Standard Sci-Fi Fleet: Difference between revisions

[[File:swrebelfleet.jpg|link=Star Wars|rightframe|[[Gunship Rescue|Standard Sci Fi Fleet to the rescue!]]]]

Forms the backbone of a [[Space Navy]]. Compare/contrast [[Standard Sci -Fi Army]], which may be on hand to fight boarding parties or conquer worlds.

To compare the size of ships from various series please use [http://www.merzo.net/index.html this finely crafted link] for a very helpful site, that has all your Standard Sci Fi vessels in scale to one another.

* ''[[Escape Pod]]'' - Not a craft in its own right, but a lifeboat <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]]</small>. These are very common in science fiction works: When a larger ship is about to be destroyed, the crew will scramble for the escape pods, hoping to reach rescue or at least a <s>desert island</s> [[Conveniently -Close Planet|habitable planet]]. Generally these have only rudimentary engines and no weapons, but will carry some survival supplies. Can be used to create dramatic situations with stranded or adrift characters, or just to get civilians and [[Red Shirt|redshirts]] out of the way so the main cast can save the day at the last possible moment.

** ''[[Stealth in Space|Stealth Fighter]]'' - [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|A stealth fighter]], equipped with a cloaking device or such. They can also come in larger versions, depending on the setting.

** ''[[Drop Ship]]'' - [[Awesome Personnel Carrier]] <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE]]</small>. A specialized shuttle-like craft specifically made to carry troops from a ship to the surface, even into the middle of a battlefield or under fire. Always heavily armored, and usually armed to boot.

** ''[[Drop Pod]]'' - Instead of deploying infantry together in ships, transports will sometimes drop individual soldiers or [[Humongous Mecha]] in pods or very heavy armor. Also comes in a ship-to-ship variety for marines.

* ''Cutter/Corvette/Frigate/Destroyer'' - Various smaller warships, ranging from small assault boats slightly larger than a Bomber to massive ships nearly a mile in length. Which size class gets which name varies from universe to universe, but is usually in the size and name order given above. With the exception of those crewed by main characters, these are usually the equivalent to [[Red Shirt|Red Shirts]]s in the fleet when the shooting starts. Generally speaking, deployed in groups ("flotillas") or as escorts for larger ships. They're sometimes referred to (especially destroyers) as "Tin Cans" because of their thin hulls.

** ''Blockade Runner'' - Smaller than most Cargo Ships, this is commonly used by smugglers and rebels, who soup up the engines and, if necessary, can give it extra guns and armor if it needs to fight. You're probably thinking of the ''[[Star Wars|Milennium Falcon]]'' (or the ''[[Firefly (TV)|Serenity]]'', or the ''[[Cowboy Bebop|Bebop]]'') right now, and you'd be right on the money. This is the go-to ship class for the [[Space Western]] settings. May be piloted by a [[Space Trucker]].

** ''Q-ship'' - Taking the idea of the Blockade Runner to an extreme, a Q-ship is a Cargo Ship that is retooled into a warship, but still retains the outward appearance of its original form, so the enemy doesn't realize that it's armed until it starts shooting them. These can be used to defend supply convoys alongside or in place of normal escorts, or to sneak a fighting unit past the eyes of the enemy until it's too late. Note that a Q-ship is now ''primarily'' a warship, not a cargo hauler, so a ship like the Milennium Falcon would not be an example, as it is a freighter, it just happens to be armed for bear. Basically, if it isn't designed to be mistaken for a normal cargo ship until the enemy is being blown to bits, it is not a Q-ship. Improvised warships may come close - a freighter may need very little work for conversion into a missile barge, as long as other ships are present to complement its weak sides.

** ''Tender'' - A military use freighter that can be used to extend the range of a fleet by carrying extra supplies (ie, food, fuel, etc.) Obviously they won't always be seen, because a fleet will tend to try to operate within its normal range, but occasionally it may need to go beyond those limits, at which point a Tender becomes invaluable. Much the same goes for ''Ammo ships'' - they are not going to participate in routine patrol or base defense missions, but are going to tag along for large or remote operations, unless the setting completely disregards projectile weapons.

=== <big>'''Capital Ships''' ===</big>

* ''Carrier'' - An [[Airborne Aircraft Carrier]] several thousand feet (plus!) higher. Lightly armed, but carries Space Fighters of all kinds, and is usually escorted by other Capital Ships. Somewhat like [[Squishy Wizard]] of Capital Ships, especially when no Science Vessel is at hand. Sometimes has a [[Mook Maker|built -in factory]].

* ''Banner Ships'' - Not necessary a true warship, but essentially carrying either the command party and a variety of tools to coordinate and command allied ships. Its sight in the battlefield brings despair to the foes and hope to the allies. May be either unarmed so it can be an iron fortress for the fighters or armed sufficiently to protect itself. Think of them as the space variant of an [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_early_warning_and_control:Airborne early warning and control|AWACS]] or a [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Blue_Ridge_%28LCC:USS Blue Ridge (LCC-19%29 )|command and control ship]].

* ''Detachable Drive'' - An uncommon class of ship or Small Craft that basically serves as a flight system to allow a ship type of similar or smaller size to move further than it is normally designed to (Faster Than Light travel for an extreme example). These are often little more than a drive system, fuel, and an external docking mechanism for the craft to attach to (see also [[Mecha Expansion Pack]]). Commonly used by [[Space Fighter|Space Fighters]]s or [[Humongous Mecha]], although versions for larger ships are also seen from time to time. They're always ''way'' cooler than mere Space Tugboats.

* ''Missile/Torpedo Boat'' - A ship whose main armament consists almost entirely of missiles and/or torpedoes. A few universes, [[Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better|due to their technological development]], may have theirthe entiremain fleets be basically this.

* ''Space Gun'' / ''Monitor'' - theThe Spacebornespaceborne equivalent toof the [[BFG]]self-propeled artillery, the Space Gun is a ship (usually of the smaller classes, but some can be the size of aany Battleship,size Dreadnought,up or evento Space Station) that consists of a command bridge, the biggest weapon they could find (up to, but not always, a [[Wave Motion Gun]]), the engines to move it around, and little else. Space Guns are usually [[Glass Cannon|Glass Cannons]]s that add to the overall firepower of a fleet due to their ability to punch well above their weight, but are otherwise vulnerable and have to be screened by fighters and other ships.

* ''Space Station/Star Base'' - Usually rivaled in size only by the Battleship and Dreadnought (or in more extreme universes, Worldship) classes, these are (relatively) immobile structures used for all kinds of duties, from habitats, to fortresses, space ports, factories, and the like. [[Colony Drop|Colony Drops]]s are always a danger when these things get knocked out of orbit. If the space station is even bigger than a [[World Ship]], it might be a [[Dyson Sphere]].

As noted in the Army trope, the variety of these ships often varies by medium. As even with animation (traditional ''or'' CGI), making and showing a lot of stuff can be time-consuming or expensive. Therefore, many television series' or movies stick with Battlestar or Cruiser-class vessels only, while games often expand further than that.

** [[Gundam IGLOO|MS IGLOO]] takes a look at a few prototype weapons, two of them are a missile ship and a space gun.

* Played with in the ''[[Crest of the Stars]]''. There are several superficially recognizable ship classes, all with the familiar names... But then you suddenly understand that these names are ''translations'' from the local [[Con Lang]] and all these classes reflect completely different fleet organization and tactics. What about their battleships being completely [[Point Defenseless]] [[Macross Missile Massacre|missile platforms]] and shifting all point defence onto special ship class, and so on...

** It's really not that different honestly the Battleship thing is the only real oddity, but even that's not that odd. Indeed real world adaptions of the [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Arsenal_ship:Arsenal ship|"Arsenal ship"]] concept which was basically just a barge with a tiny crew and like 500 missile tubes might have used the BB or battleship hull numbers to reflect their role as heavy offensive warships. Further all point defense is ''not'' shifted onto a single ship class. More or less all the ships have some, often quite a bit, of point defense, but the dedicated vessels have even more, but then AA ships exist in the real world as well. They're not used that much differently either really the Battleships bombard at range, the cruisers are the main force that mixes it up closer, the AA ships protect from missiles, and the little frigates scurry around out in front being blown up in droves as cannon fodder.

* In ''[[Legend of the Galactic Heroes]]'' navies are built up of small one-man space fighters, carriers of said fighters, and normal cruisers that are mostly of the space gun type (with the ratio of carriers to cruisers being approximately 1:50 in most navies). [[The Empire]] has one model of each and [[The Federation]] has one model of each. Admirals of the fleets have flagships that are usually little more than [[Ace Custom|Ace Customs]]s of the normal cruisers, though some flagships are big enough to serve as ships of the line. In addition [[The Empire]] is also shown using Destroyers and Gunships (really small Cutter/Corvette type ships) and also built two World Ships, but the latter are static defenses that are immobile {{spoiler|until they attached huge engines to one and sent it against the other in an attempt to recapture it}}.

* The Iron Tribe (Humans) and most other tribes in ''[[Heroic Age]]'' used mostly Fighters, Cruisers and the occasional Battleship, but many tribes also had one or two Space Station-sized Space Guns (like the Iron Tribe's Ruby and Topaz Cores). The Iron Tribe also had two similarly-scaled Science Vessels, the Pearl Core which used force fields and gravity manipulation, and the Blue Core which disgorged hundreds of [[Attack Drone|Attack Drones]]s. The ''Argonaut'', on the other hand, was a Battestar that carried [[Humongous Mecha]] and small satellite-like drones instead of Fighters.

*** Fighters/Bombers/Interceptors: X-Wings/Y-Wings/A-Wings for the Alliance; the Empire, being less creative, [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|simply calls them]] TIE Fighters/Bombers/Interceptors (although Interceptors are strictly superior to Fighters except in cost).

*** Assault/Escort carriers: many classes of smaller Yuuzhan Vong ship, plus the actual [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|Escort Carrier]].

*** Detachable Drive: A number of Republic starfighters use detachable hyperspace boosters to travel at lightspeed. Also, a number of cargo transports in ''[[TIE Fighter]]'' and ''[[Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance]]'' are essentially large detachable drives that strap several cargo containers onto their exteriors and push them through space.

* Due to its being [[Screwed Byby the Network]], ''[[Firefly (TV)|Firefly]]'' didn't get to show anything other than Alliance gunships (read: fighters) and cruisers, and a few models of civilian freighters. ''[[Serenity (Film)|Serenity]]'', on the other hand... Take a look at the Alliance fleet during the battle over Mr. Universe's planet. The ''Serenity'' RPG lists several more.

** The technical manuals for the more militaristic ''[[Star Trek: theThe Original Series|TOS]]''-era Federation list ships from the ''Hermes''-class scoutship on up to the ''Federation''-class dreadnought. The ''Constitution''-class is described as a heavy cruiser.

* The Peacekeepers of ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'' have several classes of ships from fighters to capital ships of various types. Assorted other ships show up over the course of the series.

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined (2004 TV series)|The 2004 ''Battlestar Galactica'' Reimaginedreboot]]'''s Cylons avert the trope, because their fleets mainly consist of just basestars and their Raider complements, along with perhaps a Resurrection Ship. The Colonials, on the other hand, don't - before the nuclear holocaust, it appears that the Colonial Fleet was divided into battlestar groups - [[Title Drop|BSGs]] - consisting of battlestars and (presumably) support vessels. This doesn't really affect the show, because the only two military vessels to survive are the battlestars ''Galactica'' and ''Pegasus''.

* The ships of ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' can be partially classed into a [[Standard Sci -Fi Fleet]], although most space-faring civilizations seem to use only a very few ship classes (and of course the titular Stargates make the use of ships optional altogether in some situations). The Goa'uld have the largest variety, with the fighter-like Death Gliders, small cargo ships that are essentially shuttles, medium-sized bombers, dedicated troop transports, and Hatak mother ships, which are basically Assault Carriers, carrying both lots of cannons and lots of Death Gliders. Some powerful Goa'uld also developed larger Capital Ship classes. ''Most'' large ships in the 'verse seem to be "Battlestars," including all large Earth vessels, though a few alien races do provide exceptions.

* The [[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]] series uses all of the above, and adds a few more namely the Dreadnought as the second largest ships in most fleets, and the [[Bigger Is Better|stupendous]] Super Dreadnoughts, which carry enough firepower to depopulate a planet, and are at one point described as having enough energy weapons to shatter a small moon, though that may have been hyperbole.

** Except fighters. They are explicitly mentioned as completely unfeasible in their situation. There are some smaller ships taking their tactical niche, mostly missile defence and tying the lighter fleet units, but these aren't tiny single-seat tin cans, but warships in their own right, almost the size of a pre-war destroyer (incidentally, called "tin-cans" ''in-universe'') without the hyperdrive and crew count is closer to that of a WWII-era bomber than a traditional starfighter. Initially, they started out as some sort of gunboat/torpedo boat analogue: Too small to be used for anything other than patrol duties except in some very specific and unlikely circumstances. The one time they prove to be a serious threat (if not an effective one) to a modern warship, it is because they were some place they weren't expected to be, mistaken for a group of friendly patrol ships, ''and'' the warship in question nearly stumbled blithely right into their gunsights. Once propulsion and powerplant technology catches up a bit, and strategists allow for some changes in space combat doctrine for these small ships ,<ref> mainly, bow "walls" allow them to be shielded while attacking nose-on to the enemy with a capital-grade [[Fixed Forward -Facing Weapon]], rather than presenting them a broadside</ref>, they mature into the [[Goddamn Bats]] that we know and love from the later books.

* Another, stand alone book by David Weber, ''[[The Apocalypse Troll]]'', begins with two full [[Standard Sci -Fi Fleet]] battle groups. All of the cruisers and destroyers on both sides are either destroyed or go incoherent before the big ships make the [[Time Travel|Takashita Translation]] but after that there is still the Defender (a [[The Battlestar|Battlestar]]) and an enemy dreadnaught and a carrier surviving. They proceed to blast the crap out of each other across time and space until only the fighter wing commanders from both sides become the [[Sole Survivor|Sole Survivors]]s and a [[Terminator Twosome]] since they find themselves a handful of centuries in (their) past.

* The [[Co DominiumCoDominium]]: Standard space navies tend to have capital ships and small auxiliaries. Pournelle was aware of the various roles different ship types played. In fact, he choose the type of the [[Cool Ship|INSS MacArthur]] based on its capabilities.

* Andrey Livadny's ''[[The History of the Galaxy]]'' series has several human powers fielding [[Standard Sci Fi Fleets]], most notably the [[The Empire|Earth Alliance]] and the [[The Federation|Confederacy of Suns]] (also its forerunner the [[La Résistance|Free Colonies]]). These include escape pods, a great number of [[Space Fighters]] (some capable of [[Faster -Than -Light Travel|FTL travel]]), assault shuttles (each has enough firepower to take out an average military base), corvettes, missile boats, gigantic repair stations, technical tugs, frigates, cruisers, and flagship cruisers (a [[The Battlestar|Battlestar]]). All ships (including fighters) are ridiculously oversized, with 500-meter corvettes and 7-kilometer flagship cruisers. Crew requirements are listed as much smaller than one would expect. Standard flagship cruiser crew complement is 150, although it can be crewed by up to 2000. This is due to the ubiquitous use of AI modules to run most systems.

** It should be noted that in one of the later novels, the powers-that-be have determined that a [[Standard Sci -Fi Fleet]] is incapable of dealing with the threats to the far-reaching Confederacy and has been relegated to protecting the core worlds. A new doctrine was developed for protecting the outlying colonies using patrolling carriers and a newly-developed type of modular [[Space Fighter]], which can be refitted to a completely different role (fighter, bomber, anti-capital ship) within an hour.

** [[The Culture]] fields many types of ship, most of which are pretty big and bad even if they're not actually warships. The General Systems Vessels are effectively Worldships, capable of housing hundreds of millions of people and building entire fleets. Medium and Limited Systems Vessels are older, smaller versions of such being merely 5 or 10km10&nbsp;km long compared to the 80km80&nbsp;km+ length of the larger examples. General Contact Units are more versatile and significantly smaller vessels, usually carrying as many as hundreds of people in comfort but fulfilling Cruiser or Destroyer roles when required. Very Fast Pickets are demilitarised true warships, smaller and faster than [[GC Us]] and still capable of packing a nasty punch. They often carry around smaller groups, maybe dozens of people or fewer. Rapid Offensive Units and Offensive Units fill the Cruiser and Battleship roles. They're ranked as some of the most dangerous bits of military technology in the Galaxy. Notably, Culture vessels can effectively turn themselves into warships by fabricating weaponry, but the VFP, ROU and OU Minds are built solely for the purpose and are exceedingly skilled combatants, strategists and tacticians.

** The many, many fleets of the Omnocracy in ''[[The Algebraist]]'' take conventional naval warship classes; Destroyer and Battleship and so on. There are no Carrier type vessels here, either, though they do make hefty use of long range projectiles. This is at least in part due to the fact that there is no [[Faster -Than -Light Travel]] outside of the [[Portal Network]]... if the portal is down, coming in the long slow way means you get to fling relativistic warheads at the target system whilst you decellerate.

** The Golden Ships are an example of a ''Super World Ship'', a sphere 90 Million miles in length (short of an AU by 2 million miles). Extremely fast, it could move in seconds. {{spoiler|However, the Golden Ship is really a decoy, being mostly hollow and consisting of foam and wires. It has no weapons of its own, and must rely on its speed to survive.}}

* [[Alan Dean Foster]]'s ''[[Humanx Commonwealth]]'' series borrows heavily from the standard sci-fi fleet, although due to the nature of the setting's [[FTL Travel]] physics, the larger a ship is, the faster it typically moves; the main reason that every military vessel is not a dreadnought is the expense. [[Space Fighter|Space Fighters]]s do exist; they use the same drive systems but their role is more akin to a missile boat: their job is to get close enough to the target to accurately launch a single fire-and-forget missile that can kill just about any ship of any size. Most non-military interstellar trade and travel is conducted by Space Freighter-class ships.

* ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'' has pretty much the whole gambit. The small craft are the Bug Fighters, and the Andalite craft they were stolen from, differentiated by the placement of the 'tail' that holds the Dracon cannon. Bigger is Visser Three's Blade Ship, and the biggest are the Yeerks' Pool Ships and the Andalite Dome Ships, whose front halves seperate to double as medium-sized fighters. Possibly a Detachable Drive kind of thing.

* ''[[Tech Infantry]]'' has most of the standard ship types. A list of most ships in Earth Fleet can be found [httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20091027025626/http://geocities.com/earthfleet2000/ here]. A nifty size comparison chart for ships from ''[[Tech Infantry]]'', ''[[Babylon Five5]]'', ''[[Star Wars]]'', and ''[[Star Trek]]'' can be found [http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/7455/silhouette1.gif here].

** Actually Traveller does have bombers. Or rather can. Mention is made of craft optimized for close orbital/atmospheric work, and some would of course drop gravity bombs.

* ''[[Starfire]]'' has all of these classes except humongous mecha, surpassing the battleship in size with the Super Dreadnought and the even-larger Monitor. Not surprising, since David Weber (of ''[[Honor Harrington (Literature)|Honor Harrington]]'' fame) was a major contributor to this game's development.

* ''[[GURPS]]: Spaceships'' has given stats for everything but a worldship (though it does get a name check).

* Almost everything is possible in ''[[Star Ruler (Video Game)|Star Ruler]]'' The game's default designs include Fighters, Bombers, Destroyers, Assault Carriers, Freighters, Star Bases, Space Stations, and Colony Ships. Using the ship designer allows almost anything else to be built - mobile factory starships larger than stars, for example.

* ''[[EveEVE Online]]'' has Frigates, Destroyers, Cruisers, Battlecruisers, Battleships, Carriers, Dreadnaughts, <s>Motherships (bigger carriers)</s> Supercarriers and Titans (ginormous capital ships). Theres also fighters which are npc controlled and launched from Carriers and Supercarriers, aswellas well as various non-combat ships and specialist ship types (such as interceptor or electronic warfare)

** Almost all Eve Online ships carry drones which are unmaned Fighters. Some very tiny ships qualify for Battlestar status if drones and guns satisfies the Fighters and guns requirement. The definition of a Fighter blurs even further because Frigates handle exactly like you would expect a Fighter to and are the only ship like that a player can pilot. It gets even wierder with the Taranis class Interceptor (Frigate) which is a small highly mobile ship with almost no armor that can launch several drones.

** Carriers, Dreadnaughts, Supercarriers and Titans have piddly slow speeds compared to the subcapitol ships. There are actually no engines designed to fit on them leaving them to rely on maneuvering thrusters once on a battlefield. The only real way to position them is managing the FTL systems used to deliver them to the battlefield, warp drives and jump drives, so that they land where you want them. This leaves them feeling pretty stationary once they get into combat. To go even further Carriers and Dreadnaughts can enter triage and seige mode respectively which leaves them immobile but much more effective at their roles. Also all but the dreadnaught fill suport roles. The Carriers and Supercarriers do healing and transport including taking backup ships into combat for plaers who got exploded. Titans have clonebays aboard so players can spawn there if they die, and can open jumpe bridges which allow entire subcapitol fleets to move long distances rapidly. Hence they fill the World Ship role to some degree.

* The ''[[Halo (Video Gameseries)|Halo]]'' series is chock-full of these. The human and Covenant navies conform to the standard frigate/cruiser/etc. hierarchy, and all soldiers bear naval ranks (even the Master Chief is [[Captain Obvious|named after a real-life navy rank: Master Chief Petty Officer]]). Both sides make heavy uses of dropships, and there is an actual ship called the Dreadnought. Also includes examples of World Ships (High Charity) and Space Guns (the orbital "Super MAC" platforms). Though it bears mentioning that the UNSC ships called Cruisers and the Covenant ships called Assault Carriers, while having their eponymous function, also have the heavy muscle in ship-to-ship engagements to double as Battlestars. The Supercarriers for both sides take this [[Up to Eleven]]. To give you a good estimate of how big Covie Supercarriers are, they are roughly [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100926180736/halo/images/8/8a/Assault_vs_Super_n_comp.jpg 5 times the size of the Assault Carrier] (shown on bottom left corner). Halo Wikia puts them at 27 &nbsp;km, bigger than even [[Star Wars]] 's Banner Ship example. There are giant repair and refit stations, too, on the human side: essentially giant squares of titanium a kilometer on a side. They were able to repair and refit six destroyers at a time, and even saw combat {{spoiler|used as giant sacrificial shields large enough to protect an entire human fleet.}} Even larger than those, the ''Hopeful'' was built by welding two of those together, sandwiching a couple fusion power cores, jump engines, and basic defenses... and also building a gigantic state-of-the-art-hospital the size of a small city inside. What happens when you build a Tender ship the size of a Battlestar? This.

* ''[[Homeworld (Video Game)|Homeworld]]'', being a [[Real Time Strategy Game]] [[In Space]], is built around this, including pretty much every ship type above, using most of them verbatim: Fighter (including Bombers and Interceptors), Corvette, Frigate, Carrier, Cruiser, Destroyers, Dreadnoughts. The Mothership is a Battlestar and a Colony Ship, and there are examples of most other ship types.

** The dreadnoughts in the ME universe overlap significantly with Space Gun; their defining feature among all races is that they have main weapons that are between 0.8 and 1 &nbsp;km in length. They're still well-armed outside of their main gun, however.

* ''[[Master of Orion (Video Game)|Master of Orion]]'' had ships classed as follows: Frigate, Destroyer, Cruiser, Battleship, Titan, Doom Star - though those are size classes not related to equipment other than in "how much it can carry". The price/payload considerations suggest having the smallest useful class as scouts and missile boats (they can be hard to hit when hanging back) and the largest available as short-ranged beam warships and carriers. Unfortunately, AI builds [[Master of None|mediocre "a bit of everything"]] designs rather than optimized for specific roles. Fighters, bombers and, heavy fighters were mountable as weapons on any craft or launched from ground bases, ships also may have assault shuttles allowing a [[Boarding Party]] to enter a non-disabled ship. Troopships could also be brought along to invade particularly desirable colonies.

** ''[[Master of Orion (Video Game)|Master of Orion]] III'' had even more classes, such as Battle Cruisers, Dreadnaughts, and Superdreadnaughts.

* ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' has tiny (fighter), small (bomber), medium (corvette), large (cruiser) and massive (battleship) chassis for ships, and space stations. Depending on what you stick on the chassis, they may fill several of the above-mentioned roles -- you can, for instance, make a massive-sized colony ship by sticking several colony modules on a massive chassis.

** The humans also have the Node Missiles, destroyer-sized weapons equipped with FTL drives. They are faster and tougher than any other missile, and several of these can destroy most ships. Unfortunately, they have since been [[Nerf|Nerfed]]ed (damage significantly decreased, cost significantly increased) to the point where they're not worth even researching.

* ''[[StarcraftStarCraft]]'' has a little of this in the aircraft combat aspect. Each race has their own variation of the Fighter, Bomber, Interceptor and [[Drop Ship]], and the Terrans have a literal Science Vessel (the Zerg and Protoss have rough equivalents). The Terrans also get a Battlecruiser, which is essentially a well-armoured Space Gun, and the Protoss have a self-explanatory Carrier.

** We do know that the basic structure, for the Federation at least will be [[Mighty Glacier|tanky Cruisers]], [[Glass Cannon|well armed Escorts]], and [[Squishy Wizard|interestingly equipped Science Vessels]]. Player abilities and ship modifications will probably blur the lines further, as Cryptic is notorious for [[City of Heroes (Video Game)|nonstandard]] [[Champions Online (Video Game)|class structure]].

* While not generally including a fleshed-out fleet, the ''[[Star Fox (Video Gameseries)|Star FoxFOX]]'' series has a number of ships that fit into the classes: the player-controlled Arwings are typical space fighters, the Great Fox is an Assault Carrier being used as a mobile base, and the enemies and bosses have included [[Humongous Mecha]], Battlecruisers, repurposed Science Vessels and weirder things, including three ships that [[Combining Mecha|combine into one ship]] {{spoiler|and later a robot}}.

* The two main sides ([[Mega Corp|Galactic Spanning Corporation]] and [[La Résistance|Bora colonists]]) in ''[[Tachyon the Fringe|Tachyon: The Fringe]]'' are shown to have [[Standard Sci Fi Fleet|Standard Sci-Fi Fleets]], with GalSpan having the white-and-blue sleek-looking ships, and Bora using mining and cargo ships hastily refitted for combat. The [[All There in the Manual|ship list included with the game]] shows that both sides have a full complement of warships, including frigates, destroyers, cruisers, and carriers, not to mention 5 types of fighter craft for each. Based on the game and the ship list, it doesn't look like anyone else has anything coming close to a full-complement fleet. [[Space Police|Star Patrol]], yet another strong power, only has hyper-advanced ''[[Cool Ship|Enforcer]]''-class fighters and cruisers which seem to combine the best of each capital ship class (i.e. speed/maneuverability of a frigate, firepower of a cruiser, and fighter-carrying capability of a carrier), making them [[The Battlestar|Battlestars]].

* ''[[Conquest: Frontier Wars]]'', at least for the [[Humans Byby Any Other Name|Terrans]].

* The [[X (Videovideo Gamegame)|X-Universe]] has M0 (Planet killers or battleships), M1 (Carriers), M2 (Destroyers), M3 (Heavy Fighters), M3+ (Enhanced Heavy Fighters), M4 (Interceptors), M4+ (heavy interceptors), M5 (Recon craft), M6 (Corvettes), M7 (Frigates), M7M (Missile Frigates), M8 (Bomber), and DO (Drone) ship classes. It also has GO, a special class of what amounts to unarmed cargo shuttles, used exclusively by the Goners.

** It also has four different freighter classes. TS Transports ([[Space Trucker|Space Truckers]]s), TP Personnel Transports (luxury passenger ships), TM Military Transports (TS with much of the cargo bay converted to fighter docking), and TL Station Transports (capital ship-sized freighter for carrying space stations from shipyard to job site).

* Naturally, as a space sim, ''[[Wing Commander (Videovideo Gamegame)|Wing Commander]]'' has most of the standard fleet loadout. The Frigate and Destroyer are reversed in size compared to their [[Real Life]] counterparts, though, if not in firepower. Carriers get broken down into several sub-categories, influenced by the series original focus of the Pacific campaign of [[World War 2]] [[In Space]], including the original escort carriers being first built off of modified transport hulls. Battleships, however, are relegated to being mostly target practice, only seen in the novel ''Action Stations'', set at the start of the Kilrathi war.

* ''[[Battlestar Galactica Online (Video Game)|Battlestar Galactica Online]]'' has three main classes - Strikes, which are [[Space Fighter|Space Fighters]]s, Escorts and Lines. Each class is also subdivided into four different types - Interceptors, Assaults, Command and Multiroles. While the Basestar and ''Pegasus'' can be used, this is only through renting for up to an hour using the most valuable currency and they act as pure combatants without the option to launch fighters. There are Carriers that can carry player Strikes, but no true Battlestars as they can't really contribute to a direct fight. NPC-only classes include drones ranging from human-sized to Strike-sized, automated asteroid weapons platforms and Freighters.

** PeteyFleetmind adds another variation called Penetrators, which are basically (sometimes) recoverable missiles which also contain a drop-pod. Flung up to near-c by a launcher, a single one can capture an Ob'enn Thunderhead by simultaneously scramming the main annie plant (and do so safely most of the time, which in itself is very impressive), and implant an agent to subvert the AI. There are also what they call "Extortionators" for their use in [[Gunboat Diplomacy]] - relatively small weapon platforms slapped on the main power source bigger than everything a battleplate packs put together.

[[Category:Standard Sci Fi Fleet{{PAGENAME}}]]

[[Category:TropeThis Index Has Standards]]