In the universe of the Flux Capacitor story, several types of vessels and ships are mentioned. This guide attempts to explain the differences between said ships.
Cruisers
Cruisers are the common man’s space ship, as such, cruisers are not very remarkable. They hold 1-10 persons, and can generally speaking be piloted by just a single person. They are very rarely armed with any weaponry, and several systems even have laws against arming (or activating) weapons on a cruise class ship. Cruisers have a small cargo hold, meant more for daily use than actual commerce. Cruisers fly at fairly low speeds, giving them a decent agility. While space is vast and with a lot of empty areas, swarms of asteroids sometime steer out of their expected course, an agile ship can much better dodge such a threat.
While warp drive technology is a field in increasing development, there have yet been made any cruise class ships fitted with such. The theory and testing, thus far, seems to suggest that the bigger the mass of the ship the stable the warp becomes. As bigger ships also has potential for back-up systems, and vastly greater power generators, turning the warp drive on doesn’t zap power from much else on board. A cruise class ship simply isn’t big enough to produce the amount of power, to keep a warp drive running long enough to make the warp.
Cruisers are generally built for standard space environment, meaning it can deal with normal levels of heat, cold, pressure and acidity. In some more hazardous systems, the standard cruiser is typically built to surpass these dangers, typically using other kinds of alloys in the chassis.
As well as the reinforced versions, more sleek and faster sports versions also exist. This type of cruiser have got a more powerful engine, able to manoeuvre much quicker and reach higher speeds. They are sometimes referred to as “speeders”, but that will likely confuse some, as a speeder is a different type of vessel entirely.
Specially built cruisers are no strange thing, though the more flashy exterior and extremely comfortable interior often comes with an exorbitant price-tag. Naturally, a flashy ride also attracts less friendly types. Though the people who can afford the luxury cruisers, can typically also afford to get some security for it.
In recent years, communal transport of people have become an increasingly interesting venture, and while the first communal cruisers were little more than stripped cargo ships with seats instead, the ships’ comfort and quality have risen significantly. Communal cruisers hold anywhere between ten and up to several thousand people at once, with the VAP Behemoth having seats and room for more than 8500 passengers. The communal cruiser is much larger than regular cruisers, but typically slower than your average 2-4 person cruiser.
Cargo carriers
While the typical cargo carrier can’t really be described in detail, the general idea of a cargo carrier, is a fairly large, bulky ship, that’s amongst the slowest vessels in the universe. Where a cruiser is built for comfort of people and their transport, most of the cargo ship is fitted with area for storage and stacking wares and transportable goods. Because of the size of their interior, most cargo ships are versatile in terms of what they handle.
Cargo ships usually come with more powerful engine drives than a cruiser, but a large part of that is that cargo ships needs to be able to carry much more weight. The cargo ship’s lack of speed makes them agile, excellent for landing on corporate landing spots, for this exact reason, many recent models of the cargo ship, usually come with angled thrusters. These allow for a more direct approach, as the thrusters can be set to 0-90 degrees. Some have even more advanced thrusters, but so far, the few prototypes out on the market are expensive and have been prone to wear out much faster, than regular thrusters usually do.
As cargo ships already are built for more heavy-duty flights than cruisers, cargo ships already come with a reinforced hull, but as with cruisers, you still need specially built cargo ships for the more extreme conditions.
Cargo ships aren’t under as strict ruling as cruisers, and it’s not unusual for cargo ships to have a simple cannon or two, and basic shield generators are fairly common as well. While a large amount of people could be transported in cargo ships, they are usually designed for as small a crew as possible; most cargo ships have no-other crew than the pilot. Especially since most trade planets and the NEXUS stations all have hauler crews, that handle loading and unloading.
Cargo carriers come in many shapes, sizes and varieties, from the classic, most mass-produced Marcor S4, over the light SabDu HoverCargo to the moon-sized VAP MassBull, that needs smaller cargo ships to load and unload it.
Speeders
Despite the name, you won’t see a speeder racing by in the vastness of space. Speeders are the nickname given to personalized hover craft vehicles, or PHV, and as their name suggests; they hover. For this reason they can’t leave a planet’s atmosphere, at least not on their own. The nickname comes from the fact that a PHV, being much more simply built than a cruiser, is very easy to modify, and adrenaline junkies often race one another in such modified PHVs.
Speeders also come in ultra-light, slower versions called Speed-peds or Hover-peds.
However, not all speeders are fast, that is typically the modified versions. In recent years, with broadcasting reaching more than 40 different systems, the ship building brands have seen an opportunity in creating an organised and official speeder league, known as the SSGP circuit. The break-neck speeds and hazardous tracks calls to the most daunting (and crazy) pilots.
Speeders, in general, do not have weapons fixed, nor do they have enhanced chassis for dealing with weapon fire. Speeders rely on their speed and agility, and the recoil from the more powerful of guns, could easily knock a hover-craft vessel off course. While the reinforced chassis isn’t impossible, speeders are best when they are as light as possible. This also means that you’re not very likely to slot a power generator of sorts on.
Utility
The utility class of ship is fairly unique. While most resemble the cargo ship in appearance, utility ships are designed for more specialized jobs, typically in hazardous environments. Utility ships are often amongst the slowest, and rarely will you find them having a crew of more than one person. Because of the fields of work they are found in, utility ships comes pre-made with special alloys and chassis designs. The ships by the Horscht-Falker brand even comes with builds able to withstand extreme conditions, able to work closer to black holes than any other brand. At least if the sales pitch is to be believed.
A utility pilot’s job is a lonesome one, in the depths of the void, they make seemingly dangerous jobs look easy. While utility speeders, as in hover craft utility ships, are a thing, they mostly turn the hovering function off when they are put to work.
Fighters
The fighter is the basic armed ship. Sleek, fast and agile, fighters outspeed most other non-warp ships, but lack firepower and chassis strength to threaten anything but other fighters and unarmed ships. Few fighters come with a basic shield generator, but as even the smallest of shields require a rather large (and steady) supply of power, and seeing as fighters normally focus on engine power rather than anything else.
Fighters make up most of the armed ships everywhere, and while huge fleets (sometimes referred to as a “swarm”) of fighters seem frightening to bigger ships, a fighter usually lack the punch to be able to really do much. Fighters, however, specialize in taking out precise targets, as their high mobility and speed makes them difficult to hit for turrets and bigger weapons systems.
Just like cruisers, fighters are highly modifiable, equipping a multitude of different weapons and even cloaking technology, is fairly easy and this makes fighters even more versatile. Fighters also perform decently well when targeting mobile ground units, but their lack of firepower again means that only the thinnest of armors, are pierced through.
Fighters are usually manned by a just a single pilot, though some include a secondary pilot as gun and maintenance operator. The interior of a fighter is cramped, with only the absolute necessities installed, to make room for bigger engines or weapon slots.
Bombers
Bombers are a heavier class of fighters, designed for heavier combat and for destruction of larger targets. As they are significantly bigger and slower than a fighter, bombers must be able to tank a hit or two. As such, bombers not only have fortified hulls and chassis, but shield generators are also very common.
A bomber’s main feature though, is it’s destructive weapons system. Armed with both high penetrative guns, torpedoes and, of course, bombs. Most bombers also comes with turreted guns, mainly for taking down enemy fighters, these turrets can be manned or automated, but they are usually fairly weak.
Because all of it’s weapons systems require a mostly immobile target, bombers are better at air-to-ground combat, where a few bombers quickly can render even planetary defences into smoldering heaps of metal.
Their lack of speed, and the common knowledge of their destructive power, bombers are often the first target for enemy fighters. The common means of defending bombers, is usually also fighters, letting the lightweights have their dogfights, while the heavier ships makes the impact needed to turn the tides.
Bombers typically have crews of between ten-fifty, and though they are bigger than fighters, they aren’t much better off when it’s comes to being roomy. This is largely because bombers uses a lot of power, so they need a generator of their own and the power supply and storage of weapons also requires a lot of room. All of this equipment is heavy, and thus, a powerful engine is required to even make a bomber fly.
A sub-type of the bomber is mostly used as an over-sized fighter. The Interceptor class has a warp-drive and a high rate of fire, as the name suggest, Interceptors make excellent ambush ships, with their hit-and-run tactics, they especially target enemy bombers. The Interceptor has a weaker hull and no shield generator, they rely on the ability to warp in, fire off a couple of thousand rounds, and then leave without receiving much fire themselves.
Destroyers
Destroyers are the biggest ships known to the universe. These massive, but slow, ships are small communities of their own, able to carry several squadrons of fighters and bombers inside their enormous hulls. A common saying goes that 40 % of a destroyer is for power generating, 40 % is for weapons systems, 10 % is armor and shields, and the last 10 % is for the engines.
Destroyers wield an uncountable amount of weapons, but even despite their impressive size, their basic speed is typically no more than that of a common cruiser. Warp drives allows the destroyer to move forward a lot faster, but it doesn’t help with turning or attempts at dodging incoming fire. As such, the biggest threat to a destroyer are bomber ships, or ground-based defence guns.
Destroyers vary greatly in size, from the “smaller” ones, with crews of only about 5.000 to the planet-sized Imperial S.E. 4, with an alleged crew of 720.000.
Where most other ships can be assembled in docks and yards on planets, destroyers are almost always assembled in space, where parts gets put in place by tug-and-welding ships.
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