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Author Topic: functional ship class definitions  (Read 11740 times)

Deshara

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functional ship class definitions
« on: April 14, 2020, 05:32:18 AM »

this is going into General because it's vaguely related to the game, not that it's a criticism. A lot of media tends to fall back on "___ class of ship is bigger than ___" (as SS does), first of all A) that's boring, 2) means nothing to the consumer who doesn't have a way to contextualize the difference between something displacing 500,000 tons and 600,000 tons, and C) there's a functional difference between ship classes that can be easy to never pick up on with most media that deals with this stuff glossing over it. So, a run-down.

Frigates were "ships of the line" that relied almost entirely on rows of fixed guns, which necessitated shielding the guns by uniformly armoring the entire ship's outer hull which blows out the tonnage budget & put a drastic upper limit on how big they could get. Because they could only fight in one direction they tended to be equipped with a broad variety of guns, the theory being you needed guns for the opening long-range engagement and then need different guns for the ending close-range engagement; this will come up later. Ironclads were the first ships that used turrets but still maintained the form factor & structural limitations of a frigate, as such I'm treating them as a footnote to frigates.

Cruisers were post-sail vessels that continued using the multi-caliber gun design theory that frigates used to use but in a modern structural design using turrets that allowed them to merely armor the turret housing around the guns instead of just plating the whole ship which frees up an incredible amount of tonnage. Because of the loss of inefficiency of using lots of different calibers of guns they were never best at anything, but their lack of specialization made them popular escort ships. Light cruisers focused on high speed & maneuverability to dominate against ships smaller than a light cruiser and battlecruisers are armed & armored enough to fight light cruisers and other battlecruisers but not battleships.

Battleships were cruisers that sacrificed maneuverability for having enough armor to be resistant to their own guns (hence why battlecruisers can't fight them). Two battleships of the same scale theoretically should turn into a dragged out fight.

Dreadnoughts were battleships that abandoned the frigate era theory of varying gun calibers, dropping the small-caliber rapid-fire guns altogether and fielding all the same caliber of gun. This freed up tonnage & hull space to make up for battleship's shortcomings, producing ships both faster than and functionally invulnerable against cruisers and with far more effective fire control than a regular battleship (since having different calibers of guns makes calibrating guns harder to do since you can't be sure if the splash you're measuring is from your 12" gun or the 6" gun next to you). All of this came at the sacrifice of their ability to defend itself from large numbers of smaller vessels at close range. Which takes us from the large end of the spectrum to...

Torpedo Boats are tiny unarmored vessels that focus entirely on maneuverability and getting torpedos onto the field, which hits the keel on the bottom of a large boat that makes it sea-worthy (without it they'd flip), functionally acting as an insta-kill against anything too immobile or immobilized to get out of the way. Everything smaller than a battleship can field torpedos but if it's the only thing a boat does it's a torpedo boat. These were a huge reason for the push from frigates to ironclads; a heavy ship of the line frigate being attacked by a torpedo boat has to turns its entire self (which depends on the wind if still using sail) in order to dodge torpedoes and fend off small boat threats, whereas a ship with an engine can turn at-will and a ship with a turret can shoot at approaching small boats without needing to turn at all. These include submarines for my purposes

Corvettes are a torpedo boat but instead of a torpedo it has a turret for shooting torpedo boats on an otherwise even playing field. They're so small that they aren't sea-worthy, but are also so small a torpedo can't hit them. They aren't used much outside of coast guards. A corvette made for shelling land targets instead of screening against small ships is called a gunboat -- which is also why the AC-130 is termed a gunship, because it's specifically made to shell ground targets with cannon fire to the detriment of all else, but from the air.

Destroyers are corvettes up-sized enough to be sea-worthy, and in the process have enough hull space left over that you can cram extra functionality in them to justify their space in the fleet.

If a destroyer uses that extra space to field missiles, because those are fixed weapons it loops back around to technically being a frigate again, hence Missile Frigates being a thing now.



For the record, aside from the "shuttles" which are actually destroyers and the carriers, the actual ship classifications in this game would be light cruiser, cruiser, battlecruiser and battleship. Interestingly there aren't any dreadnoughts or frigates.
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Mondaymonkey

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Re: functional ship class definitions
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2020, 06:13:48 AM »

Thank you for a knowledge. Seriously, didn't know some of this.

But the truth is, it does not matter. One day space battles may became true and those space-military guys would probably classify their vessel types, borrowing names from navy. But only because lack of imagination. Naval ship roles and design simply does not applicable to space. So, the space "frigate" will do different role than his sea brother. In a real life main attribute of any space vessel is the Delta-V and thrust-to-weight ratio curve. Not weapons, not armor, not anything else, but ability to change velocity. So, I assume IRL ship role and type will be defined by it's propulsion system.

In a SS you can see typical "liquid vacuum" physics. And the ship types and roles are divided by the fine rule "because I decide so". And it is not so bad, actually.
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SCC

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Re: functional ship class definitions
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2020, 06:54:14 AM »

To my knowledge, SS is based mainly around XXth century, most specifically WWII, naval warfare. The names, however, come from this weird popculture amalgamate that was created for spacecraft classification, which wasn't all that accurate to real life classification, but which has stuck and is now known. And a set of "frigate, destroyer, cruiser, capital ship" is easier to memorise than "light cruiser, cruiser, battlecruiser, battleship".
For the record, aside from the "shuttles" which are actually destroyers and the carriers, the actual ship classifications in this game would be light cruiser, cruiser, battlecruiser and battleship. Interestingly there aren't any dreadnoughts or frigates.
Frigates in SS context would be fairly boring to play (broadsiding to the max) and much harder for AI to fly. If you describe a dreadnought as a "all big guns" kind of ships, doesn't Enforcer fit? Yeah, it's outdated now and it also has some missile mounts, but SS missiles aren't like torpedoes, or at least not all of them. And they aren't guns.

Igncom1

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Re: functional ship class definitions
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2020, 06:54:56 AM »

Yeah I think in the end the main culprit is that we continue to use terms that no longer apply or make sense, making them incorrect to begin with. The best terms are generic.

I wouldn't say our modern destroyers and frigates are ANYTHING like the originals, we just seem like calling our boats that way. Can't even really call them gunboats any more because they mostly use missiles!

At the end of the day all these terms are made up and even if they weren't we aren't using them correctly anyway! Better to just make up new terms or accept that calling something a 'destroyer' or a 'dreadnought' is just because it sounds cool rather then anything that might come close to making sense.

(So were the first battleships, like, sailing ships? Ship-Of-The-Line-Of-Battle? Or something like that? Then we get the Dreadnoughts which later become battleships of the Dreadnought style?)
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pedro1_1

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Re: functional ship class definitions
« Reply #4 on: April 14, 2020, 07:23:39 AM »

had no idea on how to respond to this tread for 5 or so minutes, because of the amount of confusion and ignorance you displayed

Frigates are not ships of the line, in fact only few countries filded ships of the line, the most important ones being Portugal, Spain, England, France, etc..., what frigates trully are is in fact multirole ships, that field cannons on both sides of the ship, that are made to patrol large amounts of the sea, to destroy pirates and corsairs, they were them transformed into the modern day frigate, which has a function to protect convoys; Ironclads are not a type of frigate, but a type of battleship, in fact the first type of battleship.

Cruisers were made to do the same job of the frigate, but better, they also have adapted much better than most ships, light cruisers are great at operating alone, while the armored versions had as much armor as the by them pre-dreadnought era of the battleships, heavy cruisers have big guns and light armor, operating under the outrange or outrun way that made the pre-dreadnoughts obsolete, Battlecruisers were made as a responce to the destruction of the german dreadnoughts of WWI, as a way to dominate the seas, and they did defeat dreadnoghts one on one(HMS Hood is the exeption).

For Battleships is easier to point out which is wrong than to write everything again so:
  • Ironclads are the first type of battleship, not a type of frigate, as the first battle betwen to battleships was during the U.S. civil war, and the ships used on both sides were Ironclads.
  • Dreadnoughts do use multiple types of guns, but unlike the pre-dreadnoughts they only used two or three types, since it's easier to coordinete all of the guns if they are from the same caliber than if they are from diferent calibers.
  • Battleships in general are incapable to fight multiple smal ships, and as such they had the need for escort

Torpedo boats were first made During the interwar period, small sea-worthy vessels that caried two to four torpedos each, most ships that were filded were either to fast or to bulky to get down by a single torpedo hit, some not even being able to sink from that hit(Bismark was suctled by his surviving crew, as a way to not let the british tow it back to port), the closest ship in game for this definition is the Kite(A), Submarines are of a category of it's own and sails were off of military service by the time of the torpedo boats.

Corvetes are upscaled patrol ships, mostly used by police force, some countrys don't even have corvetes anymore(U.S.A. integraded Corvetes into the Patrol Ship classification).

Torpedo Boat Destroyers or Destroyers were made to escort battleships and destroy torpedo boats, the first deployed were smaller than the frigates, but it's evolution brought them to be being slightly larger than the frigates, completaly replacing the torpedo boat on the late stages of WWII, while still being able to serve it's original mission.

as of now all ships are bigger than before, a destoyer has the function of a WWII Light cruiser, a Frigate has the firepower of a Destroyer, Etc...

and no, the ships in game definitivally are not only cruisers and pre-dreadnoughts...
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Thaago

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Re: functional ship class definitions
« Reply #5 on: April 14, 2020, 12:13:49 PM »

I will add that a primary difference beyond size between cruisers and destroyers in the WWI/interwar/WWII period was range and capability for independent action. Destroyers in general had a short range and limited supplies and relied upon destroyer tenders or other supply ships in order to operate for long periods. Cruisers had a longer range and were more capable of independent operation. This was not a hard and fast rule though, as some cruisers (usually light cruisers) were designed to be escorts to carriers/battleships and so were not as well equipped for independent operations (See: Atlanta Class light cruisers, where the designers decided they just really liked the 5"/38 naval gun and packed as many on as they could). Some of the largest destroyers of WWII approached the size/firepower of older light cruisers, but in general kept this shorter range/escort doctrine.

There is also a distinction between a Destroyer and a Destroyer Escort, at least in WWII: the latter were optimized for anti-submarine warfare and convoy/slow ship escort. Destroyer escorts tended to be smaller, slower, and have (much) less surface combat capability, in exchange for having better anti-submarine weapons, longer range, and being cheap.
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Deshara

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Re: functional ship class definitions
« Reply #6 on: April 14, 2020, 12:40:48 PM »

    I will add that a primary difference beyond size between cruisers and destroyers in the WWI/interwar/WWII period was range and capability for independent action.

    yeah that was brought up in the distinction between corvettes and destroyers but you're right I forgot to mention that destroyers still required tenders. Corvettes couldn't enter the open ocean and destroyers couldn't cross it.

    Frigates are not ships of the line, in fact only few countries filded ships of the line

    thats why it was in quotes, that phrase was meant to evoke an image people are familiar with. Also lmfao did you link to the dictionary page for ignorance? lmfao

    Quote
    Ironclads are the first type of battleship, not a type of frigate, as the first battle betwen to battleships was during the U.S. civil war, and the ships used on both sides were Ironclads.[/li][/list]

    This is an arbitrary distinction that relies on dates & utterly ignores the fact that there was a functional difference between ironclads and the ships that came after, which was the reason they were called ironclads & didn't keep getting used whereas torpedo boats which predated ironclads remained in use thru to the cold war because they didn't get rendered obsolete

    Quote
    Dreadnoughts do use multiple types of guns, but unlike the pre-dreadnoughts they only used two or three types, since it's easier to coordinete all of the guns if they are from the same caliber than if they are from diferent calibers.
    Battleships in general are incapable to fight multiple smal ships, and as such they had the need for escort[/li][/list]

    You have this last point utterly wrong and the reason why was in the previous bullet point lol. Dreadnoughts can't fight multiple small ships because they dropped the secondary rapidfire guns, battleships can because they didn't.
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    Deshara

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #7 on: April 14, 2020, 12:45:43 PM »

    If you describe a dreadnought as a "all big guns" kind of ships, doesn't Enforcer

    SHOOT I KNEW I WAS GONNA MISS IT. And the literal first thing I thought of when I woke up was that any large ship could be made into a dreadnought by only mounting the same large guns and using the freed up space for engine & gun upgrades
    Anyway, none of this is meant to be a criticism of Starsector

    edit: I feel like this bares clarification. None of this is capable of being used to criticize Starsector for not using the correct classifications for ships because these aren't the correct classifications for ships. This post is functional ship class definitions, which world navies didn't use because governments are weirdly bad at defining things -- the way the US government is weirdly incapable of defining different kinds of guns when there are clear functional distinctions there too (Could make a whole post of it, but not really relevant to this forum so I won't). There are other definitions which might/will clash with this rundown (and tend to, as noted in the OP, rely on arbitrary dates & tonnages and aren't particularly useful for anyone but lawyers), but that doesn't mean that theirs or mine are wrong, just that they're more useful in difference circumstances.
    « Last Edit: April 14, 2020, 12:54:15 PM by Deshara »
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    pedro1_1

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #8 on: April 14, 2020, 01:13:07 PM »

    Dreadnoughts do use multiple types of guns, but unlike the pre-dreadnoughts they only used two or three types, since it's easier to coordinete all of the guns if they are from the same caliber than if they are from diferent calibers.
    Battleships in general are incapable to fight multiple smal ships, and as such they had the need for escort

    You have this last point utterly wrong and the reason why was in the previous bullet point lol. Dreadnoughts can't fight multiple small ships because they dropped the secondary rapidfire guns, battleships can because they didn't.

    did you not understant the text that said that they droped the use of multiple types of guns for a more centralised weapon group focusing around 2 or 3 types of ship cannons?
    The Iowa-Class ships had 20 rapid fire 5' guns;
    The Bismarck-Class ships had 12 rapid fire 150mm guns;
    The Yamato-Class ships had 12 rapid fire 155mm guns on launch, however the japonese removed 6 of those as to boaster Yamatos air defences after her sister ship was sunk, demonstering that the torpedo boats did not represent as much danger as did the dive bmbers and the torpedo bombers.
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    Thaago

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #9 on: April 14, 2020, 01:24:28 PM »

    For comparison, the class previous to the Dreadnought had for guns:

    Lord Nelson Armament:   
    2 × twin 12 in (305 mm) guns [Note: Only guns on centerline]
    4 × twin, 2 × single 9.2 in (234 mm) guns [Wing mounted]
    24 × single 12-pdr 3 in (76 mm) guns
    12 × single 3-pdr (47 mm (1.9 in)) guns

    While the Dreadnought had:
    Dreadnought Armament:   
    10 × 12 in (300 mm) guns (5x2) [3 on centerline, 2 wing mounted (1 on each side)]
    27 × 12-pdr 3 in (76 mm) guns (27x1)

    The Dreadnought consolidated gun calibers away from "an ideal gun for every enemy" to "primary and secondary", and increased the amount of firepower on the centerline.

    It should also be noted that the Dreadnought was constructed in a time of intense technological innovation: it marked a distinct change in design that enables making "pre" and "post" comparisons, but was itself obsolete in under a decade. Its a bit nitpicky, but I would say that Dreadnoughts are a type of battleship, not that Dreadnoughts and Battleships are different classes.
    « Last Edit: April 14, 2020, 01:27:31 PM by Thaago »
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    Igncom1

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #10 on: April 14, 2020, 01:30:15 PM »

    Why bother with a gun for every enemy, when you can just overkill everything and accept the cost in shells, I suppose?
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    SafariJohn

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #11 on: April 14, 2020, 01:46:01 PM »

    I'm not sure what this thread is on about, but my 2¢ is I think space games would be better served if they stopped mindlessly defaulting to size-based ship classes.
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    AxleMC131

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #12 on: April 14, 2020, 04:32:16 PM »

    I appreciate this history lesson. :) It's always seemed very gamey to me how sci-fi universes seem to have this "scaling" differential between ship classes - even my own! - so it's cool to have the real-life definitions laid out here... It makes sense for games of course, but there'll always be that underlying desire for a more interesting diversity. I think I'll have to take notes here for my own sci-fi concepts.
    « Last Edit: April 14, 2020, 04:35:38 PM by AxleMC131 »
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    Abraxas

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #13 on: April 15, 2020, 07:20:25 PM »

    Star Wars is also the same way.  But also there is a mix of ships in it that don't conform to those traditional roles either.  A guy who does rankings of sci-fi ships has some interesting opinions on what makes a Destroyer a destroyer versus a battlecruiser or carrier.
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    Null Ganymede

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    Re: functional ship class definitions
    « Reply #14 on: April 15, 2020, 11:27:10 PM »

    Some of the Star Wars EU novels did their best to flesh out ship roles within the universe. Like the implications a hyperspace-capable single-man fighter would have for resource-strapped rebel groups, or the weapon mobility and defense systems that made manned "ace" fighter pilots a thing in space.

    Starsector's universe seems to have evolved over the versions, with tech levels/time of production shifting around. Also, ship size differences appear larger than they're visually represented! Compare the hangar bays on a Mora to those on the Legion: the Mora is flying "higher" and closer to the screen. Frigates are actually tiny compared to capitals.
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