Vessel Classifications

Military (or equivalent)

  • Capital Vessels
  • The most important, and resource intensive vessels in a space navy. The deployment of these vessels has strategic, as well as tactical implications. Vast, mostly empty structures optimized, as much as anything else, for maximizing surface area for radiators, the largest of these behemoths can be up to several kilometers long.
    • Battle Cruiser
    • In an age where the ability to project damage tends to exceed the ability to absorb it, the "Battle Cruiser" designation is used far more often than "Battleship". Whereas the somewhat smaller "Cruiser" designated craft will tend to focus primarily on one or the other of missiles or gun emplacements, vessels designated as "Battle Cruisers" will tend to have sufficient armament of multiple varieties to be dangerous to other capital vessels throughout their spheres of engagement.
    • Battleship
    • Only the Rlaan, with their unique acceleration profiles, tend to field vessels of this type. Designed to absorb absurd amounts of punishment, as well as to deliver it, the Rlaan Battleships are the logical conclusion of the Rlaan eschewing missile weaponry, and preferring engagement tactics that benefit the relatively high maneuverability of their capital vessels in comparison to those of other species.
    • Carrier
      • Although still in use in one form or another in several space navies, the capital variant of the carrier has faded somewhat with the advent of increasingly independent strike craft and deployment of many, smaller "Flight Tender" or escort carrier class vessels. The potential loss of resources represented by placing a single, monolithic carrier within range of the devastating arsenals at play in the hands of modern Cruisers and larger vessels has greatly dimmed the enthusiasm for these beasts. However, when one does actually need a mobile base from which to lead the invasion of a hostile system, there is nothing quite like a capital class carrier. Ironically, the carrier as capital ship is over-represented among smaller navies, wherein it acts as a militarized jump-ferry for countless droves of far less expensive in-system craft. While of limited offensive potential due to the fragile nature of such constructions, this sub-type can be used to very rapidly mobilize defensive craft from across several systems.
    • Cruiser
      • Smaller, and generally more specialized in their targets than Battle Cruisers, Cruisers are sufficient platforms to build a battle group around, but more often find themselves playing supporting roles. Cruisers may be specialized as primarily missile, or primarily gun based vessels, may be specifically designed to clear escort craft rather than engage other capital vessels, or, more rarely, as commerce raiders or defensively oriented additions for large battle-groups.
    • Dreadnought
      • "Dreadnought" is not a class - it is a title. It is a title reserved for whatever craft, if one exists, most embodies sufficient innovations to be qualitatively distinct from all other craft of the current generation. Lessons from its design will be studied, copied, or countered in the capital vessels to follow. In the "Upon the Coldest Sea" era, this ship is the Aeran Leonidas class Battle Cruiser.
  • Sub-Capital Vessels
    • Less valuable and more numerous than Capital vessels, these vessels, save, perhaps the smallest, are still resource-intensive enough to enter into greater accounting. They frequently are deployed in roles supporting or protecting Capital vessels, or, where pragmatic, in lieu of more expensive vessels. These are often the largest craft that local polities can deploy. This broad category accordingly varies widely in the size of its members, ranging from corvettes the length of only a few strike craft, to the largest destroyers, toying with both sides of the kilometer mark.
    • Corvette
      • The Corvette moniker is applied to a diverse and motley assortment of small craft that, while much larger than common strike craft, are fundamentally small, swift, and inexpensive when compared with Frigates and other larger military vessels. Escort Corvettes are a common incarnation, designed to counter strike craft, and nothing larger, but so are Assault Corvettes, carrying several Bombers-worth of torpedoes. Frequently seen on commerce escort, picket duty, as part of the local policing force, or as the largest vessel pirates and criminals can field, Corvettes are fragile and expendable, but often entirely capable in their limited missions.
    • Destroyer
      • Destroyers are the largest of the sub-capital craft, and usually find themselves assigned to escort duties with larger battle groups. However, they are generalists, and can also serve to hunt down commerce raiders, scouting parties, or play the role of heavy in anti-piracy operations. While their armament is primarily defensive in the context of escorting larger vessels (i.e. designed to engage smaller vessels and strike craft), and they cannot last in anything more than a tangential engagement with true capital vessels, they frequently carry some quantity of anti-capital ordinance.
    • Flight Tender
      • Far less glamorous than a Capital Carrier, these support ships range from Frigate-like entities capable of playing nursemaid to a handful of interceptors up to escort carriers capable of servicing a full wing of bombers and their fighter escort. These craft are not designed for direct engagement, and their arsenals tend to be almost entirely defensive in nature.
    • Frigate
      • Frigates are the smallest craft generally capable of non-Jump interstellar transit, and even then, only specialized variants, such as reconnaissance and commerce raiding designs tend to make such journeys unassisted. Much more commonly, Frigate class vessels are deployed as convoy escorts or as part of multi-system patrols and anti-piracy campaigns. Less wealthy polities, such as the Shmrn, Uln, and Forsaken, may sometimes use what other polities would consider Frigates in the role of Destroyers.
    • In-System Patrol
      • Whereas Frigates are, if relatively fragile, well enough armed to pose a serious threat to fairly determined commerce raiders or enemy scouting parties, and to even coordinate larger operations against pirate bases, In-System patrol craft, while of similar size to frigates, are designed exclusively for operations against strike craft and similarly fragile targets. Such vessels lack any spinal mounts, and are optimized for engaging many simultaneous maneuverable targets. When deployed for the local constabulary, they frequently have some facilities for detention or salvage of opposing craft and crew. When deployed by the military, such facilities are frequently under provisioned.
  • Strike Craft
    • The smallest independent jump-capable craft, they are hyper-specialized, dependent on resupply for longer missions, and frequently are crewed by only one or a few sapients. The miniature size, specialized missions, and need to frequently interface with support vessels makes these craft radically different in design from their larger brethren. By spacecraft standards, they are tiny, often a mere 20-30 meters long, although bombers and gunships can be significantly larger.
    • Bomber
      • While most of the ordinance delivered is more accurately termed missiles than bombs, the name is still informative. Bombers, along with gunships, are the only strike craft that pose a credible threat to anything larger than a corvette, or, in sufficient numbers, some frigates and destroyers. They are mobile, reusable ordinance delivery platforms. They are not usually designed to engage other strike craft, and instead target much larger vessels, using missiles that greatly sacrifice burn time for larger warheads and smaller volume.
    • Fighter
      • In the traditional thinking of Assault-Interceptor duality, the role of the fighter is either to escort the assault craft, protecting them from interceptors, or to eliminate the fighter escort protecting the assault craft, leaving them open to their own interceptors. However the role of the superiority fighter has expanded somewhat, as uses for a strike craft that specializes in engaging other strike craft have been found to be somewhat more broad. While still generally used in fairly traditional fashion in large-scale engagements, as the capability of strike craft for independent operation has increased, the utility of the superiority fighter as a more general escort, patrol, or enforcement vehicle has blossomed.
    • Gunboat
      • When, because of economic, cultural, aesthetic, or technological limitations, a group does not wish to rely on a high hit-on-target rate from their bombers, another possible avenue to a similar effect is to construct gunboats. Gunboats are, in essence small craft built around a spinal mount of a much larger anti-capital weapon-system, or degenerate warhead delivery system. Given surface area limitations and limited volume for heat-sinks, such weapons tend to have vastly lower fire rates when deployed in gunboats. Gunboats are generally much more vulnerable than bombers due to their generally inferior engagement ranges, but, unlike bombers, the weapons deployed tend to be of a non-interceptable variety. Thus, should any gunboats survive to get within range, a much higher percentage of their potential damage output is likely to successfully be applied to the target. Some gunboat variants, especially those utilizing kinetic energy weapons (with indefinite range, but decreasing probabilty of successful engagement) are deployed in a primarily defensive role, providing some aspects of the deterrent effect of the long-range envelope of a capital vessel without the associated capital investment.
    • Interceptor
      • Along with bombers, interceptors are the foundation of many strike-craft deployment strategies. Bombers are deployed to engage expensive enemy vessels with inexpensive, expendable resources, and interceptors are deployed to prevent the bombers from achieving their designed purpose. Interceptors, in contrast to fighters, tend to be optimized for short, brutal engagements wherein time-to-intercept is key - the engagement should occur as far away from the ships being protected as possible. Their weaponry is designed to attack the generally more substantial bombers and gunships, not other fighters or interceptors, and ordinance reserves tend to be small in number, but higher in yield than those carried by superiority fighters. Armament, even for a strike craft, tends to be very forward-oriented. Some interceptor models also serve as the "sapient-in-the-loop" for drone swarms.
  • Parasite Craft
    • Boarding craft
    • Drones
    • In-system strike-craft
    • Landing craft
  • Specialist
    • Aerospace
    • Reconnaissance
    • Resupply
    • Service
    • Siege
    • Troop Transport

Civilian (or equivalent)

  • Commerce
    • Cargo Handling
    • Cargo Transport
  • Industrial
    • Agriculture
    • Production
    • Refinement
    • Resource Gathering
  • Luxury
    • Diplomatic Transport
    • Cruise Liners
    • Limos
    • Yachts
  • Mass Transit
    • In-System Commuter
    • Interstellar Ferries
  • Municipal
    • Communication
    • Enforcement
    • Repair
    • Salvage
    • Terraforming
  • Personal
    • Mercenary
    • Commuter
    • Courier
    • Sport
  • Research
    • Experiment
    • Exploration