Depends on the frigate, you got "normal" and then you have a giant gun with engines strapted to it (halo)

Great guide. Personally, apart from it being between a size range of Corvette and Cruiser, I've always found it hard to find a good definition for a frigate role-wise. Often the size means players will use it in survival as their 'Jack of All Trades' mobile base so it kind of saturates its real purpose. Nice to see your take on it and hope it helps newer players out a little!

Frigate is possibly the most fluid class of ship, while its generally agreed that they are smaller then a Cruiser their own hard as fast definition is that is a "warship built for speed and maneuverability"

I love these warship guides. they are all very informative and useful for ship designing. I hope to see all ship type available from this guide series

Would love to see this turn into a mini series, theres a few more classes left to cover

Frigates are also used as recon vessels in large fleets, they’re escorting the cruisers and/or the mothership, and if an enemy is seen they will usually go on the front of the convoy to be the first to engage the fire. Also, i already seen heavy frigates that rushes into ennemies’ cruisers to board and destroy them from inside, but that’s usually the strategy that pirates-like factions uses.

These ship type videos are amazing, thank you so much

Hey there LK! As someone who was in the navy and an SE nut, this series is fantasstic. Also, something for you, "During the Second World War the name 'frigate' was reintroduced to describe a seagoing escort ship intermediate in size between a corvette and a destroyer. After World War II, a wide variety of ships have been classified as frigates. Often there has been little consistency in usage. While some navies have regarded frigates as principally large ocean-going anti-submarine warfare (ASW) combatants, others have used the term to describe ships that are otherwise recognisable as corvettes, destroyers, and even nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers. Some European navies use the term "frigate" for both their destroyers and frigates.The rank "frigate captain" derives from the name of this type of ship." Would also love to see you do suppply, logistics and replenishment ships.

This series is amazing can you do a episode about fleet support ships fx hydrogen Carriers and ammo storage when you have the time?

your classification is damn near perfect, personally prefer using frigates as long range patrol vessels/fleet escorts for durability reasons but thats the reason why frigates are critical as they can fill any role you may need

Great guide! I'm about to get into building ships, so this is great help. Thank you.

I agree for the most part with your take on the Frigate. In my own Fleet set on SE with my UEF fleet (United Expeditionary Force) the Frigate is the between of the Corvette and Destroyer; however, due to the very similar sizes of a Destroyer and Frigate both can overlap each other's roles. So I ended up making Destroyers to be designed for more independent operation with a slightly larger size than the Frigate, but made the Frigates to be designed to support the Fleet or run in Wolfpacks with Corvettes or with a larger fleet as a screening force.

Frigates were historically more of a raiding or fast courier ship. Just enough firepower to hurt a capital ship or more often a merchant ship. Light and fast with decent range. Just big enough to provide all the typical trappings of a traditional warship (as opposed to a patrol boat or attack craft).

Can't wait for your cruiser guide 👍

Like Corvettes, Frigates are very versatile. For smaller fleets (for example, on open PVP survival servers), I'd actually recommend outfitting these as your main line ships and using a simplified fleet structure, as competition for resources would be very cutthroat and "pirate" style gameplay tends to be most effective. Other applications could be multi-mission littoral combat ships, with modular weapon systems fitted as needed, or even as light escort-carriers.

Your approach to Frigates is very interesting. I see Destroyers as the vessels that punch up above their weight, with anti ship torpedos and heavier weapons. Very interesting to see others points of view

Lovely vid!

I like this style of video you got going here. It'd be interesting to see one on fleet support vessels in the future.

I really enjoy this little series you have! I’m learning a lot on how to make large ships! One question though, could you make a video on how to design fighters?

The new weapons and turrets offer all kinds of interesting new ship looks!! :)

For space engineers, I think a base frigate should be jack of all combat, got a roughly even mix of anti ship weapons and point defense, maybe even a nose gun. A light frigate should be a flak frigate, one maybe two cannons then a lot of point defense. And an assault frigate should have a frontal fixed weapon battery be its main weapons and a few cannon turrets and point defense.

These tips really help thank you lunar I enjoy watching your videos

Frigates! Now these are proper warships. Everything a corvette has, just in double or triple for thrust, fuel capacity, jumpdrives, weapons and defensive measures. With the changes to explosive ammo storages and hydrogen tanks, they'll need to be a bit heavier defended, or have these spread out around the ship some more to avoid singular catastrophic explosions. Quick to deploy, capable of prolonged missions, room for multiple small service craft... Still fragile, but at least capable of taking a direct hit from something larger than a gatling turret without instantly losing a primary system. Two or three large guns and a complement of supporting lighter arms. Doesn't go head to head with (battle-)cruisers, battleships, dreadnoughts and the like, but has a fair shot at hit and run or supporting larger weapon systems. Usually kills corvettes pretty easy thanks to more, heavier and longer range weapons combined with good mobility. Fighters and bombers give a frigate more headaches. Because the damage done to these small craft is rarely cost-effective to the damage they get to do to the frigate. Mainly aiming at the thrusters or hydrogen tanks of a frigate tends to be the way to beat them. Therefor, prioritizing defenses and repair systems for these is a smart move. Mobility is a frigate's greatest ally. Taking a good position and striking at key areas of a larger ship, or quickly dispatching similar sized support vessels is what it does best. A frigate's generally too expensive and fragile to use as a bulletsponge. Though, a bow made out of refineries with a couple of welders behind it may work as a very effective frontal shield... Situational awareness, quick decisions and good traversal of the battlefield are still key to keeping a frigate operational long enough to do significant damage. Personally, a frigate capable of an alpha-strike I tend to class as a destroyer. Where assault frigates are more reliable dps over a longer period. Light is more mobile, less weaponry or armour, heavy is less mobile, more weaponry or armour. It's rare to see 'support frigates', 'repair frigates', or 'exploration frigates'. As these roles function better when they're not weighed down by redundant guns and systems, or preferably should not be put in the line of fire. Equivalent large scale tasks are usually up to armed freighters/tankers, which have less need for sublight mobility, repair stations equipped with jumpdrives, which tend to forego sublight mobility entirely in favour of providing a stationary impenetrable shield during repairs and 'caravel' type ships, which forego heavy weaponry for even better mobility, more diverse service modules and crew amenities. Though, naming schemes may differ and people may prefer flavor over effectiveness at a given task. The more 'jack-of-all-trades', master of none design you go with, the less efficient your fuel and power is being used. The larger a target you present in combat-situations, the more you risk to lose. Battleships and larger tend to overcome this by having the option of going stationary, throwing up the shield and activating ship-wide repair systems, due to redundant hull, nuclear power and cargospace. They're flying fortresses which aren't going to dodge anything, just unload as much ammo on an enemy in a given area as they can and turtle up for self-repair. They're somewhat vulnerable to alphastrikes from destroyers and cruisers with playermade missiles during the time it takes to set up the shields, though. But that's the whole point of having these nimble craft that can take a hit and punch back reliably. Creating space for the fortresses to entrench themselves and push your opponent off their position. A frigate accompanied by a corvette is a deadly combo against any smallgrid based force. A cruiser accompanied by a frigate may very well be capable of taking out an unsuspecting battleship. Just ram the frigate in there to make it impossible to get the shield active and have the cruiser throw playermade missiles into the battleship. Frigates always have a place in pvp. They are overkill in the base game's pve.

I just found out about your channel trying to build my own semi-themed fleet with at least 1 ship in most of the smaller classes and these are pretty helpful. It would be amazing if you also made short videos on different small grid ship types as well!

Glad that you mentioned they are smaller than cruisers. So many people seem to think frigates are cruiser sized, but by definition they are the smallest size of capital ship in a fleet. Curious if you consider destroyers as a subclass of frigate, or as a separate class entirely, as they're also sub-cruiser scale vessels.

Putting in my two cents. Frigates are finnickey in the fact that most people, when it's not a planet-killer, call their ships "Frigates". When in truth, Frigates are probably going to be the most common ship in a fleet, and depending on doctrine, will serve very uniquely different roles. But the one thing about Frigates is that they should be able to pummel anything smaller than their own size-class, unless of-course they are highly-specialized, in which case they should be rebranded from simply "frigate" to something like "flak frigate" or "fire support ship".

I could see a heavy frigate being heavily armed and armoured with powerful rotor turrets. Or a artillery frigate with a large spinal railgun and a bunch of artillery turrets but with light armour and excess power systems.

great vids, really helps me get an idea of what i should add to my fleet!

Wow, this could be an high quality book i would buy 😯

Nice. a frigate video.

Me, using either really small swarm-ships or really big all-purpose ships: Interesting

You could make a bunch of specialised frigate types. Like a flak/support frigate which is covered in anti fighter weapons and PDCs to provide support.

I think it is a reasonable set of descriptions based upon how the gamming genera has interpreted traditional naval descriptions that don't always apply. I'd also add that the frigate-sized vessels in your video, that have emphasis on extra fire power would be better described as destroyers. Which traditionally are only slightly heavier than frigates, and place there priorities on increased speed and weapon systems; in comparison to there lighter (and cheaper) frigates cousins.

In my opinion, frigates are focused on heavy forward firepower and speed at the cost of a 360-degree defensive field. They work best in wolfpacks, or as a fleet screen to weaken enemy forces before cruisers and other capital ships engage.

One ship I have has 20 assault cannons on the front with a salvo script so it's a unending stream of shells

Noice vid Lunar

Ah, your frigate encompasses both the Corvette, Destroyer, and Light Cruiser roles of my own design doctrine.

in my opinion, frigates should be deployed in big formations, so their overlapping firing arcs effectively create a wall unpenetrable by missiles or fighters and they can focus their firepower entirely on the front. A single frigate isn't that dangerous, but a squad of them could basically take on a battlecruiser or something of similar size. I don't really like when people call them multi-role, as I think corvettes and cruisers are already pretty fluid in their roles. the vid is really cool though

Great job man

A very wise man once told me that frigates serve no other purpose than to be missile sponges. If they're the first ones to die it means they did their damn job well. In direct engagements in terms of how I design ships, frigates would be quickly mauled by destroyers and cruisers

Yes!

Second Lol, I love the vids as always. Can't wait to see what's up with the survival series

Good video think possibly there’s an over focus on the role of a ship in the battle fleet. Frigates, historically are the sort of ships that spend more time scouting, escorting convoys, raiding etc than as part of a battlefleet

I would always 100% of the time have a small hanger on any frigate. Either for a welder or scouting ship.

I hope you do Cruiser video next.

I am regretful that I cannot upvote you more than once.

Re-classed my ship after this to a frigate lmao

You forgot about custom missiles and railguns. These are your primary weapons against capital ships. Nothing says damage like a missile or railgun to the face.

Hi autor. A realy love all your theory by the way. But for now we have a cubes fighting with a cubes! (engines are to effectice target so far)! And with broadside update we wil have a cubes with efficiant guns! No fighters, corvets, frigats and battleships. Just cubes!

Huzzah, a sequel

Hm ok more inspired how they were used in the age of sail.

I see frigates as more of a mobile AA platform with some anti large ship capabilities. If you look at most frigates irl mostly within ww2 and post war eras frigates usually had 4 to 6 anti air guns and at maximum 2 main gun turrets this can be more on our ships but I think people should think about this when they think frigates. Otherwise you just end up making a destroyer but ur calling it a frigate. Frigates and destroyers are like your fleets twins they both have the same hull size same durability and often the same look. However where destroyers focus more on heavy fire power frigates are just the opposite focusing on better AA capabilities.

Recently got back into this game, loving these videos! Do you have any plans on covering smaller ships like fighters or even constructors?

Yesssssss

I'm surprised to see that your fleet has Corvettes, Frigates and Cruisers, but no mention of Destroyers. Given a Frigate armament, you'd expect to see ships dedicated to hunting them and possibly Corvettes as well, so that bigger ships like cruisers and battleships can focus their firepower on capital ships. But then again, that's just a suggestion, and I guess you could also possibly use Frigates for that role instead?

I'm curious if stealth ships have a role. Using intentional game design, it's possible to make a functioning stealth ship using a shell subgrid, this confuses the ai and the vanilla ai (even the new subsystem tageting) gets confused and wont shoot at it. Due to the nature of the stealth device, being a subgrid that cannot have any vital parts on it and covering up as much if the shop as possible, vanilla stealth ships are usually not very maneuverable and lack serious firepower. The only success I've seen with vanilla stealth ships is a Corvette sized ship with PDCs and a spinal railgun

I have to say, not the info I was searching but the info I needed, Will be waiting for the rest 69 like, noice and subbed

I really wish you'd put these all in one big compilation vid, there's too much fleet role design commentary that crosslinks between class desigs to part it out between vids.

Nice

Do you ignore destroyers or class their size as far too similar to that of a frigate. Personally, I use corvette, frigate, destroyer, cruiser, battleship/carrier.

So is the same as a destroyer? Because destroyers are also light heavy armored ships that can attack fast and deal decent amount of damage

Love the white frigate, is it on steam or still a work in progress (and does it use the new warfare thrusters, or is that just me :) )

A frigate is any vessel capable of moving ahead of the main fleet or battle group and can act as a scout and or commerce raider. If this ship cannot operate without fleet support it should not be called a frigate.

How far will the series go? Just to cruisers or all the way up to carriers and dreadnoughts?

Holy Crap man. I'm kinda ashamed of myself. I have just realized that I have no freaking idea nor ever payed attention to the classes of ships in games. So many times I was probably taking a frigate to do corvette roles and people was watching me just looking at this shit like WTF is wrong with him?? I been gaming since Win95 with DOS and this video has finally given me the information I never thought to ask which was...WTF is a frigate. Nice explanation. Thanks for making this video. Can anyone be a pal and list the other classes in order for me please. I know of Frigate, corvette, and cruiser. But I don't know if there are others or what order they line up in. Klang hates frigates don't he? Grinchy bastered. He hates everything. Klangs name is karen

Lunar, I'm trying to figure out what this frigate at 0:36 is and I'm also right now recreating the ship

0:33 what is the ships name?

The one thing I dislike is you never give dimensions of your ships. The destroyer I counted is about 20-25 blocks long... maybe 30. Currently building a Corvette at about 5 blocks deep, 5 wide (not counting turrets) and full length will be about 15 (still building and might get longer).

imagine using large assault turrets

for rolleplay its very nice classing of ships. But sadly in pvp servers its outerly useless. They are going for min/max tactic. Max thruster, max armor 5-6-7 layers of HA and as close as possible to max guns allowed per ship. Smaller variant with light armor or even 1 layer of HA will die fast enough. Even not talking about modded servers.

when it

So when the next one coming out?

Frigates sit between Corvettes and Destroyers, not Corvettes and Cruisers. Cruiser is the next step up from a Destroyer.

Might I ask what the intro music is?

Can you talk about cruiser ship

Something Something WW2

You combined frigates and destroyers A frigate is only meant to combat fighters and smaller vessels. Only destroyers are ever meant to combat larger ships (how military designation works in real life

Maaan i can't figure out what that red ship is called 🤣

first :)

Frigates are useless, because they require at least a small group of people and i dont have friends who are skilled enough or want to play with me.