glitterboy2098 wrote:standard definitions:
Fighter- small craft, high powered engines, very small crew. Ex. Scorpion interceptor, Flying Fang, Broadsword, Shadow Bolt.
Large craft- range of classes.
shuttles- larger small craft, filling assualt, bomber, or transport roles. Ex. Proctor Long range interceptor, star ghost, CAF assualt shuttle.
warships- large armed craft. ranges between frigates, cruisers, carriers, battleships, ect. Ex. Scimitar patrol ship, Warsheild cruiser, Packmaster carrier.
Freighters- large cargo craft. often includes runnerships, merchantmen, and the like. small crews, large cargo bays, typically minimal protection and performance. often subject to heavy modification.
OR....(from my upcoming Rifter submission)
Classes of Ships
All spacecraft in the Phase World setting, no matter their appearance or capabilities, can be divided into one of four broad categories; Fighters and Shuttles, Frigates, Cruisers, and finally, Flagships.
Fighters and shuttles are small craft, usually military in nature. Fighters typically weigh in at less than 15 tons; shuttles are heavier due to their role as transporters of cargo. Both types of ship have small crews. The armor and weapons on these vessels are diminutive and pathetic in comparison to their larger counterparts, yet they have become indispensable components of galactic warfare (see Space Fighters for specifics).
In order to operate a Fighter, one must have the skill Pilot: Spacefighter. Shuttles, whether combat or cargo, use the Pilot: Spacecraft General. Or Pilot: Spacecraft Advanced if you’ve got something to prove.
Frigates are everywhere in The Three Galaxies, making up almost 60% of all common vessels. They are economic to build, and relatively easy to maintain. They are significantly larger than fighters or shuttles, and require a full crew in order to operate smoothly. Like shuttles, a frigate may be configured for either cargo or combat. A cargo frigate is generally called a freighter. One rigged for combat is referred to as a destroyer.
Freighters, given their lighter weapon systems, will travel in convoys that might range from ten or twenty, to a few hundred. This gives them mutual protection against pirates and raiders; a convoy offers many mobile targets, rather than a single larger one. These ships are almost always owned and operated by one of the powerful Trade Federations or Mercantilus Unions; the vast corporations and conglomerates that drive the tri-galactic economy. The crew and troops on board (if any) will also be Union members or corporate employees. It is the rare independent Spacer who owns his own frigate, and who has not paid into the Union.
Destroyers are made to be ship killers. Their point defenses are usually more than enough to deal with a squadron of space fighters, and if outfitted with heavier, anti-capital ship weapons, can be a real danger to cruisers and flagships. A prime example of a destroyer is the Berserker-class warship used in the Transgalactic Empire’s Imperial Armada. This infamous torpedo boat has a weight of only 7000 tons, yet can deliver enough antimatter warheads to utterly cripple a Consortium Warshield Cruiser – a vessel fifteen times its mass!
The skills Pilot: Spacecraft General, and Pilot: Spacecraft Advanced are used when flying either configuration of frigate. Space Ship-to-Ship Combat (found under Military skills) is a must have for destroyer pilots.
Cruisers are best described as being warships of medium tonnage, with a long touring radius and less firepower than a battleship. They are designed to fill a multitude of roles without having to alter their weapon or crew configurations. They can be used for long-term exploratory missions, transport of cargo (usually only if said cargo is extremely valuable), and all out warfare. In combat, a cruiser will always be at the heart of small flotilla of destroyers, who in turn, are screened by space fighters. Anything less is tactical suicide, as illustrated above by the destructive potential of one enemy frigate.
The economics of building this class of ship are marginally debatable. Consortium analysts have calculated that for every one battle cruiser manufactured, seven destroyers could have been built in its stead. This may be one reason why the early Kreeghor Dominion favored a frigate-based fleet during its initial expansion. However, the larger hull allows for upgraded weaponry. So the trade off is one vessel with more destructive power and at longer range, as opposed to many smaller ships with a shorter reach. The engines of cruisers are also more powerful, in general, than those of frigates. Thus a well-built cruiser can become a potent weapons platform, able to fire ordinance and relocate to a new position within a decent time.
Cruisers have many different sub-systems, far too many for one person to handle alone. Thus the pilots of these big ships must concentrate on that, and that alone. The skill Pilot: Starships is all they need.
Flagship is a general term that covers three different types of starship: battleships, carriers, and dreadnoughts. These are truly the monsters of the tri-galactic fleets. Flagships are big, very heavy (typical mass is well over ten million tons), and armed to the teeth. Their engines are built from the most powerful CG drives possible, often with multiple redundant systems. Their spacal displacement (measurable by gravity wave sensors) is so large that no Flagship can evade detection – there is no cloaking technology in The Three Galaxies that can possibly obscure their engine wake.
Battleships are the smallest sub-class of Flagship, with an average mass of ten to twenty million tons. They will always be armed with two or three main batteries of guns, with three to four guns per battery. Multiple-volley cruise missile launchers will also be prevalent. Battleships are able to carry squadrons of space fighters, but these tiny craft are a token defense screen at best. Since no space fighter could ever possibly hope to damage a battleship’s armor, these fighters mostly aid in the shooting down of incoming cruise missiles, and the destruction of enemy fighters rigged to carry anti-capital ship torpedoes. Space fighters stationed on board a battleship will never be sent out ahead of the main fleet, instead remaining within a tight protective radius of fifty miles. (see Fleet Formations).
With an average construction outlay of fifty billion credits, most Independent Systems have trouble justifying the cost to build one of these things. Especially when they could have twenty cruisers for the same price (or better yet, one hundred fifty-six destroyer frigates). Large power blocs therefore favor battleships, because they are the only ones able to produce them in massive quantities. The Consortium’s space fleet contains well over 10,000 battleships of the Protector class, a feat possible only with combined Domestic Product of hundreds of member worlds.
Carriers are just that: giant spacecraft whose main mission is transport hundreds of fighters into a combat zone, and then deploy them en masse. Compared to battleships, carriers are barely armed. Most of their in-hull weaponry is designed for defense, both against enemy fighters and hostile ships of destroyer size or larger. Carriers can also be rigged for roles in peacetime, mostly as colony transports. Their holds and accommodations are able to settle over 8000 people at a time.
Like battleships, carriers are gigantic machines, whose CG engines send out large, detectable wakes. There is no disguising or hiding the presence of a carrier. Since it can be detected by common gravitic sensors out to at least ten light-years, any attacking force that includes a carrier can expect to be harassed while still well away from its target. Carriers will always be placed in the center of a flotilla that includes at least four frigates (rigged as destroyers) and two cruisers. More realistic numbers, especially during times of war, will see the number of escort vessels multiplied by five.
A large fleet whose core consists of carriers and battleships, screened by adequate numbers of cruisers and destroyers, is almost guaranteed success in its endeavors. In terms of raw firepower and weight of numbers, battleships and carriers cannot be equaled.
At least, that’s the way it used to be.
Up until a hundred years ago, it was commonly accepted that a CG-field projector could only be made to encompass a set area and a finite amount of mass. The average limitations were a field diameter of 6000’ and a total mass of 60 million tons. Beyond that, the energy requirements became staggering, and the CG-field stretched too thin to be able to fully cancel out the effect of normal gravitons. To put it simply, if a ship was built bigger than a standard carrier, it could not be wrapped in a contra-gravity field, and thus could not move faster than light.
This meant that for the longest time, the Packmaster was the undisputed king of the space lanes. Then, in the aftermath of the Good Hope Rebellion, word began to circulate that the rebels had captured a new kind of Kreeghor vessel: a “super carrier”-class called Kartuhum-Koridu, the Doombringer. By all reports, this captured starship measured over three miles in length with an estimated mass in the range of 100 million tons. Consortium fleet scientists dismissed these rumors as being wishful thinking. There was no physical way to build an engine that could move such a mass. Such a construction could only be an orbiting space station, unable to move a few hundred feet let alone travel faster than light.
But when the CCW and the TGE both found themselves fighting the Splugorth Kingdom of Rynncryll, fifty years ago, the existence of the Doombringer was confirmed. Consortium engineers flew into a panic. Galactic Security Agents tried for years afterwards to steal the secrets of its miraculous propulsion system. Finally, it was learned that the Kreeghor had devised a method of “chain-linking” three gravitonic generators together to create one, massive, stable field. (Actually, credit eventually went to the Machine People for the new drive design, and again the Consortium regretted its decision to exclude them from membership.)
The Doombringer could travel quite well at FTL velocities, with a top speed of seven light-years per hour. The CAF poured a trillion credits into hurried research, and were finally able to create their own version of the “chain-linked” system called a “Balanced Hammond Drive”. A fresh arms race was on between the two largest power blocs of The Three Galaxies, and new class of ship had been born: the
Dreadnought.
Dreadnoughts are the biggest ships out there, with the notable exception of the Dominator Star Forts. They are so powerful and so complicated, that the average construction time for a single ship is four years! The TGE currently have twenty-three ships of the Doombringer-class, the Free World Council commands one of the same design. The Consortium is trying to catch up as best it can, but so far only twelve of the new Emancipation-class dreadnoughts have been built. (see the CAF Fleet entry for details).
Dreadnoughts are the least common type of starship in The Three Galaxies, in large part because of their crippling cost. Using the shells of the Nuk Rek Nuss, slave labor, and the aid of the Machine People (who neither care about money nor require sleep), the Transgalactic Empire can build a dreadnought for a paltry 50 billion credits. For just about everyone else, however, constructing one of these ships can run into the trillions. Development and construction of the Emancipation-class ships have cost the Human Alliance a staggering 856 trillion credits. To put this in perspective, the Gross Domestic Product for all of Terra Prime is 400 trillion credits per annum. Thus, in order to match the Kreeghor, the Human Alliance has spent all the money in the world. Twice.
