View source for User blog comment:Digistruct0r/Ship Categorization/@comment-1028741-20151126102642

Any system of categorising ships will be a bit flawed, with how there aren't solidified boundaries between categories. I think treating them more like tags than distinct classes would be a good approach.

With your proposed additions, I think Explorer would become redundant, seeing as it just means Long-range + Multipurpose (assuming Long-range refers to jump range).

What would Interceptor mean? Fighters with fast normal-space speed? Like with "Explorer" becoming redundant, I think Fast would be a better category than Interceptor as it reduces overlap and increases versatility, meaning there could be Fast Fighters, Fast Multipurpose (Cobra Mk III), Fast Freighter for trade ships good at fleeing, etc.

I think Medium would be a better name for a mid-range weight class than Normal, as Normal could be seen to imply average, multipurpose capabilities. However, with hull mass, manoeuvrability stats, and landing pad sizes on the pages, attempting to additionally class ships by an abstracted weight class seems a bit redundant to me. That also makes me think tags like Long-range and Fast would also be redundant, seeing as jump range and speed are also there.

I think maybe just 4 tags could be sufficient: Multipurpose, Combat, Freighter, and Passenger. Ships that straddle the boundaries could be listed as, for example, "Combat, Multipurpose".

Maybe 3 tags relating to movement could be useful too: Agile, Fast, Long-range (relating to manoeuvrability, normal-space speed, and jump range). So the Eagle Mk II could have "Combat, Agile", while the Asp Explorer could have "Multipurpose, Long-range" and the Cobra Mk III could have "Multipurpose, Fast".