- Joined
- Sep 4, 2013
- Messages
- 1,317
- Reaction score
- 185
Yes, it is an other attempt at a ship classification system. But instead of "Mass" or "Size", this time, I will try to class them by their purpose.
1: Fighter - (Abbreviated as "FL" from here onwards)
Fighter classes are agile, capable of rapid acceleration and can be easily mass produced. With enough pilots, a large squadron of these can harrass a larger enemy, but its true power still remains in the point already stated, Fast, Agile, and capable of rapid accleration. Fighters are vulnerable to fast attack crafts, Corvettes, and ships dedicated to escort duty.
Different fleets have different classification of fighters.
FL-I (Interceptor)
The interceptors focus on intercepting (Obviously, lol) enemy fighters and will generally carry more AMCs then their counterpart. They will be just as fast if not faster and also carry more shieding, but with the firepower, speed and extra shielding, it wont be as agile. Interceptors also use Heat-seeking missiles to aid in its effort to stop bomber attacks.
FL-M (Multi-role)
The Multi-role are jack of all trades of fighters, capable of harrassing larger ships and destroying fighters. Multi-role means losing out on being the best in all catergories in exhange for verstaility. This type of fighters will generally focus on speed, manuverability. Firepower with AMCs will be slightly neglected compared to interceptors, but they will generally carry more missile weapons (Less than bombers). These would have the most use when used on smaller carriers because larger carriers can easily carry both Interceptors and bombers in sufficent quantity to neglect the disadvantages of each type.
FL-B (Bomber)
The bomber carries large amount of weapons compared to other fighters, brutally bashing any fighters which fail to avoid its frontal firepower. It also comes with more shieding than Multi-role and interceptors, however, this comes at the expense of speed and mobility, making it more vulnerable. Firepower will be focused on AMC and Missiles, with AMC destroying shielding as nessassary and Missiles causing damage to unshielded components such as Turrets and Space stations. Bombers are larger in size, have inferior AMC power compared to Interceptors, but equip large amount of missiles to strike at shieldless enemies. (Space stations, planets)
Fast attack craft (Abrreviated to FAC)
These ships are smaller than most vesels, but larger than fighters by quite a bit. It is designed to chase off fighters and protect territories from fighter attacks and to make a breakthrough via smaller crafts more difficult. These ships retain decent speed and mobility, in order to be a threat, these ships usually have numerous smaller AMCs which can take down fighters and batteries of missile of various type. And some more advanced versions can have a single or two turrets.
The FACs role
- Patroling areas near homebase or patroling areas near main fleet.
- Chasing off other FACs, GBs and eliminating fighters
- Light escort duty
Gunboat (Abbreviated to "GB")
Gunboats are similar to GB in design, size, but their focus is different. These ships are intended for support, and carry weapons disportionally large for their size. However, the amount of weapons are not as numerous and gunboats often sacrafice armor for that weapon. Speed is crucial as shielding will most likely be inadequte and thus, speed is its only defence. It is capable of taking on ships larger than it, but due to smaller numbers of large weapons, it will have trouble with fighters which could swarm it and stay out of the firing arc for that 1 or few powerful weapon.
The GB's role
- To patrol areas near main base and main fleet
- To provide support for FACs and provide extra firepower to the group
- Light escort duty
Corvette (Abbreivated to "CO")
These ships are small in size, larger than a "FAC" but a lot smaller than a Destroyer and its purpose is to chase off all lighter ships with its supeior weapons and shields while keeping decent speed. This is the point where the difference between ship and fighter becomes more and more distinct, with this ship not being able to turn nearly as fast as a fighter but also being able to drop the shield of one in 2 volleys. This class of ships are used generally for anti-fighter and anti-harrasser duty, and also capable of harrasing the enemies. A larger amount of Corvettes can drop shields of a Battleship and will be able to destroy some turrets. These ships obviouslly cannot stand toe to toe with a heavier ship, but they cost a lot less than their heavier opponents, and this gives them an economical advantage making all Corvettes lost being an easy replacement. Corvettes are usually equiped with AMC, heat-seeking missiles and unguided D-100 missiles. The heatseekers are fired whenever a fighter is nearby in order to destroy or damage it. Unguided D-100 is used when the enemy's shields are down in order to damage larger capital ships with more efficentcy. AMCs are usually smaller than that of gunboats, but also a lot more numerous in order to ward off fighter and bombers.
The CO's role
- To escort friendly ships and give fire support to larger ones
- To cause havoc on fighter formation which are attacking the main fleet
- To transport VIPs
- Light raiding and harassment vessel, good for piracy against weakly armed merchant ships
Frigates (Abbreviated as "F")
Frigates are as fast as a corvette, but armed with heavier weapons and its purpose is to engage Corvettes, and to protect larger ships. A Frigate can also serve as the flagship of a fleet of Corvettes. The Frigates are a delicate balance of speed, armor and firepower. A ship the size of a Frigate will begin to require Heatseeking missiles OR turrets to fend off enemy fighters due to its unwieldlyness compared to fighters. They are equiped as a warship with little onboard luxuary and its core design is to attack. These ships will shredd anything smaller than them in a firefight, but when out flanked by fighters, it will begin to have trouble due to the superior mobility of the enemy fighters. Friagtes are one of the favorites for both bounty hunters, fleets and pirates alike due to its versatility.
Role of Frigates
- Merchant raiding, these ships have the speed and firepower to do it.
- Fleet escort, just as good as it is at attack merchants, it can also protect them well due to its good speed and firepower.
- Supporting larger ships, or leading a fleet of Corvettes. These ships are great as patrol for larger and well established fleets in the region. A fleet of 4 Corvettes and 1 Frigate is fast and powerful enough to deter theives and intruder
Destroyers (Abbreiviated as "DD")
Destroyers are as fast as Frigates, and carry even MORE power. But by this stage, your ship must have turret or it will be harrassed to death by fighters. Your ship should also have some Heatseeking missiles as backup just incase your turrets are down. With destroyers, a mix of weapons can be chosen depending on the situation. When dealing with large amount of fighters, you might wish to equip numerous smaller AMCs and larger amounts of Heatseeker while using it in a general role means carryine 4-6 large AMC ealing around 500-600 damage per hit and several missiles in order to exploit any shield downtime to cause damage. This ship is also the beginning to the end of cheap, replacable ships as good destroyers are rather expensive compared to every other ship class which are lighter. Destroyers are good as a wolf-pack with other destroyers or as a leader of a fleet of Frigates (Just as a Frigate leads a fleet of Corvettes), hunting down any lone fleets and can serve as a good patrol ship which could be used to guard sectors and keeping it safe from enemies. With its firepower and speed, it is a valuable asset to any fleet. Due to economic reasons, Destroyers will be most fleets' mainstay.
-Sub variant: Destroyer leader
Destroyer leaders are a cross between Destroyers and Cruisers. It is larger than normal destroyers and smaller than Cruisers. It carries weapons and armor, but it still retains the characteristics of a Destroyer in some way. It still shares the same stregth and weakness of Destroyers, but some weakness are in some way addressed. As its name suggest, they are designed to lead a fleet of Destroyers into combat and thus just as fast as destroyers (Unlike Cruisers, which require its escort to slow down for it)
Role of both DD and Destroyer leader
- Medium escort duties, when you are using destroyers to escort, the escorted better be something of value.
- Wolf-pack, heavy harraser of enemy fleets
- Fire support for larger ships
- The bulk of large fleets will be destroyers
(Will get back to it SoonTM)
1: Fighter - (Abbreviated as "FL" from here onwards)
Fighter classes are agile, capable of rapid acceleration and can be easily mass produced. With enough pilots, a large squadron of these can harrass a larger enemy, but its true power still remains in the point already stated, Fast, Agile, and capable of rapid accleration. Fighters are vulnerable to fast attack crafts, Corvettes, and ships dedicated to escort duty.
Different fleets have different classification of fighters.
FL-I (Interceptor)
The interceptors focus on intercepting (Obviously, lol) enemy fighters and will generally carry more AMCs then their counterpart. They will be just as fast if not faster and also carry more shieding, but with the firepower, speed and extra shielding, it wont be as agile. Interceptors also use Heat-seeking missiles to aid in its effort to stop bomber attacks.
FL-M (Multi-role)
The Multi-role are jack of all trades of fighters, capable of harrassing larger ships and destroying fighters. Multi-role means losing out on being the best in all catergories in exhange for verstaility. This type of fighters will generally focus on speed, manuverability. Firepower with AMCs will be slightly neglected compared to interceptors, but they will generally carry more missile weapons (Less than bombers). These would have the most use when used on smaller carriers because larger carriers can easily carry both Interceptors and bombers in sufficent quantity to neglect the disadvantages of each type.
FL-B (Bomber)
The bomber carries large amount of weapons compared to other fighters, brutally bashing any fighters which fail to avoid its frontal firepower. It also comes with more shieding than Multi-role and interceptors, however, this comes at the expense of speed and mobility, making it more vulnerable. Firepower will be focused on AMC and Missiles, with AMC destroying shielding as nessassary and Missiles causing damage to unshielded components such as Turrets and Space stations. Bombers are larger in size, have inferior AMC power compared to Interceptors, but equip large amount of missiles to strike at shieldless enemies. (Space stations, planets)
Fast attack craft (Abrreviated to FAC)
These ships are smaller than most vesels, but larger than fighters by quite a bit. It is designed to chase off fighters and protect territories from fighter attacks and to make a breakthrough via smaller crafts more difficult. These ships retain decent speed and mobility, in order to be a threat, these ships usually have numerous smaller AMCs which can take down fighters and batteries of missile of various type. And some more advanced versions can have a single or two turrets.
The FACs role
- Patroling areas near homebase or patroling areas near main fleet.
- Chasing off other FACs, GBs and eliminating fighters
- Light escort duty
Gunboat (Abbreviated to "GB")
Gunboats are similar to GB in design, size, but their focus is different. These ships are intended for support, and carry weapons disportionally large for their size. However, the amount of weapons are not as numerous and gunboats often sacrafice armor for that weapon. Speed is crucial as shielding will most likely be inadequte and thus, speed is its only defence. It is capable of taking on ships larger than it, but due to smaller numbers of large weapons, it will have trouble with fighters which could swarm it and stay out of the firing arc for that 1 or few powerful weapon.
The GB's role
- To patrol areas near main base and main fleet
- To provide support for FACs and provide extra firepower to the group
- Light escort duty
Corvette (Abbreivated to "CO")
These ships are small in size, larger than a "FAC" but a lot smaller than a Destroyer and its purpose is to chase off all lighter ships with its supeior weapons and shields while keeping decent speed. This is the point where the difference between ship and fighter becomes more and more distinct, with this ship not being able to turn nearly as fast as a fighter but also being able to drop the shield of one in 2 volleys. This class of ships are used generally for anti-fighter and anti-harrasser duty, and also capable of harrasing the enemies. A larger amount of Corvettes can drop shields of a Battleship and will be able to destroy some turrets. These ships obviouslly cannot stand toe to toe with a heavier ship, but they cost a lot less than their heavier opponents, and this gives them an economical advantage making all Corvettes lost being an easy replacement. Corvettes are usually equiped with AMC, heat-seeking missiles and unguided D-100 missiles. The heatseekers are fired whenever a fighter is nearby in order to destroy or damage it. Unguided D-100 is used when the enemy's shields are down in order to damage larger capital ships with more efficentcy. AMCs are usually smaller than that of gunboats, but also a lot more numerous in order to ward off fighter and bombers.
The CO's role
- To escort friendly ships and give fire support to larger ones
- To cause havoc on fighter formation which are attacking the main fleet
- To transport VIPs
- Light raiding and harassment vessel, good for piracy against weakly armed merchant ships
Frigates (Abbreviated as "F")
Frigates are as fast as a corvette, but armed with heavier weapons and its purpose is to engage Corvettes, and to protect larger ships. A Frigate can also serve as the flagship of a fleet of Corvettes. The Frigates are a delicate balance of speed, armor and firepower. A ship the size of a Frigate will begin to require Heatseeking missiles OR turrets to fend off enemy fighters due to its unwieldlyness compared to fighters. They are equiped as a warship with little onboard luxuary and its core design is to attack. These ships will shredd anything smaller than them in a firefight, but when out flanked by fighters, it will begin to have trouble due to the superior mobility of the enemy fighters. Friagtes are one of the favorites for both bounty hunters, fleets and pirates alike due to its versatility.
Role of Frigates
- Merchant raiding, these ships have the speed and firepower to do it.
- Fleet escort, just as good as it is at attack merchants, it can also protect them well due to its good speed and firepower.
- Supporting larger ships, or leading a fleet of Corvettes. These ships are great as patrol for larger and well established fleets in the region. A fleet of 4 Corvettes and 1 Frigate is fast and powerful enough to deter theives and intruder
Destroyers (Abbreiviated as "DD")
Destroyers are as fast as Frigates, and carry even MORE power. But by this stage, your ship must have turret or it will be harrassed to death by fighters. Your ship should also have some Heatseeking missiles as backup just incase your turrets are down. With destroyers, a mix of weapons can be chosen depending on the situation. When dealing with large amount of fighters, you might wish to equip numerous smaller AMCs and larger amounts of Heatseeker while using it in a general role means carryine 4-6 large AMC ealing around 500-600 damage per hit and several missiles in order to exploit any shield downtime to cause damage. This ship is also the beginning to the end of cheap, replacable ships as good destroyers are rather expensive compared to every other ship class which are lighter. Destroyers are good as a wolf-pack with other destroyers or as a leader of a fleet of Frigates (Just as a Frigate leads a fleet of Corvettes), hunting down any lone fleets and can serve as a good patrol ship which could be used to guard sectors and keeping it safe from enemies. With its firepower and speed, it is a valuable asset to any fleet. Due to economic reasons, Destroyers will be most fleets' mainstay.
-Sub variant: Destroyer leader
Destroyer leaders are a cross between Destroyers and Cruisers. It is larger than normal destroyers and smaller than Cruisers. It carries weapons and armor, but it still retains the characteristics of a Destroyer in some way. It still shares the same stregth and weakness of Destroyers, but some weakness are in some way addressed. As its name suggest, they are designed to lead a fleet of Destroyers into combat and thus just as fast as destroyers (Unlike Cruisers, which require its escort to slow down for it)
Role of both DD and Destroyer leader
- Medium escort duties, when you are using destroyers to escort, the escorted better be something of value.
- Wolf-pack, heavy harraser of enemy fleets
- Fire support for larger ships
- The bulk of large fleets will be destroyers
(Will get back to it SoonTM)
