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Ship Class naming standards?


TheBlender

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Each individual group will most likely have their own classifications for ships, with crossover happening between both groups naming conventions and the criteria used therein.  There might be some that become universal, such a very large ship with heavy armaments being known as "Battleship" for example, but I think it will mostly be an organic phenomenon that develops over time with certain things just sticking while others fall to the wayside. 

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15 hours ago, Precise_Calibre said:

Each individual group will most likely have their own classifications for ships, with crossover happening between both groups naming conventions and the criteria used therein.  There might be some that become universal, such a very large ship with heavy armaments being known as "Battleship" for example, but I think it will mostly be an organic phenomenon that develops over time with certain things just sticking while others fall to the wayside. 

See, people will copy the model that works.

If a proper fighting force recognises a shi pof X mass and Y weapons as a Cruiser, then people will just mmimic that and call it a cruiser.

I mean, people copy more stupid things in other MMOS, like item-builds, playstyles and even entire metas are born that way.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven’t been able to find any info on whether or not a ship/plane can have more than one core, but looking at the videos of the early ship building, there is a 3D grid which is stated as the limits of how big you can build.  So I am wondering if you will be able to add another core to build larger.  If that is the case, then maybe you can classify ships based on number of cores, big or small cores. For example, this is a 2 large core ship.

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46 minutes ago, Dr Rhubarb said:

I haven’t been able to find any info on whether or not a ship/plane can have more than one core, but looking at the videos of the early ship building, there is a 3D grid which is stated as the limits of how big you can build.  So I am wondering if you will be able to add another core to build larger.  If that is the case, then maybe you can classify ships based on number of cores, big or small cores. For example, this is a 2 large core ship.

Sounds like a possible fundamental taxonomy of ships to apply.

 

* Core Number ∝ Ship Size

* Crew Number

* Function

* Range?

 

I actually have an idea for a ship design based on Function => Form. In fact the appearance is key part of successful function in the design, the form is intended to convey social information to others. Well itchy fingers for when we can design our ships...

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You shouldn't overthink what information you put into the ship class. Its just an basic classification.

As long as we don't know what ship sizes are actually practical, it's pointless to say, for example, "ships longer than 250 meters are battleships" (see below).

In the From The Depths forum, someone has postet the following list:

PCF Fast Attack Craft (ship): <40 m length, 8-10 m beam
PBR Patrol Boat (ship): 40-60 m length, 10-12 m beam
DDC Corvette: 60-110 m length, 10-16 m beam
DL Frigate: 110-140 m length, 12-18 m beam
DD Destroyer: 140-160 m length, 16-20 m beam
CL Light cruiser: 160-170 m length, 16-20 m beam
CA Heavy cruiser: 170-200 m length, 18-24 m beam
BC Battlecruiser: 200-250 m length, 24-30 m beam
BB Battleship: >250 m length, >30 m beam

 

Note, that the difference between cruisers and heavy cruisers is the main armaments calibre (see IJN Mogami). In WW2 terms: if the main armament is bigger or equal than 200 mm its a heavy cruiser.

Carriers would be divided into 3 categories: Light, (normal), and super, depending on its size and therefore the number of planes.

 

What should be added to the class is if the ship is atmospheric, space or both capable, because that is VERY important to know.

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I think that a system to categorize ships is not obligatory, because the more we want to add:
Weapons, mechanics, propulsion and other items.
The ship will have to be bigger to install all the device.

if the ship is atmospheric, space or both capable, this can be a great information, beneficial or not depending on who gets the information (at pvp level for example)

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On 28.11.2017 at 10:09 PM, Cronael said:

I think that a system to categorize ships is not obligatory, because the more we want to add:
Weapons, mechanics, propulsion and other items.
The ship will have to be bigger to install all the device.

If a ship gets bigger, then it’s no longer in one ship class, but in another.

If you are not building by a specific design that you have created in an external program or from a sketch than it’s not very useful to categorise your ship bevor finishing it. 

If you are, then you know what category your ship will belong into, as long as your design is realistic: 

If you are designing a ship with a length of 200 m, by ww2 ship standards, this would be a heavy cruiser or a light cruiser, depending on the callibre.

 However, if in dual universe ships of those size would be really difficult to build because if it’s size or straight up unpractical, then classifying that ship as a cruiser would be misleading.

 

The reason why ww2 ships are so big is, because they have to:

you need a long bow for reduced water friction, the boilers take up the majority of space and gun magazines are big, too. 

Historically you first design a gun and then build a ship around it, not the other way. 

 

We don‘t know what space you need for specific guns, engines (with enough fuel to be practically) or reactors at the moment.

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Gotta agree with Precise_Calibre here. Many factions (including mine) will have internal naming-conventions for many reasons, flavour and security being some. Obviously when selling blueprints (ship designs) and whatnot it would make sense to use some standard class-name to describe them like corvette or cruiser

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On 01/12/2017 at 1:34 AM, Zamarus said:

Gotta agree with Precise_Calibre here. Many factions (including mine) will have internal naming-conventions for many reasons, flavour and security being some. Obviously when selling blueprints (ship designs) and whatnot it would make sense to use some standard class-name to describe them like corvette or cruiser

The problem with this, is expectations.

Case in point, people don't even understand what a ship class is and what a ship size is.

The USS George H. W. Bush, is one of the Nimitz-Class Carrier Capital ships the US Navy has in its disposal. They are referred to as "Super Carriers", they can easily repell other nations' entire navy on their own.

The ship size is Capital, the ship type is Carrier. The ship Class is Nimitz.

 

You CAN name your own ship classes, that's going without a saying. You can't though assume what a "capital ship" is. It's the ships that helm entire formations. You don't helm a formation around a cruiser or a frigate. A capital ship relies on its escort ships for protection - like how the USS George W. Bush is relying on frigates and destroyers to keep enemy vessels from coming too close.

And in that frame of referrence, you can't redefine what a Carrier is. A Carrier is a Line-of-Battle ship. Line-of-Battle, is all Capital ships, like Battleships and Battlecruisers (now makes sense why the Battle- prefix, doesn't it? ). If a "carrier" is as small as a frigate, it's not a carrier, since it's not a Line-of-Battle ship, it's a Line-of-Defense ship - a frigate.

 

People may say "but hey, they had cruisers in WW2 that could launch two planes, what about dat?!". Yes, and launching two planes doesn't put you on the same level with a carrier, which can launch 40 of them.
 

A dreadnaught is but a class of battleship. Heavy Cruiser is a class of Cruiser. And depending on who you ask, Destroyers and Hunter-Killers are just a ship class of frigate. 

 

People can name their frigates as "battleships" to satisfy their e-peen, my RADAR won't lie like they do and I will DO write my radar to identify ships as of their mass and size. Oh, their mass is way more than their size should allow? I guess that's a flying pinyata then of a freighter. Oh it's too big to be a freighter?  I guesss it's a carrier.

 

And no, Freighter is not a combat ship, Han Solo is just a truck driver and George Lucas is a hack..

Battlestar Galactica? Just a fancy name for a Carrier.

Super Star Destroyers? Dreadnaughts, plain and simple.

 

Titans from EVE Online? Still, just another class of capital ships, despite EVE insisiting on the term "super-capital", which is ridiculous, like saying "Eternal Forever Trumandane Leader".


TL;DR : People should not try to reinvent the wheel, it's too much effort for nothing.

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4 hours ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

The problem with this, is expectations.

Case in point, people don't even understand what a ship class is and what a ship size is.

Well what you would do is basically put a standard class representing a size from very small to very big. The ship class itself is more like a model in that sense

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6 hours ago, Zamarus said:

Well what you would do is basically put a standard class representing a size from very small to very big. The ship class itself is more like a model in that sense

I know I am building my radars to read ship cross-section and ship mass when scanning. :P

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In response to Sir Blender's original post:

I think this is indeed a potentially useful idea. As has been said to death here already, no attempted "enforcement" of such standards by anyone would be taken kindly, though I could see this as especially useful in the case of designing and advertising hanger bay spaces for stations, hubs, docking stations etc. I don't think a thread is needed, at least not yet; I think this will have to take the form of agreement to mutually beneficial standards on the parts of industry orgs like SLI and orgs that will own territories and stations like nations, outposts, and hubs.

 

I do think, however, universal naming for naming's sake is a mess, and as Sir Lethys said on the first page, people are going to name their ships what they want.

 

Perhaps named classes aren't even necessary for representing sizes; something as simple as numbers/letters could work and would be less misleading, though admittedly less glamorous.

 

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Fighters, screens and battleships, what else do you need really? Not that anyone will be able to build, maintain and keep afloat anything like a battleship anyhow, prolly.

 

The classes, doctrines and combat roles of the navy is based on the conditions of the sea and what not. Stick with fighters and screens at launch and we'll see what the game mechanics and the evolving game meta throws at us.

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On 1.12.2017 at 9:39 AM, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

 

A dreadnaught is but a class of battleship. Heavy Cruiser is a class of Cruiser. And depending on who you ask, Destroyers and Hunter-Killers are just a ship class of frigate. 

Thats not right actually and you are inconsistent here. The dreadnought ship type is the predecessor of the battleship ship type, not a class.

Also therefore heavy cruisers can't be ship classes, they are ship types.

According to the Washington naval treaty there are actually no "cruisers", only "light cruisers" (main calibre <=155) and heavy cruisers (main calibre <155).

On 1.12.2017 at 9:39 AM, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Battlestar Galactica? Just a fancy name for a Carrier.

A carrier doesn't have the firepower a battleship has (in guns). Calling Battlestars just "carrier" would be definitive missleading.

On 1.12.2017 at 9:39 AM, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Super Star Destroyers? Dreadnaughts, plain and simple.

The ship type "dreadnought" for super big (battle)ships, is not a historical, but a pure sci-fi term.

Therefore techically super star destroyers are super battleships, not dreadnoughts.

Also I personally prefer dreadnought for oversized battleship-like ships.

On 1.12.2017 at 9:39 AM, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

Titans from EVE Online? Still, just another class of capital ships, despite EVE insisiting on the term "super-capital", which is ridiculous, like saying "Eternal Forever Trumandane Leader".

A "capital" ship is, as far as I know, simply a ship, that can operate on its own for a longer time periode and is the main core of the fleet.

The term "capital ship" is definitiv overrated in sci-fi settings, HOWEVER:
Space warfare (no matter if fully unrealistic and fictionally or not) is different from water warfare and if you can build ships of so different sizes (from < 100 meters to over sever kilometers), than you just need other type names.

Also the usage of ship types changed over the course of time, see "Korvettes" and "Frigates".

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It will be beneficial to have a universal naming standard. Marketing of ships comes to mind as well as a basic understanding of the enemy fleet composition. "What does the enemy ship classify as?" "Captain it has er.......uh.....a few guns......a large front and slim middle.....I guess." Instead if we had a universal system "Captain it's a corvette with 8 laser turrets along the port and starboard side." The standard should probably be based on ship length. (The actual names can of course be debated) Also as mentioned before, sales and ship design would be much easier. "The contract calls for  a corvette class." (now you know the size limitation without much prompting from the contract customer)

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Universal naming standards just won't happen in DU, as you can already guess from this thread. Everyone has a different opinion and some (like me) won't use any common name at all.

 

All that matters (for buying, scouting enemies, ...) Are numbers. How many turrets, engines, acceleration, Mass, turning rate, which weapons, armor and so on. Only numbers will be accurate. Some word can't be, and will never be, accurate enough to describe ships

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1 hour ago, Lethys said:

Only numbers will be accurate

This. if you want to sell me your ship, I want the hard numbers. You can call it what ever you want, I want numbers. 

(for reference look at the Empyrion Steam Workshop where the Blueprints are available, the good ones give numbers: building materials, building time, weapons, cargo etc.)

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@Takao

 

 

The HMS Dreadnaught was a big battleship - first of its kind. It's why we refer to super battleships as Dreadnaughts. Yamato was an even bigger ship than that and it was called ''yamato class battleship'', along with its sister ship Musashi. The third Yamato class was repurposed as a carrier

 

 

The USS Missouri is an Iowa class battleship and is bigger than any Dreadnaught class battleship ever fielded, But is still about 75% Yamato's size.

 

Carriers have missiles on them and they can hit other ships with them. The Nimitz ones have, so did the Enterprise class carriers before them.

 

Battlestars are that, carriers, their power is the Vipers and Raptors.

 

Capital means ''major'' as in asset. Battleships are that, as well as carriers. They were the original WMDs.  and had an arms race, they who had more battleships would win.

 

SSD from Star Wars is just a super battleship - a Dreadnaught.

 

Calling the HMS Dreadnaught a ''sci fi thing'', is like saying '' Iraq War? Obviously inspired by the famous Victorian era theatrical play : The Empire Strikes Back"

 

Cruisers are ships of the line. Nobody ever calls light cruisers as such they just call them cruisers.

 

Read a history book, stop taking Star Trek as the index for ship naming accuracy.

 

Cheers.

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4 hours ago, CaptainTwerkmotor said:

 

The HMS Dreadnaught was a big battleship - first of its kind. It's why we refer to super battleships as Dreadnaughts.

The hms dreadnought was big for it’s time, but not big in relation to („modern“) battleships. 

Although the battleship existed before the dreadnought, the hms dreadnought changed the battleship ship type. 

After the dreadnoughts there where the super dreadnought and then again the battleship (firepower + speed). 

Or do you call the Iowa or Yamato class a (super super?) dreadnought? 

 

Quote

 

Carriers have missiles on them and they can hit other ships with them. The Nimitz ones have, so did the Enterprise class carriers before them.

Carriers only have defensive armament (including missiles) to defend them against aircraft and missiles. You could use anti-air missiles against ships, but that wouldn’t be very effective and the range is very low compared to cruise and anti-ship missiles. 

Quote

Battlestars are that, carriers, their power is the Vipers and Raptors.

Again, although the battlestars fighters might be the their primary offensive weapon, their guns are formidable, too. 

Therefore calling that ship types just carriers is simply missleading because it makes a huge different if a carrier has a firepower that is equal to a battleship. 

Also there is no law or rule, that you can’t create new ship types to better represent what the ship is capable of.

 

Quote

 

Calling the HMS Dreadnaught a ''sci fi thing'', is like saying '' Iraq War? Obviously inspired by the famous Victorian era theatrical play : The Empire Strikes Back"

I‘m not calling the „hms dreadnought“ a sci-fi thing, i‘m only calling the classification „dreadnought“ for big battleships sic-fi because it was historically never used in such a way. 

Also the hms dreadnought was a revolutionary battleship and indeed for a time a super battleship, but after other nations build them the old, pre-dreadnought ships where obsolete and therefore the dreadnoughs weren’t super battleships anymore (if everyone is super, nobody is). 

Quote

Cruisers are ships of the line. Nobody ever calls light cruisers as such they just call them cruisers.

It makes a huge difference if the enemy ship has 155 or 200 mm guns. 

Cruiser is the main classification for, well cruisers while „light“ and „heavy“ is more specific, for the primary armament and depending on the ship also it’s size. 

Quote

 

Read a history book, stop taking Star Trek as the index for ship naming accuracy.

Star Trek has a ship type naming Index?

 

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@Takao

 

1) The idea is, that "Dreadnought" is just a conventional way of referring to an absurdly big battleship. The reason they refer to them as Dreadnoughts, is the fact they exceed a certain displacement which the nations of 1918 agreed on limited battleship sizes - cause that's what nations do, make laws for war and then promptly ignore them. Of course, when WW2 started boiling, everyone lied about their Battleship sizes - except the Japanese, who just used common-day troll tactics and just went ful absurd on their ship sizes. Germany had the Bismark (I don't remember its class) which was ALMOST the size of a cruiser, but had a lot of displacement, at least twice that of a Cruiser, but also its 30 Knots speed. During the first British-German naval battles of WW2, the Bismark sunk the HMS Hood (a Dreadnought-class) with the infamous "one shot kill", which detonated the Hood's entire payload of ammunitions. The Hood and its escort, the cruiser Prince of Wales, mistaken the Bismark for a Cruiser, thus they took a shot on its own cruiser escort ship. So, it's about displacemen,t not "size" strctly that makes a "super-battleship". The Bismark was created due to Nazi Germany's need to confuse enemy spies with the ship's size, by adding twice the armor belt and torpedo blisters along the ship's length., essentially increasing the mass.

When the US heard of Yamato and how it pretty much roflstomped ANYTHING on its wake, the ship engineers of the time said "how big must it be? Let's built it a bit biggher than the Arizona(which was sunk in Pearl Harbor)". When they first saw the Yamato, the Iwoa-Class Battleships were already being out of the Ddry docks. The Iowas won vs Yamatos cause of their RADARs and gun controls which made the deadly precise at night.

 

Lastly, there are no current day active duty battleships. Carriers are the end-all-be-all for capital ships. Actual research the past 17 years have gone into making Stealth Frigates with the French leading the charge and absurdly long-range Destroyers developed by the South Koreans. The name of the game is "make the carriers extra safe". 

2) Carriers also have Cruise missile launching capabilitiy, as well as Predator Drones. I mean ,they can pinpoint targets 500 km off. So.. .yeah, they are really effective if it comes to pulverising enemy ships.

3) Referr to 2) as of why Battlestars are Carriers in my eyes. Also, check out the Iowa's modernised weaponry used during the 1990s Desert Storm operation. Their aremanets were then applied onto Nimitz-class carriers to bolster their offensive capabilities when the Iowas were decomissioned.

 

4) True, the HMS Dreadnought was revolutionary for its time, but that's besides the point, it's just a frame of referrence.  It's why we call the M16 a "carbine" instead ofa a machinegun - which it is, it is a mechanised gun working on gases. It's why we canll the AK-47 an Assault Rifle (and yes, Carbine != Assault Rifle, CoD is not reality). It's about "conventionn", i.e "everyone calls the M16 a Carbine, to make it stand out due to its niches and everyone calls the Vektor an SMG, cause it's a machinegun, but sub-parr as of stopping or suppresive potential in actual combat for war-time". Notince. "war-time", there's a reason SWAT teams use SMGs and not Assault Rifles. Likewise, the Dreadnought is just that - convention. It's just a way to let others know "this battleship is not normal".

 

5) Still, Displacement is what you classify ships as. And RADRS will let you know of displacement - in conjunction with other means of course - they won't tell you what calibre of weapons the cruiser you detected has.

6) Star Trek authors and fanbois didn't stop at just violating the Prime Directive, they had to come up with atrocious ship classifications - aside from non-sensical ship designs.

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