difference of naval forces and space. lego
There will always be ship classifications because there will always be ships built to do certain tasks. They may be able to preform other tasks but people will associate them with their most common use. I’m not sure how scanners will work in infinity but I’m assuming we’re talking more along the lines of Mass Effect sensors instead of Star Trek scanners. So here’s how I see this working:
A pirate’s scanners pick up something that could be a ship.
The pirate then focuses scans on the possible ship to find out what it is.
The pirate’s scanner finds a match in a database and determines it’s a Beaver.
Beavers are most commonly used for mining and because mining is so common in this area and the ore around there isn’t that valuable the pirate leaves it alone.
The Beaver could be hauling super valuable things but chances are its not.
Scenario two:
An explorer’s ship picks up a scanner hit.
This hit is really far away but its huge.
Its in between the size of a large cruiser and a small freighter.
Because hes so far away from shipping lanes he assumes its a cruiser.
Cruisers this far out are usually used as mobile bases for pirate operations so he decides to bug out before they notice him.
People will always classify things. It’s how we determine our responses.
“That ship on the scanner is huge. Because I’m near a shipping lane it must be a freighter. I’ll ignore it”
“That ship has a bunch of tiny ships flying around it. But it’s much to small to be a carrier. I’m also near a very popular mining area so it must be a mining ship using drones! They’re not a threat.”
“That ship is moving really fast in my direction and its about the size of a fighter. Better get ready to fight!”