Editing Cruiser/meta

[[File: Imperial-Sunburst-Sun-Gray-wiki.png|right|125px]]

== So Many Cruisers! (2019) ==
What is a cruiser? Good question.

The general consensus is that a cruiser is mid to high-level combatant somewhere in this spectrum: <br>
* [[Escort]] → [[Destroyer]] → [[Cruiser]] → [[Battleship]] / [[Dreadnought]]

But after those base assumptions, it really begins to break down.

=== '''HOW BIG IS BIG ENOUGH?''' ===
The [[Keith Brothers]] designed the vast majority of their ships in the 100 to 100,000 [[ton]] range. And I mean everything from the smallest [[scout vessel]] to the largest [[battleship]]s. There are exceptions of course, but most of their material kept within those tonnage bounds. They were obviously versed in the age of sail analogies used in the original [[LBB]]s and often used language from that era: munition magazines, arms lockers, picket boats, monitors, and the like. That stylistic choice always leaves a bit of Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) or steampunk feel to Traveller. Marc's first novel, [[Agent of the Imperium]] is full of such vocabulary. It drives some fans nutty.

By the time of {{CT}} [[Supplement 9]] [[Fighting Ships]] in 1981, the [[OTU]] was really beginning to come together, and the [[Tigress class Dreadnought]] came out with a weigh-in of half a million tons (500,000 tons). 
* And that's pretty much where the [[ton]]nage cap has stayed since then. Half a millions tons is considered pretty honking large and a serious commitment of resources and labor. Works like [[Power Projection: Fleet]] skirt a little over that limitation (...the [[Idlev class Superbattleship]] at 560,000 [[ton]]s) and Marc likes to push the 11 out of 10 trope a bit (...an over-extended metaphor) such as in his novel [[Agent of the Imperium]] (...the mechanical life megaship), but the ''half-a-mill'' mark is it.
* Of course fans pretty much pay no attention to the limitations of [[canon]] (...even Traveller's very generous [[canon]] definition, which is already pretty permissive), so the ship library has a number of vessels that weigh in at a million or more tons... While the wiki caps such ship plan contributions at or around that mark, there are quite a few designs out there on fan sites that weigh in at several million tons, or even over a billion tons! In the [[OTU]] of [[Charted Space]] with [[TL:13-15]] technology, conventional ships over a half a million tons would take a number of years to build and consume massive resources and effort (...think of the [[pyramid]]s). Of course, there is always a ''deus ex machina'' of some sort out there and [[nanotechnology]] is so imaginatively thought of that it can do almost anything... like magic. Cue Clarke's laws!

=== '''HOW MANY KINDS OF TONS ARE THERE?''' === 
How many kinds of [[ton]]s are there? The simple answer is a lot!

Ton has two primary meanings:
* 1. ''Volume''
** A Ton as a unit of volume is equal to between 13.5 and 14.0 [[Kiloliter|cubic meter]]s. It is derived from the volume of a ton (mass) of liquid [[hydrogen]], the most common [[Ship Fuel|fuel]] used by [[starship]]s.
*** [[DTon]] or [[dTon]] = Dimensional or Displacement Ton.
*** Standard [[Third Imperium|Imperial]] abbreviations include [[DTon]], [[dTon]] and dT.
* 2. ''Weight''
** A [[wikipedia:Ton|Ton]] (or tonne) is a unit of mass equal to one thousand [[kilogram]]s.
*** The standard [[Third Imperium|Imperial]] abbreviation is T.

There are at least twenty-five other kinds of tons, almost all with slightly different weight and/or volume ranges. This can lead to considerable confusion. Please see the wiki article on '''[[Ton]]''' to learn more.

=== '''CRUISERS''' === 
Now, when it comes to cruisers, they are the most numerous or one of the most numerous types of ships in the wiki ship library (...219 versions as the time of the writing of this article and there are still more cruisers to document... That's canon published designs and non-canon fan designs). However, there is no standard that has ever really been set with them, mission-wise, size-wise, or otherwise. Some of the earliest cruiser weigh in under 10k, while some of the largest weigh in at several hundred kilotons. 

A ship in the higher tonnage ranges could easily be a cruiser, battleship, carrier, or tender. The sizes matter more than the ship names and types.

=== '''SIZE RANGES:''' === 
The solution to trying to figure out the ship types was to eventually develop a somewhat standardized tonnage spectrum:
# [[Utility Craft]] (U) (1 to 99 [[ton]]s)
# [[Escort]] (E) (100 to 2,499 [[ton]]s)
# [[Light Battleship]] (BL) (2,500 to 99,999 [[ton]]s)
# [[Medium Battleship]] (BM) (100,000 to 199,999 [[ton]]s)
# [[Pocket Battleship]] (BP) (200,000 to 249,999 [[ton]]s)
# [[Heavy Battleship]] (BH) (250,000 to 499,999 [[ton]]s)
# [[Superheavy Battleship]] (BS) (500,000 to 999,999 [[ton]]s)
# [[Ultraheavy Battleship]] (BU) (1,000,000 or more [[ton]]s)

And that's pretty much what the wiki sticks to. 

The mostly standardized tonnage bounds make it easy to categorize what might otherwise be near impossible. <br>
* → '''Very light Ships''' or [[ACS]] or [[Escort]]s (100 to 2,499 [[ton]]s)  
* → '''Light Ships''' or [[BCS]] (2,500 to 99,999 [[ton]]s)
** (...[[Capital Ship]]s officially begin here at 10,000 tons) 
* → '''Medium Ships''' or [[BCS]] (100,000 to 249,999 [[ton]]s) 
** (...Medium gets cut down to 100,000 to 199,999 when pocket ships exist)
* → '''Pocket Ships''' or [[BCS]] (200,000 to 249,999 [[ton]]s) 
** (...a subset of mediums to cover an in-between spot covering a hybrid medium-heavy Frankenstein vessel)
** (...pockets in this range are big enough to threaten [[BCS]] and [[FCS]] vessels... and can carry a pretty potent [[spinal mount]]) 
* → '''Heavy Ships''' or [[FCS]] (250,000 to 499,999 [[ton]]s)
* → '''Superheavy Ships''' or [[FCS]] (500,000 to 999,999 [[ton]]s) 
* → '''Ultraheavy Ships''' or [[WCS]] (1,000,000 or more [[ton]]s)

In real life the boundaries between destroyers and cruisers is pretty conflicted by this point. Some destroyers are bigger than cruisers and vice-versa... The somewhat neat and rough standards of WWII have certainly passed by.

Slightly smaller bound were included for [[escort]]s, [[destroyer]]s, and [[cruiser]]s as well as the smaller [[merchant vessel]]s. Most other ships keep to the standardized sequence.

=== '''Heavyweight Cruiser vs Speedy Cruiser?''' === 
''CONFUSING TERMINOLOGY:'' The term ''Cruiser'' can often be misleading. Defined namesake cruisers are large, heavyweight vessels that can support the line-of-battle, and are meant to slug it out in main fleet engagements. They are large, well armed ships, that can even overwhelm dreadnoughts and super-heavy vessels in sufficient numbers. Vessels such as the [[Arakoine class Strike Cruiser]] or [[Aek Naz class Battlecruiser]] represent these large vessels which can have displacements in the range of multiple tens of thousands of tons. Obsolescent members of the Cruiser classification (... such as the [[Lightning class Frontier Cruiser|Lightning class Fleet Intruder]], now reclassified as the [[Lightning class Frontier Cruiser]]) are often sold off to the [[IISS]], to Colonial or Provincial [[Subsector Navy|Subsector Navies]], or are put into strategic reserve for reactivation and reassignment to [[Subsector Navy|Subsector Navies]] in time of war.  

There are also vessels called "''Cruisers''" which lack the size and hitting power of the aforementioned [[Imperial Navy]] cruisers, but typically possess speed and endurance. They ''cruise'' or move  speedily compared to larger capital ships.  These are often small, speedy vessels that hit over weight for their size class, but would stand next to no chance against a naval-fleet sized slugger of a combatant. Vessels such as these are generally referred to as "Colonial Cruisers" and are typically found in [[Subsector Navy|Subsector]] and/or [[Planetary Navy|Planetary Naval forces]] as heavy patrol vessels.  Vessels massing in the 800-3000 ton range (... such as the [[Sydkai class Cruiser|Sydkai class Colonial Cruiser]] or [[Broadsword class Mercenary Cruiser]]) are representative of this smaller latter type. By [[Imperial Navy]] standards, they are ''cruisers'' in name only.

=== '''IMPERIUM & DARK NEBULA ORIGINS''' === 
The amount of types and variations on cruisers is bewildering, over a dozen easily exist and perhaps many more... The original types were captured in [[Imperium]] and [[Dark Nebula (game)]]. They had four types: 
# [[Attack Cruiser]]
# [[Light Cruiser]]
# [[Heavy Cruiser]]
# [[Strike Cruiser]]

The wiki's system was based on it, the ship types created in those two early games ([[Imperium]] and [[Dark Nebula (game)]]). 
* For a massive break down of ship codes over Traveller's forty plus years of history, please see this page: [[Forum:Agent of the Imperium ship types]]

=== '''ARTICLE REASONING''' === 
The idea for this section was to leave behind well documented notes and a description how the system was developed and what kind of thought went into it. As is hopefully evident, several hundred fans were consulted, the ideas were shared over several shared social media platforms, e-mail chains were sent to fans unwilling to use social media, and Marc Miller was consulted several times a month over about a two-year period while the system was being developed.

Hopefully, it will be of use and give a little enjoyment to you!

Best regards and Shalom!
: - [[User:Maksim-Smelchak|Maksim-Smelchak]] ([[User talk:Maksim-Smelchak|talk]]) 09:12, 10 September 2019 (EDT)