Ship Registry Codes

Largely copying the Construction Rule's section on Star Fleet Registry Numbers, the SFC RPG will follow these methods:

United Earth Starfleet

The UESF assigned hull registries per the classification code of the vessel's class. A vessel that was designed as a cruiser would receive the appropriate classification code (ex: NC, N for "naval") followed by a registry number for that particular class of ship within that classification. So, for example, the first cruiser class might have the NC range of 01-15, while the second class would have the next NC range of 16-30. Within the UESF’s period of time, ships generally didn’t see their type change (ex: heavy escort to escort), so there weren’t any conflicts with competing numbers within one type. Therefore, two ships could possibly share the same hull number, though their classification codes would certainly differ (ex: NC-37 and ND-37).

The classification codes used by the UESF were limited to the following:

NC - Cruiser

NP - Clipper

NV - Corvette

ND - Destroyer

NE - Escort

NO - Courier

NX - Explorer

NS - Scout (military)

SM - Medical Ship

SS - Scout (civilian)

FR - Transport

United Federation of Planets Star Fleet

The UFP Star Fleet utilized several different registry systems. The first took hold immediately upon the consolidation of the UESF into the UFP's rolls. The previous classification codes were dismissed and the abbreviation for Naval Construction Contract, NCC, was adopted to precede the registry number of all active Star Fleet ships. (The one exception is for prototype ships, where they are not considered active; their registry was preceded by NX, where the X stood for "experimental", until the ship was activated.) The system assigned all surviving (and UFP-worthy) hulls to numbers within blocks that matched their classes. The concept behind the process was that as new hulls were ordered, that class would receive a hard and fast range of numbers. However, prototype failures and construction delays, as well as the obvious budgetary leaps and falls, resulted in a mismatched puzzle of numbers, with some numbers never assigned, leaving noticeable gaps (some of which were silently filled by black ops).

As indicated, the use of classification codes as predecessors to the numbers were done away with. Active Star Fleet vessels would be tagged with "NCC" on their hulls, with two exceptions (as seen below). The "N" ended up being the preceding code for all vessels registered to Federation members, whether governmental, corporate, or private. Some of the codes utilized are:

NCC: active Star Fleet vessel

NX: Star Fleet prototype vessel

NY: Star Fleet experimental vessel

NH: Star Fleet Medical vessel

NAR: Federation civilian vessel

NDG: Denevan Merchant Marine

NSE: Earth Merchant Marine

NSP: Vulcan Merchant Marine

NLA: Andorian Self-Defense

NLE: Earth Self-Defense

Star Fleet vessels that were neither experimental nor hospital ships, but weren't considered ships-of-the-line, would still receive the NCC code, but would find the number still proceeded by yet another letter code. For example:

NCC-B Runabout

NCC-C Colonization Transport

NCC-D Courier

NCC-E Escort

NCC-F Transport/Tug

NCC-G Cargo Drone

NCC-I Intelligence ship

NCC-K Cutter

NCC-L Corvette/Scout

NCC-O Observation ship

NCC-P Perimeter ship

NCC-Q Courier/Scout

NCC-R Tender

NCC-S Tanker/Transport

NCC-T Training ship

NCC-U Surveyors/Researchers

NCC-Y Constructed for Export

The practice of letter codes was discontinued in 2271.

In 2175, Star Fleet settled on a new second system, with broad classifications of ships owning ranges of numbers:

400-699 Destroyers

700-799 Light cruisers

800-899 Scouts/Intel

900-999 Light cruisers

1000-1099 Heavy cruisers

1100- Future growth

This attempt at making the registries more informative was doomed to fail due to unpredictably changing procurement policies, such as the sudden surge of light cruisers at the turn of the century, or the abandoning of battleship ambitions. But there was no real reason to maintain the practice of allocating running numbers, either, since exceptions and cancellations were inevitably mixing up this type of ordering as well.

The third system: each individual ship class, inherited or new-build, was then assigned a block of 100 numbers, even if all 100 numbers were not used. When a new class was built, it would receive the next block of 100 numbers. If a class exceeded 100 units built, it would be assigned another block of 100 numbers, often separated from the original block. This created gaps within the overall numbering sequence, appearing to suggest there were more starships within the Star Fleet than actually existed.

Starting in the 24th century, it was decided to go with a less "managed" system (i.e., the fourth system). Instead, blocks of 1,000 numbers would be assigned to each calendar year, with ships being assigned their registry numbers as they were ordered. The numbering scheme didn’t wipe the previously registered numbers, but instead jumped to 11000, starting in the year 2301. (The thousand's digit usually indicates what year the vessel was intended to be commissioned, though this did not always hold true.)

Notes

• The decision to date the discontinuation of prefix letter codes in 2271 was because the Charger subclass of the Remora class escort were built with standard registry numbers in 2272 and the USS Crimea, a Hellespont class cruiser, had adopted her new registry number before her operational loss to a lightly armed raider in 2271. Additionally, the Richtofen class clippers were introduced in 2268 with prefix letter codes. The policy change could have occurred in 2269, 2270, or 2271; the latter year was chosen for ease of change.