Cruiser/meta

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:
Escort → Destroyer → Cruiser → Battleship / Dreadnought

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

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 battleships. 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 use din the original LBBs and often used language from that era, missile magazines, arms lockers, picket boats, and the like. That stylistic choice always leaves a bit of Victorian Science Fiction (VSF) or steampunk to Traveller. Marc's first novel, Agent of the Imperium is full of such vocabulary. It drives some fans nutty.

By the time of Classic Traveller Supplement 9 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 tonnage cap has stayed since then. Half a millions tons is considered pretty honking large and a serios commitment of resources and labor.

- Maksim-Smelchak (talk) 09:12, 10 September 2019 (EDT)