Starship Information

## Classification of Commonly Seen Starships

### Aircraft Carriers

Aircraft carriers, sometimes referred to as simply 'carriers' are typically the flagship of whatever fleet they happen to be a part of. The USC makes extensive use of carriers in order to bolster force projection and supply distant troops without relying on constantly shifting supply lines while the NCC typically builds smaller carriers for rapid strike groups to hit unaware targets before running away. Carriers are typically not well armed themselves but can carry hundreds, or in some cases thousands, of smaller strike craft armed to the teeth with missiles, cannons and often torpedoes. Most carriers have exceptional point defense to protect them from enemy fighter sorties and against torpedoes and missile strikes.

The USC has at least two carriers in almost every battle group in their armada which commonly also serve as limited supply ships and command ships. The exception to the last point is typically if a task force has a super carrier which are less common and a lot more expensive. Most doctrine regarding naval warfare centers around the protection of the carrier which in turn has little risk posed to itself if it launches its fighters from far away where its enemies cannot reach it.

Conversely, the Third Kingdom of Haminea builds relatively few carriers and instead typically builds battleships. Their carriers tend to be more focused on troop deployment to the surface of worlds where they swarm with conscripts led by more experienced soldiers accompanied by tanks and similar vehicles. Most commonly, their carriers are supported by battleships which bombard the surface of hostile worlds with more shells than most other nations can manage with a single fleet to force a surrender.

Other nations do not build carriers at all and focus on boarding parties or 'mass stinging' tactics with smaller ships to bring down larger vessels.

Carriers are, regardless of origin, carefully designed and an expensive project to perform and to maintain. Most star systems do not have enough necessary manufacturing to build a carrier in a reasonable amount of time during wartime. Instead, most carriers are built in segments in multiple locations then pieced together at a centralized shipyard. Some exceptional star systems include the Sol system which has more infrastructure than most areas in the cosmos and the Virginian Empire's orbital rings which can produce carriers in a relatively short amount of time.

### Battleship

The construction of a battleship for any nation is a costly endeavor. Most often, these ships are smaller only than aircraft carriers and sometimes are even larger than those vessels. Battleships serve many roles in a fleet depending on which nation built them. In the USC, these ships are meant solely for the bombardment of a hostile fleet from behind the protective screen of a fighter group or for air-to-ground bombardment of hostile worlds. For the Third Kingdom of Haminea, these ships make up the bulk of their large ships and wade into battle with superheavy armor and monstrous amounts of firepower to engage enemy fleets up close and personal. Regardless, these ships are not generally very maneuverable though they typically have more than enough point defense to largely ignore fighter screens on their own. Many battleships also come equipped with mine layers to fill a small area of space with shrapnel as a form of area denial weaponry, torpedoes to engage ships of similar size, multiple layered gun decks and enough point defense to fend off a typical fighter attack.

### Corvette

Corvettes are among the basic military starship classification and most often are lightly armed, lightly armored but highly maneuverable and accelerate quickly. Most often they serve as scouts, skirmishers or patrol vessels for most militaries. Less commonly, these small ships are outfitted with torpedo bays that make them a menace to slower, less maneuverable starships with limited point defense capabilities. Many navy pilots describe these ships as 'fighters but with a lot more ass'.

Skilled mercenaries may find themselves at the helm of such vessels after acquiring enough wealth to purchase one and doing so is considered a mark of a successful mercenary team. While larger vessels do not fit most mercenary groups, which tend to be relatively small teams of tightly knit individuals, a corvette typically only requires a handful of operators who man the guns, fly the ship and maintain the vehicle.

For military work, these ships are typically not favored by modern militaries which most commonly have frigates to fill their role instead. Militaries that do employ the use of corvettes typically use them as an anti-piracy measure or to hunt down their enemies and skirmish with them. When skirmishing, a corvette crew always needs to be exceptionally cautious to ensure that their vessel is out of the fight before the enemy has a chance to achieve a lock-on lest they wish to be shot down themselves.

### Cruisers

Cruisers are the workhorses of most fleets and fill many roles such as deploying swarms of missiles, to taking hits that other vessels cannot, to orbital bombardment roles to support roles. The variation between cruisers even produced by the same nation makes them difficult to pin down and define. Cruisers are classified most commonly by their size and speed compared to other vessels. They have more armor than destroyers or frigates, but less than battleships. They're faster than carriers or battleships as well though not nearly as fast as a corvette or fighter. All cruisers regardless of role have at least two distinct cannon mounts and are capable of loading either torpedoes or missiles.

### Destroyer

Destroyers have light armor for a large ship but have incredible firepower compared to other vessels in their weight class. This high risk, high reward strategy of build allows them to be exceptionally maneuverable while maintaining the capability to engage hostile large ships. Typically, a destroyer travels as a part of a 'pack' alongside other destroyers which will coordinate with one another to out-maneuver other vessels and hit them in their weakest points while they use their agility to evade return fire whenever possible. Often, these ships are equipped with enhanced sensors that make them a menace to Stalker class vessels and typically have more point defense compared to other vessels of their size.

Usually, destroyers are also self-sufficient to a degree and can go on extremely long patrols without the need to visit a station to resupply. With their small crew size, they can easily punch holes deep behind enemy lines when supported by Stalkers and wreak havoc while the main body of the fleet is still on approach. The USC makes extensive use of destroyers for this exact purpose, namely with the Ulysses class. Destroyers are also outfitted with many missile racks to engage their targets from afar and to saturate a small area in shrapnel to destroy fighters.

A skilled captain can utilize a destroyer to cripple an unwary fleet by evading them and fighting them where they are weakest. Supply lines are often very heavily guarded for this reason by cruisers with their own compliments of destroyers. These vessels do have their own weaknesses, however. Primarily their weakness is that destroyers are not designed for extended fighting and if drawn into range of heavier ship guns can be readily trapped and either forced to surrender or destroyed.

### Stalker

Stalkers are analogous to submarines of marine warfare. These vessels are meant to hide their signatures from other vessels or alternatively (and sometimes both functions are present) project a different signature that resembles a different vessel. Most militaries build these vessels to perform reconnaissance against enemy fleets and stations or to strike and quickly retreat to lure enemies into ambushes. Stalkers are usually armed with torpedoes but due to their design constraints tend not to have the heavy cannons or point defense, nor the armor, to stay and slough through a thick fight on their own. Even relatively small vessels like fighters can usually punch holes through their hull with only a few hits in a location and are often more than enough to engage them effectively. Stalkers are very capable of launching a torpedo salvo at a hostile large ship like a cruiser, however, and anihilating it before it even registers the torpedo launches.

To accomplish this, most Stalker vessels will get extremely close into a 'knife-fighting' range of only a handful of kilometers to launch their payload before engaging their stealth systems again and retreating to safer airspace. Alternatively, for factions such as the USC, these vessels move into position and follow a hostile fleet as long as possible while avoiding detection. They then send information back to their own fleet which uses the information to accurately strike against their opponents with fighters and destroyers; skirmishing with the hostile fleet until they can draw them into an ambush which is often in other star systems.

Very few mercenaries own Stalker class vessels though those that do tend to be smugglers or exceptionally skilled pilots. These specialized craft fit their role very well but are often times lacking for mercenaries to take on other missions and rarely is a Stalker class vessel capable of any sort of dogfighting role in close combat. Orbit to ground strikes are nearly impossible with any measure of precision for a Stalker due to the massive destruction torpedoes impart on their targets.

## Classification of Uncommon Starships

### Dreadnought

Produced exclusively by the Third Kingdom of Haminea, dreadnoughts carry incomparable firepower into battle alongside their incredibly heavy armor. Even a torpedo strike is often incapable of destroying one of these gargantuan starships which can lay waste to a hostile world from the safety of orbit with impunity from any surface-to-air weaponry. These massive vessels are often several kilometers in length alone and are custom built to a specific fleet which they then become the flagship of. Typically, it takes at least a decade to produce even one dreadnought though their effectiveness in combat is unable to be argued against. Most often, it is an argument of cost effectiveness that leads other nations to forgo building these vessels.

When a dreadnought enters the airspace it sends vibrations through other ships with its ethereal projection; sometimes even causing malfunctions in nearby starships as a result. When they leave a system, their fleet offers them an exceptionally large berth in order to avoid malfunctions in their own vessels and to avoid a potential mishap of being launched into the Ethereal should they get too close. Fortunately for other nations, charging the FTL of a dreadnought takes days and has thus made it a very unwieldy improvised weapon at best and most starships do not tend to get close to adversaries anyway.

Armed with at least ten individual cannon mounts, multiple torpedo tubes, missile racks and often carrying fighters of their own, dreadnoughts bring an impressive amount of firepower wherever they go and can often take on small fleets even alone. Their armor can shrug off most other cannon attacks and missiles while torpedoes are typically shot down by the massive amount of point defense. Every dreadnought also carries a number of small manufacturing plants inside of it to produce munitions for troops on the ground as well as a drone bay dedicated to mining operations for raw materials in the system. Those raw materials can come from asteroids, moons, planets or even downed vessels and manufactured into small arms munitions. Additionally, dreadnoughts are often intimidating to most species due to their sheer size; often winning battles with their mere presence and shattering morale.

These vessels often carry thousands of Marines and supporting equipment onboard not only to secure the vessel itself but to engage in warfare on the surface of planets. Most of the cannons on a ship of this size are capable of leveling a city block with only a few well-placed shots. All dreadnoughts carry weapons of mass destruction as well including nuclear options.

### Supercarrier

In the USC, carriers make up the majority of the largest ships in their fleets. The supercarriers were designed with both air and land based battles in mind. These carriers are far more than their smaller carrier cousins. While a carrier may carry dozens of squadrons for sorties, a supercarrier will bring an entire array of vessels ranging from troop transports full of Marines to air superiority fighters to land based vehicles to bring the fight to the surface of worlds that they are deployed to. Their sensors are the best in the fleet and though their armor is light they have the fastest available FTL drives and numerous redundant systems that allow them to fight on when most other carriers would have fractured apart.

Supercarriers have hundreds of squadrons and easily measure dozens of kilometers long. They are outfitted with launch tubes for their fighters rather than the standard hangar setup where fighters must drift out relatively slowly before being able to engage their main engines. Instead, their fighters are launched similarly to torpedoes with a fairly long-distance journey to the end of the carrier where they enter the vacuum of space at several times the speed of sound; protected the entire way by the carrier's armor. Unlike other carriers, supercarriers tend to have their own cannons to engage enemy large ships from afar coupled with an impressive array of point defense and even torpedo bays.

Typically, a vessel of this size also carries an extensive Marine accompaniment into battle against the surfaces of worlds and against stations. They support them on the ground with their own cannons that, while not designed to be particularly damaging, are very precise and can strike targets on the surface within just a few meters of spread. The extreme accuracy of the guns leads to less collateral damage caused by shelling hostile positions and often means that even from orbit precision strikes are possible. In the event that friendly forces are tightly intermingled with hostile combatants, or if the guns are incapable of firing or otherwise busy, the supercarrier can still send fighters to engage and provide air support.