Good Ol' Big Red - Frigate or Destroyer?

[Wolfette]

Wanted to a second opinion about which of the two classifications makes more sense for the vanilla ship "Big Red" made by Keen, that's been with us since release, I'm stuck personally between it being a frigate in size or a destroyer.

Now in real world navies size is second in importance to role when classifying a ship, but I'm interested in size alone, for those interested to know why I'm curious about this is that I'm trying to set some rough guide lines when making my own large ships, it's not overly strict there's some wiggle room of course, but if it's way past a certain size metric means it goes to the next catagory up anymore, at least to me.

Any thoughts? Frigate? Destroyer? Or is it bigger then that still and maybe best classed as a Cruiser?

[Sketchy]

Why not go inbetween and call it a Destroyer Escort? They're smaller than standard destroyers but larger than frigates with small guns for their size. Or, could go with a Heavy Frigate classification as its not exactly agile.

[error1440]

I propose a different classification for Big Red: Derelict Vessel from the GMH-Human wars of the 2040's.

[Wolfette]

Originally posted by Solace the Alp-luachra:

Why not go inbetween and call it a Destroyer Escort? They're smaller than standard destroyers but larger than frigates with small guns for their size. Or, could go with a Heavy Frigate classification as its not exactly agile.

Going with the KISS principle, I'll have enough trouble classfiying size alone even with a standard metric to go by, prefixes and suffixs like Heavy and Escort further complicating things.

[Calaban]

Just to muddy things up a bit...

What Naval Tradition are we going to hold to?

Because a Frigate of the Modern (US) Navy is one size, whereas a Frigate of the Spanish Main was quite entirely another...

And then to point out that a modern (US) Destroyer and Cruiser Share a similar Hull, where only the outfitting and superstructure differ...

(No one ever said Naval Traditions hold any logic)

[Tarka]

Keen themselves have called the 'red ship' a light carrier, and the 'blue ship' a scout frigate.

Red ship is not well armed or armoured enough to be called a destroyer and too slow to be a frigate.

Though of course trying to apply terrestrial naval terms to spacecraft really dosen't work anyway.

[SievertChaser]

It's neither: it has rudimentary armament and minimal protection.

[Cai Lun]

Based on the default cargoship sizes (http://www.spaceengineerswiki.com/Ships) both Red and Blue are bigger then the largest cargoships, (carriers and transporters). So for size purposes I would say they are in or above the large class, when looking at their equipment and fittings their role-class could be anything you make of it.

Shipclasses in the current navy and historically never have been very clear on exact size either but is seems mostly based on intended role, where size comes secondary as those have changed over time and even between current day navies around the world.

[SievertChaser]

...As well as politics and ambitions. To paraphrase the Soviet Naval Building Plan of 1935:

Look, capitalist pig-dogs! From now on, we call our battleship-sized ships "heavy cruisers"[en.wikipedia.org]. Therefore, our heavy cruisers will be bigger, nastier and faster than yours. So long. Die well.

[arreclain]

It also depends on your computer's ability to handle large ships. Since my graphics card is integrated and basic, I have to call the Red ship a cruiser. A really, really bad cruiser, but size-wise, it's on the middle end of what induces tollerable lag.

[Wolfette]

Seems the metrics are more skewwed then even I thought they where...

[SievertChaser]

Originally posted by Jackal2172:

Seems the metrics are more skewwed then even I thought they where...

They don't exist. Modern-day wet-navy classification is driven by politics and ♥♥♥♥-measuring.

[Twelve]

imo its a cruiser, if it had more weaponry i'd probably upgrade that to a battlecruiser.

[SievertChaser]

Originally posted by Twelve:

imo its a cruiser, if it had more weaponry i'd probably upgrade that to a battlecruiser.

Counterexample: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=367704215
Per a classification I've come up with it's a frigate - light ship-of-the-line with requisite autonomy features, therefore significatnly larger than the similarily armed destroyer.

[AlexMBrennan]

imo its a cruiser, if it had more weaponry i'd probably upgrade that to a battlecruiser.

The Big Red Ship has fewer weapons than PBRs, and I find it really silly to call a ship armed with only machine guns a "battlecruiser".

Unless it has some bigger guns (either mods or mass cannons), I'd call it an armed transport.

[Twelve]

i know its probably inaccurate in every way but i use homeworld 2 as my yard stick for deciding ship classes =p