Contents:
1. Contents (You are here)
2. Overview
A. Reasons
B. Minor Explanation
C. Conclusion of Overview
3. List of Classes
4. Description of Classes
A. Small Crew Craft
B. Light Craft
C. Medium Craft
D. Heavy Craft
E. Super Craft
F. Hyper Craft
G. Death By Lag Craft (Titans)
H. Specialty Craft
5. Conclusion
Note: This is currently being updated to a new format. Included in this new format will eventually be a rewritten overview and conclusion. For now, only a few things will be changed at a time.
Overview
Reasons: As someone who has played a few games involving people creating their own spacecraft, I've found that people almost always have differing views on how to classify their craft. There are, however, a few factors that seem to stay constant for all people. Upon looking at classification systems here on the forums, I found a complete lack of mention of these factors. Everyone was obsessed with classifying ships in some sort of quantitative way. While that seems like a nice idea, it just doesn't work. Quantities mean nothing if they have no quality. Therefore, I have decided to create a more qualitative system.
Minor Description: As I mentioned above, everyone seems to calssify ships based on some quantity, be it mass, number of turrets, or dimensions. This classification system shall instead focus on two of the factors that I have found to be fairly constant among classifications in my other games. Those factors are Armament and Role. These shall be what determine the primary class of a ship (corvette, battleship, carrier, etc.), while the relative size shall determine its secondary class (light, medium, heavy, hyper, etc.). As you can see in the contents, I shall be dividing up the descriptions by sizes to a degree, but really size is relative to the normal ship of that type.
Conclusion of Overview: Starmade is a game that does, to a degree, limit the ability of players to make large ships. The average casual gamer will probably never use an HMS Damocles, or even a Brigadier. Massive ships just cause too many problems for anyone who doesn't have an optimal computer setup. Thus, I find all of these classification systems that use mass and dimensions of ships to be rather useless. By that logic, most ships people will use won't even be able to be classified as battleships, let alone carriers or dreadnoughts. By this system, things may actually begin to make some sense.
List of Classes
Small Crew Craft:
Fighter
Bomber
Drop ship
Corvette
Escort Corvette
Light Craft:
Light Frigate
Destroyer
Gunboat
Light Cruiser
Medium Craft:
Medium Frigate
Cruiser
Battle Cruiser
Light Carrier
Battleship
Heavy Craft:
Heavy Frigate
Heavy Destroyer
Medium Carrier
Super Craft:
Super Battleship
Heavy Battle Cruiser
Light Dreadnought
Super Carrier
Hyper Craft:
Dreadnought
Hyper Carrier
Death By Lag Craft (Titans):
Super Dreadnought
Fleet Carrier
Death Star
Specialty Craft:
Shield Ships
Unarmed Transports
Mining ships
Healing Ships
Power Ships
Description of Classes
Small Crew Craft:
Fighter:
Role- Harassing poorly shielded vessels, eliminating enemy fighters, and gaining area control
Armament- High rate of fire AMCs with decent power, maybe some weak missiles
Defenses- Very light shielding, high maneuverability
Suggested Size- Largest dimension in the 10-15m range, enough to be nimble and hold its own in a fight
Example- Isanth-VI
Bomber:
Role- Delivering large payloads to enemy vessels, preferably those with weakened or no shields
Armament- Missiles
Defenses- Decent shielding, still quite light in comparison to most ships, some agility
Suggested Size- Largest dimension of 20-30m, though it can be less
Example- N/A
Escort Bomber:
Role- Delivering large payloads to enemy vessels and neutralizing enemy Small Crew Craft
Armament- Missiles and some AMCs
Defenses- Decent shielding, some agility
Suggested Size- 20-30m, suggested not to be any less, possibly can be slightly larger
Example- N/A
Drop Ship:
Role- Delivering troops to either a planet or an enemy ship (the later of which is not exactly possible)
Armament- Light AMC for assisting troops
Defenses- Decent Shielding, slightly better than that of a bomber due to carrying troops
Suggested Size- 25-35m
Example- N/A
Corvette:
Role- Area Denial, fire support
Armament- Some AMCs for point defense and area denial purposes, primary focus on missiles
Defenses- Moderate shielding, enough to survive a small swarm of fighters for a while, maybe some turrets
Suggested Size- 40-60m
Example- N/A
Escort Corvette:
Role- Greater Area Denial, Fire support, Anti-Fighter/ Bomber
Armament- Stronger AMCs for tearing through weak shields more easily, generally the same number of missiles as its regular counterpart
Defenses- Moderate Shielding, likely a few point defense turrets
Suggested Size- 45-65m
Example- N/A
Light Craft:
Light Frigate: The light frigate is generally armed with only a few guns, and only slightly more missiles. Instead of focusing on armament, they focus on maneuverability and carrying a few small craft, generally fighters, into battle. Frigates are also the first ships on this list to often see use of turrets. Their main role is similar to that of escorts: To destroy small enemy ships.
Destroyer: The destroyer is very much a multirole craft. It is fairly well armed with both guns and missiles. As its name would suggest, it is intended to destroy enemy ships. Destroyers can generally focus on ship to ship combat, and thus can do fairly well in 1v1 scenarioes with equally powerful ships. Destoyers also tend to have decent armor and shielding. Sometimes they do carry a fighter or two into battle, but they generally are more focused on putting rounds into the enemy.
Gunboat/Gunship: The gunboat tends to have slightly less missiles than a destroyer, purely for the purpose of aiding it in solo fights. As its name suggest though, it does have a heavy focus on powerful guns. It often will have more powerful guns in greater numbers than a destroyer, and uses these to shred through enemy shields. Gunboats essentially are the counterparts to bombers, as they expose enemy ships to the large payloads that bombers carry. Gunboats can also be considered "light battleships" to some degree.
Light Cruiser: Another counterpart to the gunboat, the light cruiser is generally armed with a decent array of missiles, and only a few small guns. Like bombers, they focus on causing major area damage to enemy ships. Cruisers are also rather agile ships, and fairly light in comparison to gunboats and destroyers. They can, and sometimes do, carry a few fighters with them, generally for added protection.
Medium Craft:
Medium Frigate: At this point, some ship classifications begin to become relative to ships of their Primary class. The medium frigate, then, is larger than the light firgate, slightly less maneuverable, carries a few more fighters, and is a bit more properly armed. It can be equated to a larger destroyer, but one that carries a decent group of fighters and is slightly more agile.
Cruiser: A cruiser is slightly easier to distinguish from a light cruiser, as it tends to have a respectable amount of armor and shielding, are slightly less agile, built more for extended exchanges, and of course more heavily armed. They still focus primarily on missiles, but do have respectable enough guns to take down shields on smaller craft.
Battle Cruiser: The battle cruiser is even more well armed, armored, and shielded than a cruiser, and thus is even less agile. However, it is very good at causing a lot of damage to unshielded enemy ships, and decent at assisting in tearing down shields. Naturally they are also very useful in extended engagements, and carry a respectable number of fighters. Essentially, a battle cruiser is a hybridization of a light carrier and a destroyer.
Light Carrier: The light carrier is a somewhat poorly armed craft, but it makes up for this with what it carries. It can carry a decent number of fighters, bombers, and can even carry a smaller corvette or two into battle. It tends to rely on turrets for defenses, has poor maneuverability, but decent armor and shielding.
Battleship: A battleship will outclass any smaller or equally sized ship other than a fellow battleship almost always. They are heavily armed, primarily with guns, but also with a few decently powerful missiles. They are one of the most valuable ships in a fleet. Unlike destroyers, they are not multiroles in any way, they are meant to hit hard, continue to hit hard, hit hard some more, and when they get bored, hit even harder. They also are meant to take a beating, as every ship in an enemy fleet is going to want to take them out.
Warning! Beyond this point, ships start to get into the range of causing major lag for less powerful computers. Most of the ships listed below are only there so that they are accounted for.
Heavy Craft:
Heavy Frigate: The armor and shielding of a cruiser, but the role and firepower of a better medium frigate. Again, this is one of those relative classes.
Heavy Destroyer: These will have the guns of a battleship, as well as the armor and shields of one, but will aslo carry far more missiles and function as multiroles. They also might carry as much as a couple of bombers, or a decent handful of fighters.
Medium Carrier: These can carry up to anything from the first two craft types. It also is even more well armoed and shielded, and has more turrets to cover its greater size. This is one of those ships that would absolutely murder an old computer.
Super Craft:
Super Battleship: An even bigger and badder battleship. It can probably take on a decent fleet of small ships and win without having its shields drop even once.
Heavy Battle Cruiser: It's only further on the list than the super battleship because it would probably be a decent bit larger. It would be covered in turrets, have insane missile capabilities, great endurance, and generally be a pain to fight with anything short of a decent fleet.
Light Dreadnought: A specialized battleship, Dreadnoughts are among the most powerful ships in existence. The larger ones can easily destroy planets. The light dreadnought would be a super battleship, but slightly bigger, more powerful, and with some sort of doomsday weapon.
Super Carrier: I've somehow only made this the third largest carrier. This thing can carry anythign up to a battleship. Basically, a small fleet will come ouring out of it when it enters a fight.
Hypercraft:
Dreadnought: Have an enemy? Not anymore. It's even more powerful than the light version, meaning that it could probably destroy a planet with a little bit of work.
Hyper Carrier: It can carry anything up to a medium carrier. But seriously, please quit while you're ahead. If this kind of thing doesn't lag you out, you deserve a medal.
Death By Lag Craft (Titans):
Super Dreadnought: Your enemy is back? Oh congrats you jerk, you just crashed the server. I hope you're happy.
Fleet Carrier: Let me make this clear: No normal computer should be working right now. Exactly where did you get that thing?
Death Star: Basically, any ship that is so massive that simply looking at it makes grown men cry at night. Wait, this one might actually be possible without crashing your computer, congrats!
Specialty Craft:
Shield Ships: Due to the lack of projected shields, these are not possible currently. but, if they were, here's what they would be. Shield ships would be ships designed purely to place a large projected shield over a fleet, or part of a fleet. They would be completely unarmed, instead dedicating all space possible to maintaining the largest, most powerful shield they could. Like I said though, there are no projected shields in the game currently, only integrated shields.
Unarmed Trnasports: The name says it all. They can range from an unprotected core to a massive luxury cruise liner. Whatever your heart desires.
Mining Ships: Generally with these, the bigger the better. More mining lasers means more stuff mined. They can be armed of course, but hopefully nobody is going to mess with a peaceful miner, unless they're somewhere they shouldn't be.
Conclusion:
As you can see, this list does unfortunately rely to a degree on size, but it is primarily based on the functionality of a ship. This will hopefully lead to a more accurate method of classifying ships, as basing it all on size is just too innaccurate.
If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. I want to make this the best that it can be, as I feel that it can benefit everyone.
1. Contents (You are here)
2. Overview
A. Reasons
B. Minor Explanation
C. Conclusion of Overview
3. List of Classes
4. Description of Classes
A. Small Crew Craft
B. Light Craft
C. Medium Craft
D. Heavy Craft
E. Super Craft
F. Hyper Craft
G. Death By Lag Craft (Titans)
H. Specialty Craft
5. Conclusion
Note: This is currently being updated to a new format. Included in this new format will eventually be a rewritten overview and conclusion. For now, only a few things will be changed at a time.
Overview
Reasons: As someone who has played a few games involving people creating their own spacecraft, I've found that people almost always have differing views on how to classify their craft. There are, however, a few factors that seem to stay constant for all people. Upon looking at classification systems here on the forums, I found a complete lack of mention of these factors. Everyone was obsessed with classifying ships in some sort of quantitative way. While that seems like a nice idea, it just doesn't work. Quantities mean nothing if they have no quality. Therefore, I have decided to create a more qualitative system.
Minor Description: As I mentioned above, everyone seems to calssify ships based on some quantity, be it mass, number of turrets, or dimensions. This classification system shall instead focus on two of the factors that I have found to be fairly constant among classifications in my other games. Those factors are Armament and Role. These shall be what determine the primary class of a ship (corvette, battleship, carrier, etc.), while the relative size shall determine its secondary class (light, medium, heavy, hyper, etc.). As you can see in the contents, I shall be dividing up the descriptions by sizes to a degree, but really size is relative to the normal ship of that type.
Conclusion of Overview: Starmade is a game that does, to a degree, limit the ability of players to make large ships. The average casual gamer will probably never use an HMS Damocles, or even a Brigadier. Massive ships just cause too many problems for anyone who doesn't have an optimal computer setup. Thus, I find all of these classification systems that use mass and dimensions of ships to be rather useless. By that logic, most ships people will use won't even be able to be classified as battleships, let alone carriers or dreadnoughts. By this system, things may actually begin to make some sense.
List of Classes
Small Crew Craft:
Fighter
Bomber
Drop ship
Corvette
Escort Corvette
Light Craft:
Light Frigate
Destroyer
Gunboat
Light Cruiser
Medium Craft:
Medium Frigate
Cruiser
Battle Cruiser
Light Carrier
Battleship
Heavy Craft:
Heavy Frigate
Heavy Destroyer
Medium Carrier
Super Craft:
Super Battleship
Heavy Battle Cruiser
Light Dreadnought
Super Carrier
Hyper Craft:
Dreadnought
Hyper Carrier
Death By Lag Craft (Titans):
Super Dreadnought
Fleet Carrier
Death Star
Specialty Craft:
Shield Ships
Unarmed Transports
Mining ships
Healing Ships
Power Ships
Description of Classes
Small Crew Craft:
Fighter:
Role- Harassing poorly shielded vessels, eliminating enemy fighters, and gaining area control
Armament- High rate of fire AMCs with decent power, maybe some weak missiles
Defenses- Very light shielding, high maneuverability
Suggested Size- Largest dimension in the 10-15m range, enough to be nimble and hold its own in a fight
Example- Isanth-VI
Bomber:
Role- Delivering large payloads to enemy vessels, preferably those with weakened or no shields
Armament- Missiles
Defenses- Decent shielding, still quite light in comparison to most ships, some agility
Suggested Size- Largest dimension of 20-30m, though it can be less
Example- N/A
Escort Bomber:
Role- Delivering large payloads to enemy vessels and neutralizing enemy Small Crew Craft
Armament- Missiles and some AMCs
Defenses- Decent shielding, some agility
Suggested Size- 20-30m, suggested not to be any less, possibly can be slightly larger
Example- N/A
Drop Ship:
Role- Delivering troops to either a planet or an enemy ship (the later of which is not exactly possible)
Armament- Light AMC for assisting troops
Defenses- Decent Shielding, slightly better than that of a bomber due to carrying troops
Suggested Size- 25-35m
Example- N/A
Corvette:
Role- Area Denial, fire support
Armament- Some AMCs for point defense and area denial purposes, primary focus on missiles
Defenses- Moderate shielding, enough to survive a small swarm of fighters for a while, maybe some turrets
Suggested Size- 40-60m
Example- N/A
Escort Corvette:
Role- Greater Area Denial, Fire support, Anti-Fighter/ Bomber
Armament- Stronger AMCs for tearing through weak shields more easily, generally the same number of missiles as its regular counterpart
Defenses- Moderate Shielding, likely a few point defense turrets
Suggested Size- 45-65m
Example- N/A
Light Craft:
Light Frigate: The light frigate is generally armed with only a few guns, and only slightly more missiles. Instead of focusing on armament, they focus on maneuverability and carrying a few small craft, generally fighters, into battle. Frigates are also the first ships on this list to often see use of turrets. Their main role is similar to that of escorts: To destroy small enemy ships.
Destroyer: The destroyer is very much a multirole craft. It is fairly well armed with both guns and missiles. As its name would suggest, it is intended to destroy enemy ships. Destroyers can generally focus on ship to ship combat, and thus can do fairly well in 1v1 scenarioes with equally powerful ships. Destoyers also tend to have decent armor and shielding. Sometimes they do carry a fighter or two into battle, but they generally are more focused on putting rounds into the enemy.
Gunboat/Gunship: The gunboat tends to have slightly less missiles than a destroyer, purely for the purpose of aiding it in solo fights. As its name suggest though, it does have a heavy focus on powerful guns. It often will have more powerful guns in greater numbers than a destroyer, and uses these to shred through enemy shields. Gunboats essentially are the counterparts to bombers, as they expose enemy ships to the large payloads that bombers carry. Gunboats can also be considered "light battleships" to some degree.
Light Cruiser: Another counterpart to the gunboat, the light cruiser is generally armed with a decent array of missiles, and only a few small guns. Like bombers, they focus on causing major area damage to enemy ships. Cruisers are also rather agile ships, and fairly light in comparison to gunboats and destroyers. They can, and sometimes do, carry a few fighters with them, generally for added protection.
Medium Craft:
Medium Frigate: At this point, some ship classifications begin to become relative to ships of their Primary class. The medium frigate, then, is larger than the light firgate, slightly less maneuverable, carries a few more fighters, and is a bit more properly armed. It can be equated to a larger destroyer, but one that carries a decent group of fighters and is slightly more agile.
Cruiser: A cruiser is slightly easier to distinguish from a light cruiser, as it tends to have a respectable amount of armor and shielding, are slightly less agile, built more for extended exchanges, and of course more heavily armed. They still focus primarily on missiles, but do have respectable enough guns to take down shields on smaller craft.
Battle Cruiser: The battle cruiser is even more well armed, armored, and shielded than a cruiser, and thus is even less agile. However, it is very good at causing a lot of damage to unshielded enemy ships, and decent at assisting in tearing down shields. Naturally they are also very useful in extended engagements, and carry a respectable number of fighters. Essentially, a battle cruiser is a hybridization of a light carrier and a destroyer.
Light Carrier: The light carrier is a somewhat poorly armed craft, but it makes up for this with what it carries. It can carry a decent number of fighters, bombers, and can even carry a smaller corvette or two into battle. It tends to rely on turrets for defenses, has poor maneuverability, but decent armor and shielding.
Battleship: A battleship will outclass any smaller or equally sized ship other than a fellow battleship almost always. They are heavily armed, primarily with guns, but also with a few decently powerful missiles. They are one of the most valuable ships in a fleet. Unlike destroyers, they are not multiroles in any way, they are meant to hit hard, continue to hit hard, hit hard some more, and when they get bored, hit even harder. They also are meant to take a beating, as every ship in an enemy fleet is going to want to take them out.
Warning! Beyond this point, ships start to get into the range of causing major lag for less powerful computers. Most of the ships listed below are only there so that they are accounted for.
Heavy Craft:
Heavy Frigate: The armor and shielding of a cruiser, but the role and firepower of a better medium frigate. Again, this is one of those relative classes.
Heavy Destroyer: These will have the guns of a battleship, as well as the armor and shields of one, but will aslo carry far more missiles and function as multiroles. They also might carry as much as a couple of bombers, or a decent handful of fighters.
Medium Carrier: These can carry up to anything from the first two craft types. It also is even more well armoed and shielded, and has more turrets to cover its greater size. This is one of those ships that would absolutely murder an old computer.
Super Craft:
Super Battleship: An even bigger and badder battleship. It can probably take on a decent fleet of small ships and win without having its shields drop even once.
Heavy Battle Cruiser: It's only further on the list than the super battleship because it would probably be a decent bit larger. It would be covered in turrets, have insane missile capabilities, great endurance, and generally be a pain to fight with anything short of a decent fleet.
Light Dreadnought: A specialized battleship, Dreadnoughts are among the most powerful ships in existence. The larger ones can easily destroy planets. The light dreadnought would be a super battleship, but slightly bigger, more powerful, and with some sort of doomsday weapon.
Super Carrier: I've somehow only made this the third largest carrier. This thing can carry anythign up to a battleship. Basically, a small fleet will come ouring out of it when it enters a fight.
Hypercraft:
Dreadnought: Have an enemy? Not anymore. It's even more powerful than the light version, meaning that it could probably destroy a planet with a little bit of work.
Hyper Carrier: It can carry anything up to a medium carrier. But seriously, please quit while you're ahead. If this kind of thing doesn't lag you out, you deserve a medal.
Death By Lag Craft (Titans):
Super Dreadnought: Your enemy is back? Oh congrats you jerk, you just crashed the server. I hope you're happy.
Fleet Carrier: Let me make this clear: No normal computer should be working right now. Exactly where did you get that thing?
Death Star: Basically, any ship that is so massive that simply looking at it makes grown men cry at night. Wait, this one might actually be possible without crashing your computer, congrats!
Specialty Craft:
Shield Ships: Due to the lack of projected shields, these are not possible currently. but, if they were, here's what they would be. Shield ships would be ships designed purely to place a large projected shield over a fleet, or part of a fleet. They would be completely unarmed, instead dedicating all space possible to maintaining the largest, most powerful shield they could. Like I said though, there are no projected shields in the game currently, only integrated shields.
Unarmed Trnasports: The name says it all. They can range from an unprotected core to a massive luxury cruise liner. Whatever your heart desires.
Mining Ships: Generally with these, the bigger the better. More mining lasers means more stuff mined. They can be armed of course, but hopefully nobody is going to mess with a peaceful miner, unless they're somewhere they shouldn't be.
Conclusion:
As you can see, this list does unfortunately rely to a degree on size, but it is primarily based on the functionality of a ship. This will hopefully lead to a more accurate method of classifying ships, as basing it all on size is just too innaccurate.
If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd be happy to hear them. I want to make this the best that it can be, as I feel that it can benefit everyone.
