A relative battlecruiser definition combines battleship firepower with heavy-cruiser protection and manoeuvrability. Castle Federation provides an example in which expensive drives favour building close to the maximum practical ship size, while older battleships can later perform cruiser roles. A claimed exception involving deliberately smaller ships is debated and attributed to particular factions rather than accepted as a universal rule. The Lost Fleet offers a different arrangement, with destroyers handling fighters, fast attack craft, and missiles while light cruisers counter destroyers. Ship labels depend on the other units and assumptions of that setting.
Notable Point · 3:43:31-3:46:44
How fictional fleet economics shape ship classes
Expensive drives, older capital ships, and layered escort roles produce different class structures in fictional navies.