I randomly learned that ObsidianDestroyer considers two different types of cannon damage: "impact" and "penetration".
I don't know how this actually works, but I assume it means cannons can be given different "damage types" and in turn the blocks can respond differently to these "damage types", for instance block type A can survive more "impact" hits and less "penetration" hits, while block type B can survive more "penetration" hits but only one "impact" hit.

My idea means to give the 57mm cannons, which are the largest mountable on corvettes, a different damage type from higher calibre cannons. Let's call the types "small calibre" and "large calibre" for convenience sake. Then, you introduce two new armour types: "Ductile" armour which is weak to small calibre fire but resistant against large calibre, and "Hard" armour which is resistant against small fire but weak against large calibres.

Destroyers and Dreadnoughts can carry a certain % of these special armours. This will give Destroyers a better competing edge against Corvettes, who otherwise outmaneuver them with better speed and smaller size, whilst the Dreadnought will have more time before it's torn apart by 1 or 2 corvettes until its support (in the form of Escort Destroyers/Corvettes) arrives.
(The way to handle the numerical and size superiority of corvettes seems ironically to be with numbers. A lone dreadnought is helpless against even 1 corvette which can stick to a blindspot where it is immune against the dreadnought's bulky guns).


Whilst we ponder on this suggestion, it might also do well to ponder on the supposed role that each ship is supposed to have. In my own canon, I see it like this: Dreadnoughts carry out the mission (bombardement, naval siege region capturing, dreadnought dueling), Submarines sink Dreadnoughts/Carriers, Carriers sink Destroyers and Dreadnoughts, Destroyers sink Submarines and can be specialized, Corvettes are mobile opportunists/harassers and exploit weak points.
Right now, however, Corvettes are too nimble and tiny for cannons to hit while simultanously powerful enough to tear any other ship apart. Perharps the right choice is not to armour up the other ships, but to find a more direct solution to the speed-vs-cannons dillemma which specialized armour is just an indirect way of addressing? Comments and disagreements, please.