Category:Active Cruiser Classes

This category lists the currently active cruiser classes.

Guide Definition

Cruiser

1. Medium multi-purpose starship. Sub-designations include battle cruiser, command cruiser, heavy cruiser, light cruiser, medium cruiser, attack/strike cruiser, and through-deck cruiser. The largest Earth or UFP exploration vessels until early 24th century. Later relegated to lesser duties with the introduction of large numbers of explorer starships.
2. Auxiliary cruiser. Conversion of an originally civilian type (transport, starliner) into an auxiliary vessel by the adding of mission gear such as weaponry. Subtypes include exploratory cruiser, escort cruiser, and patrol cruiser. Typically utilized in times of dire crisis, such as the Romulan and Dominion wars and the Klingon cold war era.
3. Pleasure cruiser. Civilian starship type optimized for maximum comfort during interstellar voyages. Not to be confused with Starfleet-operated cruisers or auxiliary cruisers, although pleasure cruisers can be pressed to auxiliary duty in activation classes of 7 or lower.
   

Recognized line variants include: attack, battle, command, escort, exploratory, heavy, light, medium, patrol, strike, survey & through-deck.

Game Definition

Cruisers are the largest ships-of-the-line within Starfleet. They were generally two-hulled, with two nacelles on individual pylons and capable of long-duration, independent operations. Exceptions were sometimes seen for the single-hulled (notably in the large Constellation class), as well as the triple-nacelled dreadnoughts and (common vernacular) 'battleships' (such as the then-new Excelsiors). In peacetime, these vessels were the explorers, diplomats, trouble-shooters and all around jack-of-all-trades. In wartime, their mission was part of a designed fleet or as the lead vessel in a multi-ship (3-10) task formation. Their tactical systems tend to be the standard one for Starfleet (1.5 x Size in beam weapons and 0.5 x Size in missile weapons), with a healthy mix of both beam and torpedo weapons.

• Role: independent exploration & diplomacy, trouble-shooting; flagship in (small) formations and capital ships within fleet operations
• Size: larger than destroyers
• Weapons: standard phaser use and light-to-standard torpedo use