Can someone explain to me the difference between...

Female Klingon Q

Warship and Battlecruiser?

Warship and War Veteran? Specifically, how the second doesn’t seem to be a subset of the first, even though it should be?

[10F] Belle'Anna

Female Klingon Q wrote: »

Warship and Battlecruiser?

Warship and War Veteran? Specifically, how the second doesn’t seem to be a subset of the first, even though it should be?

I don't know. Battle cruisers are smaller? It's a good question.

Dirk Gunderson

Trying to draw conclusions from RL naval history is tough, especially when ship traits here seem randomly applied. That being said, I will do my best:

Warship - USS Enterprise (CV-6)
at the start of WWII

War Veteran - USS Enterprise (CV-6) at the end of WWII

Battlecruiser - HMS Invincible (1907)

Warship vs. Battlecruiser is like rectangle vs. square...battlecruisers are warships but not all warships are battlecruisers. “Warship” could be called something else in-game and resolve the problem.

Average Guy

They could have given identical traits but they probably wanted to break things up a bit so only half the ships get a bonus at any one time during voyages. Otherwise, there would be no reason to get all the ships.

Bluebeard1

Generally a battlecruiser is higher on offensive (sticking with Royal Navy for definitions)

Veteran is a ship (or person) who has extensive battle experience

(@ dirk, USS Enterprise was not RL {Royal} navy, lol)

<TGE> Clifford

Bluebeard1 wrote: »

Generally a battlecruiser is higher on offensive (sticking with Royal Navy for definitions)

Veteran is a ship (or person) who has extensive battle experience

(@ dirk, USS Enterprise was not RL {Royal} navy, lol)

RL is often an initialism for "Real Life", and not necessarily "RoyaL"...

FutureImperfecta

A warship technically is any ship able to make war.

Sub, guided missile cruiser, aircraft carrier.

A battle cruiser, by definition is a ship able to making cruising speed and is well armed.

Not to be confused with a cruiser which is lighter on weapons for more propulsion
(A light cruiser is even faster)

And a battleship which is bristling with weapons but is slow. (Dreadnoughts are slower)

Kaitee

Female Klingon Q wrote: »

Warship and War Veteran? Specifically, how the second doesn’t seem to be a subset of the first, even though it should be?

I mean I guess the traits are applied mainly based on how DB were feeling the day they created the ship, but I can see how you could have a war veteran that's not a warship. Maquis raiders, for instance? They seem to be repurposed shuttles and transports and stuff with weapons bolted on, they're not warships in any technical sense, like built from the keel up for combat with, I don't know, redundant systems and damage control compartmentalisation and all that other fun stuff Starfleet ignores in favour of just relying exclusively on structural integrity fields to hold everything together when it hits the fan. But after a couple years fighting, they are war veterans.

[10F] Belle'Anna

Merriam Webster says:

warship noun
war·ship | \ ˈwȯr-ˌship \
Definition of Warship
: a naval vessel

battle cruiser noun
Definition of Battle Cruiser
: a large heavily armed warship that is lighter, faster, and more maneuverable than a battleship

veteran noun
vet·er·an | \ ˈve-tə-rən , ˈve-trən \
Definition of Veteran
1a : a former member of the armed forces
b : an old soldier of long service
2 : a person of long experience usually in some occupation or skill (such as politics or the arts)

Flemming

While it is anecdotal, I once read a "Cruiser" is a warship which could engage multiple targets. Though I don't see that applied much in modern warcraft.

Paund Skumm

I think modern naval nomenclature which has flowed through to most SCI-fi naval designations is (in order of tiny, fast, and lightly armed to large, heavily armed and slow) is:

Corvette CT
Frigate FF
Destroyer DD
Cruiser CA (sometimes Light and Heavy)
Battlecruiser BC
Battleship BB
Dreadnaught DN

Female Klingon Q

So, I'm pretty well versed in what a 20th century battlecruiser is.

I was more hoping that someone could identify what a STT classified Battlecruiser has or does not have over a STT classified Warship.

Words and classifications have meanings, or at least they should have meanings. If a classification ceases to be a useful distinction, then perhaps that classification needs to be done away with?

It's one of the reasons why the Royal Navy doesn't use its rating system anymore: measuring a warship's worth based on how many guns it has isn't a useful classification anymore.

Paund Skumm

Female Klingon Q wrote: »

So, I'm pretty well versed in what a 20th century battlecruiser is.

I was more hoping that someone could identify what a STT classified Battlecruiser has or does not have over a STT classified Warship.

Words and classifications have meanings, or at least they should have meanings. If a classification ceases to be a useful distinction, then perhaps that classification needs to be done away with?

It's one of the reasons why the Royal Navy doesn't use its rating system anymore: measuring a warship's worth based on how many guns it has isn't a useful classification anymore.

I guess it depends... Kruge and his Klingons called the Enterprise a “Federation Battlecuiser” but I’m pretty sure, from my old Starfleet Battles days it is classified as a Heavy Cruiser. STT’s classifications are, like many of the traits they assign, almost semi-random

Kaitee

Paund Skumm wrote: »

I guess it depends... Kruge and his Klingons called the Enterprise a “Federation Battlecuiser” but I’m pretty sure, from my old Starfleet Battles days it is classified as a Heavy Cruiser.

That might just be the difference between Starfleet and the Klingons - Kruge sees a ship that big, of course it's a battlecruiser, what else would it be (how's he to know a bunch of space is being taken up by science labs and an arboretum and stuff, not extra torpedo storage). Or vice versa, maybe the refit Connie would be considered a full on battlecruiser (in her day, anyway) by 23rd Century space navy people - even having to drag all that extra science around, Federation tech is just that good that she can still match any other species' sole-purpose battlecruisers - but Starfleet don't call it that because 'Starfleet doesn't do warships' (like how the Defiant is an 'escort', not a 'warp-powered brass knuckle').

Ironagedave

I think the best take on this is that:
Warship is an umbrella term designed to loosely describe any ship meant for war whether this be a minehunter or gunboat or a large capital ship with really big cannons.

Whereas a battle cruiser is a more specific class not as heavily armoured as a battleship but it has the armament to match and relies on speed and agility to make up for the reduction in armour.

If this were to be applied in ST terms I don't think you could get away with calling the bulldozer of a borg cube a battlecruiser. She be a Battleship.

Kaitee

Ironagedave wrote: »

If this were to be applied in ST terms I don't think you could get away with calling the bulldozer of a borg cube a battlecruiser. She be a Battleship.

Dreadnought, surely. In fact does Star Trek have superdreadnoughts? Because I'd call stuff like the Negh'var or the Dominion 'battleship' (the really big one the Valiant splatted itself on) dreadnought, and no way they're in the same class as a Cube.

I mean all things being equal a Cube showing up should be a signal that the naval combat rulebook just stopped applying, but Voyager kinda nerfed them down.

Paund Skumm

Kaitee wrote: »

Paund Skumm wrote: »

I guess it depends... Kruge and his Klingons called the Enterprise a “Federation Battlecuiser” but I’m pretty sure, from my old Starfleet Battles days it is classified as a Heavy Cruiser.

That might just be the difference between Starfleet and the Klingons - Kruge sees a ship that big, of course it's a battlecruiser, what else would it be (how's he to know a bunch of space is being taken up by science labs and an arboretum and stuff, not extra torpedo storage). Or vice versa, maybe the refit Connie would be considered a full on battlecruiser (in her day, anyway) by 23rd Century space navy people - even having to drag all that extra science around, Federation tech is just that good that she can still match any other species' sole-purpose battlecruisers - but Starfleet don't call it that because 'Starfleet doesn't do warships' (like how the Defiant is an 'escort', not a 'warp-powered brass knuckle').

It’s definitely a difference in definition. My understanding (from my boyhood TOS nerd days before TNG) is that Constitution Class (Enterprise) is bigger than a Klingon D7 Battlecruiser but similarly armed because the Klingons don’t have all the science labs, arboretums, and luxury crew quarters. The refit 1701-A is still a Heavy Cruiser.

The Defiant is a great example as it shows how much firepower you can stuff into an over-powered little vessel without the said science labs.

While it is a preconceived conceit that Federation technology is vastly superior, we have seen TWICE that the Federation would lose in a strait up fight with the Klingons because they have more ships that aren’t wasting space and energy on holodecks.

Dirk Gunderson

Kaitee wrote: »

Ironagedave wrote: »

If this were to be applied in ST terms I don't think you could get away with calling the bulldozer of a borg cube a battlecruiser. She be a Battleship.

Dreadnought, surely. In fact does Star Trek have superdreadnoughts? Because I'd call stuff like the Negh'var or the Dominion 'battleship' (the really big one the Valiant splatted itself on) dreadnought, and no way they're in the same class as a Cube.

I mean all things being equal a Cube showing up should be a signal that the naval combat rulebook just stopped applying, but Voyager kinda nerfed them down.

I would think the Tactical Cube would be a superdreadnought, right? Even if it isn’t larger than a standard cube, the extra armor and such would put it a class above.

Kaitee

Dirk Gunderson wrote: »

I would think the Tactical Cube would be a superdreadnought, right? Even if it isn’t larger than a standard cube, the extra armor and such would put it a class above.

Eh, I kinda ignore the Tactical Cube. I mean yes it happened, it was on tv, still in my personal little headcanon there's no big cubes or little cubes or scouts or spheres or anything, there's just 'the Borg'. Like, big ships, little ships, combat-oriented, does it have little crystal vinculum doodads conveniently located five metres from where you beam in so Tuvok can disable the whole ship with a hand phaser - doesn't matter, that's like coming face to face with Cthulhu and trying to work out if he's in a good or bad mood. It's irrelevant - that's the Borg, run for it, pray to whatever Q you believe in that you run fast enough.

Of course that only works in very small doses in very carefully isolated settings, like the middle of nowhere in 'Q Who' - bring them back and, I like 'Best of Both Worlds', but if you want to chart where the Borg started declining, I'd say it was there. But that's why it's headcanon, I can enjoy all the Seven stuff even though she's inadvertently the pinup poster for the Borg not being 'proper Borg' anymore, but still get a chill from the first appearance and what the Borg felt like then.

Which doesn't really answer the question, sorry, just went off on a ramble. I feel like if a dreadnought is within the capabilities of a conventional fleet like the Klingons of the Dominion (and I really think it is), then a Cube is a superdreadnought, because nobody else (short of other godtech entities like V'Ger or the Doomsday Weapon) should be considered to be in the same class. If the Borg bolt some extra armour to a Cube, okay, it's a slightly nastier superdreadnought. But I personally really would prefer a canon where stuff like the Borg is just listed under 'conventional descriptions do not apply'.

kapu

I just love how you guys (and gals) over analyze everything

Data1001

kapu wrote: »

I just love how you guys (and gals) over analyze everything

You must not know many nerds, eh? 🤓

SoupKitchen Riker

Great question for DB. Although, as others have alluded to or directly stated, I am not sure how much those concepts were “fleshed out” prior to use in the game...

Flemming

SoupKitchen Riker wrote: »

Great question for DB. Although, as others have alluded to or directly stated, I am not sure how much those concepts were “fleshed out” prior to use in the game...

I don't think they have been adequately fleshed out in show cannon, let alone a spin off game.

Aside: Has anyone else fallen in love with the Daystrom Institute Technical Library?

Female Klingon Q

So, no one to comment on how the Ni’Var is both a fighter and a battlecruiser?

[TFA] CaptainObvious

It's also great how the Shenzhou is "historic" while neither one of the NX-Class ships is.

In the logic of the game, a Battlecruiser should receive a bonus when Warship is the featured trait. In the logic of this game's development, the answer probably is: no one at DB cares.

Raphillon

I woudl suggest not to try and find logic in an illogical environment.

Kaitee

Okay, total headcanon, but the Vulcan D'Kyr class has an auxiliary ship (it docks in the middle of the warp ring), so maybe even though it's a different class, the captain of the Ni'Var thought hey, good idea, and keeps a fighter in his shuttlebay (which we never see in battles, because, I dunno, it needs its hull patched and they can't fix it because we're always using all the polyalloy to build Satan's Robot or Odo's bucket or something). So it's not that it is a fighter, but it has a fighter, as well as being a battlecruiser like the rest of its class. Totally logical.

(Logic, my dear Zoe...)

Paund Skumm

In the land of DB, the one-leftside-lobed Vulcan is the king of logic...