Kinnetic shield

Allow it to be a physical shield on your bc that encourages you to ram into the enemy battle cruiser for bonus damage. Lazor fights are fun but the greatest joy in this game comes from telling your crew to set the cruiser to *Ramming speed* and crashing into them constantly while you fight them, broadside is for pussies!

Personally, I would rather see people use other strategies than ramming, but I understand why people like it. I don't want to encourage it further though so making a shield that makes ramming more powerful is not something I feel like doing if there's not a lot of people agreeing with you.

How about an upgrade to get the front of your BC made into a totally sweet ram that does great hull damage but shit against shields. Newer players tend to crash their BC into the others way more so it'll help newer players out more then veterans who can just fly ahead of the enemy bc and shoot backwards at, kiting it.

Ramming can be a great strategy depending on the vehicle you're using. In a BC fight you will almost always ram eachother, and especially face eachother. In small ships however, it's a lot more like you want to dance around your enemy (or you want to ram him, but he'll try to avoid you).

I propose to add a special "frontal barrier" to the Corvette, and replace the current shield ability with it.
This frontal barrier would cover the Corvette from all damage, but only from its front. It would also protect it from abilities (such as the Wraith's EMP or the Destroyer's Torpedo (shield-piercing) ability, but NOT BC's Tractor Beam) and it might even give the corvette a speed boost (~50%) for the duration. Ramming with the front (so with your shield) while the ability is up will deal more damage to the enemy (Double?).

Wraiths can very easily kite and avoid Corvettes, so this could be a viable way to make a Corvette VS Wraith fight feasible.
The shield might be balanced by limiting some functions of the Corvette, for example >A lower turning speed >Higher damage received from other sides >Cannot fire main gun >Far higher cooldown on main gun >Mildly high energy requirements.
This also would be rather fair as a skilled Wraith pilot can still get out of the way of a charging Corvette, and with a quick shot can also EMP it from an unprotected side.

I can already take a corvette out with wraith, so long as they use their energy to fire while too far away. I don't think there needs to be more balance with that match up - higher hull and damage vs agility/emp makes it a good fight. The idea Racism is trying to implement is a way to make BC ramming more feasible.

I dislike the idea of a separate shield, but perhaps the upgraded "ram's head" that he suggested could work. While I'm not a huge fan of encouraging ramming, it does make some sense.

The only way I could picture a decent wraith pilot dying to a corvette is accidentally side thrustering towards the corvette rather then away or a giant over extention of the wraith.