What are our different ship types? What's the difference between civilian and military and all that stuff, and what separates those?
TL;DRShips and items are classified by role (military, civilian, transport, etc.) and grades A to D, where civilian grade C is the baseline and other combinations shift stats like output, power draw and signature to give ships distinct identities.
As Jared said, if you go read the Shipyard posts, then you'll see it. It's a sort of convenient way of comparing. It applies to ships and it also applies to items. So we have the ship classifications, military, civilian, transport or industrial and whatever, and then grades A to D. So civilian C is an item that performs at 100% of its capacity. So ships come with typically civilian grade C items by default. That's bog standard behavior. And then every other sort of combination on that matrix increases various stats various ways. So, for example, shields: a civilian shield, grade C, is a shield. A military one, still grade C, has much greater shield output, regen, but consumes more power and gives out more signal. A stealth grade C shield is one that has less output, probably a slower regen, but it's significantly reduced. So you can tailor the behavior, and then you factor in the grades, they go up naturally and down. But each item has, I think, up to eight statistics that are factored into that grade. So depending on the item, they all go up and down, and that ties into their performance, balancing falls out of it, and then it factors into the economy as well. Value, definitely.
It's the same when it comes to the career roles, right? They all have, say, the transporter has industrial items that fit onto it to fulfill that role of the ship. The items are supposed to help us create these identities.
Transport ships are supposed to be out there a long time, long haul. So the items they carry are ones that have high durability.