Eighth Fleet Departement of Research & Development Revamps Starship Classification System

Posted on Fri Mar 1st, 2013 @ 5:35pm by Captain Tobias Naros

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Many of you may have noticed the work being done to update the starship specifications used by the Horizon Fleet Community including copying that information into our wiki database. Our goal throughout this project has been to organize and standardize the information players rely upon when managing their simulations or writing their mission posts.

It has come to our attention that the current starship classification system employed by this community is somewhat confusing for even our most experienced players. To that end, we have conducted a review in hopes of providing this community with a system that is able to be understood more clearly as well as provides players some idea of what starship classification actually means.

The new classification system is based upon the size and role of a particular starship class. Our research into contemporary vessel classification revealed most modern navies determine the classification of their vessels based on the vessel's size, role, and firepower. We did not feel it appropriately in line with what we know of the Federation to make firepower one of the primary factors in determining our new classification system which is why we focused more on the vessel's size and role or mission profile.

There are currently seven role categories which are as follows:

Carrier Patrol
Escort Science
Explorer Tactical
Medical

It should be noted that vessels eligible for use as garrison vessels for starbases or planetary installation also bear the role category "Garrison". If you are the Commanding Officer of a starbase or planetary installation simulation and wish to obtain a garrison vessel for your simulation, please contact the Director of Research & Development.

Once a vessel has been classified by its role or mission profile, it is then categorized by its physical size. There are currently five size categories which are as follows:

Corvette < 200 meters
Frigate 200-350 meters
Cruiser 350-550 meters
Ship-of-the-Line 550-1000 meters
Dreadnaught > 1000 meters

It should be noted that no Federation vessel currently approved by the Horizon Fleet community can be classified as a Dreadnaught. Furthermore, starship classes belonging to the Movie-Era (ie Constitution-Refit, Excelsior, Miranda, Hasley, and Phobos) do not necessarily follow this same classification system for size.

So there you have it...the new classification system in a nutshell. These new classifications have already been entered into the Horizon Fleet IFS system as well as the the Horizon Fleet wiki database. Please be sure to update your simulation's specifications page accordingly and keep an eye out for more detailed information coming soon.

Questions, comments, concerns? Contact the Department of Research & Development at techAThorizonfleetDOTnet and we will be more than happy to help you in whatever way we can.

Respectfully,

Rear Admiral Lorian Tharos
Director of Research & Development
Cultural Archival Society Chairman
Eighth "Horizon" Fleet

 

Category: Community News
Tags: