good idea to do that. I always came at the Corvette from below, it always seemed to be less accurate firing medium rage from that position.
 
The AI uses something like ITTS to plot its fire against your momentum. If you slew your fighter left and right up and down you see the angle of the fire coming off the ship change to match your momentum.

The idea is to use something like a "weave" pattern where you minimize the time you're flying into their fire stream while still getting a few bursts off at the guns. It works the same for destroyers, carriers, cruisers. The thing that makes the Kamrani so tough is that it's a compact target and has good coverage, so you can easily be hit by multiple turrets on almost any approach angle.
 
Everytime I tried to autoslide around a capship, I just ended up sliding into a massive wall of fire.

Yeah, as someone pointed out they have blind spots on the sides... I found it easier to exploit that on autoslide.
 
The AI uses something like ITTS to plot its fire against your momentum. If you slew your fighter left and right up and down you see the angle of the fire coming off the ship change to match your momentum.

The idea is to use something like a "weave" pattern where you minimize the time you're flying into their fire stream while still getting a few bursts off at the guns. It works the same for destroyers, carriers, cruisers. ....

Not to mention Paktahns and Sorthaks. In fact, this is really the only approach to use if you're trying to take down Paktahns from an Arrow. If you just park on their tail, their rear gun will chew you up as much (relative to your armor) as your light guns will chew them up (relative to their armor). But if you weave, either vertically or horizontally, you can take them down cleanly.

However, this is a lot harder with a corvetter because (1) it's reasonably compact, as you pointed out, and (2) you generally have to stay further away.
 
Sorthaks were kind of a let down after the great article in Victory Streak. While they could be somewhat deadly they didn't really measure up to their description.

Agreed. When I first encountered one, my first thought was "Crap! It's one of those super fighters... wait a second, these things are pathetic!"

They shoot a lot, but don't maneuver for crap and are really easy to hit. If you can handle Paktahns, Sorthaks aren't a big deal.
 
For WC: P I flew a bomber, stayed outside the corvettes gun range, and dropped mine after mine after mine. The stupid corvette would just fly into them and I never got shot at all:D.

When mines weren't an option, I would attack from below, that way only two turrets would be shooting at me, not three.

Also I would get in close to the engines using afterburners as there was a blind spot in the turret coverage there, and just fire my guns until the thing died. Had to kill the fighters first, but I usually do that before taking on the bigger ships anyway.
 
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