We probably have several other backers around spectrum who remember a mod community called Discovery: Freelancer, which is still going to this day. I played frequently years ago, and one thing they did amazingly well with it was large fleet battles, and I think the devs at CIG should take a few queues from how things worked there in regards to how things should work in star citizen. Discovery split its combat ship types up like so, with fairly refined roles for each: Fighters: Light: Interceptors, fastest ships in the game, very frail but nearly impossible to hit, minimal firepower though. We're doing ok here in star citizen with this, but I think the power creep is getting out of hand and we need to go back and drop light fighters into the size 1-3 gun range, and stop adding S4/S5 light fighters. Medium: Average space superiority fighters, could kill light fighters with effort and had better firepower by a small margin, but still agile enough to survive. Heavy: More firepower, slower and more vulnerable to attack, typically best utilized in attacking Bombers, Gunboats, and tougher civilian freighters/transports. Bombers: Bombers used either torpedoes or specialized cannons designed to fight capital ships (think ares series). They were very weak against fighters, however - unable to evade them easily, and with no weapons that could reliably hit them. Honorary mention: "Combat freighters/superheavy fighters" I only mention these because I think a lot of mid-sized ships we have in star citizen somewhat mimic their role. The medium sized gunships and military craft fit this category despite not actually being 'freighters'. In D:FL, combat freighters tended to be fairly good at taking out fighters, with a lot of guns and powerful shields, but were slow and cumbersome. Gunships/Gunboats: The smallest warships in the game, not quite capitals, I equate these to the subcapital ships we have here: Currently the Perseus and Hammerhead. Gunships were designed explicitly to be anti-fighter. They had a lot of small, fast turrets that could rip fighters to shreds (and bombers as well), but no heavy hitting weapons for fighting other large ships, and typically losing out against gunboats in brawls. This'd be our hammerhead. Gunboats were an offshoot of Gunships that had fewer light/fast firing weapons, and instead either had a few heavier turrets or spinal mounted centerfire guns with low projectile speed and high damage for the class. Gunboats were great at killing gunships, bombers, and in groups could easily take out destroyers and cruisers. Destroyers: Our equivalent here would be the Polaris, with some exceptions. in D:FL destroyers were the smallest capital ships, fast and agile, with a couple heavy hitting weapons and a slew of smaller turrets. They couldn't facetank a cruiser 1v1 and expect to win, but if they used agility and speed to avoid fire they could whittle them down over time. Destroyers were exceptionally good at killing gunboats/gunships since they were fast enough to keep up with the smaller warships, and had better firepower and shielding. Cruisers: Our equivalent here would be the Idris, again with some exceptions. Cruisers in D:FL were midsized caps that excelled at long range artillery-style combat. At long distances, they could avoid incoming fire from other caps, while returning fire with long range torpedoes or mortars/cannons. However, most cruisers could be mauled to death by a couple of destroyers or even a handful of gunboats, which could avoid their artillery fire speeds from medium range while returning fire of their own. The idris fits this with its spinal railgun and S7 conqueror turrets, though it's a bit heavier and slower (and tougher) than a freelancer cruiser would've been in comparison here. Battleships: For now, our equivalent would probably be the Javelin. There was a battlecruiser intermediary ship class in D:FL between cruisers and battleships, and maybe we'll see something like that soon. In D:FL, battleships were huge and slow, but had the highest shielding, damage output, and health of any ships in the game. They were primarily in fleet battles to kill other battleships, trading blows at range. A battleship tended to be an uphill fight for a cruiser, but could be managed if the cruiser stayed at range and wore the battleship down with artillery. A few destroyers could generally take out a battleship without too much trouble as long as they didn't get too close. Battleships were extremely vulnerable to bombers. Now, one important thing to note is that these big fleet battles that frequently happen on the discovery freelancer server are largely possible because the player requirements aren't that high: each capital ship is flown by one person, there's no crew positions or the like. I think that can be remedied with NPC crew and blades. The other issue we're likely to run into here is server framerate issues once you get two dozen capships and dozens of players manning them in the same vicinity. That said, if CIG can pull it off, the fleet battles in D:FL were some of my fondest moments in gaming, an absolute blast I'd love to see recreated here.