[Droid803]

We'll limit "super destroyer" to a destroyer-sized ship that has 800 000 hitpoints.

(which both the Hades and Lucifer did in FS1)

[rubixcube]

Or... A powerful warship at around 3 km long

EDIT: Nevermind, the kismat is around 3 km long and it's only a destroyer

[General Battuta]

This is a really silly debate. Ship class types don't have definitions this rigid in the real world; they're often role-based, not size-based. So it is with the Raynor.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

I've always seen the class of superdestroyers as consisting of one-off ships that aren't as large as the Colossus or Sathanas and demonstrated something that's never been seen on a ship of similar size before. The Hades and Lucifer could both be classified as superdestroyers because the latter was the first Shivan warship to employ beam cannons on the Terrans and Vasudans, and the Hades was the first Terran vessel to successfully mount Shivan-derived beam cannons.

The Raynor doesn't have any outstanding features going for it, and it's not a one-off ship, so I don't think calling it a superdestroyer is appropriate. It is, like what was mentioned earlier, an evolution of the destroyer class.

[Droid803]

When it boils down to it, Word of God (well, Battuta, who is on the team) said it's not a superdesdtroyer in the BP universe. You could call it that in your own if you want.

[General Battuta]

You could indeed.

It'd be silly, though. The difference between the Raynor and Orion is smaller than that between the FS1 and FS2 Orion, yet we don't call the FS2 Orion a superdestroyer.

Not that I'm arguing with you, Droid, just with anyone who'd feel the need to make that distinction.

[nuone]

Why dont designers stick to real world schemes. To someone with an inkling of naval military history, the term for what is today one of the smallest - although capable, fleet vessels as a designation for future space faring behemoths is absurd. They should be designated "battleships", period. Hell, that word is much more imposing than a "destroyer."

[Dragon]

I'm trying to do it in my mods, but in FS universe he have to stick to canon.
Which means absurd class naming.

[Dilmah G]

Well I'm guessing the most contact had with the military was a member or so who'd been in ROTC and lots of wikipedia. But they knew what the Ready Room is, which is good.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

[V]'s ship size conventions aren't really that confusing for a common layman like myself. I thought their convention's perfect for the game.

[Dragon]

They're not confusing, they're just wrong.
Also, I'm unsure that Wikipedia existed at the time of FS developement.

[Black Wolf]

[V] knew the designations were wrong when they made the game, they've said as much in vartious statements, as well as saying that they had a reason for the system they used. In FS1 they kind of make sense though - I mean, a cruiser in FS1 is of comparable size to a modern cruiser, right? And the only other class of vessel around was something designed to destroy cruisers - a cruiser destroyer, logically shortened to destroyer. I suspect that was close to the logic they used when they made the choices. By the time FS2 rolled around, and they increased the capital ship diversity a little, there was no way to rectify modern classes with the situation they found themselves in, so they picked cool words and used them.

That said, as I understand it the modern definition of words like "cruiser" hasn't remained constant throughout history, and is applied less on scale than on its role within a fleet. Maybe the FS1 cruisers filled the role of a cruiser at some point in the early Sol fleet? And then you're back to the "Cruiser-Destroyer" thing.

[Thaeris]

Ummm...

FS ships are HUGE. A modern cruiser is much smaller than a Fenris/Leviathan. I can't think of a 250m long ship, apart from a carrier, maybe...

[Wobble73]

It's still closer to a superdestroyer scale than a destroyer scale :

Can I just point out that in this pic the Lucifer is referred to as a SSuperD, which I can only assume is a Shivan Super Destroyer.


Nuff said!  

[General Battuta]

That's precisely what he's saying. But as we explained the classification is role-based. It's silly to call it a superdestroyer when all your destroyers can do what it does.

It's not 'super' any more.

[The E]

So, the Hades was a superdestroyer by virtue of the fact that it was the only ship at its time to carry beams (Which made it a humongous threat to everything around it) and the Lucy was called a Superdestroyer because it can turn whole worlds into parking lots, while at the same time being invulnerable in real space.

The Raynor, however, has no such unique ability. It is just a regular Destroyer, geared towards ship-to-ship combat, but it doesn't have the kind of overwhelming firepower the Hades and the Lucy had when they were around. As a result, it is classed as a Destroyer.

Again, size does not matter for classification. Combat role does.

[Mongoose]

Why dont designers stick to real world schemes. To someone with an inkling of naval military history, the term for what is today one of the smallest - although capable, fleet vessels as a designation for future space faring behemoths is absurd. They should be designated "battleships", period. Hell, that word is much more imposing than a "destroyer."

See, as a military layman, "destroyer" sounds more imposing to me than "battleship," and certainly far more imposing than "cruiser."  What's a "battleship"...a ship that battles?  (Or a board game? )  Just about every ship in the game is a ship that battles.  A "cruiser" sounds more like a big old car than a military weapon.  But a "destroyer"...that sounds like it can bring the pain.

[Black Wolf]

Ummm...

FS ships are HUGE. A modern cruiser is much smaller than a Fenris/Leviathan. I can't think of a 250m long ship, apart from a carrier, maybe...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirov_class_battlecruiser

[Dilmah G]

So, the Hades was a superdestroyer by virtue of the fact that it was the only ship at its time to carry beams (Which made it a humongous threat to everything around it) and the Lucy was called a Superdestroyer because it can turn whole worlds into parking lots, while at the same time being invulnerable in real space.

The Raynor, however, has no such unique ability. It is just a regular Destroyer, geared towards ship-to-ship combat, but it doesn't have the kind of overwhelming firepower the Hades and the Lucy had when they were around. As a result, it is classed as a Destroyer.

Again, size does not matter for classification. Combat role does.

What he said.

[Androgeos Exeunt]

So, the Hades was a superdestroyer by virtue of the fact that it was the only ship at its time to carry beams (Which made it a humongous threat to everything around it) and the Lucy was called a Superdestroyer because it can turn whole worlds into parking lots, while at the same time being invulnerable in real space.

The Raynor, however, has no such unique ability. It is just a regular Destroyer, geared towards ship-to-ship combat, but it doesn't have the kind of overwhelming firepower the Hades and the Lucy had when they were around. As a result, it is classed as a Destroyer.

Again, size does not matter for classification. Combat role does.

Hey, I think I mentioned that before...