Space Ship vs Star Ship

(reposting this old post)

What is the difference between a space ship and a star ship?

I don't know if this is considered "cannon" to the general sci-fi genre or not; or how it compares to other writers and what they do, but I write sci-fi and this is what I do for my own stories:

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shuttle crafts:

can only be used for short distance travel, much like an airplane, they carry at most maybe 30 people; they can leave the atmosphere to reach an orbiting ship; they can leave an orbiting ship to land on a planet; they can travel like a plane from one continent to another on a planet;


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spaceships:

large ships, can have a large crew of hundreds, but if need be could be run with only a handful of crew members; they may or may not have shuttle crafts on board; their travel abilities varies depending on the type of ship; small ones act much like large compacaty shuttle crafts, while the large ones can orbit planets, and travel from one planet to the next; some can only go to the nearest planets, while others can go to the farthest planets in to solar system; they do not however leave the solar system


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starships:

these are the same as spaceships in size and structure, but they are driven useing different "fuel" methods than the spaceships, thus enabling them to travel to other solar systems... i.e. they can travel from one star to the next, thus the reason they are called "star" ships. Depending on the "fuel-method", some star ships can only travel to near solar systems while other can go not only to other solar systems but also to other galaxies; some can travel via a "portal drive", to arrive at far reaching galaxies in a matter of seconds



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inter-stela starships:

these are the biggest, most powerful of the ships in my books, they can carry tens of thousands on board these giant mega ships; these are the same as starships, just bigger in size; in my stories, these are rare and hard to build ships, of the 12 built only 2 survived the test runs and remain in use, but are considered dangerous and rarely used; in my books they were built by the race of a dieing planet, in order to move the entire population to a new planet

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I have not personally used the term star cruiser in my stories or books. However, if I did use it, this is how it would be used by me:




star cruiser:

star cruisers would come in many types and forms, but most often, a small ship used during war times; manned by a pilot and a crew of maybe 3 or 4 others; this small ship can't go very far, but it can go very fast, it is small and can move in and out of tight places;

if a transport type it would be used to get spies to where they need to go without being caught;

if a fighter type, it would be able to fire on delicate areas of large ships with pinpoint accuracy;

very very small single passenger ones would be able to be used on land, like a cross between a motorcycle and a hovercraft; these would be called land cruisers not star cruisers

big star cruisers would be passenger transports from planet to planet, and refered to as transport barges

a cruise-ship or cruise-liner, would be the same as a cruise-ship or cruise-liner on earth, only it would be a star-ship not a water boat; in that it carries tourists on pleasure cruises from one planet/galaxy to another; these would be big slow moving luxury liners


at least, that's what comes to my mind when I think of star cruiser


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Well, that's me and my stories, and how I define space-ships veres star-ships

I hope this helps

~~EK






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