Carrier

The queen of a fleet, even fewer polities can afford to build one of these huge ships. Carriers can support flights of fighter or frigate-class warships, ones specially equipped to handle particular missions. This versatility allows it to load fighter-bombers for anti-capital missions one month, and then switch to swarms of hunter-killer frigates the next when a hostile system’s asteroid out-posts need to be destroyed. Stripped of its combat wings, however, a carrier has less individual fire-power than a cruiser.