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On the Taxonomy of Sci-Fi Spaceships
An anonymous reader writes: Jeff Venancio has done some research that's perfect reading for a lazy Saturday afternoon: figuring out a coherent taxonomy for sci-fi spaceships. If you're a sci-fi fan, you've doubtless heard or read references to a particular starship's "class" fairly often. There are flagships and capital ships, cruisers and corvettes, battleships and destroyers. But what does that all mean? Well, there's not always consistency, but a lot of it comes from Earth's naval history. "The word 'corvette' comes from the Dutch word corf, which means 'small ship,' and indeed corvettes are historically the smallest class of rated warship (a rating system used by the British Royal Navy in the sailing age, basically referring to the amount of men/guns on the vessel and its relative size; corvettes were of the sixth and smallest rate). ... They were usually used for escorting convoys and patrolling waters, especially in places where larger ships would be unnecessary."
Venancio takes the historical context for each ship type and then explains how it's been adapted for a sci-context. "Corvettes might be outfitted to have some sort of stealth or cloaking system for reconnaissance or spec ops missions; naturally it would be easier to cloak a smaller ship than a larger one (though plenty of examples of large stealth ships exist). In some series they are likely to be diplomatic vessels due to their small size and speed, particularly seen in Star Wars, and can commonly act as blockade runners (again; their small size and speed makes them ideal for slipping through a blockade, where a larger ship presents more of a target)."
Venancio takes the historical context for each ship type and then explains how it's been adapted for a sci-context. "Corvettes might be outfitted to have some sort of stealth or cloaking system for reconnaissance or spec ops missions; naturally it would be easier to cloak a smaller ship than a larger one (though plenty of examples of large stealth ships exist). In some series they are likely to be diplomatic vessels due to their small size and speed, particularly seen in Star Wars, and can commonly act as blockade runners (again; their small size and speed makes them ideal for slipping through a blockade, where a larger ship presents more of a target)."
I am working on a space-based MMO strategy game. In my game, the taxonomy... well, it's player-specific. Each player can name his ship classes any way he wants.
There are 5+1 types of ships by size: tiny, small, medium, large and capital. A separate type is Organic ships, which also have 5 size types.
Then you have specializations, e.g. scout ship, command ship, gunship, shield ship, repair ship, transport ship, etc.
Then you have ship generations, each generation becoming available based on research of a standard ship blueprint. An initial blueprint, once researched, allows you to assign extra points to certain ship attributes (e.g. speed, hitpoints, available power, available processing power, fuel bay size, etc) from a point pool you're getting from that research. This allows players to create unique ships all day long (some would suck more than others, that's for sure but hey, it's freedom to do stupid things).
Then you put modules on the ships, and those modules use up mounting points from the attributes. Some modules would only fit certain specializations and ship sizes (you can't fit a capital command room on a tiny scout ship because you don't have enough space, processing power or room).
No classes. Classes are so... yesterday's jam.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
And even David Weber had to redo the mass of the ships after it was pointed out that his early numbers made them less dense than water.
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