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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9742468" data-attributes="member: 6779310">The setting for those comes from the game. Note that since the 1975 introduction, the "Ion Engine"  — not actually a thruster, but it leaves a trail of even more ionized gas in its 10% C wake...— is required to trigger a warp point's action... and said trigger blows up operating fusion plants. Fighters use a fusion powered variant that cannot trigger a warp point, and allows 15% C...  Webber and White, while Webber was at TFG and line Dev/Ed for Starfire, took SVC's loose history and wrote the first novel. I don't recall who wrote the Crusade novel.  TFG ends, White gets the novel, SDS (a fan studio that had been working with Webber) gets the game, but not the setting, Webber goes on to write a bunch of novels not in Starfire's setting.Note that the Honorverse through volume 5 can be readily seen as Starfire mechanics re-described/paraphrased, but still working the same. I don't care for Webber as an author, and didn't like Harrington, and so quit reading after volume 5, all of which I got from free Baen CDs. A number of the battles in  the novels I could visualize the map and dice rolls...The 4X side of Starfire was secondary in the first 3 editions, but is  almost the sole focus of the SDS guys.Like SFB, Starfire is a naval analogue... but different from Cole's other big setting: Star Fleet Battles. (SFB, per the designer, started during a simulations class - he couldn't get computer time, so did a P&P simulation of power allocation in a Star Trek context...)Starfire (initial version), smallest to largest Escort ES, Corvette CT, Frigate FF, Destroyer DD,Light Cruiser CL , [Heavy] Cruiser CA, Battlecruiser BC, Battleship BB, Superdreadnought SD.  The supplement adds Carrier CV just abve BC, and Light carrier CVL  same size as a CA. Freighters range from CT sized to just above CV...Later editions ad Explorer EX below ES, and Monitor MN at the other, and CVEs and CVAs...It's worth noting that the ships in starfire have big, heavy, fission plants... but fighters use small, flaky, fusion plants, that don't operate during or upon exit from a warp point.SFB uses nearly the same basic list of sizes Fast Patrol Ship PF, Patrol Corvette/Police Corvette PC/POL, Frigate, Destroyer, CL, Medium Cruiser CM, Heavy Cruiser/Battlecruiser CA/BC, Heavy Battlecruiser BCH, Dreadnought DN, Battleship BB. CVAs tend to be DN hulls; CVs on BC or CA hulls, CVLs on CL or CM hulls, CVEs on DD hulls. Patrol Tenders tend to be CL hulls, carrying 6 PFs... Space Control Ships are usually DN or BB hulls, with a full carrier complement plus a set of 6 or 12 PFs.In the real world, Frigates and Destroyers are not clearly size delineated from each other; some navies do, but for some, FFs are smaller, others (including US WW II) DD and DE were smaller. The US Arleigh Burke class was a Light Cruiser masquerading as a frigate, the Zumwalt DD called a DD solely because congress set money for DD's the Admiralty didn't seem to want. And all sizes have grown over the decades.</blockquote>

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