I think I'd be more interested in the fay than the atomicalltohell thing. Cause... it'd be an interesting meeting point. Even more so if some of the larger 'inns' had these great plots of land, but they were more like islands floating in hyperspace, with the edges of them formed into giant docks for spaceships and spacecraft- so it'll randomly pluck a ship out of hyperspace and just dock it between two great pillars of dirt, stone, and grass, as if it were an advanced spaceport... but not. I dunno. Just an idea. [quote=@Willy Vereb] That sounds like old WW2 classification system. Granted, since then many of these classes kinda became obsolete. Modern naval terminology also rather adapted a hull classification system with 1-3 letter anagrams showing the ship's role. Also in modern naval terms Frigates are much smaller than Destroyers, the latter are sometimes even becoming pocket battleships in terms of role. Take the Zumwalt-class destroyers, for example. But like I said there's so much confusion over the use of old school ship categories that they partially reforme this into a new system. On the other hand sci-fi battle are often WW2 in space so in this sense your terminology is absolutely right. Well, save for the Dreadnought which is often use for superheavy battleships because their name just sound cooler and more threatening. Anyways, settling down on an uniform ship classification system would be great. Otherwise it leads to confusion. Alternatively just separate escorts from warships in your fleet. Escorts will imply they are weaker ships used for screening and as force multipliers while warships would imply independent vessels with competition grade protection and/or firepower. This simple distinction may be all we need and leave ship classes as flavor texts. [/quote] I think one could do both- an escort-frigate would rely on its parent ship for, as an example, protection, with the parent ship's focus being on shields, so the escort-frigate would be hiding within the shields, using its own weapons to fire on enemies. Meanwhile, a warship-frigate would be, as you say, a ship that can operate independently, with substantial offensive and defensive capabilities. An escort may have a specialization in only one, while a warship uses both with a leaning towards one. But using a common ship categories would be useful. That way a warship [which is actually a dreadnought] wouldn't be surprised and destroyed by another warship [which was actually a light or medium cruiser], which normally wouldn't happen, because a dreadnought has big thick armor and a light or medium cruiser has neither heavy guns, nor heavy armor. Mind you, light or medium cruisers are just that- it's unlikely they'll have any particularly powerful weapons or shields in comparison to someone else, and would probably rely more on maneuverability or disruptive electronic warfare and drones. Take, for example, the Wyoming-class Battleship, which is a big-armor, big-guns, lotsa-guns, and slow. Then there is, say, the St. Louis-class cruiser, which is more of a heavy cruiser because it has like 14 guns (in comparison to other ships' 4-10), a buncha armor, and is quite slow. Then there's the Phoenix class cruiser, which has anywhere from 6-10 guns, isn't quite as armored as the St. Louis, but is just as fast as a Clemson-class destroyer, if slightly less manueverable. And, the Phoenix holds a couple turrets of the almighty torpedoes.