#Clickbait
Theory: The corsair isn’t unpopular because it’s tactically ‘bad’ the corsair is unpopular because it is strategically bad due to the concept of opportunity cost; “the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.” If you $5 for lunch and you flip a coin for McDonalds or Burger King and you go to BK the opportunity cost is McDonalds.
Corsair and Alternatives
At the point when corsairs are unlocked you probably have two or three bases covering most of the world. Let’s assume three. That’s $900,000 to replace Condors with Corsairs.
The alternatives are:
8 Wolf Armours, an armoury of laser weaponry, a scimitar and a shrike come to $980,000.
I’m assuming at this point we also have at least two foxtrots at each base. But if we don’t then four foxtrots come to $800,000.
Now let’s look at the cost/reward ratio for these things. Income in Xenonauts comes from shooting down and assaulting UFOs, that’s it. Council funding ties to this and airstrikes/assaults directly give you cash and resources.
Cost/Reward Details
The Corsair and Condor are useful for hitting interceptors and that’s it. The reward for hitting interceptors is negligible. A few thousand if you sell the parts. Interceptors also don’t do all that much damage to nation funding compared to capital ships. Note that you can also take out a capital ship that has fighter escorts and then run away. You don’t need to bring down the escorts. So with careful tactics (and bringing a condor as a distraction) escorts can be avoided. In summary the Condor is ‘good enough’ for its useful roles.
In my experience a scout causes about $10k worth of funding damage, a Corvette around $20k if left unchecked. Airstrikes on scouts are $15k and Corvettes $35k. I can’t quick test it properly because the buggers keep assaulting my base. But after a week I had six Corvettes floating about the world. By conservative estimate we’ll say that there are 2(ish) medium contacts per ‘third’ of the World every two weeks. By this estimate two foxtrots prevent $80k funding damage and provide $140k in airstrikes (with no assaults) every month and can comfortably cover a third of the world with a well placed base. We’ll round that up to $300k for the boost in funding they provide when they shoot down a UFO.
The cost of outfitting a team is a necessary money sink. “the reward for a ground combat mission is mainly in experience for your soldiers and recovered alien equipment, with the relations boost being a secondary benefit” – Aaron. It’s less likely to be profitable but is required. The risk/reward ratio therefore comes into play. If you don’t do anything in ground combat you never advance your technology and lose the game.
The corsair has absolutely no way to ever even pay for itself and break even never mind giving you a profit. It’s a massive money sink. The high cost of the marauder is justified because it can take out capital ships and pay for itself many times over.
The people on the Steam forums tend to like the Corsair, the people on the Goldhawk forums don’t. Now not meaning to be rude to the Steam folks the Goldhawk forum seem to have people who are more tactically and strategically inclined. I believe this is why people avoid the corsair but no one seems to have articulated it in this way. They have been coming at it from a tactical angle (where it is fine) rather than a strategic angle.
