Effective Corvette use is the an example of the Art of War's lesson about "striking where your enemy isn't".  I personally love to spread them around my opponents entire empire and knock out ALL of their constructors at once.  Then, once they are locked down in this fasion I can just juggle my corvettes so that when the enemy attempts to engage these small groups of corvettes with a large force, they just run away.  If the enemy decides to strike at my homeworld, they do so at the risk of losing their entire empire(as well as during thier transit time I can build defenses, recall my corvettes to harry their rear, and spam ships at my HW).  Its a very effective strategy, I think of it as "slowly choking the life" out of an opponents entire empire at once.  This strategy works well even if they build a lot of flak.  If they decide to attack me with flak, flak aren't that good against structures, so  my empire isn't nearly at risk.  It takes a lot of micro to use this strategy effectively.

The best real defense against corvettes is other corvettes and AoE abilities. 

Corvettes are supposed to be causing damage, harrying the enemy at every turn, while you build up a real knockout punch of a fleet. 

The only time you want to risk corvette losses is when you have a substantial advantage in numbers and there aren't many flak around.  Lonely capital ships, and certain faction titans also make excellent corvette swarm prey.

Are you sure Corvettes beats LF?

I fought a test battle 2 TEC Corvettes against 1 TEC LF and the LF won.

On my opinion Corvettes are soft countered by LF and Fighter squad and hard countered by Flak.

Because 2 TEC Flak win against 6 TEC Corvettes.

I did this two tests yesterday and each one 3 times, always with the same end.

But if your enemy has 9000 Corvettes, that means he uses 27000 Fleetcap, this means, you can build 6000 Flak for 24000 Fleetcap and its cheaper too. You now use 2 Fleets with 3000 Flak each and your enemy cant beat even one of them. And you cant tell me that one fleet is more flexible then two. Or you build 3000 Flak and 1000 Carrier with 2000 Fighters. He cant attack the carries because of the Flak and the Fighter will slowly shreed his Corvetttes.

The next thing is shield migration. Corvettes die bevor they reach the max Shield migration. So they die like flys in bigger battles.

And i did more tests, Volcano Planet deff: 3 Flak , 2 LRF, 2LF and 3 Krosov , against 8 LF ---> LF won

Same i reload and send 20 Corvettes against it, and they lost.

I know that the deff was better against the Corvettes, but the Corvettes needed 60 Fleetsupply and the LF only 40.

My thoughts about that, Corvettes are eggshells with hammers.

As long as no one attack them, and the AI targets the first incoming ship, mostly the Capital, Corvettes are strong.

But human players, will kill the Corvettes first and like i said earlier, they will die like Flys then.

Sigh, first of all I used a hyperbole (look it up if you don't understand what that is). Second I mentioned that in a defensive position flak will destroy the corvettes. Offensively the corvettes can shift their target to something not protected and be done with it before the flak can reposition themselves. Also corvettes are researched sooner then flak and can be built in higher numbers faster then flak and LFs. And yes, Corvettes are eggshells with hammers. But if you can quickly build a lot of hammers you win.

Thx, that was my Intention.

Corvettes do more damage (+25%) against LF, i get it, but my Question was can they beat them in a fair fight?

Like I said bevor 2 Corvettes lose against 1 Lf this means 6 Fleetsupply lose against 5  and

380 Credits, 40 Metal, 20 Crystal lose against 300, 110 Metal, 0 Crystal.

I did the same fight with 4 Corvettes against 2 LF, same end.

Then I used 5 Corvettes against 2 Lf, the Corvettes won, with 4 destroyed Corvettes.

That means, 50% (15 vs 10) more Fleetsupply is needed to win with Corvettes against LF, I would call this a soft counter.

You are completely right, their speed is their main advantage.

Yes Corvettes are faster researched then Flak. But you dont need reseach the LF`s. Reseach Station needs 68 sec to build (extracted from the game). Researching the Corvettes needs 92 sec. That means the Lf Player can build 7 LF (22 sec each), bevor the Corvette Player have one Corvette. But in this early game it doesnt matter, so lets say both Player resarchs the 150 additional at the same time. To fill it the Corvette Player needs 30 FL with 660 sec build time or 50 Corvettes with 700 sec build time (14 sec each). Can 50 Corvettes beat 30 FL? I dont think so, because of my testing above. Corvettes can outrun LF, but they lose the fight.

But it can get even worser for the Corvette Player, after his enemy gets Flak. Flak needs 32 sec for each ship, that means 7 Flak
(224 sec) are build in the same time as 16 Corvettes (224 sec). 7 Flak against 16 Corvettes, is Corvette slaughter.

All the testing was done with Tec units without upgrades against Tec militia units.

At the end I want to say that Corvettes have a big tactical advantage because of their speed, a good Player with Corvettes will outrun his Opponent, thats right. But their fighting strength and their build speed is balanced on my opinion. And never forget, Corvettes suffer against all area of effect damage more then every other ship.