Light frigates are good. They are not hard counters of corvettes, but you really don't want to mass flak frigates unless you really know how to use them. Light frigates are decent against corvettes, can be accessed immediately in the game and not very expensive while still gives you enough firepower to deal with bigger objects like capital ships. Corvettes have negative multipliers against light frigates while light f. does not have this penalty against corvettes.

Late game it's better to build some flak instead, as light frigates die fast from long range fire. or maybe fighters. But Your case is not late game I know.

I say he can go pure LF if he wants, it is open for change any time as he can switch production to corvettes if enemy tries long range, and corvettes build fast.

Edit: I always have 2-3 factories so maybe that's why I think in another way than Jingly, can easily switch ship types in my fleet.

FYI, your faction matters significantly....TEC can get away with using their corvettes to beat up on other factions corvettes...other factions can't....

Flak is to be avoided if you can, mainly because it is useless for many of the essential early game tasks (killing SBs, focusing on caps, taking out structures)....it also is the most expensive and builds the slowest of the 4 early game frigates (on per fleet supply basis)...basically, you are investing a lot of time and resources into a ship that it good at only one thing....

Early game, most players avoid carrier starter capital.. Light carrier cruises are lightyears away..

Original post was about EARLY GAME, so my part was about research. Light carriers are pretty expensive units early on, tier3, and they are hard to get in higher numbers while your opponent can build tons of corvettes. Defense turrets are very lame structures, and especially weak against corvettes if you try it, they only damage 30 or so on them.. So you will never have enough fighters to deal with corvettes only in the middle game where people don't usually build corvettes at higher numbers and your carriers should be building bombers against structures and bigger moving stuff.

Oh and btw OP is talking about defense, not his assault.

I didn't say you have to have flak...I said the exact opposite....

I'm really disappointed in you RiddleMooLight...your trolling just isn't what it used to be....

There are cases when they are not efficient, you seem to forget the one who wrote the post does not seem to be an expert player (he can't defeat corvette swarms though I may be wrong, then I am sorry), and it needs some skill to use flak properly, balancing their numbers right, not to waste huge firepower if you build too much etc. I advice him only build flak if he has the sufficient money and can build them fast from2-3 factories. Flak only works if they are in larger numbers like 15-20 (or even some more) and their enemy is spread out (shooting at 4 directions grants max efficiency). They are medium against long range and are bad against anything else, only raise mitigation levels of enemy ships without causing real damage.. And if your opponent switches ship types to say bombers and titan/capital ships, there goes your useless flak.. In a close fight when you go to battle at the very start against corvettes pure light frig fleet is the best you can do, no need for researching and to have 2 military labs, and your factories build more firepower in lesser time. After a while thogh it may be necessary to build some.. Having some of them is always good, In multiplayer games where I faced corvettes I always had 10-20 (if heavy corvette fleet and strong eco of my own even above 20), they did good work on corvettes when I didn't want to build light frigates as they are dieing fast when facing long range.

Not everyone likes to build that much of light frigates, as TEC I always preferred long range (sometimes even as my first frigate built), and most of the times it worked, bought me enough time to properly balance my fleet against my opponent, countering anything he could send at me. Light frigates are stopped cold by long range frigates and cause you heavy economic damage (high losses), but for Advent they are excellent (Vasari is a bit different though I hate playing them in multi..). For TEC they can be good starters too, but only if your opponent is corvette-heavy or building corvette-light frig fleet (who has more light, he wins), but against long range they are ridiculously weak if you don't have extreme advantage in numbers.

Maybe that's why I beat the skilled players when playing then.... 

Oh yea I agree on that too, which is why I will go lf/corvettes first and then change depending on the game. I know flak lose hard for the time spent investing into them and ofc the cash.

your beginning to sound like someone who doesn't play on ico lol. Remember those days when you would give me those same responses but now I know better and your argument about flak being a poor investment against late game titans is a booboo. Your only defense against corvettes from sniping your titan is flak..

There's a misconception that people think they can survive lf & corvette builds without severely beating the corvettes with flak which always depends on scouting.

Anyone who hasn't scouted will just opt to build lf & corvettes to counter the lf & corvettes. Differences in skill levels are involved because you can wipe the other half of your opponents fleet and defeat him/her before they build titans.

I'd always have 10-20 corvettes for the debuff and the ability to jump into a contested well and snipe the constructors.. need be jumping to back wells and doing the same. This can be incredibly damaging at early game. 

The OP asked about early game, I responded with advice for the early game....but I guess you are so skilled you have titans in the early game...

I like them for constructor sniping, though honestly you don't need anywhere close to 20 for that to work out...I find most of the debuffs to be pretty weak even when fully stacked (not that they don't help) and not necessary to kill caps...TL debuff is about the only exception, that is really useful for dealing with caps even early game....

Early game there is an option, big enough fleet to withstand your opponent's attack, or titan, obviously you lose in a ridiculous way if you choose to build titan without a fleet to stay alive until your titan is finished, so an early titan most of the time is a bad investment, again, when fighting humans, and obviously someone who is not as noob he can colonize the planets around him and knows how to attack the other player..

And maybe you forgot, but here people are talking about games against human players, AI doesn't matter here as it never spams corvettes in annoying numbers and is stupid as hell, completely different from playing vs humans.