[NGTM-1R]

The title is referring to a "Bs" designation, not the plural of the "B" designation.

I believe qwadtep's point is that any designation which can be mistaken for the plural of another is probably a bad idea, both in and out of universe.

He's not wrong on that front.

[Droid803]

Which is another reason why some people have used Dreadnought (Dn) over to "battleship".

[Nohiki]

Honestly I like the FS definition of a "destroyer" much more than the real-world equivalent.  Something with that name sounds like it should be a massive hunk of steel that kicks ass and takes names, not a comparatively-smaller vessel.  FS2's use of "corvette" never seemed to fit all that well semantically though.

I believe the origin of the name of the class comes form "torpedo boat destroyer" - the rest jsut got truncated afterwards, hence why the tiniest little ships have the most kickass name nowadays. not that the modern equivalents fit any class description whatsoever with all the missile destroyers and stuff. If anything it's been reduced to a weight category.

[Black Wolf]

I remember reading something years ago that has always stuck with me regarding the FS class names. FS cruisers are roughly the size of modern naval cruisers - a bit bigger, but the same order of magnitude. It's not outrageous to assume that the initital naming conventions for space warships followed the modern convention - small frigates and destroyers supporting large, powerful cruisers.

Then, human technology advances and our space vessels become more sophisticated. Fighters start to become more powerful, and carriers need to scale up to fit more fighters. These carriers also need to defend themselves, but they're still dominantly carriers despite maybe also mounting heavy weapons.

Then, someone decides to go all "Britain in 1906" and build a massive ship capable of carrying enough fighters and weapons to easily eliminate cruisers. A "Cruiser Destroyer", if you will. We know from the Colossus getting the green light that "Do the same thing, but much much bigger" is considered a solid strategic construction decision in the Freespace universe, so it's not an unlikely course of action, and would be a fairly logical progression to the apparently illogical end state we have now.

[X3N0-Life-Form]

FS cruisers are roughly the size of modern naval cruisers - a bit bigger, but the same order of magnitude.

This prompted me to do a small trip to wikipedia & the HLP wiki, so here are some numbers:
The US Ticonderoga-class cruiser has a length of 173 m.
Compare to the GTC Aeolus-class which has a length of 272 m.
The Cold War USSR Kirov-class battlecruiser has a length of 252 m.

Just for kicks, the Nimitz if about 330 m.

[ScottFreeCapital]

Then, someone decides to go all "Britain in 1906" and build a massive ship capable of carrying enough fighters and weapons to easily eliminate cruisers. A "Cruiser Destroyer", if you will. We know from the Colossus getting the green light that "Do the same thing, but much much bigger" is considered a solid strategic construction decision in the Freespace universe, so it's not an unlikely course of action, and would be a fairly logical progression to the apparently illogical end state we have now.

I think that, like with many things, this is one of those things that is just inherently linked to the FS universe.

Also, is it possible there was a point where Volition did not intend to put people onto the Galatea in FS1? I think that the FreeSpace demo sent to press had them believing they were part of a cruiser's crew, like the Orff, though that could have just been covering up revealing the 2.1km long destroyer later for the game's release. On top of that, I could be wrong all together, as the FS1 demo is ancient and old these days and my memory fades.

[Lepanto]

I like FS's weird capital ship naming conventions, because they help give the FS universe its own unique identity, vis-a-vis other sci-fi universes using more real-world naval designations.

[Mars]

The demo readme made it clear that the Orff wasn't that big for the FSverse .

[Goober5000]

Ah, this thread brings back memories of the battleship threads of old.

* karajorma shudders and walks away.

* Goober5000 waxes nostalgic

[Gee1337]

I've changed the the name of the thread to capitalise the "S" in each designation to try and stop confusion. I can understand the confusion caused with bombers and it was something I had thought about, but I also thought I had made it reasonably clear in the first post.

Anyway, for Freespace purposes I think the dreadnought designation is probably better than battleship, as they are basicaly the same thing. Suppose you could even call it a battlecruiser.

As for having the beam weapons on the swivel... has this been done any community made ships? Just to clarify, this wouldn't mean beam slash weapons, but typical straight firing beam weapons like those on a battleship with a typical firing arc of anywhere between 180 to 270 degrees.

[Phantom Hoover]

Yes, it has.

[Gee1337]

ooo.. please show me!

[Phantom Hoover]

Sorry, the only example I can think of right now is the pulse beams on Aesaar's unreleased Erebus model.

[Droid803]

Beams on multiparts have always worked, hardly a new concept.

[Dragon]

Sorry, the only example I can think of right now is the pulse beams on Aesaar's unreleased Erebus model.

How about the Orion's front turret? IIRC, that one has been a multipart beam since retail. Trashman's Orion has a dedicated turret modeled for the beam.

[Kie99]

I've never seen it done well.  The stock Orion one looks like **** because didn't bother to make any modifications to the Orion to reflect that it would now be firing awesome beams of destruction rather than being a glorified pea shooter.  As much as I liked having the old ships remain for the second game they could all have done with having some minor work done to them.

[The Dagger]

I'm pretty sure the fsport-mediavps Hades has beams on turrets too. And as the rest of the model, they look good.

[Vrets]

It is not only the front beam turret of the Orion that is silly, but rather all beam turrets that are nonsensical.

You are fools, FOOLS to be busily fighting the last war! Your beams are nothing, nothing at all against fleets of carrier-launched bombers with attack ranges that span light-years!

Except for this bug. 

[Galemp]

Frigate isn't really a hangarless  destroyer. It's used more as a catchall term in FS. The Iceni fits that description, and is called a frigate, but the Hippocrates is a long way from it, and is referred to a few times as a "Medical Frigate".

IMO this is a Star Wars reference. Return of the Jedi has the Nebulon-B called the "Medical Frigate" based on its appearance at the end of Empire, and the Hippo even looks like it.

In FreeSpace terms, "Frigate" as "Ship with the armor and firepower of a destroyer but no hangar" is much more apt for the NTF Iceni... perhaps more accurately designated the NTFg Iceni.

waxes nostalgic with the grognards

[procdrone]

Come on, how can you question fs2 designations when they put up wrong names on all of them. Fenris should be around destroyer designation per earth ships designations