Table 1 - Primary Vessels
| Size/Role | Science | Exploration/General | Combat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small | Observer | Frigate | Destroyer |
| Medium | Surveyor | Cruiser | Battlecruiser |
| Large | Researcher | Explorer | Dreadnought |
Mission Profile
All ships are either Primary Vessels, or Support Vessels (See Below). All Primary Vessels have one of three (3) Primary Missions:
Science
Study in depth cool stuff that someone else found; conduct experiments; study natural and artificial phenomenon.
Exploration/General Purpose
Find new cool stuff; chart out new areas of space; seak out new life and new civilizations; To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before; Command; Diplomatic escort; Diplomatic conduct; Patrol; and various and sundry other general purpose stuff.
Combat
Blow stuff up; Keep stuff from being blown up; Patrol to keep out other people who may want to blow stuff up; Help other ships blow stuff up; Protect other ships that are trying to blow stuff up.
Support Vessels have the Primary Mission of assisting other ships in fulfilling their Primary Mission.
Vessel Size
Primary Vessels also come in three convienent sizes; Small, Large, and Super Sized. (No, wait, that’s french fries. Starships come in Small, Medium, and Large.)
The size of a ship is determined by its standard crew complement. A class that is close to the borderline between two size classifications may be placed in either size classification as determined by the Engineering Department.
- Vessels with a standard crew complement of 175 or less are classified as Small.
- Vessels with a standard crew complement of 175 to 600 are classified as Medium.
- Vessels with a standard crew complement of 600 or larger are classified as Large.
- Vessels with a standard crew compliment of over 1000 are considered immense, but are still classified as Large.
Category
Each Mission Type can come in each size, for a total of 9 Categories. (Support Vessels are listed separately.) Each Category has a name associated with it. The table of active Categories is listed above. Therefore, a “Small Vessel designed primarily for Combat” is a Destroyer, while a “Large Vessel designed primarily for Science” is a Researcher.
Variant
Each Category may come in a variety of Variants. A Variant is a differentiation between two or more classes in the same Category. A ship description attaches a Variant to the Category name of a vessel. A Variant should properly describe the specific nature of the class in question within the Category. For example:
- The Brazen-class is a Small ship, designed primarily for Combat. It is of the Escort Variant. Therefore, the Brazen is an “Escort Destroyer.”
- The Nightingale-class is a Medium ship, designed primarily for missions within the existing Federation sphere. It is of the Medical Variant. It is therefore a “Medical Cruiser”.
Variant names are determined at design time by the designer and Engineering Department. No explicit limit is imposed upon the number of vessels within a Category, provided that they be sufficently unique to warrant separate Variants. A ship lacking a Variant is considered to be of the Variant “Medium.” The currently active list of Variant options includes:
Light
Containing a lower end mixture of systems or equipment for fulfilling a class’s primary mission profile.
Medium
Containing a balanced mixture of systems or equipment for fulfilling a class’s primary mission profile.
Heavy
Containing a higher end mixture of systems or equipment for fulfilling a class’s primary mission profile.
Tactical
Containing a higher end mixture of combat and defensive systems or equipment for fulfilling combat oriented mission profiles.
Medical
Containing highly specialized systems or equipment for the sole purpose of more medical oriented mission profiles.
This variant list is not exhaustive. Additional, customized variants may be created with the approval of the Engineering Director, their Assistant, or designated subordinate when reviewing a submitted ship specification.
Support Vessels
Support Vessels are any vessels whose Primary Mission is to assist other Primary Vessels in fulfilling their Primary Mission. In the STF context, these are typically NPC vessels. Support Vessels are defined by their Category. The Category of a Support Vessel is determined at design time by the designer and Engineering Department. Possible Categories of Support Vessels include:
Small
Shuttles, Fighters, Travel Pods, small one man craft
Medium
Runabouts, Scouts, Escorts, medium sized ships and Small Capitol ships that don’t fit in the above chart.
Large
Freighter, Tug/Transport, Carrier, Large Capitol Ships that don’t fit in the above chart.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive. Additionally, the Engineering Department may consider support specifications which fit within the normal vessel classification but which are intended solely for NPC use.
History
Assistant Engineering Director Larry Garfield, Engineering Advisor Israel Harris, and Dockmaster Randy E. McCullick met on May 20, 2000 in the parking lot of County Stadium, Milwalkee, Wisconson, USA. The Izzy-Mobile served as a support structure (table) for the preliminary draft. The County Stadium Compromise was the combination of the Garfield and McCullick Specification Category Systems, to form The Milwaukee Plan. This was the fifth draft of a specification categorization system which the Engineering Department considered, and received approval following a brief departmental review.
The migration of the Technical Manual from the XML-based DocBooks coding format to the Markdown WYSIWYG coding format, as well as changing from GitHub to the site itself for hosting the original documents, required an additional update. Nicholas Villarreal, as part of the Engineering Department, modified this guide into what would become The Exodus Milwaukee Plan. Engineering Director Robert Archer approved the Milwaukee Plan, Exodus Edition on July 23, 2024.