Ship Roles

The Gudersnipe Foundation employed a rigid series of starship type classifications to define various vessels. These same classes are used to describe both GS and non-G.S. equipment. These are type-classes and do not refer to specific ship designs.

In ship registry information, design-class comes before type-class. For example, G.S.S. Saratoga is a Glorious Heritage-class Light Destroyer. The design-class is Glorious Heritage, the type-class is Light Destroyer.

Battlegroup Ships

Support Ships

• Corvette: Smallest of the small, the GS Corvette is only a few steps above a fighter. They are lightly armed and highly manuverable, designed primarily for reconasance as opposed to direct combat. The Gudersnipe Foundation has employed primarily one basic design for the corvette since the Mage Wars, and though it has been through many revisions and updates, the basic style and function of the GS Corvette has remained unchanged. Corvettes carry a crew of 8(GS) or 7(CB).

• Cutter: Smallest of the long-endurance(read: actual starship) ships, the cutter is a light, high-speed, high-manuverability vessel used cheifly for reconsance. Cutters will often run point for a battle group, carrying an array of comunication and scanning systems to relay information back to the main force. A cutter's armaments are primarily defensive, designed to help it get in and out of combat. The crew compliment is between 80 and 90.

• Destroyer: Destroyers are the backbone of the fleet. Small enough and quick enough to provide good defense as well as offense, but large enough to carry the supplies and equipment neccesary for long-endurance missions. Initially, the destroyer-class was concieved as an escort; designed to defend large, high-value assets. However, the wide spectrum of design types and huge versitility of the destroyer has made it one of the most diverse class-types in the fleet.
  • Light Destroyer: The "light destroyer" classification was used only once for a ship in the Nelson Fleet Revision. Thought "light" and "heavy" terms are sometimes used to describe ships of the line, only the N-808-B was officially registered as a light destroyer.
  • Heavy Destroyer: Much like the light, heavy was also used during the Nelson revision for a type of destroyer meant to be midway between a capital ship and a support ship.

Capital Ships

• Cruiser: Though still considered an escort, the cruiser is designed to be a versitile, multi-role anti-capital-ship ship. they have the metal, both offensive and defensive, to put up a real fight, as well as the endurance to stay in the field for extended missions.

• Battlecruiser: The workhorse of the fleet, battle cruisers are large and heavily armed, but trade armor and firepower for extended endurance, speed, and manuverability. Battlecruiers may often be deployed without a battle group or as defensive lines guarding strategic assets. Some even carry a home guard contingent of fighters to negate the need of a carrier for support. A battlecruiser can keep up with a destroyer and even some cutters, making them the heavy hitters of most expeditionary battle groups.

• Battleship: Soemtimes called battery ships, is the largest standard fleet ship. Their primary role is anti-capital-ship warfare, bringing heavy guns and dozens of torpedo and hundreds of missile tubes to the field. They are large, high-value assets that essentially the rest of the battle group exists to protect. Though the fighters carried by carriers are used for both offense and defense, it is the battleship that decides the outcome of the fight.

Carriers

The largest carriers are physically smaller in dimension than battleships and even some of the larger battlecruisers, though they provide the most vital role in the battle group: fighter support. The carrier type holds the largest variation in size and capacity within a given class-type. Before the Kamian Succession Wars, the Foundation operated dozens of different fighter spacecraft, and with them many sub-types of carriers. After the war, however, with standardization on just two types of fighters, the diversity was cut drastically.

Each carrier sub-type had a small, medium, or large distinction which refered to the number of fighters it could carry.This was done to avoid cnfusion with the fighter types which typically used light, medium, and heavy to describe them. The exact number carried varied by type of fighter, and so on.

Fighters

Before the Kamian Succession Wars, the Foundation flew a diverse series of star fighters, many of which were no longer in service by the early Sixth Age. However, in far-clung corners of joint space, many of the old machines are still kept around in niche roles.

• Escort: A light-weight, lightly-armed fighter designed specifically for home-guard and escort missions. Almost entirely phased out, the Nimbus is the last surviving exmaple of an escort fighter.

• Stunt:

• Short-Range Bomber:

• Mid-Range Bomber:

• Long-Range Bomber: harpy

Transports

Though many types of ships are used to move things, to fall into the "transport" catagory, a ship must meet two key criteria: it must be small enough to fit inside a large ship, incapable of FTL, and and used primarily for moving stuff.

• Hopper: Small ship-to-ship shuttles designed for moving people around, usually within a fleet or battle group. There is no standard design and most carry 4-6 people including a pilot and co-pilot, or 2-4 passengers. Hoppers are typically employed durring fleet operations while underway, when establishing a space link would be inconvient. Hoppers are not typically considdered "commissioned" ships of the line, however they are technically so.

• Shuttle: Basically one step above a hopper, the key difference in the shuttle is the addition of a heat shield and atmospheric thrusters, allowing a shuttle to move bettween a ship and a planet surface, not just a ship and another ship. Shuttles also tend to be somewhat roomier, accomodating up to 8 passengers and a pilot/co-pilot.

• Drop Ship: Though drop ships can range in size from smaller than a shuttle to large enough to accomodate 40 passengers, the key distinction lies in armor and weapons. Drop ships are designed to carry troops to and from the surface in combat conditions. This can mean flying through enemy blockades and evading enemy fighters. Drop ships are typically equiped with heavy defensive weapons, thick armor, and active shield generators on the larger versions. Drop ships are sometimes used to ferry troops and personnel between ships, this is seldom neccessary as any transfer which cannot be accomplished by shuttle or hopper will usually neccessitate the use of a space link.

• Drop Pod: Similar in function to a drop ship, only without the "from" part. Drop pods are meant for one-way trips, carrying men and equipment from a ship to a planet surface. Typically, a drop pod will be employed to carry vehicles and equipment, and the pod itself scrapped for building material. Drop pods are not part of the official registry and intended to be disposable, though they are occasionally retrieved after combat to be refurbished. Only in a large-scale, first-wave invasion do drop pods usually carry people, otherwise its strictly dispensible things.

Freighters

An enormous amount of cargo is required to maintain combat operations. Everything from food, fuel, to weapons and ammunition, have to get from where they are made to where they are burned, eaten, fired, or exploded. This is the work of the freightor.

As far back as the Golden Age, Foundation officials hit on the idea of using capital ships to transport cargo in war zones. because of their superior defensive armaments, it seemed ideal. However, a capital ship does not have a great deal of excess space inside, so their cargo capacity is limited.

The first proposed solution was to rip out as much of the offensive weaponry as possible, such as the massive capacitors used to power the main cannons. Thus, the defensive systems, shield generators, and armor would remain, but additional space would be created to hold cargo. There is scan documentation of this being tried on a few cruisers, but a much simpler option was very quickly pressed into service.

The Foundation began constructing dummy ships, which had thinner armor and reduced super-structures, but had the same defensive capacity as a battleship. These freightors also appear identical both visually and on sensors to the massive capital-ships that are the backbone of the fleet. These would eventually be known as War Freightors.

Along with this development, active-jamming became standard on all capital-class vessels, thus making it nearly impossible to distinguish the warships from the freightors. These supply ships are also far from toothless; though they lack the large-scale thermal energy weapons of a real warship, they have a full compliment of missiles, torpedoes, and close-in defenses. In emergencies, war freightors have even been deployed in combat in support rolls.

To aid in camoflauge, the freightors will only load and unload through the same ports as their warship counterparts. Thus, a freightor delivering supplies to a battleship may look no different from two battleships docked together.

Because of the importance of secrecy, war freightors are crewed by Crimson Blade personnel and are always registered as active warships. The various counter-measures are not always effective in the long-term, but the primary goal of making an attacking force question whether or

In times of war, war freightors can be mixed with civilian vessels from the Merchant Marine to form well-armed, well-defended convoys that may only need a carrier and a few support ships as escorts.