Ship Class

[Prospective]

Curious what criteria is used to decide a ship's classification?

 

Is it determined solely on tonnage?

Is it the type of components used in it's construction?

Is it the % ratio of components to overall tonnage that determines it.

 

Any clues? Pete, any comments?

 

If you are feeling chatty, how many different classifications are possible?

 

Thanks.

[General Miles Avatar]

Curious what criteria is used to decide a ship's classification? 

 

Is it determined solely on tonnage? 

Is it the type of components used in it's construction?

Is it the % ratio of components to overall tonnage that determines it.

 

Any clues?  Pete, any comments?

 

If you are feeling chatty, how many different classifications are possible?

 

Thanks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The items you build the ship with have a a great deal to do with the class the ship

ends up being. Build one with lots of fighterbays and its a carrier for the most part

. Build one with lots of troops berthing and its a troop transport. etc etc. Build one

with tons of weapons relative to its total tonnage and presto is usally becomes a monitor. Build a really big one with massive armor and impressive weapons and

more then likely it will become a Battleship or Dreadnought. The possibilities are

endless.

[Prospective]

General,

 

Thanks for your response. Have you experimented with designs? What is the difference between an Express Ship, Express Yacht, Express Boat and a Fleet Express Ship? I have all 4 and wonder what makes them one or the other. That is what I am trying to figgure out... what % ratio of what component or tonnage classifies a ship? Is it just what Pete feels like calling it this day versus another day?

 

Also, to quibble (being an engineer), there has to be a finite number of combinations.

[ali-t-akua]

General,

 

Thanks for your response.  Have you experimented with designs?  What is the difference between an Express Ship, Express Yacht, Express Boat and a Fleet Express Ship?  I have all 4 and wonder what makes them one or the other.  That is what I am trying to figgure out... what % ratio of what component or tonnage classifies a ship?  Is it just what Pete feels like calling it this day versus another day?

 

Also, to quibble (being an engineer), there has to be a finite number of combinations.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Prospective there are a finite number of combinations strictly because it is a person with finite time creating the classes.

 

I have often wondered what the percentages are myself but I have never seen anything published on the tonnage and percentages that explain what the thresholds are.

[General Miles Avatar]

General,

 

Thanks for your response.  Have you experimented with designs?  What is the difference between an Express Ship, Express Yacht, Express Boat and a Fleet Express Ship?  I have all 4 and wonder what makes them one or the other.  That is what I am trying to figgure out... what % ratio of what component or tonnage classifies a ship?  Is it just what Pete feels like calling it this day versus another day?

 

Also, to quibble (being an engineer), there has to be a finite number of combinations.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes I have experimented. way back when the game was rather young I was very curious about the ship designations so I started using the NUD order to design

various ships to see how many classes I could come up with. Turns out there were

quite a few. some of the classes I got were. Corvette, Frigate, Destroyer, Star Destroyer, Light Cruiser, Heavy Cruiser, Star Cruiser ,War Cruiser, Frontier Cruiser,

Survey Cruiser, Monitor Far Trader, Express Yacht, Bloakade Runner, Battleship

Dreadnaught, Star Dreadnought Battle Dreadnought Light Tanker Tanker

Colonial Transport Troop Transport, Command Cruiser to name a few.

 

[cestvel]

If the armor percentage is quite high, you get an "Assault" prefix.

 

Had a transfer design only made out of armor and some drives fuel and jump.

It got designated an "Assault Battleship", but it had not a single weapon and was marked

as beeing in deploylocation'T' - Transport.

 

And Express is added in, if you have a high Engine ratio.

[Prospective]

Thanks for the responses guys. I'm wondering if Pete would comment on this... Pete would you be willling to explain what factors are involved in the determination of a ship classification?

 

Thanks.

[RTGPete]

Thanks for the responses guys.  I'm wondering if Pete would comment on this...  Pete would you be willling to explain what factors are involved in the determination of a ship classification?

 

Thanks.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Ship class titles are assigned based on the % of various ship systems present in the design. A default is assigned first (Auxiliary) and then each successive check tries to "beat" the current assignment. If there is enough of something in the design, a new base category is assigned and the process continues. Once the base class is figured, the exact ship class name is chosen from a list of names within that category based on total ship tonnage.

 

It's possible for a design to qualify for several base classes (it often does) but whichever one comes last will set the base. It's also possible for a ship to have a more complex base because of specialty items. For example, you can get a Heavy Cruiser by having sufficient weapons on a design, an Assault Heavy Cruiser by having sufficient armor systems (some other systems qualify as well for this), or a Heavy Drone Cruiser by having sufficient Drone Racks in the design.

 

The design name means nothing when it comes to actual combat, but can be a good way to distinguish one's designs. Others are impossible until you have certain technology. A good example of one of those would be repair ships - there was no way to install "Repair Yard" items into a ship until the Repair Bay was added to the game. This opened up the possibility to design Fleet Tenders and Orbital Repair Dock base classes (with variations for tonnage). Some designations, like the "Flag" prefix, can be very hard to achieve because of their % requirements.

[hobknob]

There are alot of combinations and you can find them all out by doing NUD's. You never have to build a single ship so you can use any sort of tech in the design.

 

This is a very educational way to figure out what is out there. Then when you start looking at %'s of certain subsystems you can start to predict what a design will be.

 

I have always found that Monitors are the size class of warship ranging from 2M to 2,999,999 tons. The 3M mark advances to BB and the lighter class is the Star Cruiser up to 2M tons.

 

Blockade runners are generally ships with a high % of engines and cargo bays and then some weapons.