In 1805, battleships were still called 'ships of the line' and displaced roughly 2,000 tons. In 1916 the average displacement was roughly 25,000 tons and by 1945 there were battleships displacing almost 80,000 tons. To an SE4 race that's only discovered 200kT ships, 200kT probably looks like a battleship, not a frigate.
There's no reason to say "600kt = battlecruiser".
On the other hand, the ascending size scale isn't really accurate either - the terms sloop, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship etc. indicate a role not a size. The size of the ship tended to reflect it's designed role. If you want to mod the game, feel free to give your hull sizes completely different names or even call them by their size and the let the players work it out. I admit "1000kT hull" is a bit bland and uninspiring.
On a third hand (since we're dealing with alien races), does it really matter?
Personally I'm a fan of giving a wide range of hull sizes, and some form of quasi-Newtonian propulsion system - let the players decide how they want to approach ship design!
SJ/Erax/Big Cat. Like that idea. A lot
.
Some notes/additions to Thermodyne's post. Gets back on-topic in places!
The light cruiser/heavy cruiser distinction based on armament was prevalent during WWII. Generally 6" guns and smaller meant light, 8" guns meant heavy.
During WWI, the classes were light cruiser (fast, no armour, used for scouting) and armoured cruiser (bigger, much slower, larger weapons and... armoured). In some naval listings, you'll see light cruiser given the letters CL and heavy cruiser CA for this reason.
Note that the original design aim of the battleship-cruiser (a.k.a. battlecruiser) was to build a ship with the speed and weaponry to dispose of cruisers whilst staying away from battleships. From the British point of view it did make sense to have ships capable of hunting and killing commerce raiders. Generally, they were comparable in size with contemporary battleships - despite having much thinner armour they needed the space for engines.
As an aside, Lord Fisher was demanding ever stranger designs, to the point whereby the ships didn't even have the armour to keep out the shells from cruisers (i.e. any justification of their construction by saying they were designed to hunt commerce raiders was rendered void). The Furious was built with two 18" guns which were rarely fired as they buckled her weakened hull. Fortunately, she didn't see combat before being converted into an aircraft carrier.
The Germans took the battlecruiser concept and immediately reduced the armament and speed to fit more armour. Their designs were more balanced, and fit more neatly into the 'marginally smaller, faster, lightly-armed battleship' concept we see in SE4.
One point I think Thermo got wrong:
The two sets of battlecruisers were both used as 'heavy scouts' (both sides had light crusiers scouting ahead) during Jutland. They fought a running battle, each trying to draw the other onto the guns of their own battleships.
Other than later German designs, most battlecruisers proposed after WWI were larger and faster than the battleships of the time and nearly as well armoured. Very few were actually built, due to the various naval treaties and cost-cutting.
Mmmmmm. I'll stop there as I'm hungry.
Re: Is "BattleCruiser" a relative size? -- discussion
Linear Mode
