Monitor

Monitors are such a player character style of ship it's not even funny.

Why is this?

"What's the smallest ship I can attach to the largest available guns with the thickest armor?"

It can't be fast too.

"We're OK with that, our armor makes us immune to attack."

USS Monitor is a fine example, but the Royal Navy's Roberts Class is probably the ultimate PC style ship.

Armament:

• 2 × BL 15-inch Mk I guns in a single turret
• 8 × 4 in (100 mm) AA guns (4 × 2)
• 16 × QF 2-pdr "pom-pom"s (1 × 8, 2 × 4)
• 20 × Oerlikon 20mm guns (20 x 1)

Armour:

• Turret: 13 inch
• Barbette: 8 inch
• Belt: 4-5 inches

She's not fast, but she can take a pounding.


Historical examples like this class are why games like Traveller and its successors have rules limiting the number of weapons for a given ship size.


When I was once a player character in FASA's Star Trek roleplaying game, I designed a ship I dubbed the Chicago class.


Chicago had all the performance, weapons and shields of Constitution II with the smallest hull that would hold the warp-core, drives, weapons, sheilds and minimum crew spaces.


She ended up being around 1/5 the size of Constitution II and there were no liabilities to it written into the game rules.


When we stopped playing and I moved back to Iowa from Minnesota, I had forgotten my FASA folder with our GM.  This included deck plans.


Imagine my amusement, years later, when I see what's essentially my Chicago on screen as USS Voyager.  The warp nacelles have been updated from original crew movie ear to the next-generation style; but that's my design.


Later on I also find that my old GM had moved to California and landed a job working for the people who made the ship designs for Star Trek Voyager...


I'd demand royalties, but I think I owed my GM money when I left...