Corvettes have room for their utility to increase past academic usage. (Their novelty has room for increase as well.) CCP recognized the, if not necessarily “need”, benefit of buffing them years ago (back when they were called “Rookie Ships”), and there’s no reason they cannot be buffed or diversified further directly or indirectly.
Potential use cases past NPE:
- Given the potential decreased accessibility of the Venture per mineral patch, Corvettes may find a not-insignificant increase in usage in guerilla mining until the needed minerals to manufacture Ventures for proper guerilla mining are procured. (It’s worth noting that T1 mining lasers and inertial stabs can be made with HS ores, but not the Venture itself.)
- Corvettes are popular for use during skilling sprees where rats in starter systems and low-level anoms can be killed for SP
- If you ever find yourself in need of ‘bootstrapping’, a stronger Corvette will get you off your feet faster toward T1 frigs and other hulls.
- If you find yourself using a Corvette at all for any reason, including - as you repeatedly emphasize - “more defense for your capsule” - you have a more immersive experience lorewise/visually by being offered a variety of hulls; this is even more true if you actually use the Corvette in combat.
It’s worth noting that there is plenty of room for buffing the Corvette’s base stats significantly more than they already are without having them trample onto the T1 frigs (namely the First Tackle hulls) - their inability to use rigs and their relatively weak static bonuses (vs leveled bonuses) combined with low slot counts would make them inferior even if their PG/CPU/Cap/speed/agility/HP were significantly boosted, but this boost would still make them more useful in the NPE and elsewhere.