Reformed and Standardized Vessel Classification

[jstenholt]

While I am still only a few weeks in to my Starmade addiction, and completely new to the Starmade forums themselves, it has become wholly and upsettingly apparant that very few who play this game understand even the most basic concepts of ship classification. I have seen several attempts at standardization within the community at large, but most of them miss the mark of their real world naval analogue by a long shot. These current theories about classification fall short because they are mostly based on the modern navies of the world, and let's face it, the heyday of naval warfare ended long ago.

It is for this reason that I offer this new take on classifying your spacefaring warships in Starmade, a system based on a time when sea-combat was a visceral and deadly as a firefight amidst a city's streets: the Second World War. I have left out the standard strike craft, such as fighters and fighter bombers as it seems most of us understand what does and does not qualify for this role. You'll notice that my definition of a capital ship is very broad, this is because most science fiction includes a capital ship (battlecruiser, battleship, carrier) which actually serves every function of the wildy different types of WWII capital ships.

There are, as far as standard fighting ships go, seven classes of combat ships divided in to two categories.

Any of these classifications can be supplemented with an additional word used to describe its size or capabilities, such as"heavy," "stealth," "cannon," "missile" or "eletronic warfare," for example, Stealth Corvette, Heavy Command Cruiser, Medium Gun Frigate or Light Carrier.

• Corvette - light tonnage, armor and weapons systems. Mainly used as scouts, patrol craft or escorts for non-combat ships and larger warships against strike craft. Very agile, commonly reconfigured for stealth roles due to their size.
• Frigate - medium tonnage, light armor and modest weapon systems. Used as escorts for larger ships.
• Destroyer - medium tonnage, heavy armor and weapon systems. Same basic size as a frigate with heavier armor and weapons. The smallest classification of ship able to be used effectively in a ship to ship role. A frigate made for combat rather than escort. Sometimes carry strike craft.
• Cruiser - heavy tonnage and armor, adaptable weapon systems. Generally considered the smallest class of ship able to operate independently of a fleet or support ships. Cruisers balance between engaging ships of all different sizes, with weapon systems able to effectively engage anything from small strike craft to capital ships.

CAPITAL SHIPS - as noted above, the following warships and their roles are often blended in varying degrees. If you put a massive weapon system on your carrier and use that as a primary means of engaging the enemy, you might be blurring the lines between carrier and battleship. Conversely, if your battleship has a hangar which can fit a frigate and a squadron of twenty fighters, I have news for you...

• Carrier - ultra-heavy tonnage, variable armor, light weapons systems. A ship designed to launch and recover small strike craft and occasionally to dock or service ships of light tonnage. Carriers are meant for engaging enemy ships of all sizes from great range, and thus, they are often slow, and lightly armored with only basic point defense weapons.
• Battlecruiser - ultra-heavy tonnage, armor and variable weapon systems. A much much heavier variant of a cruiser meant to engage any and all types of combat ships.
• Battleship - ultra-heavy tonnage, armor and weapon systems. Designed for one purpose, obliterating hostile capital ships with unnecessarily large guns.
• Dreadnought - Do not classify your ship as this, unless your ship is an outdated hull used for target practice. The term Dreadnought was supplanted by the Battleship classification.

Now here is a list of different, but very common types of non-combat ships meant to support the above ships.

• Cargo Ships - Anything meant to take something from point A to point B either in peacetime or under escort.
• Troop Carrier/Amphibious Assault Ship - Meant to ferry ground troops and their vehicles/equipment between or across planets. Larger variants are analogous to carriers without weapons.
• Minelayer/Minesweeper - This is, hopefully, self-explanatory.
• Fuel Tenders/Refit Ships - Good terms for any non-combat support ship.

Now, while I am in no way suggesting that you conform to these suggestions, they are concise, easy to understand and in line with most science fiction, (Except Star Wars, Lucas is a nutter.) while drawing on real world analogues for guidance. At the very least, I'd like people to stop calling 50 block abominations "destroyers."

tl;dr Some of ya'll be wack with the ship classifying.

Keep building, keep flying, but most importantly: keep sharing your creations.

 

[Mortig]

Small error with your reasoning, Dreadnoughts are battleships that have been \'super-sized\', could take serious pummeling and continue to churn forward while unloading devastating gun fire.

The very word Dreadnought even implies a ship capable of shrugging off heavy damage, as it means \'fear nothing. I do agree with the rest of what you say though, although you forgot the strike-craft classification (fighters, bombers, small scouts).

I only stress the Dreadnought issue based from my obsession with warships and their historical origins, I also have have a large library of books passed down to me from family members who\'d spent time in a navy, as well a few books I\'ve bought myself.

Please do not become angry though, not everyone playing this game stops to think or research the class types. Let them have fun, and just build your ships to the scales you wish like I am doing myself with my two current projects.

 

[jstenholt]

I don\'t want to rage at anybody, but now, for those who want to excel at spacefaring, they can look at a nice guide and not be made fun of :D

As for Dreadnoughts, there is just so little of a difference between them and Battleships, I just see no real reason to include them. Not that they weren\'t total sea-badasses back during the Great War

And as I explained in the post, I didn\'t include strike craft because they\'re pretty self explanatory.

 

[Mortig]

Ah, didn\'t see that line, but then again when I read through the first go I hadn\'t had my tea yet, lol. And yes there really isn\'t much difference between Dreadnoughts and battleships, the namesake and reason the class persevered, H.M.S. Dreadnought, was because a more ballsy ship was needed. The Dreadnought herself was deemed a \'super-battleship\', and then the model became so standard that today\'s Dreadnoughts are now the standard battleship readout.

As a writer working on a very detailed sci-fi/fantasy book (nowhere near finished, but I have the important stuff set up) I had to create new class types. Each was more heavily armed than the last, and a few having a joking nickname or was defined by it\'s most powerful member.



A couple of my own personal faves of these that I\'d made up were the Plaguenought, which I renamed to Leviathan class when I understood the types better. This would technically be a \'super-Dreadnought\' by the old criteria, but that is so bland a definition.



Another of my created classes is the Apocalypse class, which pack enough oomph to reduce even the deepest burrowed bunkers or best defended ships and stations. These behemoths lumber so slowly that in my tales I had to give them what Frank Herbert called \'Fold-space Engines\' to really get any distance covered.



And my most favorite comes in two flavours, Big-Momma and Daughter, the devastating Desolace class. The sole \'Big-Momma- flavoured ship is the namesake with a mass so large she\'d have the gravity well of a gas giant or small sun (in a reality based universe), while the \'Daughter\' flavoured class only has just five members and are only a third the size and have a grav well equalling 2G, each one bearing slightly different specialization that coincide with their individual names. I intend to build one of them at some point once the game hits a more stable build or I work ou tenough of the math to scale them down enough to fit inside a sector, lol.

I may have to settle on a project I attempted in Minecraft that I lost due to the comp it was on kicking the bucket unexpectedly. Still would be a big build though,but heh, I like the big ships, can put more detail into them.

 

[Directfix]

That\'s what I like to see. Ship class as per its role. Others roles are Fast Attack Ship - attack in numbers or use small size, speed and manoeuvrable against a larger target, Economic Raider - designed to attack supply ships and take loot or prevent supply. Littoral combat ship (trolling) - is a type of relatively small surface vessel intended for operations in the littoral zone (close to shore). It is \"envisioned to be a networked, agile, stealthy surface combatant capable of defeating anti-access and asymmetric threats in the littorals.\"



Frankie

FAC - Earth

 

[FAIL_BRO_777]

Would be nice to have an example mass next to each one.. maybe a picture also?

 

[jstenholt]

A littoral combat ship is really just a modern rebranding of a corvette.

As for going by mass, that really defeats the purpose, as these classifications are based almost solely on their designated role. As for pictures, the community\'s creations are far to varied in size and flavor for me to pick just one, and my own fleet is rather small compared to the sheer sizes of some others.

 

[Directfix]

LCS is nothing like a Corvette. LCS have more free space within their hulls and can take on mission modules, as to undertake specialist classes. One day it can do minesweeping, then something else the next day, something a corvette can\'t do, hence LCS is a class.

 

[z1967]

I would like to thank you for this guide. Bombshock Industries needed a standard and you provided it. You were right to include that there would be variations within the classes (eg. A carrier with a huge gun or a stealth corvette).

I would like to point out that the battle ship was meant to pound the ever loving hell out of anything it could see. These would be stand-off or bombardment weapons. A cruiser is somewhat of a smaller battleship.(technically) a destroyer was meant to take on ships of its class and lower effectively to prevent them from getting close to a larger vessel or the capital. Which reminds me, a capital is meant to not engage in the action. A true capital would stay in the center of a fleet and bombard from afar or launch strike craft. Capitals are the center of a battle group (fleet) and a flagship is the center if a navy (like the Bismarck or the Yamamoto). These are just my little pitches that you could add. Well done.

edits: using mobile.

 

[jstenholt]

As for corvettes, they no longer really exist as they did in the 40s, their modern day analogue is the Litorral Combat Ship. So if you have a highly adaptable ship which doesn\'t operate outside of a planet\'s gravity well, go ahead and call it an LCS. They much to specific of a niche to afford them an entire class. This system is meant to be streamlined and easy to understand.



As for what Z said about capital ships. Your definition is off. A capital ship was and still is any ship posessing a large enough tonnage. They can be standoffish, like a carrier would have been in the Pacific, or they can be balls to the walls, engaging ships at relatively close range, much like the aforementioned Bismarck. And yes, Battleships do serve the same role as cruisers, albeit at a much larger size.

Also, thanks for phrasing the bit about destroyers like you did. That\'s what I was trying to say, but reading over it again, that is not at all what I wrote. Destroyers are meant to be anti-ship escorts, rather than a frigate, which is meant for more of an picket-escort and scouting role.

 

[Directfix]

Assault pioneer class type.





Main Role of the Assault pioneer class.

A, In front of the advancing force, clearing the route as necessary of obstacles;
B, Breaching of enemy fortifications;
C, construction of tools for a force to cross natural and man-made obstacles. Construction, support and Supervising of Planet bases, field defensive works, HQs and
D, Construct ambush sites, mines and boobytraps.

2nd Role

A, Armed reconnaissance and
B, Ambushing.

Ships in this class should be well armed as they will work on their own at times.

 

[Mason]

Dreadnought - Do not classify your ship as this, unless your ship is an outdated hull used for target practice. The term Dreadnought was supplanted by the Battleship classification.


Screw it, Im classing my flagship as as a dreadnought. Also, maybe a minimun size/maximum size for each class, 100000 mass frigate? :D

 

[WesleyFromTX]

No thanks. I\'ll call my ships whatever I want. Fiction is not reality. This is not reality.

 

[Cybertooth]

While I generally like this, and would like a standard classification, I dont see why we should necessarily use the current navy definitions. This is in space, in the future. I imagine that if humans do ever develop the true spacefaring ships that we\'re dreaming of, there is no guarantee that anthing other than the class names may transfer over. So i see no reason why people can\'t classify their ships as dreadnoughts, you talk about it being out of use now, it may be back in use by then.

I\'m not arguing against this list as such, I just think we shouldn\'t use the current navy definitions for anything more than rough guide lines.

 

[jstenholt]

Now, while I am in no way suggesting that you conform to these suggestions, they are concise, easy to understand and in line with most science fiction


Read the damned post before you go off and assume I\'m trying to force this on you all. This is just a primer, a guide to how ship classification really works. I\'m not looking for additions and I\'m not trying to convert anybody. I am merely disseminating information.

 

[Zyrr]

While I do agree that ships should primarily be defined by role, \"blending\" ship classes is very common. The fact is, this is space. Spacefaring vessels are hugely different from their waterfaring cousins, and because of this classes are not the same, only similar.

Take a battleship, for example. Because no one has ever built anything bigger that can shoot and float on the ocean, there is no reason to expand on seafaring classes. But, with spacefaring vessels, much larger ships can and have been built, which is why they need their own designation. I can and will fly my 150k mass ships that include expansive hangar bays and very powerful weapons, but that does not mean it is a carrier, or a battleship. Supercapitals exist in Sci-Fi for a reason.

As to your dreadnought claim, I can\'t seem to find any Sci-Fi material that fails to use them because, essentially, they suck. Take EVE, for example. They define dreadnought as a large, slow and unwieldy giant with a very good gun that accels at attacking stationary targets, which I believe works.

In summary, this is a good guide, but it seems to be built from and for wet navy designations.



-Chairman of the Collective, dated 8/17/13

 

[Kiviar]

Read the damned post before you go off and assume I\'m trying to force this on you all. This is just a primer, a guide to how ship classification really works. I\'m not looking for additions and I\'m not trying to convert anybody. I am merely disseminating information.


I\'ve said it before in previous ship classification threads. We aren\'t writing the Washington Naval Treaty here.

Problem is, like every other ship classification out there its just fluff. Now, fluff for fluff\'s sake is fine. But what you call a battleship, people on my server might call a frigate, and others on a different one might call a super-ultra-mega-death-battleship. There might even be some lone guy on a private server that calles it a pong.

Who is right in this case? Well everyone is.

Every armchair admiral here has a specific classification style they like, and they will nitpick and talk in increasingly adanoidal voices to prove their\'s is the most \'correct\' one. Which is fine, nitpicking is fun sometimes. But everyone wants to RP in their own way, so just let them have their own classification system, no matter weather or not you think its \'incorrect\'.

 

[Rommel]

I like this idea. It is based heavily on sea-borne craft, but for a starting point until as a community we come to a consensus on what type of craft fits each designation, or come up with new designations, it works. (For instance, \"Assault carriers\" being recognized just by their build)

 

[jstenholt]

And I agree with you all. It should not be based on size, but on role, which is why one person\'s frigate designation could be wildly different in size than anothers, so long as it fullfills the same role. I wrote this classification system with Halo fiction in mind. While the most common type of UNSC carrier is around three thousand metres long, Covenant ships in the same class are as large as thirteen kilometres long. Both are carriers, both are widly different in terms of size and capabilities.



As for the dreadnought designation, not including it is just me being an ass. Don\'t take it too seriously.

 

[Jcewazhere]

A rose by any other name would shatter a planet just as easily.

I would call the biggest of the big ships, \"Galaxy\" (one of my favorite ships ever) or \"Infinity\" (not Halo a super fan, but the human ships are spiffy) \"Lexx\" maybe? Or the \"Executor class\". \"Dreadnaught\" is nifty, but a bit overused.

If you haven\'t seen it or its various incarnations the starship size comparison chart is nifty, if a bit dated.

http://crpp0001.uqtr.ca/w4/campagne/images/Ships/Spaceships.jpg

or just google it.



Anyway, I might not agree with the names/classifications picked but I vehemently agree that we need a standard one supported by Schema, and maybe even auto classified ships in game. That way you can tell if the HMS_Fuzzy_Kitten on your map is a fighter or superdestroyer. It could have drop down menus with selections for either military or civilian, though that could be exploited, so maybe military only.