ship class naming

i have just noticed something (well, i really noticed it when i first played, but it's bugged me enough to post about it) that is a bit irratating. The govt ships are given freaking annoying class names. govts seem to have 4 ship classes, fighter, frigate, medium-heavy, and carrier. the problem lies in the choosing of name for medium-heavy. One race names it destroyer, the cheif opposing race names it cruiser. in acuality these are vastly different classifications, a destroyer being a moderately armed ship with good marks for speed an manueverability, while a cruiser is essintially a smaller version of a battleship, but with comparatively light armor (though still much greater than a destroyer). A cruiser should be very slow compared to a destroyer, but armed heavily enough that getting in range of one will be the last thing you ever do, though admittedly not as quickly as it would be in against a battleship.

ok, i'm done ranting, for now :ninja:

I find it annoying that people seem to think that cruiser=carrier=battleship. A battleship is a large, heavily armed warship. A carrier is an equally large vessel with fighter bays. A cruiser is smaller than both and has no fighter bays.

I also find it annoying that people seen to think that carriers are heavily armed. They should not be. The should mostly rely on the squadrons of fighters they carry. My perfect vision of a carrier has a large fighter bay platform, holding lots of fighters, bombers, and interceptors. Other than that, the ship might have a few railguns and a point-defense system, but nothing more.

If I ever make a TC, it'll be like that. 🆒

yeah, cruiser = light Battleship, even a heavy cruiser has less firepower than a battleship (though in terms of manueverability and speed aheavy cruiser can run curcles around the BB) carrier = s###load of fighters for offense, and a bunch of lead hoses for point defense. Battleship = big mother****er with way too many hugenormous guns, but not much in the way of point defense. Too many games are fond of mixing carrier and battleship, or carrier and cruiser, or the most common, carrier+battleship and call it a cruiser......

(/rant)

I've started thinking that the terms are all pretty much just mindless carryovers from a naval heritage. I would really like somebody to make a new system of classifying ships without using the words 'battleship,' 'destroyer,' or 'cruiser.' Ships given these monikers are immediately classified into categories that were meant to apply to water-going vessels. Rather than explain the ship in terms of how it closely it matches the armor, manueverability, and armament of old aquatic warfighting vessels, I would rather play a plug where something original was used systematically. I think a good idea would be to just call the ship something that reflects its purpose. It is just too easy to be lazy and make yet another 'Kyoto-Class Heavy Destroyer' rather than a 'Kyoto-Class Long-Range Patrolship,' for example.

Werhner,
a noted rocket scientist

I'm figuring that if ATMOS stood around arguing about what they should call their vessel classifications, we wouldn't have EVN to argue over. It's a good point, but ultimately, so few people understand designations like the ones your talking about, that such realities would actually be entirely lost on them.

It's also worth baring in mind that the difference between a cruiser, a destroyer, a carrier, a dreadnought, a battleship... is only worth noting, if a naval body poses each of those vessel types. If they only have two types of capital-ships to speak of, then as far as I'm concerned, they can pick whatever name that best suits their purposes.

A: Hey, we got this new ship, right.
B: Yeh?
A: But we don't know what to call it.
B: Okay, so what's it designed to do?
A: Well, I suppose... I suppose it's designed to destroy stuff.
B: Hu, "destroy stuff" you say?
A: Yeh.
B: Interesting.
A: Interesting?
B: An idea is forming. Now, stay with me on this one, it's a bit abstract...

Hudson, on Feb 23 2006, 07:45 AM, said:

I'm figuring that if ATMOS stood around arguing about what they should call their vessel classifications, we wouldn't have EVN to argue over. It's a good point, but ultimately, so few people understand designations like the ones your talking about, that such realities would actually be entirely lost on them.

It's also worth baring in mind that the difference between a cruiser, a destroyer, a carrier, a dreadnought, a battleship... is only worth noting, if a naval body poses each of those vessel types. If they only have two types of capital-ships to speak of, then as far as I'm concerned, they can pick whatever name that best suits their purposes.

A: Hey, we got this new ship, right.
B: Yeh?
A: But we don't know what to call it.
B: Okay, so what's it designed to do?
A: Well, I suppose... I suppose it's designed to destroy stuff.
B: Hu, "destroy stuff" you say?
A: Yeh.
B: Interesting.
A: Interesting?
B: An idea is forming. Now, stay with me on this one, it's a bit abstract...
View Post

Frigate! 😛

Ragashingo, on Feb 23 2006, 09:08 AM, said:

Hudson, on Feb 23 2006, 06:45 AM, said:

I'm figuring that if ATMOS stood around arguing about what they should call their vessel classifications, we wouldn't have EVN to argue over. It's a good point, but ultimately, so few people understand designations like the ones your talking about, that such realities would actually be entirely lost on them.

It's also worth baring in mind that the difference between a cruiser, a destroyer, a carrier, a dreadnought, a battleship... is only worth noting, if a naval body poses each of those vessel types. If they only have two types of capital-ships to speak of, then as far as I'm concerned, they can pick whatever name that best suits their purposes.

A: Hey, we got this new ship, right.
B: Yeh?
A: But we don't know what to call it.
B: Okay, so what's it designed to do?
A: Well, I suppose... I suppose it's designed to destroy stuff.
B: Hu, "destroy stuff" you say?
A: Yeh.
B: Interesting.
A: Interesting?
B: An idea is forming. Now, stay with me on this one, it's a bit abstract...
View Post

Frigate! 😛
View Post

Hey, that's what the Voinians did.

Here it is... the Pirate Battleship! Available wherever the Pirate Carrier is sold for the same rediculously cheap price! Has too many weapns for it's own good, more shields than the Kestrel, and it is so slow you can hardly tell it is moving!

It uses the 415 shďp and shän (didn't work without the shän at first, so I decided to add it :p) resources. Will probably mess with other plugs for that reason, 415 is the first available resource, and probably commonly used.Attached File BattleShip.bin.zip (581bytes)
Number of downloads: 63

Polaris ships weren't named for naval terms. With the exception of the Striker and Zephyr, all their warships are named after various animals.

This post has been edited by Mispeled : 23 February 2006 - 02:47 PM

Although not all are still alive/were ever alive... I think. Was a Manta ever actually alive? And was the Cambrian? I thought that was a time period or used to describe age...

I think it's Manta as in Manta Ray, though you're right about Cambrian.

Werhner, on Feb 23 2006, 03:33 AM, said:

I've started thinking that the terms are all pretty much just mindless carryovers from a naval heritage. I would really like somebody to make a new system of classifying ships without using the words 'battleship,' 'destroyer,' or 'cruiser.' Ships given these monikers are immediately classified into categories that were meant to apply to water-going vessels. Rather than explain the ship in terms of how it closely it matches the armor, manueverability, and armament of old aquatic warfighting vessels, I would rather play a plug where something original was used systematically. I think a good idea would be to just call the ship something that reflects its purpose. It is just too easy to be lazy and make yet another 'Kyoto-Class Heavy Destroyer' rather than a 'Kyoto-Class Long-Range Patrolship,' for example.

Werhner,
a noted rocket scientist
View Post

Hudson, on Feb 23 2006, 04:45 AM, said:

I'm figuring that if ATMOS stood around arguing about what they should call their vessel classifications, we wouldn't have EVN to argue over. It's a good point, but ultimately, so few people understand designations like the ones your talking about, that such realities would actually be entirely lost on them.

It's also worth baring in mind that the difference between a cruiser, a destroyer, a carrier, a dreadnought, a battleship... is only worth noting, if a naval body poses each of those vessel types. If they only have two types of capital-ships to speak of, then as far as I'm concerned, they can pick whatever name that best suits their purposes.

A: Hey, we got this new ship, right.
B: Yeh?
A: But we don't know what to call it.
B: Okay, so what's it designed to do?
A: Well, I suppose... I suppose it's designed to destroy stuff.
B: Hu, "destroy stuff" you say?
A: Yeh.
B: Interesting.
A: Interesting?
B: An idea is forming. Now, stay with me on this one, it's a bit abstract...
View Post

Oh. Well then, when I make my TC, I'll just call my huge, ten-ton cruise missiles darts, and then call my little raven rocket-sized projectiles broadswords. <_< Yeah, I see your point, but I disagree.

The CrimpMaster, on Feb 23 2006, 11:29 PM, said:

Oh. Well then, when I make my TC, I'll just call my huge, ten-ton cruise missiles darts, and then call my little raven rocket-sized projectiles broadswords. <_< Yeah, I see your point, but I disagree.
View Post

I don't require you to agree with me. I do, however, require you to actually read what I post - because that's not what I said.

Really: ~1960 years later, with everything that entails, and we are required to use the same names? Even if language has changed in that time? With some names being translations?

Yeah, it's like the bad computer translators where you can translate something into another language, but when you attempt to bring it back the other way, you get useless babble.

Hudson, on Feb 23 2006, 10:45 PM, said:

I don't require you to agree with me. I do, however, require you to actually read what I post - because that's not what I said.
View Post

Oh really? I thought that is what you said.

Aelran, on Feb 24 2006, 12:00 AM, said:

Really: ~1960 years later, with everything that entails, and we are required to use the same names? Even if language has changed in that time? With some names being translations?
View Post

Launguage has changed since the middle ages, and the last time I checked a spear is still a spear and a sword is still a sword. I think it will remain so.

Yes, but english as we know it did not really exist about 2000 years ago. A "Sword" was probably called something different. Of course, there was probably not a weapon called Sword around 1 C.E. that we now call something else... the word was probably not used.

However, the word "destroyer" comes from the word "destroy", which exists in many languages. The word "sword" is a unique (although common) noun. Similarly, "battleship" is a combination of 2 words that probably occur in every language. The words "destroyer" and "battleship" could therefore exist in another language and be translated back.
However, because "sword" is only used for a sword, it could not really be translated to another language and come up with a word other than a unique, possibly new one meaning the object "sword".

My point? I don't quite know yet, but that is something to consider about language and translation.

This post has been edited by KedFiller : 24 February 2006 - 10:50 PM

Well...um...it...it's cooler this way, ok?

Really though, if I made a TC, it wouldn't take place thousands of years in the future, just a few hundred years. A few hundred years ago, a sword was called a sword and a spear was called a spear. Still is today. By the same logic, in a few hundred years, starships might have similar names as seaships do today.

Besides, if you're going to use a clichéd ship class name like cruiser, you might as well use it right. :rolleyes:

This post has been edited by The CrimpMaster : 24 February 2006 - 11:10 PM

The CrimpMaster, on Feb 25 2006, 03:09 PM, said:

Besides, if you're going to use a clichéd ship class name like cruiser, you might as well use it right. :rolleyes:
View Post

I'll give you that. Now, take the Auroran ships - Va Ytrack? Sure, it's a cruiser, or a carrier, but that could just be how you think of them.

The CrimpMaster, on Feb 24 2006, 10:09 PM, said:

Besides, if you're going to use a clichéd ship class name like cruiser, you might as well use it right. :rolleyes:
View Post

thank you, that is exactly my point, use the terms correctly (according to existing definitions, not new ones you make up because it sounds good), or make new terms altogether.