Ship Classification

[Panpiper]

I've been obsessive about science fiction, space ship construction systems, since the days of first edition Traveler's High Guard (a good thirty five years ago). I've also extensively read up on military history and the strategy of war for most of the last forty years as well as playing countless wargames, many of which had rule books inches thick and whose paper hex maps covered ping pong tables. I've now played Starmade enough I think to have a very good grasp of the size of ships people build and fly, and the progression of those ships.

I've also noticed a great deal of ambiguity in people's references to ship classifications. This is understandable, given that (for among other reasons) there is in fact today in our modern navies, a regrettable level of similar ambiguity, with cruiser sized ships being called frigates for reasons solely to do with political funding. As much for my own sake, I've decided to write down how I personally classify ships in Starmade. If others find this classification listing useful, all the better.

Snub Fighter - Runabout 0-100 Mass
Generally ships in this range are useless in a fight and might as well be left unarmed.

Light Fighter/Fighter/Heavy Fighter 100-1K Mass
Most pirates fall into this range. Light fighters on the low end of this scale are typically expendable harassers meant to do little more than distract turrets for a short period of time. On the heavier side, we find ships that can start to be a threat in numbers to larger ships.

Corvette 1K-2K Mass
At this scale we find ships able to stand up to and dispatch a typical pirate attack. This would be the standard ship for picket (sensor) duty. A pirate at this scale would probably be the flagship for their operation. Point defense turrets start to become standard.

Frigate 2K-5K Mass
The ship of choice to bring the fight to pirates. This ship can reliably engage such threats without risk of damage. At this scale we start to see small offensive turrets.

Destroyer 5K-10K Mass
A military work horse, can carry weapons that can be a threat in major fleet engagements, though it's life expectancy should it be targeted in such engagements is very short. Ships of this class can be used to bring down typical pirate stations.

Light Cruiser/Cruiser/Heavy Cruiser 10K-50K Mass
These tend to be the ships of choice for most players to actually fly about. Ships smaller than this are simply too easy to destroy and ships much larger tend to present issues with extremely sluggish turning, excessive power requirements, slow jump recycling and low thrust to mass ratios. Turrets start to be major portions of the ship's offensive capacity.

Battlecruiser 50K-100K Mass
This is the tweak class, the weight that most ship builders can obsess over forever. Well built ships at this scale can have the handling characteristics of the lighter cruisers while still having significantly better defense and firepower. The downside is that the material cost of them can be too high to casually risk.

Battleship 100K-500k Mass
This is the ship people start to build to be the big stick for their faction. Huge resources are expended to create a ship that for the most part, simply stays docked. It's movement characteristics are such that it is no fun to fly, and is brought out only if there is a major fleet engagement to fight. However even this ship is potentially outclassed and players may at some point cannibalize it for the building of something even bigger.

Titan 500K Mass+
This is the true war fighting pinnacle. It represents the ultimate offensive and defensive capacity of a faction. Most factions will have only one Titan, if they have any at all. There is no upper limit to a Titan's potential mass. The real limit is the fact that deploying a titan in battle (depending to a degree upon how it was built) could well crash some servers.

Three putative ship classifications are notably not in this list, that of Dreadnought, Capital Ship and Carrier.

Dreadnoughts are simply battleships. The term was used originally for a ship class the British came up with which obsoleted the battleships of their day. New battleships were promptly designed and built which obsoleted the dreadnoughts. A player building a battleship in the weight category above could legitimately call their ship a dreadnought instead, if they felt their ship was of a design that would force other similarly sized ships to be redesigned.

Capital Ships are not a ship class per say. A capital ship is a ship the owner cannot afford to lose. As such the term is completely subjective. A starting player's small miner may be their only resource and as such, for them at least, their 'capital ship'.

Carrier is also not a ship class, but rather a type of ship. It is perfectly possible for a cruiser sized ship to be a carrier, just as much as a titan could be a carrier.

 

[Jumper11550]

I just want to say thanks for spelling out your classifications. I'd been looking to adopt some sort of system myself but wasn't really sure how to go about it.

 

[Sha3es]

It would make sense for there to be a definitive standard for ship sizes.

 

[Jumper11550]

It would make sense for there to be a definitive standard for ship sizes.

One major reason there isn't is that different servers (and single player gameplay) can often play at different size scales. So while a specification like this one may be a handy reference point it won't necessarily work for a server where maximum ship sizes are limited, but they still want the full gamut of classification names.

 

[Groovrider]

Nice system.

I find classification difficult. My biggest sci-fi ship influences were probable the novels of E.E. Doc Smith, Fred Saberhagen, Asimov, Iain M. Banks, Neal Asher and Star Trek. I never saw a "space fighter" until watched Starwars and Buck Rodgers and I struggled to see how they made sense in a space fight unless it was just a analogue of terrestrial fighting because no one really thought that much about it. I can never seem to find a system that fits the way I build.

 

[alterintel]

While I agree with your classification of the current system...
Curious... Do you believe that any changes that will potentially be made to the maneuverability system (thrust/turning speed) could change how your system will classify ships?

ie: would you classify a ship based on it's maneuverability and firepower vs. mass?

 

[Panpiper]

While I agree with your classification of the current system...
Curious... Do you believe that any changes that will potentially be made to the maneuverability system (thrust/turning speed) could change how your system will classify ships?

ie: would you classify a ship based on it's maneuverability and firepower vs. mass?

I understand that such changes are part of the official development plans. It would not affect the way I classify ships. It might cause me to edit a few words.

My classifications are a result of observing what people actually build in the game and how they use their ships. While making large ships more maneuverable might result in people being somewhat more willing to fly bigger ships more often, the real limiting factor for most players is the material cost and time involved in ship construction. Also while sluggish handling is indeed a major factor in reluctance to fly big ships, it is not the only one. The energy cost of having a high thrust large ship is prohibitive, for instance. Shields have diminishing returns, jamming becomes so energy intensive as to be effectively impossible, etc..

Note that most of my Starmade experience is on servers where mining is not boosted beyond vanilla, and free money and material is not handed out liberally as voting rewards or some such. Also I've spent much time playing on servers where one could not upload previously built blueprints, so big ships represented a large investment of time in both material and building. On servers where material is liberally available and one can simply fill a blueprint of whatever ship one finds in Community Content, then on such a server, maneuverability could well be the defining characteristic upon which classification might be based. However I consider such servers to be an aberration of what the developers intended, and would not base my own classification upon that. I dare say on such servers, the very idea of classification is largely moot.

 

[shadowulf]

Well put, though I believe you left out that battlecruisers are in the same weapons class as battleships, just with less armor. I classify the distinction between battle cruiser and battleship by seeing average layers of armor. 1-2 average I classify a battle cruiser and 3+ a battleship. My system reads almost exactly as yours does, save for 50k-499k I call battleships, except when they're lightly armored. I agree that the cruiser/battleship range is the most common in common ships found on servers. Bravo! Great system!

 

[Sha3es]

One major reason there isn't is that different servers (and single player gameplay) can often play at different size scales. So while a specification like this one may be a handy reference point it won't necessarily work for a server where maximum ship sizes are limited, but they still want the full gamut of classification names.

I would also imagine that a universal classification model of ship would be hard on those with aging machines, or those who cannot upgrade their hardware.

Perhaps there could be a scale able model based upon an agreed upon ship classification standard? This would perhaps prevent confusion?

 

[Gasboy]

I would also imagine that a universal classification model of ship would be hard on those with aging machines, or those who cannot upgrade their hardware.

Perhaps there could be a scale able model based upon an agreed upon ship classification standard? This would perhaps prevent confusion?

It is practically impossible to have a standard ship classification. Someone will always be looking for a way to thwart any sort of classification scheme. History shows us this with the Washington and London naval treaties.

Such classification systems only really work on a per server basis. Generally these sorts of servers will be PvP based, or roleplay, and the classification system is simply for balance. Or it's set up as a challenge, designing the best ship possible within hard criteria.

Panpiper's system is reasonable, and if enough people were to use it, it could become the standard. Just keep in mind that there have been past attempts to make a universal classification model, and they've not really worked out.

 

[kiraen]

Looks like a fairly good set up.

Some things that occurred to me while reading the OP:

I'm interested in how these 'mass' numbers translate into block counts and ship sizes/dimensions. A corvette made out of light-weight blocks could be huge compared to a frigate made with primarily advanced armor. Not necessarily combat effective, but an interesting think.

It's also interesting to note that these are all military classifications. Freighters and mining vessels don't really make this list. Some of these classes will work, but I doubt we are going to see many Battlecruiser class lava tankers. Passenger ships would also need another class system. A passenger cruiser is not going to be the same as a cargo or military cruiser. I'm wondering how the cargo update is going to change this list.

Also, classification should actually be based on 'roles', not actual size. Form follows function and all that.

 

[Beld]

Impose personal view of a subjective classification system on others, go on to insist other people are playing the game wrong.

Just another day in an internet spaceship game.

 

[kiraen]

As much for my own sake, I've decided to write down how I personally classify ships in Starmade. If others find this classification listing useful, all the better.

Impose personal view of a subjective classification system on others, go on to insist other people are playing the game wrong.

Did I miss something? Or did you?

 

[Raisinbat]

I usually go with 2k-5k for corvettes; that way fighters/corvettes work as ships that stay within the 800k energy/sec range while frigates and up require more advanced power setups/turrets

 

[Gasboy]

Impose personal view of a subjective classification system on others, go on to insist other people are playing the game wrong.

Just another day in an internet spaceship game.

Uhm, are you perhaps in the wrong thread? 'cause no one posting in this thread has the ability to impose anything on you or anyone else.

 

[sayerulz]

Hmmm.... I was using a length based class system for my ships, although that has considerable shortcomings, so I was planning on making up one based on mass, using my current ships as reference. I might use this one, I'll have to see how my ships fit into it. One of my pet peeves has been seeing ships that must be 10k+ mass called "fighters".

 

[Sha3es]

It would in fact be interesting to see how civilian ships would be added into this classification.

 

[The Judge]

I don't like your ideas when it comes to ship classification.
In my opinion ships should be classified by purpose.

 

[Gasboy]

I don't like your ideas when it comes to ship classification.
In my opinion ships should be classified by purpose.

Each ship type has a purpose though. He didn't go into fine detail, but he probably would if you asked.

Or are you saying that ships should be called stuff like "salvager" "pirate shooty thingy" "blower upper of big ships" be ship classifications?

 

[The Judge]

Each ship type has a purpose though. He didn't go into fine detail, but he probably would if you asked.

Or are you saying that ships should be called stuff like "salvager" "pirate shooty thingy" "blower upper of big ships" be ship classifications?

Well there is some judgement based on scale, but not much.

Frigates are different from Destroyers as Frigates are more support oriented, but they can both be the same size.