ROVAG - Rapid Orbital Ground Assault Vessel is one that I definitely added myself. Basically, some troop transports are designed for work behind the frontlines, and they get a TT designation. Others are designed to airdrop say a corps of troops using drop bays, while wading through STO fire and possibly some weak defensive fleet. Those get the ROVAG designation.

I am also not sure if Laser Assault Frigate and Boarding Shuttle were already there or if I added them myself. Their names are self-explanatory.

This is a good post, these are my normal ones:

Jump Light Cruiser JCL
Missile Defence Light Cruiser CLG-D
Orbital Anchorage FB-A
Orbital Traffic Monitor ODB-L
Deep Space Defence Monitor ODB-H



Atmospheric Support Fighter FTR-AT
Atmospheric Fighter Bomber FB-AT
Ground Support Carrier CV-AT

Bulk Carrier FT-B (Anything with a large cargo bay)
Prisoner Transport CS-P (I have one of these follow around my fleet for post fleet battle survivor collection and.... *Ahem* interrogation)
Fast Freighter FFT (Freighters that move at standard fleet speed but generally have not a lot of cargo space, I use them to set up forward command posts for my fleet when on campaign)
Dry Cargo Ship T-AKE (My combo ammo and MSP replenishment ship)
Fleet Oiler T-AO (Carries fuel and supplies)

I use the Pinnace designation for jump capable fighters that are used to probe new systems.

Survey Support Carrier is a small carrier designed to support survey operations with scouts and the capacity to drop (commercial) recon satellites.  It either has its own jump drive or is paired with a survey tender.

I had a fun class made possible only by salvaged components.  The 1000 ton Hunter class.  Salvaged beam fire control, salvaged 8 HS laser weapon.  Max boosted engine that was about 10% faster than the enemy beam parasite craft, and it outranged them significantly.  The Nimrod and the Rexxar took out roughly 20 times their mass without a casualty.

Had a number of beam parasite craft designs.  Philosophy was to run the enemy out of missiles, then use the Hunters to take out their empty missile ships.  Had some bean counters in charge of ordnance who wanted to use the minimum number of missiles to win, so missiles were reserved for those enemy beam ships that were a threat to my Hunters.

For a while in my empire, no armed ship had active sensors.  At first it was pure efficiency considerations, and then it became an anti-mutiny RP thing.  No single ship could pose any kind of threat by rebelling.  Then there was no armed ship that had active sensors would have its own jump drive.  But there was one ship class that had active sensor (capability) and its own jump drive.

The Lion Poker recon fighter.  It had a single reduced sized launcher, 2 HS for magazines, and it launched slow but very long ranged recon missiles with either active or passive sensors at planets with suspected enemy or spoiler bases.  Because the recon missiles included active sensors, it technically could launch the recon missile at a colony and then use regular missiles to target said colony.  But it was the only ship even theoretically capable of independent piracy.

Sorry. Thought Fighters couldn't be commercial for some reason.

Since it's impossible to create a fighter-size engine that is commercial, this is generally true, so it's an easy mistake to make.

I first found this out when creating 125-ton sensor platforms for JP monitoring purposes. Since size 1 or smaller sensors are considered commercial components you can build a cheap sensor monitor with no maintenance cost.

Umm, how can i add new designation to the game?

In the class design window, click the "New Hull" button.

Quote from: Gabrote42 on January 20, 2021, 01:24:50 PM

As a bonus, you can scrap and rebuild them as tech improves if you want to reduce Maintenance usage or get a few free grade points.

Actually you can build fighter-size craft with no engines which would be commercial vessels so they don't consume any MSP or fuel, and probably no commanders since you won't put any modules on them.

Sorry. Thought Fighters couldn't be commercial for some reason.

As has been said, chronometer means, watch or timer.

I create a ship, always, for one purpose only.

I set it up early game.   One order.   Send message.   With an order delay.   Send message interrupts the auto turn cycle and puts a message in the event log.   

Order delay is in seconds.   It's trivial to calculate number of seconds until what you want.

I have a yearly one that reminds me to do my yearly checks, especially my commanders.   I'll put that in and then copy that order 3-4 times and then enter another send message with delay to hold elections in the gov sim.   Then once I have it set up how I want I out it on cycle orders and forget about it.

So right now I get reminded every year to check my set up, especially commanders, and then every 5 years I get a reminder to hold an election.

Thats a good idea, I might borrow that

As a bonus, you can scrap and rebuild them as tech improves if you want to reduce Maintenance usage or get a few free grade points.

Actually you can build fighter-size craft with no engines which would be commercial vessels so they don't consume any MSP or fuel, and probably no commanders since you won't put any modules on them.