ship classification

[godmars]

The Zentradi would like to have a few words with you.

Zentradi are giants so its kind of weird to use them as a comparison to ships piloted by people slightly below 6m.
If you are employing fighters I would assume you'd want them in large quantities, and good luck fitting multiple 150m long fighters on a carrier.

Anyway, mass is a pretty inaccurate indicator IMO. Block count is a lot more telling

 

[Gasboy]

Zentradi are giants so its kind of weird to use them as a comparison to ships piloted by people slightly below 6m.
If you are employing fighters I would assume you'd want them in large quantities, and good luck fitting multiple 150m long fighters on a carrier.

Anyway, mass is a pretty inaccurate indicator IMO. Block count is a lot more telling

Not always, given the mass and armor differences between hull, standard armor and advanced armor.

Mass limitations generally force people to go easy on the advanced armor while block count kind of encourages advanced armor.

 

[Nickizzy]

About the whole modern fighters are tiny thing, keep in mind that space shuttles(and thus space transpotation) right now are 200-300 meters long, with no weapons and no real movement powers beond leaving orbit sometimes and minor(3°) correction ajusments. In a game where the minimum component size is 1 meter cubes, even small ships are going to be a lot bigger.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

About the whole modern fighters are tiny thing, keep in mind that space shuttles(and thus space transpotation) right now are 200-300 meters long, with no weapons and no real movement powers beond leaving orbit sometimes and minor(3°) correction ajusments. In a game where the minimum component size is 1 meter cubes, even small ships are going to be a lot bigger.

What?

The largest naval vessels currently are all below 500 Meters. Even the Nimitz Class Super Carrier is only 341m

 

[Valck]

About the whole modern fighters are tiny thing, keep in mind that space shuttles(and thus space transpotation) right now are 200-300 meters long, with no weapons and no real movement powers beond leaving orbit sometimes and minor(3°) correction ajusments. In a game where the minimum component size is 1 meter cubes, even small ships are going to be a lot bigger.

I wonder... but not even using feet was the shuttle 200 units long. The tallest rockets so far were Saturn V and N1 at a bit over 100 m, both have been retired in the seventies. But once you are in space, you've done most of the work already - the Apollo lunar insertion stage was only about 20m tall.
And even though I disagree with the common depiction of space fighters as souped-up F-16s (at around 15 m length and 20t maximum loadout), I don't see how a space fighter would have to be ten times larger.
If anything, not requiring an aerodynamic layout, I could imagine it being just as small or only slightly larger, depending on its mission profile.

Of course you can build anything as big as you want and call it a fighter/frigate/cruiser. Your neighbours might object though, if you happen to have any treaties regarding ship sizes. Happens all the time with ship classes ;)
The point being, a classification system only makes sense if at least two parties are involved and agree upon it.

EDIT: LOL, ninja'd, second time today. GJ Sven :)

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Of course you can build anything as big as you want and call it a fighter/frigate/cruiser.

I very much agree with this statement, just insanely large "fighters" is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I've actually seen several arguments as to why fighters are large in Starmade. Usually it's the level of detail argument where they want a certain look and have to go big to achieve it. I've been told it has to have a "cockpit" and therefor is the reason but it is possible to build really small cockpits especially since we have slabs now so you can make the most out of interior spaces. Of course there is also combat effectiveness, if you care more about dealing out damage in your fighter then of course it has to be large. If person A builds a fighter of course person B has to build one larger to counter it, and that is the whole problem with gigantism. I myself prefer accuracy in scale over accuracy in detail, I am often willing to sacrifice some luxuries in order to keep size portions realistic and making good looking, functional ships at small scale is an art in itself.

 

[Valck]

I very much agree with this statement, just insanely large "fighters" is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I've actually seen several arguments as to why fighters are large in Starmade. Usually it's the level of detail argument where they want a certain look and have to go big to achieve it. I've been told it has to have a "cockpit" and therefor is the reason but it is possible to build really small cockpits especially since we have slabs now so you can make the most out of interior spaces. Of course there is also combat effectiveness, if you care more about dealing out damage in your fighter then of course it has to be large. If person A builds a fighter of course person B has to build one larger to counter it, and that is the whole problem with gigantism. I myself prefer accuracy in scale over accuracy in detail, I am often willing to sacrifice some luxuries in order to keep size portions realistic and making good looking, functional ships at small scale is an art in itself.

I think we're on the same page, but the example of the Zentraedi above highlights why a classification system only works for those who subscribe to it.
No doubt would a fighter of an (to our eyes) enormous species be enormous, and probably not be called a fighter by human standards even if it fills the same role, at the very least not in a first contact situation, until both species come to "agree" upon a terminology.

Also realism in StarMade... I'd say most of it is in the eyes (and intentions) of the creator. I strive for believability, but I have no problem if I am the only one believing me :)

 

[Nickizzy]

Well I just discovered how blissfully ignorant and uneducated just now, I get everyone's points.

Space engineers had a good idea to have (in small ships, yea yea) blocks be only a fraction of the size of the character(about 1/2 a foot squared?). It allows you to have the filler blocks you need sandwiched between outer layers of armor, so you can have small fighters that look good, and can work well.

Games that use larger units like Starmade, minecraft, and legos have to deal with needing every wall, every wing, every piece of hull to be covered in armor(or the asthetically pleasing block), so making things like inclosed hallways in small scales very hard. When the character is 2 meters tall and 1 meter long, any wings or thin objects need to be either 3 or more blocks thick(which you should never have on anything close to a fighter) or pure armor, a simple waste of space and mass. Any interior takes up a massive amount of space because you have to have 1 meter thick walls on every side, something that hurts the design on any but the largest of ships.
[DOUBLEPOST=1454986762,1454986204][/DOUBLEPOST]Im gona ninja Valck right now, we should never change to being like space engineers, it would be to large of a change.

 

[Croquelune]

From my part, I use something inspried from NATO classification. I prefer use nomenclatura depending the ship's role first and then add the size type according the volume since I could guess role and volume of an unknown object from scouting but not its mass.

Then I optionally add a "parameter" information about its protection if it has clearly identified.
armored (advanced armor)
protected (normal armor)
unshielded (hull)
unconventional (other defense design)

Like that it allow me to classify Starmade ship varieties from the tiny fighter to the hypethethical colossal fighter. It's still WIP since I think space fight in 3d conflict zone + effect weapons promote emergence of new tactics and strategies untransposable to what we know on Earth.

 

[Nauvran]

Well I just discovered how blissfully ignorant and uneducated just now, I get everyone's points.

Space engineers had a good idea to have (in small ships, yea yea) blocks be only a fraction of the size of the character(about 1/2 a foot squared?). It allows you to have the filler blocks you need sandwiched between outer layers of armor, so you can have small fighters that look good, and can work well.

Games that use larger units like Starmade, minecraft, and legos have to deal with needing every wall, every wing, every piece of hull to be covered in armor(or the asthetically pleasing block), so making things like inclosed hallways in small scales very hard. When the character is 2 meters tall and 1 meter long, any wings or thin objects need to be either 3 or more blocks thick(which you should never have on anything close to a fighter) or pure armor, a simple waste of space and mass. Any interior takes up a massive amount of space because you have to have 1 meter thick walls on every side, something that hurts the design on any but the largest of ships.
[DOUBLEPOST=1454986762,1454986204][/DOUBLEPOST]Im gona ninja Valck right now, we should never change to being like space engineers, it would be to large of a change.

*Lego, there are no plural form of Lego, it's just Lego.

also making small ships that look good with an interior and rail stuff is really just a good challenge, and it is possible to do.

 

[Gasboy]

*Lego, there are no plural form of Lego, it's just Lego.

also making small ships that look good with an interior and rail stuff is really just a good challenge, and it is possible to do.

According to LEGO, the plural is "LEGO bricks".

And sure, you can make 'to scale' fighters look good, but their firepower will be kinda lacking.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

And sure, you can make 'to scale' fighters look good, but their firepower will be kinda lacking.

"Of course there is also combat effectiveness, if you care more about dealing out damage in your fighter then of course it has to be large. If person A builds a fighter of course person B has to build one larger to counter it, and that is the whole problem with gigantism."

If you compare small ships made against those made by the same person or one with similar mindset they don't lack all that much fire power against each other. Now if your strict concern is PVP you should probably just throw classes out the window and not even bother. If of course you are building for RP roles, such that you would need different ships and roles and classes then there really is no reason for your fighters to have to one up anybody. My fighters fit perfectly with the rest of the fleet line and because they are reasonably sized I have no probably hauling many of them on my light carrier.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

Reasonably sized by what standard? Modern fighter planes aren't the size they are because it was decided that the length was reasonable. They're a specific size to carry as much firepower as they can without too large a sacrifice of speed and manoeuvrability. A size which, since the fighter aircraft became a thing, has more than tripled on average. In Starmade terms there isn't really too significant a difference in agility from a craft scaled like an Earthbound fighter jet and a ship with 50m or so dimensions.

As far as in game utility goes what are "realistic" scaled fighters even meant to be fighting other than each other? Outside of a drone swarm they're not really going to pose a threat to anything that anyone would actually use. Even with the NPC ships we've seen so far wouldn't be realistically threatened by a realistic scale fighter. This is especially true after the HP update, since advanced armour is actually very effective at fending off weaker shots now.

On topic I don't really think strict categorizing has much of a use at all. Especially categorization based on strict definitions from Earth navy's, which were very fluid. Some general categories can be useful, like fighter being a smaller craft meant purely for combat, Corvettes and Frigates being larger and more multirole etc. Sticking to these definitions strictly is pointless though.

 

[iAmCodeMonkey]

I personally use this (from the Starmade Wiki, the outdated one lol):


Nameless' System (mass based):


Light Weight:

Fast Attack Craft (Hera-Class): 50 - 100 mass

Corvette (Demeter-Class): 100.1 - 250 mass

Frigate (Ares-Class): 250.1 - 600 mass

Destroyer (Apollo-Class): 600.1 - 750.1 mass


Medium Weight:

Cruiser (Aphrodite-Class): 750.1 - 1,500 mass

Pocket Battleship (Hermes-Class): 1,500.1 - 3,000 mass

Battlecruiser (Artemis-Class): 3,000.1 - 5,000 mass

Carrier (Athena-Class): 5,000 - 7,500 mass


Heavy Weight:

Battleship (Hades-Class): 7,500.1 - 25,000 mass

Dreadnought (Poseidon-Class): 25,000.1 - 100,000 mass

Titan (Zeus-Class): 100,000.1 - 500,000 mass

Planetoid (Kronos-Class): 500,000.1 and beyond

 

[Nickizzy]

Thats not pushing things at all, if you make your ship with advanced armor you can get to 500,000 on a titain easy. Just have 3 layer thick armor with pipes and wings.
[DOUBLEPOST=1455046530,1455046439][/DOUBLEPOST]Oh, mass...
Still, it's not imposible when the only better thing is size

 

[Gasboy]

Not much has changed from the last time this topic made the rounds.

 

[iAmCodeMonkey]

Thats not pushing things at all, if you make your ship with advanced armor you can get to 500,000 on a titan easy. Just have 3 layer thick armor with pipes and wings.

I wonder if we could have a 1 Billion mass ship...

 

[Lord_Greyscale]

Technically possible, but good luck getting/building/maintaining a machine that could keep StarMade running (stable) at better than 3 frames a second while just looking at the monstrosity, to say nothing of actually building it.

Mostly that's a Hardware limitation, but Java itself has a few wrenches to toss into that particular blender.

 

[Nickizzy]

Just use faction blocks as armor! They weigh like 7 mass but have like 250,000 health.

 

[Pacific_Jim]

There's also a one per structure limit unless something changed without me noticing.